GRAMPAL: A Morphological Processor for Spanish implemented in Prolog

A model for the full treatment of Spanish inflection for verbs, nouns and adjectives is presented. This model is based on feature unification and it relies upon a lexicon of allomorphs both for stems and morphemes. Word forms are built by the concatenation of allomorphs by means of special contextual features. We make use of standard Definite Clause Grammars (DCG) included in most Prolog implementations, instead of the typical finite-state approach. This allows us to take advantage of the declarativity and bidirectionality of Logic Programming for NLP. The most salient feature of this approach is simplicity: A really straightforward rule and lexical components. We have developed a very simple model for complex phenomena. Declarativity, bidirectionality, consistency and completeness of the model are discussed: all and only correct word forms are analysed or generated, even alternative ones and gaps in paradigms are preserved. A Prolog implementation has been developed for both analysis and generation of Spanish word forms. It consists of only six DCG rules, because our {\em lexicalist\/} approach --i.e. most information is in the dictionary. Although it is quite efficient, the current implementation could be improved for analysis by using the non logical features of Prolog, especially in word segmentation and dictionary access.Comment: 11 page

Fir system identification using a linear combination of cumulants

A general linear approach to identifying the parameters of a moving average (MA) model from the statistics of the output is developed. It is shown that, under some constraints, the impulse response of the system can be expressed as a linear combination of cumulant slices. This result is then used to obtain a new well-conditioned linear method to estimate the MA parameters of a nonGaussian process. The proposed approach does not require a previous estimation of the filter order. Simulation results show improvement in performance with respect to existing methods.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Automatic database acquisition software for ISDN PC cards and analogue boards

This paper describes an application for automatic speechdatabases acquisition (ADA) developed by the authors in the framework of the EC Telematics Project SpeechDat II. The software is able to work with standard inexpensive PC cards for ISDN lines, as well as Dialogic Boards for analogue telephone lines. Both program versions share a common file format and configuration. Other important characteristics of the recording software are its simple set-up, a fast and flexible configuration of the recording session, the real-time monitoring of calls and disk space, and its proven robustness.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

New hos-based parameter estimation methods for speech recognition in noisy environments

The problem of recognition in noisy environments is addressed. Often, a recognition system is used in a noisy environment and there is no possibility of training it with noisy samples. Classical speech analysis techniques are based on second-order statistics and their performance dramatically decreases when noise is present in the signal under analysis. New methods based on higher order statistics (HOS) are applied in a recognition system and compared against the autocorrelation method. Cumulant-based methods show better performance than autocorrelation-based methods for low SNRPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Higher order Whitehead products and L∞L_\infty structures on the homology of a DGL

We detect higher order Whitehead products on the homology $H$ of a differential graded Lie algebra $L$ in terms of higher brackets in the transferred $L_\infty$ structure on $H$ via a given homotopy retraction of $L$ onto $H$.Comment: New references and minor correction

Package ecespa

Documentation for the R-package "ecespa

A use-side trade margins matrix for the Andalusian economy

According to the National Accounting Systems proposed by United Nations (1993) and Eurostat (1996), use and make (or supply) matrices should be measured before goods and services are conveyed to the markets (basic values). Actually, the make table is defined in basic values (excluding trade and transport margins and net commodity taxes) whereas the use table is in purchasers' values (including them). This paper shows how these margins and taxes can be removed from the use table with the purpose of entering both of them in the so-called material balance equation. With respect to trade margins, our approach is based on the use-side procedure from the ESA-95 Input-Output Manual (Eurostat, 2002) and is also being applied to the forthcoming 2000 Andalusian Input-Output Framework.Input-output analysis, use and make matrices, trade margins, National Accounts

Patients’ opinions about knowing their risk for depression and what to do about it: The PredictD-Qualitative study

Background: The predictD study developed and validated a risk algorithm for predicting the onset of major depression in primary care. We aimed to explore the opinion of patients about knowing their risk for depression and the values and criteria upon which these opinions are based. Methods: A maximum variation sample of patients was taken, stratified by city, age, gender, immigrant status, socioeconomic status and lifetime depression. The study participants were 52 patients belonging to 13 urban health centres in seven different cities around Spain. Seven Focus Groups (FGs) were given held with primary care patients, one for each of the seven participating cities. Results: The results showed that patients generally welcomed knowing their risk for depression. Furthermore, in light of available evidence several patients proposed potential changes in their lifestyles to prevent depression. Patients generally preferred to ask their General Practitioners (GPs) for advice, though mental health specialists were also mentioned. They suggested that GPs undertake interventions tailored to each patient, from a ‘‘patient-centred’’ approach, with certain communication skills, and giving advice to help patients cope with the knowledge that they are at risk of becoming depressed. Conclusions: Patients are pleased to be informed about their risk for depression. We detected certain beliefs, attitudes, values, expectations and behaviour among the patients that were potentially useful for future primary prevention programmes on depression.Junta de Andalucía 2008/0195Gobierno Vasco 2008/111021Spanish Network of Primary Care Research (redIAPP) RD06/0018Salud Mental, Servicios y Atención Primaria (SAMSERAP