This article analyzes the diplomatic struggle during the early stages of the Italo-Ethiopian conflict in early 1935. It is noted that the Ethiopian government at this time sought to elevate the resolution of the conflict to an international level within the League of Nations; however, Britain and France effectively supported Italy in its desire to keep discussions at the level of bilateral negotiations. The outcome of these negotiations was the signing of the Addis Ababa Agreement on March 4, 1935, which aimed to establish a neutral zone in the disputed Ogaden region, ultimately never coming into force. It is demonstrated that Italy primarily aimed to buy time to assemble a military force in East Africa sufficient to initiate war against Ethiopia, with negotiations serving this purpose from the Italian perspective. The article argues that Italy actively opposed the internationalization of the conflict and successfully delayed Ethiopia's appeal to the League of Nations by two months. It reveals that during this period, Italy consistently built up its military presence in Eritrea and Somalia, anticipating a forthcoming war against Ethiopia. It is shown that at this stage, Italy achieved its objective by creating conditions conducive to planning an invasion of Ethiopia.
Slavic languages. Baltic languages. Albanian languages
Progress in AI is hindered by the lack of a programming language with all the requisite features. Libraries like PyTorch and TensorFlow provide automatic differentiation and efficient GPU implementation, but are additions to Python, which was never intended for AI. Their lack of support for automated reasoning and knowledge acquisition has led to a long and costly series of hacky attempts to tack them on. On the other hand, AI languages like LISP and Prolog lack scalability and support for learning. This paper proposes tensor logic, a language that solves these problems by unifying neural and symbolic AI at a fundamental level. The sole construct in tensor logic is the tensor equation, based on the observation that logical rules and Einstein summation are essentially the same operation, and all else can be reduced to them. I show how to elegantly implement key forms of neural, symbolic and statistical AI in tensor logic, including transformers, formal reasoning, kernel machines and graphical models. Most importantly, tensor logic makes new directions possible, such as sound reasoning in embedding space. This combines the scalability and learnability of neural networks with the reliability and transparency of symbolic reasoning, and is potentially a basis for the wider adoption of AI.
Large language models (LLMs) have achieved notable success in code generation. However, they still frequently produce uncompilable output because their next-token inference procedure does not model formal aspects of code. Although constrained decoding is a promising approach to alleviate this issue, it has only been applied to handle either domain-specific languages or syntactic features of general-purpose programming languages. However, LLMs frequently generate code with typing errors, which are beyond the domain of syntax and generally hard to adequately constrain. To address this challenge, we introduce a type-constrained decoding approach that leverages type systems to guide code generation. For this purpose, we develop novel prefix automata and a search over inhabitable types, forming a sound approach to enforce well-typedness on LLM-generated code. We formalize our approach on a foundational simply-typed language and extend it to TypeScript to demonstrate practicality. Our evaluation on the HumanEval and MBPP datasets shows that our approach reduces compilation errors by more than half and significantly increases functional correctness in code synthesis, translation, and repair tasks across LLMs of various sizes and model families, including state-of-the-art open-weight models with more than 30B parameters. The results demonstrate the generality and effectiveness of our approach in constraining LLM code generation with formal rules of type systems.
We study the space complexity of the following problem: For a fixed regular language $L$, we receive a stream of symbols and want to test membership of a sliding window of size $n$ in $L$. For deterministic streaming algorithms we prove a trichotomy theorem, namely that the (optimal) space complexity is either constant, logarithmic or linear, measured in the window size $n$. Additionally, we provide natural language-theoretic characterizations of the space classes. We then extend the results to randomized streaming algorithms and we show that in this setting, the space complexity of any regular language is either constant, doubly logarithmic, logarithmic or linear. Finally, we introduce sliding window testers, which can distinguish whether a sliding window of size $n$ belongs to the language $L$ or has Hamming distance $> εn$ to $L$. We prove that every regular language has a deterministic (resp., randomized) sliding window tester that requires only logarithmic (resp., constant) space.
This article examines the origins of Russian hydropower in the prerevolutionary period. From the 1880s, entrepreneurs in the Russian Empire began constructing small hydroelectric power stations for industrial purposes. Despite a lack of statelevel attention for these technologies for an extended period, they were studied by the Imperial Russian Technical Society. The First World War sparked interest in hydropower among government authorities as fuel and financial crises forced the government to seek cheaper energy sources. Legislative measures for regulating the use of water bodies and the practical application of hydropower, which were carried out by the government between 1915 and 1917, received further implementation in Bolshevik Russia. The author analyzes the process of transitioning from discussions about the potential uses of hydropower to the practical implementation of the first hydroelectric projects, emphasizing the key role of the war in accelerating this transition. The source base of the study consisted of administrative documents from the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, official statistics, press materials, and scholarly literature.
Slavic languages. Baltic languages. Albanian languages
The article examines the issue of establishing the borders of the Omsk province with neighboring territories. The main directions of the delimitation processes with Siberian provinces and the Kirghiz (Kazakh) Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic are analyzed: the allocation of certain districts of the Tyumen province under the control of Omsk; the transfer of parts of the Altai and Tomsk provinces to the Omsk province; the transfer of several districts that were part of the Akmolinsk region to the Kirghiz (Kazakh) ASSR; and the dispute over the territorial affiliation of the Ishim and Pavlodar districts by Omsk. The complexity and ambiguity of territorial demarcation resulting from spontaneous changes in Russia’s administrative-territorial system during the revolutionary events of 1917, the Civil War, and the initial transformations of the Bolsheviks are demonstrated. It is revealed that the main issue was the formation of the southern border of the Omsk province with the Kirghiz (Kazakh) ASSR, which later became the state border between Russia and Kazakhstan. It is noted that the authorities of the Omsk province systematically defended territorial interests not only of their own province but also of Siberia as a whole, being key players in the region. The conclusion is drawn that thanks to the territorial shifts in southern Western Siberia, a foundation was laid for the formation of stable borders between Siberia and the Kirghiz (Kazakh) ASSR.
Slavic languages. Baltic languages. Albanian languages
This paper presents the first application of Native Language Identification (NLI) for the Turkish language. NLI is the task of automatically identifying an individual's native language (L1) based on their writing or speech in a non-native language (L2). While most NLI research has focused on L2 English, our study extends this scope to L2 Turkish by analyzing a corpus of texts written by native speakers of Albanian, Arabic and Persian. We leverage a cleaned version of the Turkish Learner Corpus and demonstrate the effectiveness of syntactic features, comparing a structural Part-of-Speech n-gram model to a hybrid model that retains function words. Our models achieve promising results, and we analyze the most predictive features to reveal L1-specific transfer effects. We make our data and code publicly available for further study.
Duncan Adamson, Pamela Fleischmann, Annika Huch
et al.
A subsequence of a word $w$ is a word $u$ such that $u = w[i_1] w[i_2] \dots w[i_{k}]$, for some set of indices $1 \leq i_1 < i_2 < \dots < i_k \leq \lvert w\rvert$. A word $w$ is $k$-subsequence universal over an alphabet $Σ$ if every word in $Σ^k$ appears in $w$ as a subsequence. In this paper, we study the intersection between the set of $k$-subsequence universal words over some alphabet $Σ$ and regular languages over $Σ$. We call a regular language $L$ \emph{$k$-$\exists$-subsequence universal} if there exists a $k$-subsequence universal word in $L$, and \emph{$k$-$\forall$-subsequence universal} if every word of $L$ is $k$-subsequence universal. We give algorithms solving the problems of deciding if a given regular language, represented by a finite automaton recognising it, is \emph{$k$-$\exists$-subsequence universal} and, respectively, if it is \emph{$k$-$\forall$-subsequence universal}, for a given $k$. The algorithms are FPT w.r.t.~the size of the input alphabet, and their run-time does not depend on $k$; they run in polynomial time in the number $n$ of states of the input automaton when the size of the input alphabet is $O(\log n)$. Moreover, we show that the problem of deciding if a given regular language is \emph{$k$-$\exists$-subsequence universal} is NP-complete, when the language is over a large alphabet. Further, we provide algorithms for counting the number of $k$-subsequence universal words (paths) accepted by a given deterministic (respectively, nondeterministic) finite automaton, and ranking an input word (path) within the set of $k$-subsequence universal words accepted by a given finite automaton.
Rust is a relatively new system programming language that has been experiencing a rapid adoption in the past 10 years. Rust incorporates a memory ownership model enforced at a compile time. Since this model involves zero runtime overhead, programs written in Rust are not only memory-safe but also fast, leading to performance comparable to C and C++. Multiple existing benchmarks comparing the performance of Rust with other languages focus on rarely used superficial algorithms, leading to somewhat inconclusive results. In this work, we conduct a comparative performance benchmark of Rust and C++ using commonly used algorithms and data structures rather than exotic ones. Our evaluation shows that the overall performance of Rust is similar to C++, with only minor disadvantage. We also demonstrate that in some Rust routines are slightly faster than the ones of C++.
Clemente Pasti, Andreas Opedal, Tiago Pimentel
et al.
The Bar-Hillel construction is a classic result in formal language theory. It shows, by a simple construction, that the intersection of a context-free language and a regular language is itself context-free. In the construction, the regular language is specified by a finite-state automaton. However, neither the original construction (Bar-Hillel et al., 1961) nor its weighted extension (Nederhof and Satta, 2003) can handle finite-state automata with $\varepsilon$-arcs. While it is possible to remove $\varepsilon$-arcs from a finite-state automaton efficiently without modifying the language, such an operation modifies the automaton's set of paths. We give a construction that generalizes the Bar-Hillel in the case where the desired automaton has $\varepsilon$-arcs, and further prove that our generalized construction leads to a grammar that encodes the structure of both the input automaton and grammar while retaining the asymptotic size of the original construction.
Corentin Barloy, Michaël Cadilhac, Charles Paperman
et al.
The regular languages with a neutral letter expressible in first-order logic with one alternation are characterized. Specifically, it is shown that if an arbitrary $Σ_2$ formula defines a regular language with a neutral letter, then there is an equivalent $Σ_2$ formula that only uses the order predicate. This shows that the so-called Central Conjecture of Straubing holds for $Σ_2$ over languages with a neutral letter, the first progress on the Conjecture in more than 20 years. To show the characterization, lower bounds against polynomial-size depth-3 Boolean circuits with constant top fan-in are developed. The heart of the combinatorial argument resides in studying how positions within a language are determined from one another, a technique of independent interest.
Alexander K. Lew, Mathieu Huot, Vikash K. Mansinghka
Automatic differentiation (AD) aims to compute derivatives of user-defined functions, but in Turing-complete languages, this simple specification does not fully capture AD's behavior: AD sometimes disagrees with the true derivative of a differentiable program, and when AD is applied to non-differentiable or effectful programs, it is unclear what guarantees (if any) hold of the resulting code. We study an expressive differentiable programming language, with piecewise-analytic primitives, higher-order functions, and general recursion. Our main result is that even in this general setting, a version of Lee et al. [2020]'s correctness theorem (originally proven for a first-order language without partiality or recursion) holds: all programs denote so-called $ω$PAP functions, and AD computes correct intensional derivatives of them. Mazza and Pagani [2021]'s recent theorem, that AD disagrees with the true derivative of a differentiable recursive program at a measure-zero set of inputs, can be derived as a straightforward corollary of this fact. We also apply the framework to study probabilistic programs, and recover a recent result from Mak et al. [2021] via a novel denotational argument.
The paper presents the structure of a multilingual dictionary of keywords, which is an integral part of the bibliographic database of Slavic linguistics iSybislaw representing the digital information retrieval system (www.isybislaw.ispan.waw.pl). The lexical units (keywords) of the language of keywords used in the system are represented primarily by linguistic terms. In spite of a different denotation – the keywords directly denote sets of documents, and indirectly the non-documentary reality, while the terms denote elements of linguistic reality – they are formally equal with linguistic terms, which allows them to map the semantic field of a particular discipline, in this case Slavic linguistics. The dictionary is therefore a domain-based online specialist dictionary, which is a tool for users of the bibliographic database of Slavic linguistics. The dictionary is addressed to all those who deal with linguistics and linguistic terminology, first of all to scholar-linguists, Ph.D. students and students of philologies, as well as translators of academic papers in the field of linguistics.
Slavic languages. Baltic languages. Albanian languages
The activities of military topographers in Western Siberia to provide cartographic information on the foreign and domestic policies of the Russian Empire in Central Asia and Siberia in the 19th century are considered in the article. The role of information in the formation of the Russian Empire is emphasized. The contribution of the state to the organization of the study of the Asian regions of Russia and neighboring countries is noted. The establishment of the military topographic service in Western Siberia can be traced taking into account data on administrative transformations in the Siberian region, and on changes in the foreign policy of the Russian Empire. The participation of military topographers in determining and designating the state border with China is described in detail. The question of the role of military topographers in the scientific study of China and Mongolia is raised. The significance of the activities of military topographers for the policy of the Russian Empire on the socio-economic development of Siberia and the north-eastern part of the territory of modern Kazakhstan is revealed. The contribution of topographers to the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, the design of river channels and new land routes is revealed. A large amount of literary sources, materials on the work of military topographers of Western Siberia, published in “Notes of the Military Topographic Department of the General Staff” is used in the article.
Slavic languages. Baltic languages. Albanian languages
This EPTCS volume contains the proceedings of the 16th Workshop on Quantitative Aspects of Programming Languages and Systems (QAPL 2019) held in Prague, Czech Republic, on Sunday 7 April 2019. QAPL 2019 was a satellite event of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software (ETAPS 2019). QAPL focuses on quantitative aspects of computations, which may refer to the use of physical quantities (time, bandwidth, etc.) as well as mathematical quantities (e.g., probabilities) for the characterisation of the behaviour and for determining the properties of systems. Such quantities play a central role in defining both the model of systems (architecture, language design, semantics) and the methodologies and tools for the analysis and verification of system properties. The aim of the QAPL workshop series is to discuss the explicit use of time and probability and general quantities either directly in the model or as a tool for the analysis or synthesis of systems. The 16th edition of QAPL also focuses on discussing the developments, challenges and results in this area covered by our workshop in its nearly 20-year history.
In 1973, Greibach ("The hardest context-free language", SIAM J. Comp., 1973) constructed a context-free language $L_0$ with the property that every context-free language can be reduced to $L_0$ by a homomorphism, thus representing it as an inverse homomorphic image $h^{-1}(L_0)$. In this paper, a similar characterization is established for a family of grammars equipped with operators for referring to the left context of any substring, recently defined by Barash and Okhotin ("An extension of context-free grammars with one-sided context specifications", Inform. Comput., 2014). An essential step of the argument is a new normal form for grammars with context operators, in which every nonterminal symbol defines only strings of odd length in left contexts of even length: the even-odd normal form. The characterization is completed by showing that the language family defined by grammars with context operators is closed under inverse homomorphisms; actually, it is closed under injective nondeterministic finite transductions.