No domínio da morfologia derivacional, é difícil encontrar padrões de formação de palavras que possam se aplicar a todas as bases que se encaixam em seus contextos de aplicação. Isso equivale a dizer que a produtividade de padrões derivacionais costuma ser limitada. Entre as causas dessa limitação, vemos que formações potenciais são frequentemente bloqueadas por itens lexicais já existentes; em outros casos, elas são suplantadas por expressões formadas por padrões derivacionais concorrentes. Este trabalho dedica-se a explorar tais situações de competição. Iniciamos pelo exame da ideia de produtividade e de como entender as diferenças quantitativas entre padrões rivais quanto a este aspecto. Fazemos, em seguida, uma discussão mais detida da competição morfológica e da noção central de bloqueio, contrapondo às teorias gramaticais de base lexical uma abordagem pragmática deste fenômeno. Por fim, apresentamos o modelo desenvolvido em Albright e Hayes (1999) e em trabalhos posteriores, que explora a ideia de que o grau de confiabilidade do emprego de padrões morfológicos em diferentes contextos fonológicos é um fator determinante da produtividade desses padrões, bem como da competição entre eles. Testamos este modelo utilizando dados dos sufixos -ção e -mento, que se encontram em competição há bastante tempo no português. Estes dados provêm do Dicionário Houaiss 3.0 e de um levantamento de textos de jornais e blogs, coletados com o auxílio de programas computacionais desenvolvivdos para este trabalho. Nossos resultados sugerem que a manutenção da produtividade de -mento ao longo da história, mesmo após -ção ter se tornado o padrão dominante de nominalização, foi escorada pela existência de contextos fonológicos em que -mento atinge um alto grau de confiabilidade. Dada a produtividade da primeira conjugação, foram particularmente importantes os contextos de aplicação de -mento encontrados entre palavras desta classe verbal. Com base nestas generalizações, mostramos como um modelo estatístico é capaz de prever, na maior parte dos casos, a escolha entre estes dois afixos diante de uma nova base verbal. / In the field of derivational morphology, it is hard to find word formation patterns that may be applied to every base satisfying its context of application. This means that the productivity of derivational patterns is often limited. Among the causes of this limitation, we find that potential words are blocked by existing lexical items in many cases; in other cases, they are preempted by expressions formed by rival derivational patterns. This work devotes itself to exploring these instances of competition. We start by exploring the concept of productivity and by investigating how to understand quantitative differences between rival patterns in this respect. We then proceeed to a more detailed discussion of morphological competition and the fundamental notion of blocking, comparing a pragmatic approach to this phenomenon with lexicalist grammatical theories. Finally, we present the model of Albright e Hayes (1999) and later works, which explores the idea that the reliability of morphological patterns in different phonological contexts is a key determinant of the productivity of these patterns and the competition between them. We test this model on data formed by the suffixes -ção and -mento, which have been in competition for a long time in Portuguese. These data come from Dicionário Houaiss 3.0 and from a corpus created from newspapers and blogs with the help of software developed for this research. Our results suggest that the continued productivity of -mento throughout history, even after -ção had become the dominant nominalization pattern in the language, was supported by the existence of phonological contexts in which -mento reaches a high degree of reliability. Given the productivity of the first conjugation, contexts of application of -mento in words of this verbal class have shown to be especially important. We show that a statistical model equipped with these generalizations is able to predict the choice between these affixes in most cases.

No domínio da morfologia derivacional, é difícil encontrar padrões de formação de palavras que possam se aplicar a todas as bases que se encaixam em seus contextos de aplicação. Isso equivale a dizer que a produtividade de padrões derivacionais costuma ser limitada. Entre as causas dessa limitação, vemos que formações potenciais são frequentemente bloqueadas por itens lexicais já existentes; em outros casos, elas são suplantadas por expressões formadas por padrões derivacionais concorrentes. Este trabalho dedica-se a explorar tais situações de competição. Iniciamos pelo exame da ideia de produtividade e de como entender as diferenças quantitativas entre padrões rivais quanto a este aspecto. Fazemos, em seguida, uma discussão mais detida da competição morfológica e da noção central de bloqueio, contrapondo às teorias gramaticais de base lexical uma abordagem pragmática deste fenômeno. Por fim, apresentamos o modelo desenvolvido em Albright e Hayes (1999) e em trabalhos posteriores, que explora a ideia de que o grau de confiabilidade do emprego de padrões morfológicos em diferentes contextos fonológicos é um fator determinante da produtividade desses padrões, bem como da competição entre eles. Testamos este modelo utilizando dados dos sufixos -ção e -mento, que se encontram em competição há bastante tempo no português. Estes dados provêm do Dicionário Houaiss 3.0 e de um levantamento de textos de jornais e blogs, coletados com o auxílio de programas computacionais desenvolvivdos para este trabalho. Nossos resultados sugerem que a manutenção da produtividade de -mento ao longo da história, mesmo após -ção ter se tornado o padrão dominante de nominalização, foi escorada pela existência de contextos fonológicos em que -mento atinge um alto grau de confiabilidade. Dada a produtividade da primeira conjugação, foram particularmente importantes os contextos de aplicação de -mento encontrados entre palavras desta classe verbal. Com base nestas generalizações, mostramos como um modelo estatístico é capaz de prever, na maior parte dos casos, a escolha entre estes dois afixos diante de uma nova base verbal. / In the field of derivational morphology, it is hard to find word formation patterns that may be applied to every base satisfying its context of application. This means that the productivity of derivational patterns is often limited. Among the causes of this limitation, we find that potential words are blocked by existing lexical items in many cases; in other cases, they are preempted by expressions formed by rival derivational patterns. This work devotes itself to exploring these instances of competition. We start by exploring the concept of productivity and by investigating how to understand quantitative differences between rival patterns in this respect. We then proceeed to a more detailed discussion of morphological competition and the fundamental notion of blocking, comparing a pragmatic approach to this phenomenon with lexicalist grammatical theories. Finally, we present the model of Albright e Hayes (1999) and later works, which explores the idea that the reliability of morphological patterns in different phonological contexts is a key determinant of the productivity of these patterns and the competition between them. We test this model on data formed by the suffixes -ção and -mento, which have been in competition for a long time in Portuguese. These data come from Dicionário Houaiss 3.0 and from a corpus created from newspapers and blogs with the help of software developed for this research. Our results suggest that the continued productivity of -mento throughout history, even after -ção had become the dominant nominalization pattern in the language, was supported by the existence of phonological contexts in which -mento reaches a high degree of reliability. Given the productivity of the first conjugation, contexts of application of -mento in words of this verbal class have shown to be especially important. We show that a statistical model equipped with these generalizations is able to predict the choice between these affixes in most cases.

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / William H. Hsu / The project explores the possibility of increasing efficiency in the clusters formed out of massive data sets which are formed using threshold blocking algorithm. Clusters thus formed are denser and qualitative. Clusters that are formed out of individual clustering algorithms alone, do not necessarily eliminate outliers and the clusters generated can be complex, or improperly distributed over the data set. The threshold blocking algorithm, a current research paper from Michael Higgins of Statistics Department on other hand, in comparison with existing algorithms performs better in forming the dense and distinctive units with predefined threshold. Developing a hybridized algorithm by implementing the existing clustering algorithms to re-cluster these units thus formed is part of this project. Clustering on the seeds thus formed from threshold blocking Algorithm, eases the task of clustering to the existing algorithm by eliminating the overhead of worrying about the outliers. Also, the clusters thus generated are more representative of the whole. Also, since the threshold blocking algorithm is proven to be fast and efficient, we now can predict a lot more decisions from large data sets in less time. Predicting the similar songs from Million Song Data Set using such a hybridized algorithm is considered as the data set for the evaluation of this goal.

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / William H. Hsu / (Higgins, Savje, & Sekhon, 2016) Provides us with a sampling blocking algorithm that enables large and complex experiments to run in polynomial time without sacrificing the precision of estimates on a covariate dataset. The goal of this project is to run the different clustering algorithms on top of clusters formed from above mentioned blocking algorithm and analyze the performance and compatibility of the clustering algorithms. We first start with applying the blocking algorithm on a covariate dataset and once the clusters are formed, we then apply our clustering algorithm HAC (Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering) or PAM (Partitioning Around Medoids) on the seeds of the clusters. This will help us to generate more similar clusters. We compare our performance and precision of our hybridized clustering techniques with the pure clustering techniques to identify a suitable hybridized blocking model.

Sensory transmission was studied in trigeminal root ganglia (TRG) of guinea pigs, using intracellular recording techniques. One approach was to examine in detail the effects of applications of different K⁺-channel blockers on the membrane voltage responses and outward currents of TRG neurons, in order to better understand the fundamental processes that affect their excitabilities and repetitive spike discharge. The second approach was to examine several endogenous substances for their effects on the excitabilities of TRG neurons. In addition, a strategy was developed for electrophysiological recording from neurons in human sympathetic ganglia. Successful investigations of these neurons revealed properties similar to certain reported characteristics of sympathetic neurons in experimental animals, including high (~29 MΩ input resistances, pharmacological sensitivity of spikes to the specific Na⁺-channel blocker tetrodotoxin (TTX, 1 µM) and to selective K⁺-channel blockers -- 4-aminopyridine (4-AP, 1 mM) and tetraethylammonium (TEA, 10 mM). The investigations demonstrated the potential value of these in vitro preparations for studies of the human condition. The investigations in TRG neurons demonstrated that bath applications of TEA (0.1-10 mM) and 4-AP (0.05-5 mM) or Cs⁺ applied internally from the recording electrode, produced an increase in input resistance and a decrease threshold for spike generation in all neurons. Also, applications of 4-AP increased subthreshold oscillations of the membrane potential and enhanced the repetitive spike firing evoked by intracellular injections of current pulses, or elicited spontaneous firing. In contrast, TEA or Cs⁺ applications blocked the oscillations and the spike afterhyperpolarizations (AHPs) without exaggerating repetitive discharge. These investigations suggestedthat several pharmacologically distinct K -currents contribute to the control of excitability in TRG neurons. Comparison of combined actions of 4-AP and TEA with those of Cs⁺, suggested that other ions in addition to K⁺ may contribute to postspike events. Single electrode voltage-clamp analyses revealed transient outward currents that were evoked at the termination of hyperpolarizing voltage commands from holding potentials near -40 mV. The activation was rapid (<5ms) and inactivation (T≃19 ms) complete at potentials within the activation range (-40 to -75 mV). During combined application of TTX (1 µM) and TEA (10 mM), fast activating, sustained currents (>1 s) were evoked by depolarizing commands from holding potentials near -70 mV. These currents were blocked completely by the additional applications of 4-AP (5 mM). Applications of TEA (0.1 mM to 10 mM) produced dose-dependent reductions of the transient outward currents. Applications of Cs⁺ also blocked the currents. However, administrations of 4-AP (0.05 to 5 mM) only slightly reduced these currents and high doses of muscarinic agonists had no effect. The high sensitivity to TEA, and not to 4-AP, suggest a fundamental distinction from similar currents observed previously in other neurons of vertebrates and invertebrates, and hence this transient outward current in TRG neurons, is termed I(T)- The kinetics of I(T) suggest its involvement in the spike AHPs. Therefore, blockade of I(T) by TEA may interfere indirectly with the re-activation of voltage-dependent Na⁺-channels, leading to decreases in repetitive discharge ability. The TEA-insensitive sustained outward current presumably has an inhibiting influence on repetitive discharge. Conditions that interfere with this current, such as blockade of K⁺-channels by 4-AP without a significant blockade of I(T), strongly favour the generation of repetitive discharge in TRG neurons. The investigations using electrical stimulation of axons revealed that changes in the resting potential could inhibit the invasion of spikes into the perikarya, or facilitate the generation of ectopic spike discharges. Applications of 4-AP (1 mM) facilitated the perikaryal invasion of spikes evoked by axonal stimulation, and also resulted in the appearance of fast (~10 ms) depolarizations that reached spike threshold in the absence of applied stimuli. These investigations provided direct evidence that the perikarya of sensory neurons are capable of spike generation, and suggest that this behavior may occur in normal or pathophysiological conditions. The most notable effects of autacoids were those of substance P and histamine, whereas bradykinin did not affect neuronal membrane properties. Applications of substance P in micromolar doses evoked large (up to 45 mV), reversible depolarizations in the majority of neurons, whereas histamine applications produced similar depolarizations only in a small portion of the TRG neurons. Increases in the repetitive discharge abilities of neurons were evident during substance P-induced depolarizations. Studies on the ionic mechanism of substance P action revealed that the peptide-applications resulted in activation of inward currents as well as blockade of outward currents. In addition, it was shown that Na⁺ and Mg²⁺ were involved in the mechanism of action. These findings represent the first demonstration of the profound actions of substance P on the perikaryal membranes of sensory neurons in mammals. The excitatory actions of this endogenous peptide also give rise to the possibility of physiological actions of substance P at multiple sites in the trigeminal system. / Medicine, Faculty of / Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Department of / Graduate

Description logics are a family of logics that provide formalisms for representing and reasoning about knowledge, based on describing concepts, in a structured and formally well-understood way. They provide the logical foundation for the web ontology language (OWL), which increased awareness of them recently. The most popular techniques for decision procedures for description logics are tableau reasoning methods, which have a long tradition and are well established in automated reasoning. This thesis investigates the possibility of finding a general and optimised blocking mechanism for description logics with the finite model property. It suggests that, while the high branching factor for unrestricted blocking reduces its performance, suitable control of the application of the blocking rule can make the performance acceptable while preserving termination. This claim is supported by experiments that compare the performance of two sample controlled versions of unrestricted blocking. In order to show the generality and power of controlled versions of unrestricted blocking, it is shown how some of the mainstream and most successful standard blocking mechanisms can be approximated as restricted forms of unrestricted blocking. These approximations have the advantage of always being sound compared to their standard versions, which are known to be sound only for some logics. Here, a variation of unrestricted blocking which can ensure strong termination is also introduced. This is done through introducing a new rule that uses the inequality expressions introduced by the blocking rule. The weak termination property of unrestricted blocking is one of its weak points which by this variant of blocking can be addressed. The work presented in this thesis should be of value to people who are working on generalising different aspects of reasoning methods. As blocking plays a critical role in termination of tableau provers, exploration of different variations of unrestricted blocking introduced here may be also of interest for the artificial intelligence researcher.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / Without reverting to encapsulation, organic bulk - heterojunction solar cells can be protected from the oxidation of the highly reactive low work function cathode metal electrode, by the deposition of metal oxide buffer layers onto an indium-tin oxide (ITO) substrate. The zinc-oxide (ZnO) or titanium dioxide (TiO2) layer can serve as an electron collecting contact. In such a case the ordering of layer deposition is inverted from the traditional layer sequencing, using an additional effect of the metal oxide layer acting as a hole blocking contact

Atmospheric blocking is a synoptic-scale weather phenomenom, which might have significant economic and social impacts on account of a correlation with severe weather features, such as heat waves, persistent drought periods or floods. Several objective detection methods were developed in order to study blocking events. These methods are described and qualitatively discussed in the review part of the thesis. Chosen detection methods were subsequently used for an analysis of basic blocking characteristics over European region. Time evolution of blocking frequency and blocking duration is the key part of results, focusing on possible correlation of these characteristics with the global temperature rise within climate change.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第20875号 / 経博第570号 / 新制||経||284(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 柴田 章久, 教授 矢野 誠, 准教授 遊喜 一洋 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DGAM

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