A corpus study of verbal multiword expressions in Brazilian Portuguese

Verbal multiword expressions (VMWEs) such as to make ends meet require special attention in NLP and linguistic research, and annotated corpora are valuable resources for studying them. Corpora annotated with VMWEs in several languages, including Brazilian Portuguese, were made freely available in the PARSEME shared task. The goal of this paper is to describe and analyze this corpus in terms of the characteristics of annotated VMWEs in Brazilian Portuguese. First, we summarize and exemplify the criteria used to annotate VMWEs. Then, we analyze their frequency, average length, discontinuities and variability. We further discuss challenging constructions and borderline cases. We believe that this analysis can improve the annotated corpus and its results can be used to develop systems for automatic VMWE identification

Causality detection and turbulence in fusion plasmas

This work explores the potential of an information-theoretical causality detection method for unraveling the relation between fluctuating variables in complex nonlinear systems. The method is tested on some simple though nonlinear models, and guidelines for the choice of analysis parameters are established. Then, measurements from magnetically confined fusion plasmas are analyzed. The selected data bear relevance to the all-important spontaneous confinement transitions often observed in fusion plasmas, fundamental for the design of an economically attractive fusion reactor. It is shown how the present method is capable of clarifying the interaction between fluctuating quantities such as the turbulence amplitude, turbulent flux, and Zonal Flow amplitude, and uncovers several interactions that were missed by traditional methods.Comment: 26 pages, 14 figure

Relationships of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and their Fathers

This phenomenological study investigated the relationships between 7 fathers and their sons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Seven major themes emerged: Shared Activities, Developmental Sensitivity, Emotional Understanding, Fighting the Label, Fatherhood Expectations, Parent Responsibility, and Fatherhood Isolation. Fathers were sensitive to their sons’ emotional needs and developmental milestones. Clinicians can help fathers to develop appropriate relationships with their children that involve shared activities. Clinicians can also assist fathers in coping with isolation and expectations regarding fatherhood, developing desired fatherhood roles, and finding appropriate shared activities with their children

Economic Evaluation of Organic and Inorganic Resources for Recapitalizing Soil Fertility in Smallholder Maize-based Cropping Systems of Central Kenya

Structural adjustments programs (SAPs) in the last two decades have eliminated all farm-support programs leading to low usage of fertilizers by Kenyan smallholders. One way of addressing this problem is use of organic nutrient resources. This paper examines their cost-effectiveness as capital investments in replenishment of Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K) and soil organic matter (SOM) in smallholder, Maize-based cropping systems. On-farm trials were established in Maragwa and Kirinyaga Districts in 2003/04. Maize was planted in 3 replicates in randomised complete block design (RCBD) using different levels of organic and inorganic fertilizer resources. A blanket rate of 40kg P/ha was applied in all treatment except the control to increase organic N-utilization efficiency. The test crop was harvested, oven-dried and weighed. Net Present Values (NPV) were computed using Partial Budgeting Analysis Model. Increasing levels of inorganic N increased maize yields significantly (P<0.05). However, higher yields were necessary but not sufficient criteria to determine profitability of different treatments. Manure + 60 kg N/ha gave highest NPV (USD 564), Manure + 40kg N/ha gave second highest NPV (USD 511) in Maragwa District while Manure + 60kg N/ha gave highest NPV (USD 633) and Manure + 40kg N/ha second highest NPV (USD 618) in Kirinyaga District. These results suggested that higher N-levels were not necessarily the most economical. Use of organic resources with modest amounts of mineral fertilizers seemed more profitable and held the key to enhancement of nutrient budgets, food security and rural livelihoods.Natural resource capital, Net present values (NPV), Nutrient budgets, Smallholder farmers, Soil organic matter (SOM), Structural adjustment programs (SAPs), Crop Production/Industries, Land Economics/Use,

The Impact of Word Representations on Sequential Neural MWE Identification

International audienceRecent initiatives such as the PARSEME shared task have allowed the rapid development of MWE identification systems. Many of those are based on recent NLP advances, using neural sequence models that take continuous word representations as input. We study two related questions in neural verbal MWE identification: (a) the use of lemmas and/or surface forms as input features, and (b) the use of word-based or character-based em-beddings to represent them. Our experiments on Basque, French, and Polish show that character-based representations yield systematically better results than word-based ones. In some cases, character-based representations of surface forms can be used as a proxy for lem-mas, depending on the morphological complexity of the language

¿Pastores o asalariados? Estrategias de vida en la continuidad y la Coyuntura política en las altas montañas del noroeste de Argentina

Este trabajo pretende mostrar las transformaciones ocurridas en relación con la orientación productiva y la administración familiar de los recursos disponibles en las altas montañas del Noroeste Argentino, a partir de la observación de su trayectoria histórica y las coyunturas políticas y socioeconómicas que condicionaron y acotaron su capacidad de elección. Hablamos aquí de los pastores de una localidad en particular, Suripujio en la puna jujeña, territorio limítrofe entre Bolivia y Argentina, realizando un recorrido histórico regional y luego local, que intenta mostrar algunos de los escenarios que fueron marcando cambios de rumbo en las formas de vida y de trabajo de las familias del lugar. También mostraremos datos que ejemplifican las estrategias de vida actuales de las familias de las tierras altas jujeñas y de Suripujio en particular

How Involved Should They Be? Students with ASD in Postsecondary Settings and Their Family Members

We investigated the need for family member involvement for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in postsecondary settings. We also looked at the perceived needed and fulfilled roles of family members and if family member involvement resulted in positive outcomes for postsecondary students with ASD. We surveyed 211 postsecondary Disability Support Professionals (DSPs) through the AHEAD organization. Using a mixed methods approach including inductive content analysis, results primarily indicated that there is a need for family members to be involved non-academically with students with ASD. We discuss roles that DSPs think family members should fulfill versus roles that DSPs think that family members are actually fulfilling. It is apparent that DSPs think family member involvement is important but must be balanced with increasing the independence of students with ASD while enrolled in school

Towards Higher Quality Internal and Outside Multilingualization of Web Sites

International audienceThe multilingualization of Web sites with high quality is increasingly important, but is unsolvable in most situations where internal quality certification is needed, and not solved in the majority of other situations. We demonstrate it by analyzing a variety of techniques to make the underlying software easily localizable and to manage the translation of textual content in the classical internal mode, that is by modifying the language-dependent resources. A new idea is that volunteer final users should be able to contribute to the improvement oreven production of translated resources and content. For this, we have developed a PHP piece of code which naive webmasters (not computer scientists nor professional translators) can add to a Web site to enable internal multilingualization by users with enough access rights: in management mode, these users can edit the texts of titles, button labels, messages, etc. in text areas appearing in context in the Web page. If Web site developers follow some recommendations, all textual interface elements should be localizable in this way. Another angle of attack, applicable in all cases where navigating a site though a gateway is possible, consists in replacing the problem of diffusion by the problem of access in multiple lang uages. We introduce the concept of iMAG (interactive Multilingual Access Gateway, dedicated to a Web site or domain) to solve the problem of higher quality multilingual access. First, by using available MT systems or by default morphological processors and bilingual dictionaries, any page of an elected website is made instantly accessible in many languages, with a generally low quality profile, as through usual translation gateways. Over time, the quality profile of textual GUI elements, Web pages and even documents (if accessible in html) will improve thanks to outside contributors, who will post-edit or produce the translations from the reading context. This is only possible because the iMAG associated to the website stores the translations in its translation memory (TM) and the contributed dictionary items it its dictionary. The TM has quality levels, according to the users' profiles, and scores within levels. An API will be proposed so that the developers of the elected website can connect their to its iMAG, retrieve the best level translations, certify them if necessary, and put them in their localized resources. At that point, external localization meets internal localization