Annotation and representation of a diachronic corpus of Spanish

In this article we describe two different strategies for the automatic tagging of a Spanish diachronic corpus involving the adaptation of existing NLP tools developed for modern Spanish. In the initial approach we follow a state-of-the-art strategy, which consists on standardizing the spelling and the lexicon. This approach boosts POS-tagging accuracy to 90, which represents a raw improvement of over 20% with respect to the results obtained without any pre-processing. In order to enable non-expert users in NLP to use this new resource, the corpus has been integrated into IAC (Corpora Interface Access). We discuss the shortcomings of the initial approach and propose a new one, which does not consist in adapting the source texts to the tagger, but rather in modifying the tagger for the direct treatment of the old variants.This second strategy addresses some important shortcomings in the previous approach and is likely to be useful not only in the creation of diachronic linguistic resources but also for the treatment of dialectal or non-standard variants of synchronic languages as well.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The dGLI Cloth Coordinates: A Topological Representation for Semantic Classification of Cloth States

Robotic manipulation of cloth is a highly complex task because of its infinite-dimensional shape-state space that makes cloth state estimation very difficult. In this paper we introduce the dGLI Cloth Coordinates, a low-dimensional representation of the state of a rectangular piece of cloth that allows to efficiently distinguish key topological changes in a folding sequence, opening the door to efficient learning methods for cloth manipulation planning and control. Our representation is based on a directional derivative of the Gauss Linking Integral and allows us to represent both planar and spatial configurations in a consistent unified way. The proposed dGLI Cloth Coordinates are shown to be more accurate in the classification of cloth states and significantly more sensitive to changes in grasping affordances than other classic shape distance methods. Finally, we apply our representation to real images of a cloth, showing we can identify the different states using a simple distance-based classifier.Comment: 24 pages, 34 references, 6 figures, 1 tabl

A representation of cloth states based on a derivative of the Gauss linking integral

Robotic manipulation of cloth is a complex task because of the infinite-dimensional shape-state space of textiles, which makes their state estimation very difficult. In this paper we introduce the dGLI Cloth Coordinates, a finite low-dimensional representation of cloth states that allows us to efficiently distinguish a large variety of different folded states, opening the door to efficient learning methods for cloth manipulation planning and control. Our representation is based on a directional derivative of the Gauss Linking Integral and allows us to represent spatial as well as planar folded configurations in a consistent and unified way. The proposed dGLI Cloth Coordinates are shown to be more accurate in the representation of cloth states and significantly more sensitive to changes in grasping affordances than other classic shape distance methods. Finally, we apply our representation to real images of a cloth, showing that with it we can identify the different states using a distance-based classifier.This work was developed under the project CLOTHILDE which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the EU-Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 741930). M. Alberich-Carramiñana is also with the Barcelona Graduate School of Mathematics (BGSMath) and the Institut de Matemàtiques de la UPC-BarcelonaTech (IMTech), and she and J. Amorós are partially supported by the Spanish State Research Agency AEI/10.13039/501100011033 grant PID2019-103849GB-I00 and by the AGAUR project 2021 SGR 00603 Geometry of Manifolds and Applications, GEOMVAP. J. Borràs is supported by the Spanish State Research Agency MCIN/ AEI /10.13039/501100011033 grant PID2020-118649RB-I00 (CHLOE-GRAPH project).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Taste and Smell: A Unifying Chemosensory Theory

Since antiquity, the sense of smell (olfaction) is considered as a distance sense, just like sight and hearing. Conversely, the sense of taste (gustation) is thought to operate by direct contact, similarly to touch. With the progress of natural sciences, information at molecular, anatomical, and neurobiological levels has also contributed to the taste-smell dichotomy, but much evidence inconsistent with a sharp differentiation of these two senses has emerged, especially when considering species other than humans. In spite of this, conflicting information has been interpreted so that it could conform to the traditional differentiation. As a result, a confirmation bias is currently affecting scientific research on chemosensory systems and is also hindering the development of a satisfactory narrative of the evolution of chemical communication across taxa. From this perspective, the chemosensory dichotomy loses its validity and usefulness. We thus propose the unification of all chemosensory modalities into a single sense, moving toward a synthetic, complex, and interconnected perspective on the gradual processes by which a vast variety of chemicals have become signals that are crucially important to communication among and within cells, organs, and organisms in a wide variety of environmental condition

Taste and Smell: A Unifying Chemosensory Theory

Since antiquity, the sense of smell (olfaction) is considered as a distance sense, just like sight and hear- ing. Conversely, the sense of taste (gustation) is thought to operate by direct contact, similarly to touch. With the progress of natural sciences, information at molecular, anatomical, and neurobiological levels has also contributed to the taste-smell dichotomy, but much evidence inconsistent with a sharp differenti- ation of these two senses has emerged, especially when considering species other than humans. In spite of this, conflicting information has been interpreted so that it could conform to the traditional differentia- tion. As a result, a confirmation bias is currently affecting scientific research on chemosensory systems and is also hindering the development of a satisfactory narrative of the evolution of chemical communi- cation across taxa. From this perspective, the chemosensory dichotomy loses its validity and usefulness. We thus propose the unification of all chemosensory modalities into a single sense, moving toward a synthetic, complex, and interconnected perspective on the gradual processes by which a vast variety of chemicals have become signals that are crucially important to communication among and within cells, organs, and or- ganisms in a wide variety of environmental conditions

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Annotation and representation of a diachronic corpus of Spanish

In this article we describe two different strategies for the automatic tagging of a Spanish diachronic corpus involving the adaptation of existing NLP tools developed for modern Spanish. In the initial approach we follow a state-of-the-art strategy, which consists on standardizing the spelling and the lexicon. This approach boosts POS-tagging accuracy to 90, which represents a raw improvement of over 20% with respect to the results obtained without any pre-processing. In order to enable non-expert users in NLP to use this new resource, the corpus has been integrated into IAC (Corpora Interface Access). We discuss the shortcomings of the initial approach and propose a new one, which does not consist in adapting the source texts to the tagger, but rather in modifying the tagger for the direct treatment of the old variants.This second strategy addresses some important shortcomings in the previous approach and is likely to be useful not only in the creation of diachronic linguistic resources but also for the treatment of dialectal or non-standard variants of synchronic languages as well.Peer Reviewe

Annotation and representation of a diachronic corpus of Spanish

In this article we describe two different strategies for the automatic tagging of a Spanish diachronic corpus involving the adaptation of existing NLP tools developed for modern Spanish. In the initial approach we follow a state-of-the-art strategy, which consists on standardizing the spelling and the lexicon. This approach boosts POS-tagging accuracy to 90, which represents a raw improvement of over 20% with respect to the results obtained without any pre-processing. In order to enable non-expert users in NLP to use this new resource, the corpus has been integrated into IAC (Corpora Interface Access). We discuss the shortcomings of the initial approach and propose a new one, which does not consist in adapting the source texts to the tagger, but rather in modifying the tagger for the direct treatment of the old variants.This second strategy addresses some important shortcomings in the previous approach and is likely to be useful not only in the creation of diachronic linguistic resources but also for the treatment of dialectal or non-standard variants of synchronic languages as well.Peer Reviewe

Imaginem Calonge i Sant Antoni : propostes per a un creixement urbà sostenible

Publicació que recull els treballs realitzats pels alumnes de segon curs del Grau en Estudis d’Arquitectura de la Universitat de Girona (curs acadèmic 2020-2021), que han de desenvolupar un treball compartit i coordinat entre les assignatures de Projectes 4, Urbanística 2 i Representació Arquitectònica 2 sobre l’Habitatge Col·lectiu. L'objectiu principal del projecte és, que els alumnes realitzin un exercici d’imaginació i de pensar un futur més sostenible, més amable, i més hum