Testing the Forecasting Performance of Ibex 35 Option-implied Risk-neutral Densities

Published also as: Documento de Trabajo Banco de España 0504/2005.

EUSMT: incorporating linguistic information to SMT for a morphologically rich language. Its use in SMT-RBMT-EBMT hybridation

148 p.: graf.

Media translation and lesser-used languages: implications of subtitles for Irish language broadcastind

Eguíluz, Federico; Merino, Raquel; Olsen, Vickie; Pajares, Eterio; Santamaría, José Miguel (eds.)

An Open and Social Spaced Repetition System for Language Learning

In the last decades big improvements have been done in the field of computer aided learning, based on improvements done in computer science and computer systems. Although the field has been always a bit lagged, without using the latest solutions, it has constantly gone forward taking profit of the innovations as they show up. As long as the train of the computer science does not stop (and it won’t at least in the near future) the systems that take profit of those improvements will not either, because we humans will always need to study; Sometimes for pleasure and some other many times out of need. Not all the attempts in the field of computer aided learning have been in the same direction. Most of them address one or some few of the problems that show while studying and don’t take into account solutions proposed for some other problems. The reasons for this can be varied. Sometimes the solutions simply are not compatible. Some other times, because the project is an investigation it’s interesting to isolate the problem. And, in commercial products, licenses and patents often prevent the new projects to use previous work. The world moved forward and this is an attempt to use some of the options offered by technology, mixing some old ideas with new ones.

Design, Construction and Testing of a Hydraulic Power Take-Off for Wave Energy Converters

This paper presents the construction, mathematical modeling and testing of a scaled universal hydraulic Power Take-Off (PTO) device for Wave Energy Converters (WECs). A specific prototype and test bench were designed and built to carry out the tests. The results obtained from these tests were used to adjust an in-house mathematical model. The PTO was initially designed to be coupled to a scaled wave energy capture device with a low speed and high torque oscillating motion and high power fluctuations. Any Energy Capture Device (ECD) that fulfils these requirements can be coupled to this PTO, provided that its scale is adequately defined depending on the rated power of the full scale prototype. The initial calibration included estimation of the pressure drops in the different components, the pressurization time of the oil inside the hydraulic cylinders and the volumetric efficiency of the complete circuit. Since the overall efficiency measured during the tests ranged from 0.69 to 0.8 and the dynamic performance of the PTO was satisfactory, the results are really promising and it is believed that this solution might prove effective in real devices.

The Economics of "Why is it so hard to save a threatened Language?"

We study the language choice behavior of bilingual speakers in modern societies, such as the Basque Country, Ireland andWales. These countries have two o cial languages:A, spoken by all, and B, spoken by a minority. We think of the bilinguals in those societies as a population playing repeatedly a Bayesian game in which, they must choose strategically the language, A or B, that might be used in the interaction. The choice has to be made under imperfect information about the linguistic type of the interlocutors. We take the Nash equilibrium of the language use game as a model for real life language choice behavior. It is shown that the predictions made with this model t very well the data about the actual use, contained in the censuses, of Basque, Irish and Welsh languages. Then the question posed by Fishman (2001),which appears in the title, is answered as follows: it is hard, mainly, because bilingual speakers have reached an equilibrium which is evolutionary stable. This means that to solve fast and in a re ex manner their frequent language coordination problem, bilinguals have developed linguistic conventions based chie y on the strategy 'Use the same language as your interlocutor', which weakens the actual use of B.1

Bilingual Lexicography:Relevance of Corpora. The Example of German-Basque as Language Pair

Presentation for the 5th International Conference on Corpus Linguistics (CILC 2013), V Congreso Internacional de Lingüistica de Corpus.

Language distance and non-native syntactic processing: Evidence from event-related potentials

[EN] In this study, we explore native and non-native syntactic processing, paying special attention to the language distance factor. To this end, we compared how native speakers of Basque and highly proficient non-native speakers of Basque who are native speakers of Spanish process certain core aspects of Basque syntax. Our results suggest that differences in native versus non-native language processing strongly correlate with language distance: native/non-native processing differences obtain if a syntactic parameter of the non-native grammar diverges from the native grammar. Otherwise, non-native processing will approximate native processing as levels of proficiency increase. We focus on three syntactic parameters: (i) the head parameter, (ii) argument alignment (ergative/accusative), and (iii) verb agreement. The first two diverge in Basque and Spanish, but the third is the same in both languages. Our results reveal that native and non-native processing differs for the diverging syntactic parameters, but not for the convergent one. These findings indicate that language distance has a significant impact in non-native language processing.

More than one language in the brain

Boeckx C., M.C. Horno & J.L. Mendívil (Eds.)

Word frequency cues word order in adults: cross-linguistic evidence

[EN] One universal feature of human languages is the division between grammatical functors and content words. From a learnability point of view, functors might provide entry points or anchors into the syntactic structure of utterances due to their high frequency. Despite its potentially universal scope, this hypothesis has not yet been tested on typologically different languages and on populations of different ages. Here we report a corpus study and an artificial grammar learning experiment testing the anchoring hypothesis in Basque, Japanese, French, and Italian adults. We show that adults are sensitive to the distribution of functors in their native language and use them when learning new linguistic material. However, compared to infants’ performance on a similar task, adults exhibit a slightly different behavior, matching the frequency distributions of their native language more closely than infants do. This finding bears on the issue of the continuity of language learning mechanism.

Testing the performance and feasibility of Bluetooth communications in pervasive systems

Smart and mobile environments require seamless connections. However, due to the frequent process of ''discovery'' and disconnection of mobile devices while data interchange is happening, wireless connections are often interrupted. To minimize this drawback, a protocol that enables an easy and fast synchronization is crucial. Bearing this in mind, Bluetooth technology appears to be a suitable solution to carry on such connections due to the discovery and pairing capabilities it provides. Nonetheless, the time and energy spent when several devices are being discovered and used at the same time still needs to be managed properly. It is essential that this process of discovery takes as little time and energy as possible. In addition to this, it is believed that the performance of the communications is not constant when the transmission speeds and throughput increase, but this has not been proved formally. Therefore, the purpose of this project is twofold: Firstly, to design and build a framework-system capable of performing controlled Bluetooth device discovery, pairing and communications. Secondly, to analyze and test the scalability and performance of the \emph{classic} Bluetooth standard under different scenarios and with various sensors and devices using the framework developed. To achieve the first goal, a generic Bluetooth platform will be used to control the test conditions and to form a ubiquitous wireless system connected to an Android Smartphone. For the latter goal, various stress-tests will be carried on to measure the consumption rate of battery life as well as the quality of the communications between the devices involved.

ENEKuS – a key model for managing the transformation of the normalisation of the Basque language in the workplace

The aim of this study is to develop a reference model for intervention in the language processes applied to the transformation of language normalisation within organisations of a socio-economic nature. It is based on the case study of an experience carried out over10 years within a trades’ union confederation, and has pursued a strategy of a basically qualitative research carried out in three stages: 1) undertaking field work through application of action-research methodology, 2) reconstructing experiences following processes of systematisation and conceptualisation of the systematised data, applying methodologies for the Systematisation of Experiences and Grounded Theory, and 3) formulating a model for intervention, applying the Systems Approach methodology. Finally, we identified nine key ideas that make up the conceptual framework for the ENEKuS reference model, which is structured in nine ‘action points', each having an operating sub-model applicable in practice.

Bilingual Dictionary Drafting. The Example of German-Basque, a Medium-density Language Pair

Edited by Andrea Abel, Chiara Vettori, Natascia Ralli.