Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:29:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pedro Paulo Barradas Barata.pdf: 993410 bytes, checksum: b58fa664fca20e477bebce150d3d77dd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-09-29 / This work comes in response to the great controversy revolving around the applicability of the disregard doctrine to consumer relations. Legal scholars have long wrangled over this issue, some of whom advocate that the Brazilian Consumer Protection Code ended up stripping legal entities of their right to separateness of assets when it comes to consumer relations. As asset separateness and the limitation on liability of business companies are held to be two of the major pillars of the capitalist system, the relevance of this issue is unquestionable. This study thus proposes an interpretation of article 28 of the Brazilian Consumer Protection Code which conciliates these principles and the philosophical tenets of said Code, by offering a systematic and historical interpretation of such rule. To that end, this work will deal with the historical origins of the limitation on liability of legal entities, and its evolution in the US and UK legal systems. Further, this work will analyze the treatment accorded to the disregard doctrine in foreign laws, its background and the current rules applying to this doctrine under Brazilian law / A escolha do objeto deste estudo se deveu à grande controvérsia que o tema da desconsideração da personalidade jurídica desperta no âmbito das relações de consumo. A doutrina vem adotando posições antagônicas com relação ao tema, sendo que parte dos doutrinadores defende que o Código de Defesa do Consumidor teria revogado a autonomia patrimonial da pessoa jurídica nas relações de consumo. Sendo a técnica da separação patrimonial e a limitação de responsabilidade das sociedades empresárias dois princípios aparentemente fundamentais do sistema capitalista, é inegável a importância de que se reveste o tema. Este estudo pretende propor uma interpretação do artigo 28 do Código de Defesa do Consumidor que concilie tais princípios com a filosofia do Código, por meio de uma interpretação sistemática e histórica da norma. Para tanto, foi analisada a origem histórica da limitação de responsabilidade das pessoas jurídicas, sua evolução no Direito norte-americano e no Direito inglês. Ainda, analisou-se o tratamento que a desconsideração da personalidade jurídica recebe no Direito estrangeiro, sua origem histórica e disciplina atual no Direito Brasileiro

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:30:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Juliana Francisca Lettiere.pdf: 1206844 bytes, checksum: d18c724af124625a9c8247dd8f900128 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-10 / This study aims at veryfying the constitutionality and legality of stable samesex unions, as well as checking the juridical reflexes decurrent from such a study. The history of family constitution will not be tackled, as the idea is focusing on the legal system which was in force after 1988, as well as analysing the redesign of the family concept, mainly with respect to the familiar entity originated from the stable union. Therefore, it is necessary to analyse the International and the Comparative Laws, with due regards to the ONU s and the world blocs position. We shall analyse the Homoaffective Union before the Brazilian Constitution and check if it is in concordance with the principles in force. Afterwards, it will be analysed the Civil Code and the demand originated by the androgynous couple. Later, it will be found out whether there was a reception by the law Maria da Penha, and which were its repercussions next to the Civil Code. It is within this context, that adoptions made by homosexual couples will be analysed. This work will also focus on analysing the position of national Tribunals and the existing federal legislative projects. Last, this work intends to establish if the Brazilian Constitution developed a new concept of the family and also a new way to look at it. It also concerns this study to investigate if the above mentioned situation agreed with the regulamentation of homoerotic unions, that is, if it is possible to affirm that there was, with the Homoafective Unions, a redefinition of the family concept in the Brazilian Law / Esta pesquisa tem por objeto verificar a constitucionalidade e a legalidade das uniões estáveis entre pessoas do mesmo sexo, bem como verificar quais reflexos jurídicos desta decorrentes. Não abordaremos o histórico da formação da família, vez que a ideia é focar no ordenamento jurídico vigente pós 1988 e o redesenho que houve no conceito de família, especialmente no tocante à entidade familiar decorrente da união estável. Assim, necessário que se analise o Direito Internacional e o Direito Comparado, com maior atenção ao posicionamento da ONU e dos blocos mundiais. Passaremos à análise da União homoafetiva perante a Constituição Brasileira e se esta se encontra em harmonia com os princípios vigentes. Após, será analisado o Código Civil e a exigência positivada do par andrógino. Posteriormente, será verificado se houve recepção pelo ordenamento da Lei Maria da Penha e quais seus reflexos junto ao Código Civil. É dentro deste contexto que se analisará a adoção por casais homossexuais. O trabalho terá por objeto, ainda, a análise do posicionamento dos Tribunais nacionais e os projetos legislativos federais existentes. Por fim, o trabalho tem o fito de estabelecer se a Carta Maior estabeleceu um novo olhar e conceito da família, e se tal situação esposou a regulamentação de uniões homoeróticas

O objetivo deste trabalho é desenvolver uma plataforma para anotação e classificação automática de entidades nomeadas para notícias escritas em português do Brasil. Para restringir um pouco o escopo do treinamento e análise foram utilizadas notícias esportivas do Campeonato Paulista de 2011 do portal UOL (Universo Online). O primeiro artefato desenvolvido desta plataforma foi a ferramenta WebCorpus. Esta tem como principal intuito facilitar o processo de adição de metainformações a palavras através do uso de uma interface rica web, elaborada para deixar o trabalho ágil e simples. Desta forma as entidades nomeadas das notícias são anotadas e classificadas manualmente. A base de dados foi alimentada pela ferramenta de aquisição e extração de conteúdo desenvolvida também para esta plataforma. O segundo artefato desenvolvido foi o córpus UOLCP2011 (UOL Campeonato Paulista 2011). Este córpus foi anotado e classificado manualmente através do uso da ferramenta WebCorpus utilizando sete tipos de entidades: pessoa, lugar, organização, time, campeonato, estádio e torcida. Para o desenvolvimento do motor de anotação e classificação automática de entidades nomeadas foram utilizadas três diferentes técnicas: maximização de entropia, índices invertidos e métodos de mesclagem das duas técnicas anteriores. Para cada uma destas foram executados três passos: desenvolvimento do algoritmo, treinamento utilizando técnicas de aprendizado de máquina e análise dos melhores resultados. / The main target of this research is to develop an automatic named entity classification tool to sport news written in Brazilian Portuguese. To reduce this scope, during training and analysis only sport news about São Paulo Championship of 2011 written by UOL2 (Universo Online) was used. The first artefact developed was the WebCorpus tool, which aims to make easier the process of add meta informations to words, through a rich web interface. Using this, all the corpora news are tagged manually. The database used by this tool was fed by the crawler tool, also developed during this research. The second artefact developed was the corpora UOLCP2011 (UOL Campeonato Paulista 2011). This corpora was manually tagged using the WebCorpus tool. During this process, seven classification concepts were used: person, place, organization, team, championship, stadium and fans. To develop the automatic named entity classification tool, three different approaches were analysed: maximum entropy, inverted index and merge tecniques using both. Each approach had three steps: algorithm development, training using machine learning tecniques and best score analysis.

A presente dissertação visa a tratar das influências processuais da teoria da desconsideração da personalidade jurídica. Trata-se primeiro da desconsideração da personalidade jurídica sob a óptica material. Analisa-se primeiramente as teorias desenvolvidas, o seu nascer e as notícias histórias dela no direito estrangeiro. A intenção não é demonstrar qual é a situação da teoria hoje mas sim mostrar sob quais premissas ela foi alicerçada. Isso é importante porque a prática forense em algum grau tem distorcido da teoria, na medida em que a desconsideração para fins de responsabilidade sempre foi tratada como requisito excepcional (requisito da regra-exceção, trazido por ROLF SERICK). É noticiado também o surgimento da teoria no Brasil, as hipóteses em que a própria lei incumbe de imputar diretamente a responsabilidade do sócio, casos esses que não é autêntica desconsideração da personalidade jurídica. Depois brevemente é visto o requisito da personalidade jurídica material, para se demonstrar que a desconsideração em nada lhe afeta. Ou seja, com a desconsideração não se anula a pessoa jurídica. É analisada também a terminologia correta para a desconsideração e também qual o seu conceito. Essa questão é bem importante, na medida em que a desconsideração da personalidade jurídica envolve responsabilidade (Haftung) e não obrigação (Schuld). Depois se passa à analise das hipóteses de desconsideração. São vistas as hipóteses comumente aceitas na doutrina e os lugares legislativos em que a desconsideração está alicerçada. Em seguida, são pormenorizadas as pessoas jurídicas que podem sofrer desconsideração e os sócios que podem ser atingidos. A dissertação não tem como objeto a análise do instituto pessoa jurídica, tampouco dos diversos tipos societários. Estuda-se tão-somente como se relacionam essas modalidades com a desconsideração da personalidade jurídica. Passa-se então ao estudo da desconsideração da personalidade jurídica pela óptica do direito processual civil, sobretudo a desconsideração para fins de responsabilidade (Haftungsdurchgriff), que é aquela que tem projeção cotidiana no processo civil. São vistas as técnicas processuais adequadas para a desconsideração, com análise sobre os diversos tipos de processos e procedimentos no rico sistema brasileiro. Logo mais é também analisada a desconsideração sob os diversos institutos processuais: a sua relação com as partes, a causa petendi, o petitum e seu cúmulo. Além do que, é enfrentado e superado o tema da desconsideração com a estabilização da demanda, ou seja, como se relaciona o ingresso do sócio quando a demanda já está subjetivamente e objetivamente estabilizada. Depois se passa ao tema da necessidade ou não de demanda autônoma para que ocorra a desconsideração, se ela pode ocorrer ex officio e a obrigatoriedade do contraditório e pronunciamento judicial antes de qualquer constrição do patrimônio do sócio. Logo em seguida se passa ao tratamento da desconsideração com a intervenção do sócio: as modalidades e possibilidade de intervenção, as formas litisconsorciais e de quem é o onus probandi quando o assunto é desconsideração. O outro título trata da desconsideração e os atos judiciais: a natureza do ato que desconsideração, os recursos cabíveis e momentos adequados, quem é interessado em recorrer (se a pessoa jurídica ou o sócio), o conteúdo do ato e a questão da prescrição ligada à desconsideração da personalidade jurídica. A dissertação trata também da desconsideração na teoria da execução civil. Nesse item será afirmada a aplicabilidade integral do art. 592, inc. II, do Código de Processo Civil, e parcial do art. 596. Parcial porque o sócio não tem regresso contra a sociedade. É visto também que o sócio não é responsável pelos acessórios processuais; formas de defesa do sócio antes e depois de sua citação; outras formas de defesa; se ao sócio se aplicam as restrições do art. 475-L do Código de Processo Civil; e as possíveis fraudes que o responsável pode cometer, inclusive fraude à execução antes de sua forma citação. As afirmações e conclusões expostas são, quando possível e especialmente no capítulo que trata das questões processuais, ilustradas com julgados do Superior Tribunal de Justiça. Por se tratar de um trabalho acadêmico, os julgados citados não servem para formar as premissas teóricas da dissertação, mas apenas para enriquecer o trabalho, com críticas ou concordância com as afirmações dessa Corte. / This dissertation aims to address the procedural influences of the disregard of corporate entity theory. First, an analysis of the disregard of corporate entity in line with substantive law is presented; initially focusing on the developed theories, its birth and historical records on foreign Law. The intention is not to demonstrate what the situation of the theory is nowadays, but to show the basis on which it was founded. This is important because the forensic practice has diverted from the theory to some extent, in so far as the disregard for liability purposes has always been treated as exceptional requirement (requirement of rule-exception brought by ROLF SERICK). The emergence of the theory in Brazil is also reported, the hypothesis in which the law itself directly determines the liability of the partner, cases in which the disregard of corporate entity is not authentic. After that, the condition of substantive corporate entity is briefly seen to demonstrate that its disregard does not affect it in any way. In other words, the disregard does not void the corporate entity. The correct terminology to talk about disregard and its concept are also analyzed. This issue is deeply important as far as the disregard of the corporate entity involves liability (Haftung) and not obligation (Schuld). Then, there is a discussion on the hypotheses of the disregard. The commonly accepted hypotheses in the doctrine and other legislative sources in which the disregard is based upon are seen too. Subsequently, the legal persons who may be disregarded and the partners who can be affected are detailed. The dissertation does not analyze the corporate entity, or the various types of corporations. The study focuses solely on the relation between these modalities and the disregard of the corporate entity. Next, there is the study of disregard of the corporate entity with the civil procedural law perspective, especially the disregard aiming liability (Haftungsdurchgriff), which is the one that has daily projection on civil cases. The procedural techniques adequate to the disregard are analyzed, as well as the different types of lawsuits and procedures existing in the rich Brazilian system. Later, the disregard is also analyzed according to procedural studies: its relationship with the parties, the cause of action, motion and its accumulation. Besides that, the issue of disregard along with stabilization of claim is confronted and overcome, i.e., how the entry of the partner happens when the claim is already subjectively and objectively stabilized. Afterward, the focal point is on the issue of whether or not the autonomous claim is necessary for the disregard to take place, whether it can occur ex officio or not and the obligation of adversary proceeding and judicial pronouncement before any constriction of the partners assets. Soon after, there is a focus on the disregard with the intervention of the partner: the modalities and possibility of intervention, the joint action types and whose the burden of proof is when the subject is disregard. The other title deals with disregard and judicial acts: nature of the act of disregarding, the applicable appeals and adequate moments, who has interest to appeal (if it is the legal entity or a partner), the content of the act and the issue of limitation period related to the disregard of corporate entity. The dissertation also addresses the disregard on the civil execution theory. This item will state the applicability of article 592, II of the Code of Civil Procedure and part of article 596. Partial because the partner has no right of redress against the corporation. Other points which are covered are that the partner is not responsible for the ancillary proceedings; types of defense of the partner before and after the summons is serviced; other kinds of defense; whether the restrictions contained on article 475-L of the Code of Civil Procedure is applicable to the partner; and the possible frauds the responsible one can commit, including fraud to the execution before being formally serviced. The statements and conclusions set forth are, when possible and especially on the chapter that deals with procedural issues, illustrated with decisions from the Superior Court of Justice. Since this is an academic paper, the cited decisions are not intended to form the theoretical premises of the dissertation, but are only used to enrich the paper with criticisms or agreements regarding the statements of this Court.

A family of Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks such as part-of- speech (PoS) tagging, Named Entity Recognition (NER), and Multiword Expression (MWE) identification all involve assigning labels to sequences of words in text (sequence labeling). Most modern machine learning approaches to sequence labeling utilize word embeddings, learned representations of text, in which words with similar meanings have similar representations. Quite recently, contextualized word embeddings have garnered much attention because, unlike pretrained context- insensitive embeddings such as word2vec, they are able to capture word meaning in context. In this thesis, I evaluate the performance of different embedding setups (context-sensitive, context-insensitive word, as well as task-specific word, character, lemma, and PoS) on the three abovementioned sequence labeling tasks using a deep learning model (BiLSTM) and Portuguese datasets. v

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-01-22T11:33:17Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Augusta da Matta Rivitti.pdf: 1729238 bytes, checksum: b788eeda56ed84dab2c91d17e2e38fa6 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-01-22T11:33:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Augusta da Matta Rivitti.pdf: 1729238 bytes, checksum: b788eeda56ed84dab2c91d17e2e38fa6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-19 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Fundação São Paulo - FUNDASP / The scope of this research is to analyze section 792, 3rd paragraph of the Brazilian Code of Civil Procedures, as it deals with the starting point of frauds in execution actions in cases of disregard of legal entities. The disregard of legal entity regulated by substantial law in several dispositions and fraud to execution actions regulated by procedural law were addressed by the Brazilian Code of Civil Procedures (Federal Law no. 13,097 of March 16th, 2015) in an innovative manner. This study enters the most relevant aspects of both doctrines (disregard of legal entity and fraud to execution actions), undertakes the exam of the case law concerning the starting point of fraud to execution actions, and then proceeds to analyze if the solution proposed by the new law insures legal certainty, core subject of the instant research. The study of this matter is justified by the dissent found in scholarly works and in case law and also by the direct impact over business transactions. The deductive method was applied, by means of bibliographical and case law research on the abovementioned doctrines. It was ascertained that the disposition under exam violates legal certainty, leading to its unconstitutionality / O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar o § 3º do art. 792 do CPC, que trata do marco inicial da fraude à execução em caso de desconsideração da personalidade jurídica. A desconsideração da personalidade jurídica regulada pelo direito material em diversas leis e a fraude à execução regida pela legislação processual foram inovadoramente tratadas pelo Código de Processo Civil, Lei nº 13.097, de 16 de março de 2015. Visando à contextualização desses dois institutos, em uma abordagem introdutória apresenta-se um panorama de assuntos básicos, como a personalidade jurídica, a pessoa jurídica, sua natureza, sua autonomia patrimonial, bem como sua responsabilidade civil e patrimonial. Incursiona-se aos aspectos mais relevantes de ambos, perpassa-se sobre a uniformização da jurisprudência relativa ao marco inicial da fraude à execução para analisar na parte nuclear do trabalho, se a solução proposta pela nova legislação assegura a segurança jurídica. Justifica-se a necessidade de estudo pelas divergências doutrinárias e jurisprudenciais suscitadas e a importância prática para as relações negociais. O método utilizado foi o dedutivo, com o emprego de pesquisas bibliográfica e jurisprudencial relacionadas aos institutos, permitindo-se verificar que o dispositivo legal em comento viola a segurança jurídica, conduzindo à sua inconstitucionalidade

Submitted by Jorge Silva (jorgelmsilva@ufrrj.br) on 2018-11-27T16:27:56Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2017 - Adriana Penha.pdf: 2734823 bytes, checksum: 82cb01face559eaae8aff1afe55b3311 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-27T16:27:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2017 - Adriana Penha.pdf: 2734823 bytes, checksum: 82cb01face559eaae8aff1afe55b3311 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-05-25 / The conceptions about work and career have been suffering changes through time, as an answer to other changes brought by globalization, development of new technologies, global political scenario and to the human relations in organizations. Changes that reflect themselves in the work relations and on the meaning given by individuals to their work and career under the influence of their personal life experiences. In this context the employee becomes to be responsible for career management, according to how he perceives his own career and work, influencing on its management. Understanding how individuals perceive global work and career scenario is necessary to an effective reflection of organization actions over their professionals, and it allows alignment of expectations and perceptions in the employee-employer relationship. Since these expectations are not aligned and the promises made are not fulfilled, the perception of it is a breach of the psychological contract. The present research sought to identify the meaning attributed to work and it?s own careers, by the Social Security and Future Assistance Foundation (FPAF) employees, a closed supplementary pension entity. For this purpose, a data survey was carried out through interviews supported by the technique of drawing construction and semi-structured script, analyzed through phenomenography and inductive analysis. The outcomes indicate that the sense of work presents itself as a positive conception, assuming meanings of pleasure, subsistence, focus on individuals and society. With respect to the meaning attributed to career in FPAF, the vertical ascension concept is adopted, however, in practice it is only realised as a function (set of activities), with lack of recognition and appreciation, but without causing company layoffs once FAP?s guarantee of permanence is supported by the stability and security provided by the organization. Achieved results can subsidise company responsible personnel to drive actions and human resources in an appropriate manner to their reality regarding people's management, and not only been restrict to actions of just one Legal department. Despite of implementation of it?s Career and Compensation Plan in 2011, the expectation generated among employees was not been met, revealing a breach of the psychological contract. Results still point that despite of employees assign a positive conception of work, when it realises itself as a career in PFAF, they are dissatisfied how it is presented in the company. Thus maintaining, both sides, a satisfactorily minimum performance: There is no professional development, but there are also no layoffs. It is recommended that FPAP rethink it?s management practices related to employees career management and practical applicability level of current Career and Compensation Plan to reflect a career path beyond the traditional bureaucratic one that corresponds to an organizational scenario, stable and economically predictable that restricts employees to hold office and carry out its functions without perspectives of any professional development. / As concep??es sobre trabalho e carreira v?m sofrendo altera??es ao longo do tempo, em resposta ?s mudan?as advindas da globaliza??o, do surgimento de novas tecnologias, do cen?rio pol?tico mundial e das rela??es humanas nas organiza??es. Mudan?as que se refletem nas rela??es de trabalho e no sentido que os indiv?duos influenciados pelas suas viv?ncias pessoais atribuem ao trabalho e a sua carreira. Nesse contexto a responsabilidade da gest?o da carreira passa a ser tamb?m do empregado, de acordo com a forma como ele percebe o trabalho e a pr?pria carreira, influenciando no gerenciamento da mesma. Compreender como os indiv?duos percebem esse cen?rio do mundo do trabalho e da carreira ? necess?rio para que as a??es da organiza??o efetivamente tenham reflexo nos seus profissionais, e se propicie um alinhamento de expectativas e percep??es na rela??o empregado-empregador. Pois quando essas expectativas n?o est?o alinhadas e as promessas realizadas n?o s?o concretizadas, se percebe como uma quebra do contrato psicol?gico. A presente pesquisa buscou identificar o sentido do trabalho, atribu?do pelos empregados da Funda??o de Previd?ncia e Assist?ncia Futuro - FPAF, e o sentido atribu?do ? sua carreira na pr?pria empresa, uma Entidade Fechada de Previd?ncia Complementar. Para tanto, foi realizado levantamento de dados por meio de entrevistas apoiadas pela t?cnica da constru??o de desenhos e roteiro semi-estruturado, analisados por meio da fenomenografia e an?lise indutiva. Os resultados apontam que o sentido do trabalho se apresenta com concep??o positiva, assumindo os sentidos de prazer, subsist?ncia, foco no indiv?duo e na sociedade. Em rela??o ao sentido atribu?do a carreira na FPAF, a mesma assumiu o sentido de ascens?o vertical que na pr?tica se concretiza apenas como fun??o (conjunto de atividades), com aus?ncia de reconhecimento e valoriza??o, mas sem provocar desligamento da empresa pois, a perman?ncia na FPAF se respalda pela estabilidade e seguran?a que a empresa proporciona. Os resultados obtidos podem subsidiar os respons?veis da empresa para direcionar suas a??es de recursos humanos de maneira pertinente ? sua realidade no que tange a gest?o de pessoas, e n?o apenas se restringir a a??es de apenas um departamento pessoal. Apesar da implanta??o, no ano de 2011, do seu Plano de Carreira e Remunera??o, as expectativas geradas nos empregados n?o foram cumpridas se revelando uma quebra do contrato psicol?gico. Os resultados apontam ainda que apesar dos empregados atribu?rem ao trabalho um sentido positivo, quando o mesmo se materializa como carreira na FPAF, encontram-se insatisfeitos pela maneira como a carreira se apresenta na empresa. Se mantendo assim, por ambas as partes, um desempenho m?nimo satisfat?rio: n?o se tem desenvolvimento profissional, mas tamb?m n?o se tem desligamento. Recomenda-se que na FPAF se repense suas pr?ticas de gest?o referentes ao gerenciamento da carreira dos seus empregados e o n?vel de aplicabilidade pr?tica do vigente Plano de Carreira e Remunera??o para refletir trajet?rias de carreira al?m da tradicional burocr?tica correspondente a cen?rios organizacionais, econ?micos previs?veis e est?veis e restringe seus empregados a ocupar cargos e realizar fun??es sem perspectivas de desenvolvimento profissional.

Excerpt: On May 21, 2016 a 31-minute audio file by Islamic State Organization (ISO) chief spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani (real name: Taha Sobhi Falaha) was uploaded by the ISO’s Al Furqan Media outlet onto the internet.

<p>Stress responsive genes play a key role in shaping the manner in which plants process and respond to environmental stress. Their gene products are linked to DNA transcription and its consequent translation into a response product. However, whilst these genes play a significant role in manufacturing responses to stressful stimuli, transcription factors coordinate access to these genes, specifically by accessing a gene&rsquo / s promoter region which houses transcription factor binding sites. Here transcriptional elements play a key role in mediating responses to environmental stress where each transcription factor binding site may constitute a potential response to a stress signal. Arabidopsis thaliana, a model organism, can be used to identify the mechanism of how transcription factors shape a plant&rsquo / s survival in a stressful environment. Whilst there are numerous plant stress research groups, globally there is a shortage of publicly available stress responsive gene databases. In addition a number of previous databases such as the Generation Challenge Programme&rsquo / s comparative plant stressresponsive gene catalogue, Stresslink and DRASTIC have become defunct whilst others have stagnated. There is currently a single Arabidopsis thaliana stress response database called STIFDB which was launched in 2008 and only covers abiotic stresses as handled by major abiotic stress responsive transcription factor families. Its data was sourced from microarray expression databases, contains numerous omissions as well as numerous erroneous entries and has not been updated since its inception.The Dragon Arabidopsis Stress Transcription Factor database (DASTF) was developed in response to the current lack of stress response gene resources. A total of 2333 entries were downloaded from SWISSPROT, manually curated and imported into DASTF. The entries represent 424 transcription factor families. Each entry has a corresponding SWISSPROT, ENTREZ GENBANK and TAIR accession number. The 5&rsquo / untranslated regions (UTR) of 417 families were scanned against TRANSFAC&rsquo / s binding site catalogue to identify binding sites. The relational database consists of two tables, namely a transcription factor table and a transcription factor family table called DASTF_TF and TF_Family respectively. Using a two-tier client-server architecture, a webserver was built with PHP, APACHE and MYSQL and the data was loaded into these tables with a PYTHON script. The DASTF database contains 60 entries which correspond to biotic stress and 167 correspond to abiotic stress while 2106 respond to biotic and/or abiotic stress. Users can search the database using text, family, chromosome and stress type search options. Online tools have been integrated into the DASTF&nbsp / database, such as HMMER, CLUSTALW, BLAST and HYDROCALCULATOR. User&rsquo / s can upload sequences to identify which transcription factor family their sequences belong to by using HMMER. The website can be accessed at http://apps.sanbi.ac.za/dastf/ and two updates per year are envisaged.</p>

Contemporary approaches to natural language processing are predominantly based on statistical machine learning from large amounts of text, which has been manually annotated with the linguistic structure of interest. However, such complete supervision is currently only available for the world's major languages, in a limited number of domains and for a limited range of tasks. As an alternative, this dissertation considers methods for linguistic structure prediction that can make use of incomplete and cross-lingual supervision, with the prospect of making linguistic processing tools more widely available at a lower cost. An overarching theme of this work is the use of structured discriminative latent variable models for learning with indirect and ambiguous supervision; as instantiated, these models admit rich model features while retaining efficient learning and inference properties. The first contribution to this end is a latent-variable model for fine-grained sentiment analysis with coarse-grained indirect supervision. The second is a model for cross-lingual word-cluster induction and the application thereof to cross-lingual model transfer. The third is a method for adapting multi-source discriminative cross-lingual transfer models to target languages, by means of typologically informed selective parameter sharing. The fourth is an ambiguity-aware self- and ensemble-training algorithm, which is applied to target language adaptation and relexicalization of delexicalized cross-lingual transfer parsers. The fifth is a set of sequence-labeling models that combine constraints at the level of tokens and types, and an instantiation of these models for part-of-speech tagging with incomplete cross-lingual and crowdsourced supervision. In addition to these contributions, comprehensive overviews are provided of structured prediction with no or incomplete supervision, as well as of learning in the multilingual and cross-lingual settings. Through careful empirical evaluation, it is established that the proposed methods can be used to create substantially more accurate tools for linguistic processing, compared to both unsupervised methods and to recently proposed cross-lingual methods. The empirical support for this claim is particularly strong in the latter case; our models for syntactic dependency parsing and part-of-speech tagging achieve the hitherto best published results for a wide number of target languages, in the setting where no annotated training data is available in the target language.