Linguistic Normalisation in Language Industry. Some Normative and Descriptive Aspects of Dictionary Development

For commercial software with natural language functions, a high coverage is required. This implies that only extensive lexica and complete morphologies are of interest to the language industry. For many languages, lexical and morphological information has to be collected from traditional lexicographic files and printed dictionaries. However, such material may not provide adequate information - even if trivial defects such as misprintings and editorial inconsequences are left out of account. The present paper is an attempt to point out how basic information on any language drawn from traditional sources has to be controlled for normative correctness and descriptive adequacy, and how normalisation can only be defined relative to a given application. The presentation is based on the author's experience, and the examples are all Norwegian. Still, it is assumed to be of general nature, hightlighting some very fundamental aspects of computational linguistics which are often neglected in practice, which "everybody" is aware of all the same, but very few - if anyone - has bothered to discuss in writing

Små ordbøker – mindre og annerledes

In lexicographic literature, little attention has been paid to small dictionaries, oddly enough, since they are probably the more frequently used. Further, they are not necessarily easier to edit than extensive ones: there is the selection problem, and the size entails constraints on the compilation. This becomes clear when small dictionaries are automatically analysed for conversion to database format. In this article, several aspects of small dictionaries will be discussed on the basis of the author’s experience with the compilation and subsequent conversion of a pocket-size Portuguese-Norwegian- Portuguese dictionary

Leksikografi i IBM Norge

IBM Norge driver den største leksikografiske virksomheten her til lands utenfor universitetene. Arbeidet er samlet om databehandlingsterminologi og allmennspråk - både bokmål og nynorsk. Terminologiarbeidet er viktig for oversettervirksomheten i frrmaet. Arbeidet med norsk allmennspråk er en forutsetning for utviklingen av språklige funksjoner i dataprogram. Mens de fleste prograrnverktøyene er utviklet i utlandet, er det materialet de blir brukt på, stort sett lagd i Norge. Derfor vil det meste av framstillingen dreie seg om leksikografisk produksjon. Men først vil jeg nevne kort hva slags hjelpemidler vi har for å bruke leksikografisk materiale, hvilke ordbøker og orddatabaser vi har tilgang til, og hva slags verktØy vi har til hjelp i terminologiarbeidet. Deretter kommer jeg til å si litt om de allmennspråklige databasene vi har lagd, og å drøfte enkelte språklige problem vi har støtt på under arbeidet. Til slutt vil jeg komme inn på hvordan vi utnytter disse databasene

O português como curso universitário num país do Norte

O português surgiu há 50 anos como curso na Universidade de Oslo (Noruega), por ser um canal importante de cultura, a fim de completar o ensino e a pesquisa romanísticos, e por razões práticas na esfera da indústria e dos negócios. De facto, a iniciativa partiu do último setor, embora preparada por um romanista. Com o tempo, o português tornou-se um curso como os outros. Contudo, com a mudança da ideologia da universidade e uma reorganização administrativa, os ideais académicos foram relegados a segundo plano. Também as considerações sociais e políticas foram negligenciadas. Cada vez menos recursos foram sendo atribuídos ao português, e a consequente baixa inevitável da procura por parte dos estudantes legitimou uma redução drástica do curso, testemunhando o desaparecimento do verdadeiro interesse pelos países e culturas lusófonos, não só da parte dos gestores académicos e da indústria, mas também do atual governo norueguês

Supplier selection with rank reversal in public tenders

For supplier selection in the public sector, the Weighted Sum Model is often used in combination with relative scoring methods that allow rank reversal. With rank reversal we refer to a changed order in the ranking of bids leading to a new winner, after removing or adding a non-optimal bid that does not win the original tender. In practice, an important reason indicated by practitioners for using methods that allow rank reversal is that it would rarely occur in practice. Based on an analysis of 303 Dutch public tenders, this research shows this is not true. In about 1 out of 5 the tenders, rank reversal occurs after adding non-optimal fictional bids to tenders that do not have quality thresholds. After removing bids, the rate is about 1 out of 40 if a curved relative scoring method is used. In addition, the research shows that rank reversal rates increase when (i) there is no quality threshold, (ii) the number of bids increases, (iii) bid price variance increases, and (iv) price weights are not very low or high. We argue that relative scoring methods that allow rank reversal should not be used in public procurement, or otherwise only in exceptional cases, as it conflicts with public procurement principles and leads to reduced overall bid value

CMS physics technical design report : Addendum on high density QCD with heavy ions

Peer reviewe

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

The importance of the altricial – precocial spectrum for social complexity in mammals and birds:A review

Various types of long-term stable relationships that individuals uphold, including cooperation and competition between group members, define social complexity in vertebrates. Numerous life history, physiological and cognitive traits have been shown to affect, or to be affected by, such social relationships. As such, differences in developmental modes, i.e. the ‘altricial-precocial’ spectrum, may play an important role in understanding the interspecific variation in occurrence of social interactions, but to what extent this is the case is unclear because the role of the developmental mode has not been studied directly in across-species studies of sociality. In other words, although there are studies on the effects of developmental mode on brain size, on the effects of brain size on cognition, and on the effects of cognition on social complexity, there are no studies directly investigating the link between developmental mode and social complexity. This is surprising because developmental differences play a significant role in the evolution of, for example, brain size, which is in turn considered an essential building block with respect to social complexity. Here, we compiled an overview of studies on various aspects of the complexity of social systems in altricial and precocial mammals and birds. Although systematic studies are scarce and do not allow for a quantitative comparison, we show that several forms of social relationships and cognitive abilities occur in species along the entire developmental spectrum. Based on the existing evidence it seems that differences in developmental modes play a minor role in whether or not individuals or species are able to meet the cognitive capabilities and requirements for maintaining complex social relationships. Given the scarcity of comparative studies and potential subtle differences, however, we suggest that future studies should consider developmental differences to determine whether our finding is general or whether some of the vast variation in social complexity across species can be explained by developmental mode. This would allow a more detailed assessment of the relative importance of developmental mode in the evolution of vertebrate social systems

Discutindo a educação ambiental no cotidiano escolar: desenvolvimento de projetos na escola formação inicial e continuada de professores

A presente pesquisa buscou discutir como a Educação Ambiental (EA) vem sendo trabalhada, no Ensino Fundamental e como os docentes desta escola compreendem e vem inserindo a EA no cotidiano escolar., em uma escola estadual do município de Tangará da Serra/MT, Brasil. Para tanto, realizou-se entrevistas com os professores que fazem parte de um projeto interdisciplinar de EA na escola pesquisada. Verificou-se que o projeto da escola não vem conseguindo alcançar os objetivos propostos por: desconhecimento do mesmo, pelos professores; formação deficiente dos professores, não entendimento da EA como processo de ensino-aprendizagem, falta de recursos didáticos, planejamento inadequado das atividades. A partir dessa constatação, procurou-se debater a impossibilidade de tratar do tema fora do trabalho interdisciplinar, bem como, e principalmente, a importância de um estudo mais aprofundado de EA, vinculando teoria e prática, tanto na formação docente, como em projetos escolares, a fim de fugir do tradicional vínculo “EA e ecologia, lixo e horta”.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació