<p>The focus of this thesis is on re-using translations in natural language processing. It involves the collection of documents and their translations in an appropriate format, the automatic extraction of translation data, and the application of the extracted data to different tasks in natural language processing.</p><p>Five parallel corpora containing more than 35 million words in 60 languages have been collected within co-operative projects. All corpora are sentence aligned and parts of them have been analyzed automatically and annotated with linguistic markup.</p><p>Lexical data are extracted from the corpora by means of word alignment. Two automatic word alignment systems have been developed, the Uppsala Word Aligner (UWA) and the Clue Aligner. UWA implements an iterative "knowledge-poor" word alignment approach using association measures and alignment heuristics. The Clue Aligner provides an innovative framework for the combination of statistical and linguistic resources in aligning single words and multi-word units. Both aligners have been applied to several corpora. Detailed evaluations of the alignment results have been carried out for three of them using fine-grained evaluation techniques.</p><p>A corpus processing toolbox, Uplug, has been developed. It includes the implementation of UWA and is freely available for research purposes. A new version, Uplug II, includes the Clue Aligner. It can be used via an experimental web interface (UplugWeb).</p><p>Lexical data extracted by the word aligners have been applied to different tasks in computational lexicography and machine translation. The use of word alignment in monolingual lexicography has been investigated in two studies. In a third study, the feasibility of using the extracted data in interactive machine translation has been demonstrated. Finally, extracted lexical data have been used for enhancing the lexical components of two machine translation systems.</p>

<p>The majority of the vertebrate genome sequence is not coding for proteins. In recent years, the evolution of this noncoding fraction of the genome has gained interest. These studies have been greatly facilitated by the availability of full genome sequences. The aim of this thesis is to study evolution of the noncoding vertebrate genome through bioinformatic analysis of large-scale genomic datasets.</p><p>In a first analysis we addressed the use of conservation of sequence between highly diverged genomes to infer function. We provided evidence for a turnover of the patterns of negative selection. Hence, measures of constraint based on comparisons of diverged genomes might underestimate the functional proportion of the genome.</p><p>In the following analyses we focused on length variation as found in small-scale insertion and deletion (indel) polymorphisms and microsatellites. For indels in chicken, replication slippage is a likely mutation mechanism, as a large proportion of the indels are parts of tandem-duplicates. Using a set of microsatellite polymorphisms in chicken, where we avoid ascertainment bias, we showed that polymorphism is positively correlated with microsatellite length and AT-content. Furthermore, interruptions in the microsatellite sequence decrease the levels of polymorphism.</p><p>We also analysed the association between microsatellite polymorphism and recombination in the human genome. Here we found increased levels of microsatellite polymorphism in human recombination hotspots and also similar increases in the frequencies of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and indels. This points towards natural selection shaping the levels of variation. Alternatively, recombination is mutagenic for all three kinds of polymorphisms. </p><p>Finally, I present the program ILAPlot. It is a tool for visualisation, exploration and data extraction based on BLAST.</p><p>Our combined results highlight the intricate connections between evolutionary phenomena. It also emphasises the importance of length variability in genome evolution, as well as the gradual difference between indels and microsatellites.</p>

Building robust recognition systems requires a careful understanding of the effects of error in sensed features. Error in these image features results in a region of uncertainty in the possible image location of each additional model feature. We present an accurate, analytic approximation for this uncertainty region when model poses are based on matching three image and model points, for both Gaussian and bounded error in the detection of image points, and for both scaled-orthographic and perspective projection models. This result applies to objects that are fully three- dimensional, where past results considered only two-dimensional objects. Further, we introduce a linear programming algorithm to compute the uncertainty region when poses are based on any number of initial matches. Finally, we use these results to extend, from two-dimensional to three- dimensional objects, robust implementations of alignmentt interpretation- tree search, and ransformation clustering.

Background: Phosphorylation of proteins plays a crucial role in the regulation and activation of metabolic and signaling pathways and constitutes an important target for pharmaceutical intervention. Central to the phosphorylation process is the recognition of specific target sites by protein kinases followed by the covalent attachment of phosphate groups to the amino acids serine, threonine, or tyrosine. The experimental identification as well as computational prediction of phosphorylation sites (P-sites) has proved to be a challenging problem. Computational methods have focused primarily on extracting predictive features from the local, one-dimensional sequence information surrounding phosphorylation sites. Results: We characterized the spatial context of phosphorylation sites and assessed its usability for improved phosphorylation site predictions. We identified 750 non-redundant, experimentally verified sites with three-dimensional (3D) structural information available in the protein data bank (PDB) and grouped them according to their respective kinase family. We studied the spatial distribution of amino acids around phosphorserines, phosphothreonines, and phosphotyrosines to extract signature 3D-profiles. Characteristic spatial distributions of amino acid residue types around phosphorylation sites were indeed discernable, especially when kinase-family-specific target sites were analyzed. To test the added value of using spatial information for the computational prediction of phosphorylation sites, Support Vector Machines were applied using both sequence as well as structural information. When compared to sequence-only based prediction methods, a small but consistent performance improvement was obtained when the prediction was informed by 3D-context information. Conclusion: While local one-dimensional amino acid sequence information was observed to harbor most of the discriminatory power, spatial context information was identified as relevant for the recognition of kinases and their cognate target sites and can be used for an improved prediction of phosphorylation sites. A web-based service (Phos3D) implementing the developed structurebased P-site prediction method has been made available at http://phos3d.mpimp-golm.mpg.de.

This thesis explores the temporal development of a strategic alliance formed by seven logistical firms from the Nordic region and European mainland. The analytical spotlight focuses on a decade long transition from a loose collaborative association to a formal consortium. By applying five levels of analysis, the study produced several insights and contributions of conceptual, theoretical, analytical and managerial art. Conceptually, the explanatory viability of several theories has been verified while conceptual inadequacy of several other propositions have been established. Theoretically, the study bridges the network-based conceptualizations of strategic alliances with other scientific fields such as international management, business process redesign, logistical systems evolution, intercultural communication and cross-cultural decision-making, and integrates research outcomes into an empirically validated model of the alliance’s systemic fit. Analytically, the "black box" of alliance’s evolution has been unpacked using a longitudinal, multivariate research method. By identifying several inversely related causal motors that concurrently and interchangeably shaped the alliance transition, the study demonstrates that over a ten-year period the forces of collaboration overpowered the relational and cultural diversity, and contributed to intra-alliance match. Managerial relevance derives from the fact that the alliance became Pan-European logistical service supplier, benefited from network enlargement, realized economies of scope, higher customer density, joint operational governance and intimate knowledge of demand specifics. These inputs have been translated into discernible competitive advantage by both, the multi-domestic and transnational output supply strategies that seldom are employed in parallel by orthodox corporate systems. The multi-domestic style of operations allowed the alliance partners creating a complete value chain in their home markets. This enabled the alliance to cope with demand heterogeneity in the European market and compete with other internationals through a broad market-service spectrum. On the other hand, by producing different elements of its value chain in different countries, the alliance created a transnational distribution system that could serve global customers, realize economies of international standardization and participate in global rivalry. By showing that single-modal freight supply solutions should be customized to meet international demand diversity, while intermodal distribution measures should be standardized to secure uniform quality standard throughout the entire distribution channel, these findings provided empirically tested knowledge on viable scope of integration for operators in complex international markets. These latter insights may represent valuable utility to managers seeking to match the supply structure with demand postulates from international users. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2001

Bakgrund: Befintlig alignmentteori berör inte de svårigheter som företag möter i att uppnå strategisk alignment, särskilt när de genomgår större förändringar. De förändringar som amerikanska och europeiska fullserviceflygbolag har genomgått genom att introducera lågprisalternativ visar att det har varit svårt att skapa lönsamhet. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är, att med hjälp av exempel från flygbranschen, konkretisera befintlig alignmentteori, sätta alignment i relation till olika förändringsprocesser, samt att utifrån de olika förändringsprocesserna diskutera förutsättningar för att uppnå alignment vid en partiell förändring. Genomförande: Sekundärdatastudie av den amerikanska och europeiska flygmarknaden. Resultat: Förutsättningarna för att uppnå alignment vid partiell förändring kan underlättas av en dialektisk förändringsprocess i kombination med ett livscykelsynsätt, och försvåras av en teleologisk eller evolutionär förändringsprocess.

The focus of this thesis is on re-using translations in natural language processing. It involves the collection of documents and their translations in an appropriate format, the automatic extraction of translation data, and the application of the extracted data to different tasks in natural language processing. Five parallel corpora containing more than 35 million words in 60 languages have been collected within co-operative projects. All corpora are sentence aligned and parts of them have been analyzed automatically and annotated with linguistic markup. Lexical data are extracted from the corpora by means of word alignment. Two automatic word alignment systems have been developed, the Uppsala Word Aligner (UWA) and the Clue Aligner. UWA implements an iterative "knowledge-poor" word alignment approach using association measures and alignment heuristics. The Clue Aligner provides an innovative framework for the combination of statistical and linguistic resources in aligning single words and multi-word units. Both aligners have been applied to several corpora. Detailed evaluations of the alignment results have been carried out for three of them using fine-grained evaluation techniques. A corpus processing toolbox, Uplug, has been developed. It includes the implementation of UWA and is freely available for research purposes. A new version, Uplug II, includes the Clue Aligner. It can be used via an experimental web interface (UplugWeb). Lexical data extracted by the word aligners have been applied to different tasks in computational lexicography and machine translation. The use of word alignment in monolingual lexicography has been investigated in two studies. In a third study, the feasibility of using the extracted data in interactive machine translation has been demonstrated. Finally, extracted lexical data have been used for enhancing the lexical components of two machine translation systems.

This thesis describes the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometry as an analytical tool. The theory of NMR spectroscopy in general and quantitative NMR spectrometry (qNMR) in particular is described and the instrumental properties and parameter setups for qNMR measurements are discussed. Examples of qNMR are presented by impurity determination of pharmaceutical compounds and analysis of urine samples from rats fed with either water or a drug (metabolic profiling). The instrumental parameter setup of qNMR and traditional data pre-treatments are examined. Spectral smoothing by convolution with a triangular function, which is an unusual application in this context, was shown to be successful regarding the sensitivity and robustness of the method in paper II. In addition, papers III and IV comprise the field of peak alignment, especially designed for 1H-NMR spectra of urine samples. This is an important preprocessing tool when multivariate analysis is to be applied. A novel peak alignment method was developed and compared to the traditional bucketing approach and a conceptually different alignment method. Univariate, multivariate, linear and nonlinear data analyses were applied to qNMR data. In papers I–II, calibration models were created to examine the potential of qNMR for these applications. The data analysis in papers III–VI was mainly explorative. The potential of data fusion and data correlation was examined in order to increase the possibilities of analysing the highly complex samples from metabolic profiling (papers V–VI). Data from LC/MS analysis of the same samples were used with the 1H-NMR data in different ways. Correlation analyses between the 1H-NMR data and the drug metabolites identified from the LC/MS data were also performed. In this process, data fusion proved to be a valuable tool.

The majority of the vertebrate genome sequence is not coding for proteins. In recent years, the evolution of this noncoding fraction of the genome has gained interest. These studies have been greatly facilitated by the availability of full genome sequences. The aim of this thesis is to study evolution of the noncoding vertebrate genome through bioinformatic analysis of large-scale genomic datasets. In a first analysis we addressed the use of conservation of sequence between highly diverged genomes to infer function. We provided evidence for a turnover of the patterns of negative selection. Hence, measures of constraint based on comparisons of diverged genomes might underestimate the functional proportion of the genome. In the following analyses we focused on length variation as found in small-scale insertion and deletion (indel) polymorphisms and microsatellites. For indels in chicken, replication slippage is a likely mutation mechanism, as a large proportion of the indels are parts of tandem-duplicates. Using a set of microsatellite polymorphisms in chicken, where we avoid ascertainment bias, we showed that polymorphism is positively correlated with microsatellite length and AT-content. Furthermore, interruptions in the microsatellite sequence decrease the levels of polymorphism. We also analysed the association between microsatellite polymorphism and recombination in the human genome. Here we found increased levels of microsatellite polymorphism in human recombination hotspots and also similar increases in the frequencies of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and indels. This points towards natural selection shaping the levels of variation. Alternatively, recombination is mutagenic for all three kinds of polymorphisms. Finally, I present the program ILAPlot. It is a tool for visualisation, exploration and data extraction based on BLAST. Our combined results highlight the intricate connections between evolutionary phenomena. It also emphasises the importance of length variability in genome evolution, as well as the gradual difference between indels and microsatellites.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka försvarsmaktlärares uppfattning om relationen mellan kursernas examinationsform och faktorer som har med de studerandes lärande att göra. Studien hade dessutom som syfte att undersöka om det finns några betydande skillnader i uppfattning mellan skolor med olika karaktär i form av generalist- eller specialistinriktning på utbildningen. Konstruktionen av empirisk data har möjliggjorts genom att vi har intervjuat lärare från två olika skolor, dels Militärhögskolan i Halmstad (MHS H) dels Försvarsmaktens tekniska skola (FMTS). För att kunna tolka vårt resultat har vi använt oss av två referensramar. Det är Marton och Booth teoretiska referensram om lärandet samt Biggs teorier om konstruktiv gruppering av de faktorer som främjar lärandet. Resultatet pekar på att det är av betydelse för de studerandes lärande att lärarna gör medvetna val för att examinationen skall vara ett stöd i lärandet och inte enbart en kontrollfunktion. Vidare kan vi konstatera att det inte föreligger några skillnader i uppfattning om examinationens vikt för lärandet utan skillnaden ligger i uppfattning om i vilken grad man faktiskt har möjlighet att realisera sina planer med hänsyn taget till de ramfaktorer som styr planeringen av den genomförda utbildningen.