Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of contact on native language pronunciation in an L2 migrant setting*

The primary aim of this study was to determine whether native speakers of German living in either Canada or the Netherlands are perceived to have a foreign accent in their native German speech. German monolingual listeners (n = 19) assessed global foreign accent of 34 L1 German speakers in Anglophone Canada, 23 L1 German speakers in the Dutch Netherlands, and five German monolingual controls in Germany. The experimental subjects had moved to either Canada or the Netherlands at an average age of 27 years and had resided in their country of choice for an average of 37 years. The results revealed that the German listeners were more likely to perceive a global foreign accent in the German speech of the consecutive bilinguals in Anglophone Canada and the Dutch Netherlands than in the speech of the control group and that nine immigrants to Canada and five immigrants to the Netherlands were clearly perceived to be non-native speakers of German. Further analysis revealed that quality and quantity of contact with the native German language had a more significant effect on predicting global foreign accent in native speech than age of arrival or length of residence. Two types of contact were differentiated: (i) C−M represented communicative settings in which little code-mixing between the L1 and L2 was expected to occur, and (ii) C+M represented communicative settings in which code-mixing was expected to be more likely. The variable C−M had a significant impact on predicting foreign accent in native speech, whereas the variable C+M did not. The results suggest that contact with the L1 through communicative settings in which code-mixing is inhibited is especially conducive to maintaining the stability of native language pronunciation in consecutive bilinguals living in a migrant context.
Interpreting long-term trends in time series intervention studies of smoke-free legislation and health

Background: Numerous studies have investigated the impact of smoke-free laws on health outcomes. Large differences in estimates are in part attributable to how the long-term trend is modelled. However, the choice of appropriate trend is not always straightforward. We explore these complexities in an analysis of myocardial infarction (MI) mortality in England before and after the introduction of smoke-free legislation in July 2007. Methods: Weekly rates of MI mortality among men aged 40+ between July 2002 and December 2010 were analysed using quasi-Poisson generalised additive models. We explore two ways of modelling the long-term trend: (1) a parametric approach, where we fix the shape of the trend, and (2) a penalised spline approach, in which we allow the model to decide on the shape of the trend. Results: While both models have similar measures of fit and near identical fitted values, they have different interpretations of the legislation effect. The parametric approach estimates a significant immediate reduction in mortality rate of 13.7% (95% CI: 7.5, 19.5), whereas the penalised spline approach estimates a non-significant reduction of 2% (95% CI:-0.9, 4.8). After considering the implications of the models, evidence from sensitivity analyses and other studies, we conclude that the second model is to be preferred. Conclusions: When there is a strong long-term trend and the intervention of interest also varies over time, it is difficult for models to separate out the two components. Our recommendations will help further studies determine the best way of modelling their data.
A Possible Stress Interaction between Large Thrust and Normal Faulting Earthquakes in the Mexican Subduction Zone

Abstract A large, nearly vertical, normal-faulting earthquake (Mw = 7.1) took place in 1997 in the subducting Cocos plate just beneath the ruptured fault zone of the 1985 Michoacan, Mexico, earthquake (Mw = 8.1). We investigate the possibility of stress interaction between the two large events through a 3D analysis of coseismic- stress change that was due to the first event, taking into consideration the postseismic change and the dynamic rupture process of the second event. In the middle portion of the subducting plate at depths below 30 km, the calculated coseismic increase in the vertical-shear stress and in the Coulomb-failure stress beneath the high stress- drop zones of the 1985 earthquake is in the order of 0.4 to 0.8 MPa. It was also found that the 1997 earthquake took place in the zone of maximum coseismic-stress increase. Possible postseismic-stress changes due to the subduction process or to the loading of the overriding continental lithosphere and from aseismic slip would enhance the coseismic-stress change and hence the possibility of occurrence of a normal-faulting earthquake in the subducting plate. The dynamic rupture pattern of the 1997 event seems to be consistent with the inferred stress interactions. Introduction A large, nearly vertical, normal-faulting earthquake (Mw = 7.1) occurred on 11 January 1997 beneath the Mi- choacan segment of the Mexican subduction zone (Santoyo
Identifying Farmers' Interest in Growing Switchgrass for Bioenergy in Southern Virginia

Several factors are generating interest in growing switchgrass for energy. To understand farmers' perspectives on possible switchgrass cultivation, Cooperative Extension conducted a survey in south-central and southwestern Virginia. The survey found that 66% of respondents had heard of using switchgrass for bioenergy, yet only 43% indicated they would be interested in cultivating switchgrass even if the enterprise were profitable. Reluctance to consider growing a potentially profitable crop is likely due to an underdeveloped market and lack of familiarity with switchgrass culture. The results indicate an important role for Extension in conveying technical information to producers as biofuel markets develop. Identifying Farmers' Interest in Growing Switchgrass for Bioenergy in Southern Virginia 10/26/09 08:07:49
La psychologie de la race allemande, d'après ses caractères objectifs et spécifiques...

2 Documents about the work La psychologie de la race allemande, d'après ses caractères objectifs et spécifiques. (1917) / Edgar Bérillon (1859-1948) . 2 Pages in data.bnf. fr . 2 Related authors . 2 This page in data.bnf. fr lab . 2 Sources and references . 2 Link to the main catalogue . 2 Sources
rgarch: A package for flexible GARCH modelling in R. (Version 1.89)

Since Mandelbrot (1963), researchers have discovered numerous statistical properties in real market time series that contradict the theoretical results of their models. These so called stylized facts1, together with the paradigm shift away from the completely rational, representative agent to a boundedly rational, heterogeneous agent, has motivated researchers to model financial markets with a new set of tools, distributions and models. Among these, the pioneering work of Box, Jenkins and Reinsel (1970) in the area of autoregressive moving average models paved the way for related work in the area of volatility modelling with the introduction of ARCH and then GARCH models by Engle (1982) and Bollerslev (1986), respectively. In terms of the statistical framework, these models provide motion dynamics for the dependency in the conditional time variation of the distributional parameters of the mean and variance, in an attempt to capture such phenomena as autocorrelation in returns and squared returns. Extensions to these models have included more sophisticated dynamics such as threshold models to capture the asymmetry in the news impact, as well as distributions other than the normal to account for the skewness and excess kurtosis observed in practice. In a further extension, Hansen (1994) generalized the GARCH models to capture time variation in the full density parameters, with the Autoregressive Conditional Density Model2, relaxing the assumption that the conditional distribution of the standardized innovations is independent of the conditioning information. The rgarch package aims to provide for a comprehensive set of methods for modelling univariate and multivariate GARCH processes, including fitting, filtering, forecasting, simulation as well as diagnostic tools including plots and various tests. Additional methods such as rolling estimation, bootstrap forecasting and simulated parameter density to evaluate model uncertainty provide a rich environment for the modelling of these processes. This documents discusses the finer details of the included models and conditional distributions and how they are implemented in the package with numerous examples. The first part of the document discusses the univariate models and their methods, while the second part delves into the newer multivariate models which I have chosen to include and some discussion on the choice of models and their feasibility for high dimensional estimation. The package is provided AS IS, without any implied warranty as to its accuracy or suitability. A lot of time and effort has gone into the development of this package, and it is offered under the GPL-3 license in the spirit of open knowledge sharing and dissemination. If you do use the model in published work DO remember to cite the package and author, and if you have used it and found it useful, drop me a note and let me know. A section on FAQ is included which deals with some often asked questions.
Is the Current Diagnosis of Schizophrenia Useful or Harmful

In recent decades, evidence has appeared in various scientific fields—genetic, psychopharmacological, neuro-psychological, etc.—which makes it difficult to maintain the positive and negative syndrome of schizophrenia under one and the same diagnosis. On the other hand, there are social and legal reasons recommending the conception of these two syndromes as different entities. In this paper, we conduct appropriate bibliographical researches to reveal these evidences. We discuss these findings and conclude proposing the split of positive and negative syndromes of schizophrenia in two different disorders.
RISK AVERSE TWO-STAGE STOCHASTIC OPTIMIZATION MODEL FOR THE ELECTRIC POWER GENERATION CAPACITY EXPANSION PROBLEM

We consider the optimal electric power generation capacity expansion problem, over a multiyear time horizon, of a price-taker power producer who has to choose among thermal power plants and power plants using renewable energy sources (RES), while taking into account regulatory constraints on CO2 emissions, incentives to generation from RES and risk due to fuel price volatility which affects the generation variable costs. A two-stage stochastic mixed integer model is developed that determines the number of new power plants for each chosen technology, as well as the years in which the construction of the new power plants is to begin. The solution allows determining the evolution of the power producer’s generation system along the time horizon, so that the expected total profit is maximized, with revenues from sale of electricity and of Green Certificates and costs for the annual debt repayment of new power plants, purchase costs of CO2 emission permits and of Green Certificates, fixed and variable production costs of new power plants and of power plants owned by the producer at the beginning of the planning period. Alternative risk measures are considered and tested.
Introductory Chapter: The Importance of Astrocytes in the Research of CNS Diseases

Glial cells were identified for the first time in the nineteenth century when the French physician René Dutrochet described for the first time, in 1824, small globules among the large ones within the mollusk nervous system. However, we have to wait until 1856 when the German pathologist Rudolph Virchow coined the term “nervekitt,” nerve glue, to describe that sort of connective tissue of the central nervous system. Subsequently, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, Pio del Rio Hortega, and Otto Deiters pioneered this field with their experiments and gave them the name “glia” derived from the ancient Greek word that means glue. At that time, glia was considered as purely unfunctional glue for neurons [1]. However, research since the mid1990 has shown that glia might play a particularly important role in the cognitive function as indicated by the correlation between the glia/neuron ratio in brain tissue and the state of evolution of species [2]. In fact, C. elegans possesses only 52 glial cells versus 302 neurons with a glia-to-neuron ratio of 0.18 [3], whereas the whole human-adult brain has a one-to-one ratio [4] and with a ratio of 1.4 in the cerebral cortex [5]. Moreover, comparison of glia-to-neuron ratio in different human cortical areas with that of macaques displayed a significant augmentation of the ratio in humans [6]. In the CNS, glia includes astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, microglia, and their progenitors NG2 glia and decades of studies demonstrated that they have a specific role in brain tissue homeostasis. In particular, astrocytes, whose name derived from Greek and means “star-like cell,” are active dynamic signaling players of the central nervous system. They are key regulators of synaptic activity and plasticity, neural network, and cognitive functions controlling extracellular ion balance and neurotransmitter homeostasis. They perform many functions, including biochemical support of endothelial cells that form the blood-brain barrier, provision of nutrients to the nervous tissue, and regulation of neurogenesis and brain wiring [7]. Dysfunction of astrocytes can thereby induce major alterations
Fluvial morphology and sediment transport of the Malekhu Khola, Central Nepal Lesser Himalaya.

Areas near the rivers and streams have been widely used for settlement, development works and agriculture due to availability of the resources such as water, aggregates and comparatively easier terrain. It is very important to understand prevailing fluvial conditions for sustainable output. The fluvial conditions of the Malekhu Watershed including the river characteristics, sediment transport and sediment dynamics were studied. Ten river transects and the corresponding segments of the Malekhu Khola were surveyed for cross-sections and longitudinal profiles. Samples were collected in each of the transects and were analysed for suspended sediment concentration. The riverbed sampling was made using Wolman’s pebble count for establishing grain size distribution. Manning’s roughness coefficients were determined to estimate discharge. The study shows that the Malekhu Khola is a sixth order stream. It has been classified into A4-, B4- and C4-type streams. The hypsometric analysis of the Malekhu Watershed shows that it is in mature stage of erosion. Sediment grain size slightly increases downstream but sorting remains extremely poor to moderately poor. The Malekhu Khola shows eroding tendency at 1.2 km, 16.6 km and 20 km from the origin and brings larger particles only during high flow period at the remaining transects. Mean Suspended Sediment Concentrations (SSC) for the Malekhu Khola was 72.14 mg/L, and it increases with increasing discharge and increasing watershed area and is related to velocity of the river, mining activities and local tributaries. Bulletin of the Department of Geology, Vol. 18, 2015, pp. 35-48
The Graphical User Interface of the Operator of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next generation gamma-ray observatory. CTA will incorporate about 100 imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) at a southern site, and about 20 in the north. Previous IACT experiments have used up to five telescopes. Subsequently, the design of a graphical user interface (GUI) for the operator of CTA poses an interesting challenge. In order to create an effective interface, the CTA team is collaborating with experts from the field of Human-Computer Interaction. We present here our GUI prototype. The back-end of the prototype is a Python Web server. It is integrated with the observation execution system of CTA, which is based on the Alma Common Software (ACS). The back-end incorporates a redis database, which facilitates synchronization of GUI panels. redis is also used to buffer information collected from various software components and databases. The front-end of the prototype is based on Web technology. Communication between Web server and clients is performed using Web Sockets, where graphics are generated with the d3.js Javascript library.
Inference from Discrete Life History Data: a Counting Process Approach

This paper outlines the scope of the counting process techniques for life history data in the discrete time set-up. We give a weak convergence theorem for discrete martingales. The convergence is in the space of all real sequences endowed with the Frechet metric, as the number of subjects go to infinity. While some results are easier to derive than in the continuous case, the possibility of multiple jumps causes complication. Subsequently the issues of estimation, testing and regression are discussed. Relationship of the present framework with the other works in this area is also pointed out. Since the first use of the counting process theory for the analysis of life history data by Aalen (1975, 1978), several researchers have advocated a discrete time formulation of the same. The two major arguments against continuous time set-up are as follows. The counting process approach demands accurate observation of time, as pointed out by Arjas (1985). Inaccuracy of measurements sometimes leads to tied event times, which is treated in an ad hoc manner. Secondly, grouping of data over a time interval is often necessary because of cost and feasibility considerations. This makes the continuous time results unsuitable for direct application. A third argument which can also be used is that discrete data may arise naturally in machines such as computers and computer-controlled devices which operate with a digital clock. Hjort (1985) considered grouped and partially censored survival data. He obtained the exact maximum likelihood estimator of the discrete time cumulative failure rate, and suggested that its distribution should be closely related to that of the Nelson-Aalen estimator when the bin width goes to zero at a suitable rate, as the number of subjects go to infinity. In a subsequent paper (Hjort, 1990b) he dealt with non-parametric Bayes estimators in this context. Arjas & Haara (1987) investigated a discrete time logistic regression model. They established the asymptotic normality of the regression coefficient estimators via a martingale convergence theorem, as the observation time goes to infinity. The authors used this approach again for a generalized Cox regression model; see Arjas & Haara (1988). The approach taken in this paper is similar to that of Hjort (1985), although we do not make any assumption about the origin of the discrete data. The asymptotic arguments, as the number of individuals go to infinity, follow directly from a discrete martingale invariance principle. Since the data need not be the sampled version of a continuous process, the time interval between the discrete points is not assumed to go to zero.
Gibrat's Law and the Firm Size / Firm Growth Relationship in Italian Services

Several surveys on intra-industry dynamics have recently reached the conclusion from a large body of evidence that Gibrat's Law does not hold, i.e., the main finding is that firm growth decreases with firm size. However, almost all of these studies have been based on manufacturing. In this paper - in search of further evidence supporting the results recently obtained for a large sample of Dutch firms in the hospitality industry - we examine whether the assumption that growth rates are independent of firm size can be rejected for the services, as it has been for manufacturing, also in the case of Italy. Based on a large sample of Italian new-born firms in five business groups in the hospitality industry, the evidence suggests that growth rates are, in fact, independent of firm size in two business groups, while Gibrat's Law is rejected for the remaining three business groups and for the industry as a whole. These mixed results concerning Gibrat's Law in the services are consistent with the hypothesis that the dynamics of industrial organisation for services may not simply mirror that for manufacturing. Besides, the findings in this paper support the hypothesis that any general conclusion concerning Gibrat's Law cannot be reached without considering heterogeneity, at least among firms of different industries.
Time to Decide: The Effect of Early Agreements on Legislative Duration in the EU

The increased use of early agreements in the EU co-decision procedure raises the concern that intra and inter-institutional political debate is sacrificed for the sake of efficiency. We investigate the effect of early agreements (trilogues) on the time it takes for legislation to be negotiated during the first reading of co-decision. We find that the first reading negotiations of trilogues on salient legislation take longer than first readings of similar files reconciled at second and third reading. First readings of early agreements also appear to last longer when considering all co-decision files submitted to the 5th and 6th European Parliaments, but the effect is masked by a general increase in first reading duration after 2004. We conclude that even if early agreements restrict access of certain actors to decision making, they allow for more time for substantive debate at the first reading stage than similar files reconciled later in the legislative process.
Assessing the hydraulic conductivity beneath clay-lined earthen manure storages

Sri Ranjan, R. , Manokararajah, K. and Wiebe, C. 2005. Assessing the hydraulic conductivity beneath clay-lined earthen manure storages. Canadian Biosystems Engineering/Le genie des biosystemes au Canada 47: 6.1-6.7. Earthen manure storages are an economical way to store liquid hog manure during the winter months for subsequent land application. The manure is mechanically agitated prior to injecting on adjacent fields. Even though the clay-lined earthen manure storages are constructed according to guidelines, which set the maximum saturated hydraulic conductivity of the earthen liner to less than 10 m/s (The Environment Act 1998), the long term integrity of the clay beneath the storage has not been clearly established. A protocol has been developed to successfully collect core samples and test for the integrity of the clay liner beneath earthen manure storages. Using the falling head permeameter method, significant difference (p = 0.005) in saturated hydraulic conductivity was observed between liner samples (n = 24) collected from the bottom and the sides of the manure storage. Significant differences (p = 0.018) were also observed in saturated hydraulic conductivities measured using confining pressures of 20 and 35 kPa (n = 19). The results show the critical need to define the confining pressure at which the falling head permeameter tests should be carried out. Previous research has shown that earthen manure storages have the ability to self-seal/clog due to the settling of biosolids. However, the sealing ability of the biosolids was found to be marginal. The impact of freeze/thaw and wetting/drying cycles was also found to be marginal.