Introducing MICRELA: Predicting mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in Europe

Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Introducing MICRELA: Predicting mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in Europe

Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

A Tutorial on Coding Methods for DNA-based Molecular Communications and Storage

Exponential increase of data has motivated advances of data storage technologies. As a promising storage media, DeoxyriboNucleic Acid (DNA) storage provides a much higher data density and superior durability, compared with state-of-the-art media. In this paper, we provide a tutorial on DNA storage and its role in molecular communications. Firstly, we introduce fundamentals of DNA-based molecular communications and storage (MCS), discussing the basic process of performing DNA storage in MCS. Furthermore, we provide tutorials on how conventional coding schemes that are used in wireless communications can be applied to DNA-based MCS, along with numerical results. Finally, promising research directions on DNA-based data storage in molecular communications are introduced and discussed in this paper

Multiple Media Correlation: Theory and Applications

This thesis introduces multiple media correlation, a new technology for the automatic alignment of multiple media objects such as text, audio, and video. This research began with the question: what can be learned when multiple multimedia components are analyzed simultaneously? Most ongoing research in computational multimedia has focused on queries, indexing, and retrieval within a single media type. Video is compressed and searched independently of audio, text is indexed without regard to temporal relationships it may have to other media data. Multiple media correlation provides a framework for locating and exploiting correlations between multiple, potentially heterogeneous, media streams. The goal is computed synchronization, the determination of temporal and spatial alignments that optimize a correlation function and indicate commonality and synchronization between media objects. The model also provides a basis for comparison of media in unrelated domains. There are many real-world applications for this technology, including speaker localization, musical score alignment, and degraded media realignment. Two applications, text-to-speech alignment and parallel text alignment, are described in detail with experimental validation. Text-to-speech alignment computes the alignment between a textual transcript and speech-based audio. The presented solutions are effective for a wide variety of content and are useful not only for retrieval of content, but in support of automatic captioning of movies and video. Parallel text alignment provides a tool for the comparison of alternative translations of the same document that is particularly useful to the classics scholar interested in comparing translation techniques or styles. The results presented in this thesis include (a) new media models more useful in analysis applications, (b) a theoretical model for multiple media correlation, (c) two practical application solutions that have wide-spread applicability, and (d) Xtrieve, a multimedia database retrieval system that demonstrates this new technology and demonstrates application of multiple media correlation to information retrieval. This thesis demonstrates that computed alignment of media objects is practical and can provide immediate solutions to many information retrieval and content presentation problems. It also introduces a new area for research in media data analysis

Large-scale dynamic observation planning for unmanned surface vessels

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Operations Research Center, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-134).With recent advances in research and technology, autonomous surface vessel capabilities have steadily increased. These autonomous surface vessel technologies enable missions and tasks to be performed without the direction of human operators, and have changed the way scientists and engineers approach problems. Because these robotic devices can work without manned guidance, they can execute missions that are too difficult, dangerous, expensive, or tedious for human operators to attempt. The United States government is currently expanding the use of autonomous surface vessel technologies through the United States Navy's Spartan Scout unmanned surface vessel (USV) and NASA's Ocean-Atmosphere Sensor Integration System (OASIS) USV. These USVs are well-suited to complete monotonous, dangerous, and time-consuming missions. The USVs provide better performance, lower cost, and reduced risk to human life than manned systems. In this thesis, we explore how to plan multiple USV observation schedules for two significant notional observation scenarios, collecting water temperatures ahead of the path of a hurricane, and collecting fluorometer readings to observe and track a harmful algal bloom.(cont.) A control system must be in place that coordinates a fleet of USVs to targets in an efficient manner. We develop three algorithms to solve the unmanned surface vehicle observation-planning problem. A greedy construction heuristic runs fastest, but produces suboptimal plans; a 3-phase algorithm which combines a greedy construction heuristic with an improvement phase and an insertion phase, requires more execution time, but generates significantly better plans; an optimal mixed integer programming algorithm produces optimal plans, but can only solve small problem instances.by John V. Miller.S.M

Typological variation in language contact: A phonological analysis of Italiot Greek

This dissertation investigates the phonology of Italiot Greek (IG) from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective, pursuing two core objectives: first, to provide an up-to-date description of the phonological system of IG, highlighting the deviations from Medieval Greek as well as the vast cross- and intra-dialectal variation, and, second, to account for the typological changes IG has undergone and formalize the convergence with the Romance grammatical system. The description of the phonological system of IG is based on original data obtained via fieldwork in the IG-speaking enclaves (Salento and Calabria). The in-depth presentation covers phoneme inventories, phonological processes, the organization of the syllable, sandhi phenomena, and stress properties. Moreover, it focuses attention on the diachronic changes with respect to the consonant inventories and certain phonological processes. Special emphasis is placed on substantial modifications in syllable structure, compared to the Medieval Greek system, and the processes these changes have triggered; specifically, (a) the gradual reduction of place and manner features that are admitted in the coda, which is manifested through diachronic shifts towards less marked values; (b) the licensing of complex onsets at the left edge of the root, which allows long-distance metathesis of liquids. These phenomena not only differentiate contemporary IG from its ancestor as well as from virtually any other Modern Greek dialect, but also constitute crucial points of convergence with Romance dialects due to language contact. Within Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993/2004), the dissertation proposes a novel typological analysis of these major changes in the syllable structure of IG. Following Alber & Prince (2015, in prep.), the analysis places IG within a broader typology of place and manner changes as well as long-distance metathesis and identifies the crucial ranking conditions, i.e. the typological properties, that define each grammar of the typological system. Minimally varying grammars, i.e. grammars that share all but one property value, are shown to constitute chronologically adjacent stages in the history of IG (see Alber 2015; Alber & Meneguzzo 2016). In light of this, stepwise diachronic changes are explained as minimal switches in the property values. Crucially, the divergence of the IG grammar from the Greek system and its converge with Romance is accounted for through the lens of minimal differences in the property values. Thus, the dissertation offers an innovative formal account of contact-induced grammatical change

Typological variation in language contact: A phonological analysis of Italiot Greek

This dissertation investigates the phonology of Italiot Greek (IG) from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective, pursuing two core objectives: first, to provide an up-to-date description of the phonological system of IG, highlighting the deviations from Medieval Greek as well as the vast cross- and intra-dialectal variation, and, second, to account for the typological changes IG has undergone and formalize the convergence with the Romance grammatical system. The description of the phonological system of IG is based on original data obtained via fieldwork in the IG-speaking enclaves (Salento and Calabria). The in-depth presentation covers phoneme inventories, phonological processes, the organization of the syllable, sandhi phenomena, and stress properties. Moreover, it focuses attention on the diachronic changes with respect to the consonant inventories and certain phonological processes. Special emphasis is placed on substantial modifications in syllable structure, compared to the Medieval Greek system, and the processes these changes have triggered; specifically, (a) the gradual reduction of place and manner features that are admitted in the coda, which is manifested through diachronic shifts towards less marked values; (b) the licensing of complex onsets at the left edge of the root, which allows long-distance metathesis of liquids. These phenomena not only differentiate contemporary IG from its ancestor as well as from virtually any other Modern Greek dialect, but also constitute crucial points of convergence with Romance dialects due to language contact. Within Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993/2004), the dissertation proposes a novel typological analysis of these major changes in the syllable structure of IG. Following Alber & Prince (2015, in prep.), the analysis places IG within a broader typology of place and manner changes as well as long-distance metathesis and identifies the crucial ranking conditions, i.e. the typological properties, that define each grammar of the typological system. Minimally varying grammars, i.e. grammars that share all but one property value, are shown to constitute chronologically adjacent stages in the history of IG (see Alber 2015; Alber & Meneguzzo 2016). In light of this, stepwise diachronic changes are explained as minimal switches in the property values. Crucially, the divergence of the IG grammar from the Greek system and its converge with Romance is accounted for through the lens of minimal differences in the property values. Thus, the dissertation offers an innovative formal account of contact-induced grammatical change

Grammar and frequency effects in the acquisition of prosodic words

on Language Acquisition (University of Lisbon, 2004). We are grateful to the audience of the Panel session on the Acquisition of Prosodic Word Structure in Comparative Romance, and especially to Katherine Demuth, Heather Goad, Conxita Lleó, Pilar Prieto, and Marilyn Vihman. We also thank Ana Lúcia Santos and Carla Soares for making the child-directed speech transcriptions available to us, and João Horta for her help with the figures. The paper has greatly benefited from comments by tw