Comparative Ergative and Accusative Structures in Three Philippine Languages

Cebuano, Filipino, and Isamal are classified as Austronesian languages that are spoken in the Philippines. This paper deals with the comparative ergative and accusative structures of the aforementioned languages with focus on the syntactic relations and processes. The varieties of these languages are the ones used in Samal Island, Davao, Philippines. Aimed at the structural configurations, the verb phrase (VP) and the tense phrase (TP) are analytically scrutinized as the cartographic projections of the lexical information encoded in the argument structures and the thematic structures of the verbs. With the employment of the Minimalist Program in the analysis, the computation includes the movement, checking of features, and assignment of theta roles within the structures of the three languages. Findings include the (1) similarity of structural relations and processes in the VP and the TP of the three languages, (2) movement of the verb from the VP to the TP, and (3) merger of the verb complements occur in the VP that ensures the local assignment of theta roles and the checking of cases.

Democratic Federalism

This chapter addresses the two weaknesses of Democratic Federalism. First, how can we guarantee all minorities are represented in the legislature? Second, how can we control the national legislature's inclination to usurp all important dimensions of public policy? The chapter evaluates the contributions of three new national institutions: first, an upper chamber called the Senate, elected not from local districts but from geographically larger provinces or states; second, a nationally elected president with agenda and veto powers over legislative decisions; and third, an independent national court to interpret the ground rules for federal governance and, in particular, what constitutes meaningful local assignment and full representation of all citizens. In addition to these three constitutionally created institutions, it also considers the ability of national political parties, if they were to arise, to foster minority representation and to control an overreaching national legislature. Each of these four safeguards contributes positively to the performance of Democratic Federalism, but only if a majority of all citizens understands and support the ongoing contribution of these institutions to the goals of economic efficiency, democratic participation, and protection of rights.

Economic Federalism

This chapter examines, both theoretically and empirically, the causal connections from multiple local and provincial governments and their local assignment of revenues and services to the three goals of economic efficiency, political participation, and the protection of rights and liberties. Economic Federalism does not require the direct representation of provincial or local governments within the central government. Rather, the central government is managed by a single leader, a president, elected nationally. The president makes and implements all national policies. The chapter then reviews the theory and evidence as to the performance of competitive lower-tier governments and finds that allowing citizens variety and choice provides significant economic benefits in efficiency and growth. Matters are less clear for how Economic Federalism might perform against the goals of democratic participation and the protection of rights and liberties.

Mixed Global and Local Assignment Algorithms for Quasi-Dynamic Local Truckload Trucking Operations with Strict Time Windows

Examined are the trade-offs associated with local and global, but myopic, assignment heuristics for local truckload trucking operations such as those associated with drayage operations near intermodal facilities. These operations involve a combination of loads that are known at the beginning of the day and those that arrive dynamically throughout the day. Some of the dynamically arriving loads are revenue-generating moves, and others are trailer, chassis, or container repositioning moves. Because a significant fraction of the day’s loads are known a priori, dispatchers would like to be able to construct schedules for the day and then to make minor changes to these schedules as the day progresses. The efficiency of an operation in which new loads are added to or appended to schedules constructed at the start of the day versus one in which the whole system is reoptimized several times during the day is examined. The reoptimization method does not seek to preserve current schedules, but the local optimization techniques do. Solutions were examined with a geographic information system-based simulation model developed for this purpose.

The Concave Cusp as a Determiner of Figure—Ground

The tendency to interpret as figure, relative to background, those regions that are lighter, smaller, and, especially, more convex is well known. Wherever convex opaque objects abut or partially occlude one another in an image, the points of contact between the silhouettes form concave cusps, each indicating the local assignment of figure versus ground across the contour segments. It is proposed that this local geometric feature is a preattentive determiner of figure—ground perception and that it contributes to the previously observed tendency for convexity preference. Evidence is presented that figure—ground assignment can be determined solely on the basis of the concave cusp feature, and that the salience of the cusp derives from local geometry and not from adjacent contour convexity.