No Arabic abstract
The words of a language are randomly replaced in time by new ones, but it has long been known that words corresponding to some items (meanings) are less frequently replaced than others. Usually, the rate of replacement for a given item is not directly observable, but it is inferred by the estimated stability which, on the contrary, is observable. This idea goes back a long way in the lexicostatistical literature, nevertheless nothing ensures that it gives the correct answer. The family of Romance languages allows for a direct test of the estimated stabilities against the replacement rates since the proto-language (Latin) is known and the replacement rates can be explicitly computed. The output of the test is threefold:first, we prove that the standard approach which tries to infer the replacement rates trough the estimated stabilities is sound; second, we are able to rewrite the fundamental formula of Glottochronology for a non universal replacement rate (a rate which depends on the item); third, we give indisputable evidence that the stability ranking is far from being the same for different families of languages. This last result is also supported by comparison with the Malagasy family of dialects. As a side result we also provide some evidence that Vulgar Latin and not Late Classical Latin is at the root of modern Romance languages.
This study addresses the problem of identifying the meaning of unknown words or entities in a discourse with respect to the word embedding approaches used in neural language models. We proposed a method for on-the-fly construction and exploitation of word embeddings in both the input and output layers of a neural model by tracking contexts. This extends the dynamic entity representation used in Kobayashi et al. (2016) and incorporates a copy mechanism proposed independently by Gu et al. (2016) and Gulcehre et al. (2016). In addition, we construct a new task and dataset called Anonymized Language Modeling for evaluating the ability to capture word meanings while reading. Experiments conducted using our novel dataset show that the proposed variant of RNN language model outperformed the baseline model. Furthermore, the experiments also demonstrate that dynamic updates of an output layer help a model predict reappearing entities, whereas those of an input layer are effective to predict words following reappearing entities.
Most working scientists hold fast to the concept of realism - a viewpoint according to which an external reality exists independent of observation. But quantum physics has shattered some of our cornerstone beliefs. According to Bells theorem, any theory that is based on the joint assumption of realism and locality (meaning that local events cannot be affected by actions in space-like separated regions) is at variance with certain quantum predictions. Experiments with entangled pairs of particles have amply confirmed these quantum predictions, thus rendering local realistic theories untenable. Maintaining realism as a fundamental concept would therefore necessitate the introduction of spooky actions that defy locality. Here we show by both theory and experiment that a broad and rather reasonable class of such non-local realistic theories is incompatible with experimentally observable quantum correlations. In the experiment, we measure previously untested correlations between two entangled photons, and show that these correlations violate an inequality proposed by Leggett for non-local realistic theories. Our result suggests that giving up the concept of locality is not sufficient to be consistent with quantum experiments, unless certain intuitive features of realism are abandoned.
A simple and unambiguous test has been recently suggested [J. Phys. D: Applied Physics, 52, 01LT01 (2018)] to check experimentally if a resistor with memory is indeed a memristor, namely a resistor whose resistance depends only on the charge that flows through it, or on the history of the voltage across it. However, although such a test would represent the litmus test for claims about memristors (in the ideal sense), it has yet to be applied widely to actual physical devices. In this paper, we experimentally apply it to a current-carrying wire interacting with a magnetic core, which was recently claimed to be a memristor (so-called `$Phi$ memristor) [J. Appl. Phys. 125, 054504 (2019)]. The results of our experiment demonstrate unambiguously that this `$Phi$ memristor is not a memristor: it is simply an inductor with memory. This demonstration casts further doubts that ideal memristors do actually exist in nature or may be easily created in the lab.
The coalescence of liquid drops induces a higher level of complexity compared to the classical studies about the aggregation of solid spheres. Yet, it is commonly believed that most findings on solid dispersions are directly applicable to liquid mixtures. Here, the state of the art in the evaluation of the flocculation rate of these two systems is reviewed. Special emphasis is made on the differences between suspensions and emulsions. In the case of suspensions, the stability ratio is commonly evaluated from the initial slope of the absorbance as a function of time under diffusive and reactive conditions. Puertas and de las Nieves (1997) developed a theoretical approach that allows the determination of the flocculation rate from the variation of the turbidity of a sample as a function of time. Here, suitable modifications of the experimental procedure and the referred theoretical approach are implemented in order to calculate the values of the stability ratio and the flocculation rate corresponding to a dodecane-in-water nanoemulsion stabilized with sodium dodecyl sulfate. Four analytical expressions of the turbidity are tested, basically differing in the optical cross section of the aggregates formed. The first two models consider the processes of: a) aggregation (as described by Smoluchowski) and b) the instantaneous coalescence upon flocculation. The other two models account for the simultaneous occurrence of flocculation and coalescence. The latter reproduce the temporal variation of the turbidity in all cases studied (380 leq [NaCl] leq 600 mM), providing a method of appraisal of the flocculation rate in nanoemulsions.
Understanding and being able to react to customer feedback is the most fundamental task in providing good customer service. However, there are two major obstacles for international companies to automatically detect the meaning of customer feedback in a global multilingual environment. Firstly, there is no widely acknowledged categorisation (classes) of meaning for customer feedback. Secondly, the applicability of one meaning categorisation, if it exists, to customer feedback in multiple languages is questionable. In this paper, we extracted representative real world samples of customer feedback from Microsoft Office customers in multiple languages, English, Spanish and Japanese,and concluded a five-class categorisation(comment, request, bug, complaint and meaningless) for meaning classification that could be used across languages in the realm of customer feedback analysis.