Adapting the Core Language Engine to French and Spanish

We describe how substantial domain-independent language-processing systems for French and Spanish were quickly developed by manually adapting an existing English-language system, the SRI Core Language Engine. We explain the adaptation process in detail, and argue that it provides a fairly general recipe for converting a grammar-based system for English into a corresponding one for a Romance language.Comment: 9 pages, aclap.sty; to appear in NLP+IA 96; see also http://www.cam.sri.com

Social Mobility in Latin America: A Review of Existing Evidence

This paper reviews evidence on social mobility in Latin America. Several studies have used data sets that collect intergenerational socio economic information. The data, though limited, suggest that social mobility is low in the region, even when compared with low social mobility developed countries like the United States and United Kingdom, with high levels of immobility at the lower and upper tails of the income distribution. While Latin America has improved education mobility in recent decades, which may have translated into higher mobility for younger cohorts, the region still presents, except for Chile, lower education mobility than in developed countries. The paper also reviews studies on the main determinants of the region’s low levels of social mobility, including social exclusion, low access to higher education, and labor market discrimination.Social mobility, Latin America, Inequality, Social Exclusion, Education

Breaking the circle: The definition of individual liberty

The definition of individual liberty as the absence of coercion or violence (threatened or actual) includes a circularity problem. A look at prominent representatives of classical liberalism and libertarianism (Hayek, Rothbard, Hoppe, Jasay) reveals that this is typical of classical liberals as well as of libertarians, though the latter avoid a confusion of power and freedom. However, the respective definitions of individual liberty analysed here rest on the assumption that coercion (or violence) presupposes the absence of the (voluntary) agreement of the coerced party. Thus they use the definiendum in a modified form (voluntariness) as part of the definiens in order to define the definiendum. The resulting circle can be avoided by looking at coercion and freedom (non-coercion) as representatives of the class of two-level decisions (meta-decision and object-decision) with different costs on the meta-level. While coercion means that the coerced party has to face or faces artificial costs in case of a negative meta-decision, non-coercion (freedom) does not. As a conclusion we define freedom as the absence of artificial interference in the private sphere of another person that would produce artificial costs for that person if she/he opted for a negative meta-decision

Increase the Number and Quality of Students in Your MAcc Program without Additional Funding: A Case Study

In the late 1980s, a majority of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) voted to require 150 hours of education for its membership after the year 2000. As of December 31, 2000, there were six states or territories that did not enact the 150-hour requirement. Like many states, Iowa passed the law in 1992 to be effective in the year 2000. As states passed the new 150-hour requirement, universities and colleges were forced to look at their programs to see how they would deal with this new education requirement. Renner and Tanner (2001) surveyed members of the AICPA, Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) and recruiters of accounting graduates from a regional Midwestern university and found that some of the popular choices (not in order of preference) were: (a) BA with a double major in accounting and fi nance, (b) BA with a double major in accounting and management information systems, (c) BA in accounting/MBA, (d) BA in accounting/ master in accounting, and (e) BA in accounting/master in taxation. At many schools, the first two options were already available but were deemed unacceptable for the better accounting undergraduate students. Option (c) may be a good one, but could require a student to stay in school for six years. Therefore, many schools looked at options (d) and (e) as being logical choices. These options are cost-effective ways for students to complete the 150-hour requirement and leave a university with a masters’ degree

El desarrollo de capacidades. Un enfoque central de la cooperación al desarrollo

Treballs finals del Màster "Estudios Internacionales: organizaciones internacionales y cooperación – Colección Memorias MEI", Facultat de Dret, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs:2013-2014 , Director: Dr. Jaume SauraLa cooperación al desarrollo constituye un área de acción con una dilatada trayectoria, por lo que acumula tanto reconocimientos como críticas. Con el horizonte de los Objetivos del Milenio –y en especial el progreso sostenido y la reducción de la pobreza– y la ambición de afrontar retos cada vez más persistentes y difíciles, en los últimos tiempos ha buscado reformularse. En este contexto, emerge el enfoque del desarrollo de capacidades como un proceso catalizador, que procura adaptarse a la capacidad existente en los países para garantizar la eficacia, la eficiencia y evitar distorsiones. Si bien es cierto que, hasta hace poco tiempo, el desarrollo de capacidades ha sido interpretado principalmente como un proceso técnico, o como una simple transferencia de modelos de conocimiento o de organización, de Norte a Sur, no lo es menos que en la última década ha virado hacia un mayor énfasis en adaptarse a las circunstancias particulares de cada países, que requieren cada vez más mejores herramientas para cubrir sus necesidades. Por ello, el presente trabajo, de corte esencialmente cualitativo, pretende explicar en qué consiste el desarrollo de capacidades, desde un enfoque principalmente teórico, y con algunos aportes empíricos también. Partiendo de una breve evolución histórica, se presentan las principales características de este paradigma. De un modo sucinto, podría afirmarse que, en su afán de transformación, el desarrollo de capacidades engloba una serie de elementos cruciales (instituciones, políticas, valores, individuos, entre otros) cuya articulación y puesta en valor se antojan esenciales para la consecución de unos logros perdurables de desarrollo. Todos estos elementos se sitúan en la órbita del concepto de capacidad, entendido como una amalgama de habilidades, sistemas y aptitudes en materia de liderazgo y conocimientos, experiencia técnica, gestión o dirección, entre otros, indispensables para conseguir mejoras..

And Now For Something Completely Different...

A pilot experiment was conducted at Dagstuhl using the \u27Beyond program slicing\u27 seminar attendees. Attendees were split into three groups: all were given the same program to understand and a list of program comprehension related questions to answer. Group one had only the source code, group two had the source code and the dynamic trace of the program, group three had the source and a control-flow graph of the program