bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Developing and evaluating an oral skills training website supported by automatic speech recognition technology
Authors: Chen Howard Hao-Jan
Published: January 2011

Oral communication ability has become increasingly important to many EFL students. Several commercial software programs based on automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies are available but their prices are not affordable for many students. This paper will demonstrate how the Microsoft Speech Application Software Development Kit (SASDK), a free but powerful tool, can be used to develop an oral skills training website for EFL students. This ASR-based website offers six different types of online exercises which allow students to practise their oral skills and obtain immediate feedback on their performance. A group of 25 college students and a group of 35 pre-service English teachers were invited to use the website. Two surveys were conducted to investigate the students’ and the pre-service teachers’ perceptions of this site. The results indicated that most teachers and students enjoyed using this website, which they felt could help improve their English oral skills. They also pointed out that the main strength of the ASR-based learning system is that it offers several different types of exercises which can encourage learners to produce more output in a low-anxiety environment. The major limitations of the website are the insufficient feedback and the challenging standards one must meet in order to achieve a pass mark. These findings can be useful for teachers who are interested in using ASR in teaching and for CALL researchers who aim to develop better ASR-based systems for language learning.
The ageing cardiovascular system
Authors: Bolton Emily , Rajkumar Chakravarthi
Published: January 2011

The increase in the ageing population has generated much interest and research into what constitutes normal ageing. By identifying normal ageing processes it is hoped it will be possible to distinguish risk factors for the development of abnormal or premature ageing.

This review discusses biological, structural and mechanical changes in the cardiovascular system with ageing that are thought to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease with ageing. Contributory factors are thought to be genetic and lifestyle related. Measurements of biological as opposed to chronological ageing such as vascular stiffness are explored as a possible useful predictor of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, indicating its possible utilization as a non-invasive screening tool in older people.

The identification of those at risk of cardiovascular disease and modification of risk factors may minimize interactions of the ageing process and therefore reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease within the UK population.
Historical and current status of vultures in Myanmar
Authors: HLA HTIN , SHWE NAY MYO , WIN HTUN THURA , ZAW SAO MYO , MAHOOD SIMON , EAMES JONATHAN C. , PILGRIM JOHN D.
Published: January 2011

Concerns for the long-term survival of vulture populations on the Indian Subcontinent, owing to widespread poisoning by the veterinary drug diclofenac, have led to increased conservation focus on South-East Asian countries where diclofenac is not used and relict populations of vultures occur. We document here how White-rumped, Slender-billed and Red-headed Vultures have declined substantially in abundance and contracted in range in Myanmar over the last 50 years. Using a vulture restaurant method we determined that the population of vultures in Myanmar is at least 136 individuals, made up of at least: 62 White-rumped Vultures, 21 Slender-billed Vultures, 51 Himalayan Vultures and two Red-headed Vultures. The decline in the resident Gyps species is most likely due to declines in wild ungulate populations. Our population estimates are provisional and the survey covered only a proportion of the possible vulture range within Myanmar. Himalayan Vultures were not recorded in Myanmar in historical times, and possible reasons for the recent upsurge in records are discussed. Myanmar presents an opportunity of global significance for vulture conservation, due to the persistence of three Critically Endangered vulture species in a country where diclofenac is not used.
Embryotoxicity and fetotoxicity following intraperitoneal administrations of hexavalent chromium to pregnant rats
Authors: Marouani Neila , Tebourbi Olfa , Mokni Moncef , Yacoubi Mohamed Tahar , Sakly Mohsen , Benkhalifa Moncef , Ben Rhouma Khémais
Published: January 2011

Heavy metals are omnipresent in the environment, and industrial use has greatly increased their presence in soil, water and air. Their inevitable transfer to the human food chain remains an important environmental issue as many heavy metals cause a range of toxic effects, including developmental toxicity. Administration of chromium VI (1 and 2 mg/kg as potassium dichromate) through intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection during organogenesis (days 6 to 15 of gestation) in rats revealed embryo- and fetotoxic effects. Reduced fetal weight, retarded fetal development, number of fetuses per mother and high incidences of dead fetuses and resorptions in treated mothers were also observed. Gross morphological abnormalities, such as displayed form of edema, facial defect, lack of tail, hypotrophy, severs subdermal haemorrhage patches and hypotrophy of placenta were observed in fetuses after chromium VI-treated mothers. A skeletal development of fetuses presented an incomplete ossification in nasal, cranium, abdominal or caudal bones in rats treated with 1 mg/kg of chromium, whereas rats treated with 2 mg/kg showed ossification and absence of the sacral vertebrae compared with the control. At a higher dose of chromium, histological changes were found in fetuses with atrophy of theirs vital organs. Placental histological observations revealed a pronounced morphological alteration, with atrophy of decidual cells, a degenerated of chorionic villi and hypertrophy of blood lacuna. The present study suggests a risk to the developing embryo when the mother is exposed to a high concentration of chromium VI during organogenesis.
Modeling reciprocity in social interactions with probabilistic latent space models
Authors: GIRJU ROXANA , PAUL MICHAEL J.
Published: January 2011

Reciprocity is a pervasive concept that plays an important role in governing people's behavior, judgments, and thus their social interactions. In this paper we present an analysis of the concept of reciprocity as expressed in English and a way to model it. At a larger structural level the reciprocity model will induce representations and clusters of relations between interpersonal verbs. In particular, we introduce an algorithm that semi-automatically discovers patterns encoding reciprocity based on a set of simple yet effective pronoun templates. Using the most frequently occurring patterns we queried the web and extracted 13,443 reciprocal instances, which represent a broad-coverage resource. Unsupervised clustering procedures are performed to generate meaningful semantic clusters of reciprocal instances. We also present several extensions (along with observations) to these models that incorporate meta-attributes like the verbs' affective value, identify gender differences between participants, consider the textual context of the instances, and automatically discover verbs with certain presuppositions. The pattern discovery procedure yields an accuracy of 97 per cent, while the clustering procedures – clustering with pairwise membership and clustering with transitions – indicate accuracies of 91 per cent and 64 per cent, respectively. Our affective value clustering can predict an unknown verb's affective value (positive, negative, or neutral) with 51 per cent accuracy, while it can discriminate between positive and negative values with 68 per cent accuracy. The presupposition discovery procedure yields an accuracy of 97 per cent.
An information-theoretic, vector-space-model approach to cross-language information retrieval
Authors: CHEW PETER A. , BADER BRETT W. , HELMREICH STEPHEN , ABDELALI AHMED , VERZI STEPHEN J.
Published: January 2011

In this article, we demonstrate several novel ways in which insights from information theory (IT) and computational linguistics (CL) can be woven into a vector-space-model (VSM) approach to information retrieval (IR). Our proposals focus, essentially, on three areas: pre-processing (morphological analysis), term weighting, and alternative geometrical models to the widely used term-by-document matrix. The latter include (1) PARAFAC2 decomposition of a term-by-document-by-language tensor, and (2) eigenvalue decomposition of a term-by-term matrix (inspired by Statistical Machine Translation). We evaluate all proposals, comparing them to a ‘standard’ approach based on Latent Semantic Analysis, on a multilingual document clustering task. The evidence suggests that proper consideration of IT within IR is indeed called for: in all cases, our best results are achieved using the information-theoretic variations upon the standard approach. Furthermore, we show that different information-theoretic options can be combined for still better results. A key function of language is to encode and convey information, and contributions of IT to the field of CL can be traced back a number of decades. We think that our proposals help bring IR and CL more into line with one another. In our conclusion, we suggest that the fact that our proposals yield empirical improvements is not coincidental given that they increase the theoretical transparency of VSM approaches to IR; on the contrary, they help shed light on why aspects of these approaches work as they do.
Machine learning for query formulation in question answering
Authors: MONZ CHRISTOF
Published: January 2011

Research on question answering dates back to the 1960s but has more recently been revisited as part of TREC's evaluation campaigns, where question answering is addressed as a subarea of information retrieval that focuses on specific answers to a user's information need. Whereas document retrieval systems aim to return the documents that are most relevant to a user's query, question answering systems aim to return actual answers to a users question. Despite this difference, question answering systems rely on information retrieval components to identify documents that contain an answer to a user's question. The computationally more expensive answer extraction methods are then applied only to this subset of documents that are likely to contain an answer. As information retrieval methods are used to filter the documents in the collection, the performance of this component is critical as documents that are not retrieved are not analyzed by the answer extraction component. The formulation of queries that are used for retrieving those documents has a strong impact on the effectiveness of the retrieval component. In this paper, we focus on predicting the importance of terms from the original question. We use model tree machine learning techniques in order to assign weights to query terms according to their usefulness for identifying documents that contain an answer. Term weights are learned by inspecting a large number of query formulation variations and their respective accuracy in identifying documents containing an answer. Several linguistic features are used for building the models, including part-of-speech tags, degree of connectivity in the dependency parse tree of the question, and ontological information. All of these features are extracted automatically by using several natural language processing tools. Incorporating the learned weights into a state-of-the-art retrieval system results in statistically significant improvements in identifying answer-bearing documents.
Collective action for watershed management: field experiments in Colombia and Kenya
Authors: CARDENAS JUAN CAMILO , RODRIGUEZ LUZ ANGELA , JOHNSON NANCY
Published: January 2011

The collective action problem around water use and management involves solving both the problems of provision and appropriation. Cooperation in the provision can be affected by the rival nature of appropriation and the asymmetries in access. We report the results of two field experiments conducted in Colombia and Kenya. Theirrigation gamewas used to explore the provision and appropriation decisions under asymmetric or sequential appropriation, complemented by avoluntary contribution mechanismexperiment which looks at provision decisions under symmetric appropriation. The overall results were consistent with the patterns of previous studies: the zero contribution hypotheses is rejected whereas the most effective institution to increase cooperation was face-to-face communication, although we find that communication works much more effectively in Colombia than in Kenya. We also find that the asymmetric appropriation did reduce cooperation, though the magnitude of the social loss and the effectiveness of alternative institutional options varied across sites.
Assessing lifetime diet: reproducibility of a self-administered, non-quantitative FFQ
Authors: Hosking Diane , Danthiir Vanessa , Nettelbeck Ted , Wilson Carlene
Published: January 2011

Objective

To demonstrate test–retest reliability (reproducibility) of a new self-administered lifetime diet questionnaire, with a focus on foods relevant to cognitive health in older age.

Design

The reproducibility of dietary recall over four or five life periods was assessed by administering the questionnaire at two time points to an older cohort. The period between questionnaire administrations was 7 weeks. Polychoric correlations measured the association between recall at time 1 and time 2 and the weightedκstatistic measured the level of recall agreement for food groups across the two administrations of the questionnaire.

Setting

Adelaide, South Australia.

Subjects

Fifty-two cognitively healthy, older-age, community-dwelling adults completed the Lifetime Diet Questionnaire; mean age 81·8 (sd4·4) years, range 70–90 years.

Results

The questionnaire showed very good reproducibility in this sample with a mean polychoric correlation coefficient of 0·81 between administration at time 1 and time 2, and an average weightedκof 0·49 for the level of recall agreement between food groups.

Conclusions

The demonstrated reliability of this lifetime diet questionnaire makes it a useful tool to assess potential relationships between long-term dietary intake and later-age cognitive outcomes.
Expression and Deposition of Fibrous Extracellular Matrix Proteins in Cardiac Valves during Chick Development
Authors: Tan Hong , Junor Lorain , Price Robert L. , Norris Russell A. , Potts Jay D. , Goodwin Richard L.
Published: January 2011

Extracellular matrix (ECM) plays essential signaling and structural roles required for the proper function of cardiac valves. Cardiac valves initially form as jelly-like cushions, which must adapt to withstand the increased circulation hemodynamics associated with fetal development and birth. This increased biomechanical stability of the developing valves is largely imparted by ECM proteins, which form a highly organized fibrous meshwork. Since heart valve defects contribute to most congenital heart diseases, understanding valve development will provide insight into the pathogenesis of various congenital valve anomalies. Thus, the goal of this study is to describe the spatiotemporal deposition of fibrous ECM proteins during cardiac valve development. Chick embryonic and fetal atrioventricular and semilunar valves were examined by light, confocal, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Our data demonstrate that fibrous ECM proteins are deposited when the leaflets are adopting an elongated and compacted phenotype. A general pattern of increased fibrotic ECM deposition was detected in valve tissues. Also, each ECM protein examined displayed a unique pattern of organization, suggesting that regulation of fibrous protein deposition is complex and likely involves both genetic and mechanical factors. In addition, the TEM study revealed the presence of membrane protrusions from valvular endocardium, indicating a potential mechanism for mechanical force transduction.
Monitoring astrocyte calcium microdomains with improved membrane targeted GCaMP reporters
Authors: Shigetomi Eiji , Kracun Sebastian , Khakh Baljit S.
Published: January 2011

Astrocytes are involved in synaptic and cerebrovascular regulation in the brain. These functions are regulated by intracellular calcium signalling that is thought to reflect a form of astrocyte excitability. In a recent study, we reported modification of the genetically encoded calcium indicator (GECI) GCaMP2 with a membrane-tethering domain, Lck, to generate Lck-GCaMP2. This GECI allowed us to detect novel microdomain calcium signals. The microdomains were random and ‘spotty’ in nature. In order to detect such signals more reliably, in the present study we further modified Lck-GCaMP2 to carry three mutations in the GCaMP2 moiety (M153K, T203V within EGFP and N60D in the CaM domain) to generate Lck-GCaMP3. We directly compared Lck-GCaMP2 and Lck-GCaMP3 by assessing their ability to monitor several types of astrocyte calcium signals with a focus on spotty microdomains. Our data show that Lck-GCaMP3 is between two- and four-times better than Lck-GCaMP2 in terms of its basal fluorescence intensity, signal-to-noise and its ability to detect microdomains. The use of Lck-GCaMP3 thus represents a significantly improved way to monitor astrocyte calcium signals, including microdomains, and will facilitate detailed exploration of their molecular mechanisms and physiological roles.
A discrete choice experiment investigating preferences for funding drugs used to treat orphan diseases: an exploratory study
Authors: Mentzakis Emmanouil , Stefanowska Patricia , Hurley Jeremiah
Published: January 2011

Policy debate about funding criteria for drugs used to treat rare, orphan diseases is gaining prominence. This study presents evidence from a discrete choice experiment using a convenience sample of university students to investigate individual preferences regarding public funding for drugs used to treat rare diseases and common diseases. This pilot study finds that: other things equal, the respondents do not prefer to have the government spend more for drugs used to treat rare diseases; that respondents are not willing to pay more per life year gained for a rare disease than a common disease; and that respondents weigh relevant attributes of the coverage decisions (e.g. costs, disease severity and treatment effectiveness) similarly for both rare and common diseases. The results confirm the importance of severity and treatment effectiveness in preferences for public funding. Although this is the first study of its kind, the results send a cautionary message regarding the special treatment of orphan drugs in coverage decision-making.
The foundation is solid, if you know where to look: comment on Felin and Foss
Authors: PENTLAND BRIAN T.
Published: January 2011

This paper offers an alternative to the view of the routines literature provided by T. Felin and N. J. Foss, ‘The Endogenous Origins of Experience, Routines and Organizational Capabilities: The Poverty of Stimulus’, published by theJournal of Institutional Economics. The emphasis here is on practice-based theories of organizational routines that are grounded in close, ethnographic observation of real routines. While this literature may be unfamiliar to some readers, it is relevant here because it specifically contradicts the core assertions made by Felin and Foss. Further, this literature provides a clear theoretical foundation for subsequent research on problems such as stability and change in routines, the nature of capabilities and dynamic capabilities, and complex ecologies of routines.
Fluid inclusions in Irish granite quartz: monitors of fluids trapped in the onshore Irish Massif
Authors: Conliffe J. , Feely M.
Published: January 2011

Fluid inclusion studies of granite quartz provide an opportunity to study fluid flow associated with igneous activity and post-emplacement fluid processes. This study presents new fluid inclusion data from the late Caledonian Donegal granites and Newry granodiorite, and the Tertiary Mourne Mountains granite in Ireland, which identify three distinct fluids. Aqueous-carbonic fluids (Type 1) have been recorded in late Caledonian granites with a significant mantle component (Newry granodiorite and the Ardara and Thorr granites in Donegal). These fluids represent late-magmatic fluids trapped at high temperatures (up to 575°C), and the ultimate source of these carbonic fluids is linked to sub-lithospheric processes during the Caledonian orogeny. The dominant fluid type (Type 2) in late Caledonian granites is a H2O+NaCl±KCl fluid which may be related to thermal convection cells around granite bodies and/or to regional scale influx of surface derived fluids at the end of the Caledonian orogeny. High salinity NaCl–CaCl2 fluids (Type 3) overprint quartz in the Ardara granite in Donegal, and in the Newry granodiorite, and are interpreted to represent basinal brines, sourced in overlying sedimentary basins, which circulated through the crystalline basement during a period of crustal extension (possibly during the Carboniferous or the Triassic). Fluid inclusion studies of the Tertiary Mourne Mountains granites have identified only Type 2 fluids related to thermal convection cells, consistent with stable isotope evidence, which indicates that this younger granite is unaffected by regional-scale fluid influxes.
Photon-magnetoexciton coupling in quantum wells induced by in-plane electric field
Authors: Flores-Desirena B. , Pérez-Rodríguez F.
Published: January 2011

We theoretically investigate the coupling of light with magnetoexcitons in near-surface quantum wells under the action of a static electric field parallel to the well plane. Such a coupling is here described within the Stahl’s real-space density-matrix approach. In particular, we have solved the system of equations for the coherent-wave amplitude and the electromagnetic fields for InGaAs/GaAs quantum-well heterostructures and calculated their reflectivity spectra. We have found that a parallel electric field of magnitude ∼1–10 kV/cm can considerably alter the line shape of optical spectra due to the resonant coupling of light with magnetoexcitons having nonzero angular momentum projection. Besides, we have studied the changes in the profile of the optical spectra as the thickness of the heterostructure cap layer is decreased until it is comparable with the exciton radius and, consequently, the interaction of the magnetoexciton with the sample surface becomes strong.
Metamorphic GaAsP buffers for growth of wide-bandgap InGaP solar cells
Authors: Simon J. , Tomasulo S. , Simmonds P. J. , Romero M. , Lee M. L.
Published: January 2011

GaAs x P 1 − x graded buffers were grown via solid source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to enable the fabrication of wide-bandgap InyGa1−yP solar cells. Tensile-strained GaAsxP1−x buffers grown on GaAs using unoptimized conditions exhibited asymmetric strain relaxation along with formation of faceted trenches, 100–300 nm deep, running parallel to the [01¯1] direction. We engineered a 6 μm thick grading structure to minimize the faceted trench density and achieve symmetric strain relaxation while maintaining a threading dislocation density of ≤106 cm−2. In comparison, compressively-strained graded GaAsxP1−x buffers on GaP showed nearly-complete strain relaxation of the top layers and no evidence of trenches but possessed threading dislocation densities that were one order of magnitude higher. We subsequently grew and fabricated wide-bandgap InyGa1−yP solar cells on our GaAsxP1−x buffers. Transmission electron microscopy measurements gave no indication of CuPt ordering. We obtained open circuit voltage as high as 1.42 V for In0.39Ga0.61P with a bandgap of 2.0 eV. Our results indicate MBE-grown InyGa1−yP is a promising material for the top junction of a future multijunction solar cell.
Electroluminescence and capacitance-voltage characteristics of single-crystal n-type AlN (0001)/p-type diamond (111) heterojunction diodes
Authors: Hirama Kazuyuki , Taniyasu Yoshitaka , Kasu Makoto
Published: January 2011

n-type single-crystal AlN (0001) layers were grown on diamond (111) substrates by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. We observed current-injected emission at 235 nm wavelength at room temperature in an n-type AlN/p-type diamond heterojunction diode. The emission is attributed to free-exciton recombination in diamond. From capacitance-voltage measurements of the n-type AlN/p-type diamond heterojunction, we determined that the AlN/diamond heterojunction exhibits the staggered (type-II) band alignment with a conduction band offset (ΔEC) of 3.5 eV and a valence band offset (ΔEV) of 4.0 eV.
Integrating fisheries approaches and household utility models for improved resource management
Authors: Milner-Gulland E. J.
Published: January 2011

Natural resource management is littered with cases of overexploitation and ineffectual management, leading to loss of both biodiversity and human welfare. Disciplinary boundaries stifle the search for solutions to these issues. Here, I combine the approach of management strategy evaluation, widely applied in fisheries, with household utility models from the conservation and development literature, to produce an integrated framework for evaluating the effectiveness of competing management strategies for harvested resources against a range of performance metrics. I demonstrate the strengths of this approach with a simple model, and use it to examine the effect of manager ignorance of household decisions on resource management effectiveness, and an allocation tradeoff between monitoring resource stocks to reduce observation uncertainty and monitoring users to improve compliance. I show that this integrated framework enables management assessments to consider household utility as a direct metric for system performance, and that although utility and resource stock conservation metrics are well aligned, harvest yield is a poor proxy for both, because it is a product of household allocation decisions between alternate livelihood options, rather than an end in itself. This approach has potential far beyond single-species harvesting in situations where managers are in full control; I show that the integrated approach enables a range of management intervention options to be evaluated within the same framework.
Crystallographic and online spectral evidence for role of conformational change and conserved water in cytochrome oxidase proton pump
Authors: Liu Jian , Qin Ling , Ferguson-Miller Shelagh
Published: January 2011

Crystal structures in both oxidized and reduced forms are reported for two bacterial cytochrome
c
oxidase mutants that define the D and K proton paths, showing conformational change in response to reduction and the loss of strategic waters that can account for inhibition of proton transfer. In the oxidized state both mutants of the
Rhodobacter sphaeroides
enzyme, D132A and K362M, show overall structures similar to wild type, indicating no long-range effects of mutation. In the reduced state, the mutants show an altered conformation similar to that seen in reduced wild type, confirming this reproducible, reversible response to reduction. In the strongly inhibited D132A mutant, positions of residues and waters in the D pathway are unaffected except in the entry region close to the mutation, where a chloride ion replaces the missing carboxyl and a 2-Å shift in N207 results in loss of its associated water. In K362M, the methionine occupies the same position as the original lysine, but K362- and T359-associated waters in the wild-type structure are missing, likely accounting for the severe inhibition. Spectra of oxidized frozen crystals taken during X-ray radiation show metal center reduction, but indicate development of a strained configuration that only relaxes to a native form upon annealing. Resistance of the frozen crystal to structural change clarifies why the oxidized conformation is observable and supports the conclusion that the reduced conformation has functional significance. A mechanism is described that explains the conformational change and the incomplete response of the D-path mutant.
Discerning nonrigid 3D shapes from motion cues
Authors: Jain Anshul , Zaidi Qasim
Published: January 2011

Many organisms and objects deform nonrigidly when moving, requiring perceivers to separate shape changes from object motions. Surprisingly, the abilities of observers to correctly infer nonrigid volumetric shapes from motion cues have not been measured, and structure from motion models predominantly use variants of rigidity assumptions. We show that observers are equally sensitive at discriminating cross-sections of flexing and rigid cylinders based on motion cues, when the cylinders are rotated simultaneously around the vertical and depth axes. A computational model based on motion perspective (i.e., assuming perceived depth is inversely proportional to local velocity) predicted the psychometric curves better than shape from motion factorization models using shape or trajectory basis functions. Asymmetric percepts of symmetric cylinders, arising because of asymmetric velocity profiles, provided additional evidence for the dominant role of relative velocity in shape perception. Finally, we show that inexperienced observers are generally incapable of using motion cues to detect inflation/deflation of rigid and flexing cylinders, but this handicap can be overcome with practice for both nonrigid and rigid shapes. The empirical and computational results of this study argue against the use of rigidity assumptions in extracting 3D shape from motion and for the primacy of motion deformations computed from motion shears.
Populations of the three major backbone conformations in 19 amino acid dipeptides
Authors: Grdadolnik Joze , Mohacek-Grosev Vlasta , Baldwin Robert L. , Avbelj Franc
Published: January 2011

The amide III region of the peptide infrared and Raman spectra has been used to determine the relative populations of the three major backbone conformations (
P
II
, β, and
α

R

) in 19 amino acid dipeptides. The results provide a benchmark for force field or other methods of predicting backbone conformations in flexible peptides. There are three resolvable backbone bands in the amide III region. The major population is either
P
II
or β for all dipeptides except Gly, whereas the
α

R

population is measurable but always minor (≤ 10%) for 18 dipeptides. (The Gly φ,ψ map is complex and so is the interpretation of the amide III bands of Gly.) There are substantial differences in the relative β and
P
II
populations among the 19 dipeptides. The band frequencies have been assigned as
P
II
, 1,317–1,306 cm
-1
;
α

R

, 1,304–1,294 cm
-1
; and β, 1,294–1,270 cm
-1
. The three bands were measured by both attenuated total reflection spectroscopy and by Raman spectroscopy. Consistent results, both for band frequency and relative population, were obtained by both spectroscopic methods. The β and
P
II
bands were assigned from the dependence of the
3
J
(
H

N

,
H

α

) coupling constant (known for all 19 dipeptides) on the relative β population. The
P
II
band assignment agrees with one made earlier from Raman optical activity data. The temperature dependences of the relative β and
P
II
populations fit the standard model with Boltzmann-weighted energies for alanine and leucine between 30 and 60 °C.
Using non-sentences
Authors: Stainton Robert J.
Published: January 2011

Michael Dummett has nicely expressed a rather widespread doctrine about the primacy of sentences. He writes: "you cannot DO anything with a word — cannot effect any conventional (linguistic) act by uttering it — save by uttering some sentence containing that word ...". In this paper we argue that this doctrine is mistaken: it is not only sentences, but also ordinary words and phrases which can be used in isolation. The argument involves two steps. First: we show — using Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory — that an utterance of "John's father" could COMMUNICATE a proposition. Second: we point out that, in this context, this proposition would be asserted rather than merely implicated. Because there is nothing importantly idiosyncratic about the phrase "John's father", we infer that words and phrases generally can be used in isolation to make assertions.
How motion verbs are special
Authors: Tenny Carol L.
Published: January 2011

This paper focuses on a distinction between two kinds of information in verb meanings: a highly structured, templatic part of the meaning, based on aspectual properties of the verb, and apart of the meaning which contributes to filling gaps in the templatic information. The two kinds of information differ in the nature and degree of connections to encyclopedic world knowledge. This demarcation between the two kinds of information is related to the semantics/ pragmatics distinction, and may be clearly articulated using Krifka's (1992) formalization of a homomorphism from objects to events. Motion verbs, for which the concept of distance plays a crucial role in the gap-filling information, are shown to be special in a number of ways, due to the special properties of distance as encoded in the world knowledge of the speaker. The possible universality of these findings is also discussed.
Speech-gesture mismatches: Evidence for one underlying representation of linguistic and nonlinguistic information
Authors: Cassell Justine , McNeill David , McCullough Karl-Erik
Published: January 2011

Adults and children spontaneously produce gestures while they speak, and such gestures appear to support and expand on the information communicated by the verbal channel. Little research, however, has been carried out to examine the role played by gesture in the listener's representation of accumulating information. Do listeners attend to the gestures that accompany narrative speech? In what kinds of relationships between gesture and speech do listeners attend to the gestural channel? If listeners do attend to information received in gesture, how is this information represented— is it 'tagged' as originating in the gestural channel? In this article research is described that addresses these questions. Results show that listeners do attend to information conveyed in gesture, when that information supplements or even contradicts the information conveyed by speech. And information received via gesture is available for retelling in speech. These results are taken to demonstrate that gesture is not taken by the listener to be epiphenomenal to the act of speaking, or a simple manual translation of speech. But they also suggest that the information conveyed in a discourse may be represented in a manner that is neither gesture nor language, although accessible to both channels.
Grammaticalization Chains
Authors: Heine Bernd
Published: January 2011

Recent studies in grammaticalization suggest that the development of grammatical categories is the result of an interaction between cognitive and pragmatic operations, and that this development may lead to the rise of continuous linguistic structures which have been referred to as grammaticalization chains (Heine, Claudi & Hünnemeyer 1991a; Craig 1991; Heine 1991). In the present paper it is argued that grammaticalization chains are linguistic categories having the form of a specific type of family resemblance structure. An example from Charnus, a Maa dialect of the Nilo-Saharan family, is presented to illustrate the nature of grammaticalization chains.
A Method of Language Sampling
Authors: Rijkhoff Jan , Bakker Dik , Hengeveld Kees , Kahrel Peter
Published: January 2011

In recent years more attention is being paid to the quality of language samples in typological work. Without an adequate sampling strategy, samples may suffer from various kinds of bias. In this article we propose a sampling method in which the genetic criterion is taken as the most important: samples created with this method will reflect optimally the diversity of the languages of the world. On the basis of the internal structure of each genetic language tree a measure is computed that reflects the linguistic diversity in the language families represented by these trees. This measure is used to determine how many languages from each phylum should be selected, given any required sample size.
Interactions Between Lexical, Temporal and Aspectual Meanings
Authors: Breu Walter
Published: January 2011

In my paper a universal aspect theory is presented which is based on the integration of the various types of states of affairs into the textual web of descriptions of situations and changes in situations. The states of affairs are thereby grouped according to their boundary characteristics. The grammatical meaning of the verbal aspect interacts with the lexical meaning of a given verb in group-specific ways, so that the kind of interaction in the case of a given aspect opposition can be used in order to classify verbs. In addition to the Slavic aspect opposition of perfective vs. imperfective, the aspectual systems of English, Modern Greek and the Romance languages are taken into consideration. The interaction between aspect and tense as well as the interaction within the aspect dimension itself, which plays a role if a language has more than one aspect category, is also discussed. The perfective imperfect and the imperfective aorist of Bulgarian are given as examples of problematic cases, along with the functions of the ing-form of the perfect in English. Generally the problem of the coming together of more than one aspect gram-meme in one verb form is solved by means of a hierarchization, which can be deduced from the particular interaction meaning in question. The grouping of verbs into aspect-sensitive semantic classes is only stable in the centre of the classes, but we find language-specific peculiarities on their peripheries. In addition, regroupings are also possible in the course of the development of a language.
A Case of Constructional Polysemy in Latin
Authors: Michaelis Laura A.
Published: January 2011

In this paper, I will examine the syntactic and semantic properties of a Latin correlative construction, the so-called comparative conditional. I will investigate the extent to which this construction inherits its formal and interpretive features from constructions needed independently in the grammar. While the syntactic properties of the comparative conditional are highly motivated, the semantics of the construction is idiosyncratic: there is evidence to indicate that the construction is polysemous, having two related scalar interpretations.
Clause-Chaining, Switch-Reference and Action/Event Continuity in Japanese Discourse
Authors: Watanabe Yasuko
Published: January 2011

This paper investigates the clause-chaining mechanism exhibited in Japanese. Clause-chaining is characterized by a string of clauses with non-finite (or partly non-finite) verb forms followed by a clause with a finite verb. The basic property of clause-chaining devices is to conjoin two or more clauses in a (more or less) chronological order. In this paper, the discourse function of the clause-chaining devices, te, to and zero-conjunction, is interpreted in terms of the notion of action/event continuity. First, general properties of the clause-chaining devices, including various degrees of clause integration, are discussed. Then, the notion of action/event continuity in discourse is introduced, and a hypothesis that the clause-chaining devices in Japanese are coding action/event continuity or discontinuity is advanced. The hypothesis will be tested by examining continuity of referent, aspect, time, and location. Firstly, this paper studies switch-reference properties of the clause-chaining devices along with their correlations with subject marking devices (wa, ga and zero anaphora). As a corollary of the hypothesis, I offer a functional explanation of a well-known phenomenon: that generally only the subject marking device ga appears in a subordinate clause. Later, the paper will investigate the significance of aspectual coding in clause-chaining. Finally, it will investigate how referential, aspectual, temporal, and locational continuity correlate with the overall discourse coherence of action/event continuity.
The Case Against a Future Tense in English
Authors: Huddleston Rodney
Published: January 2011

This paper addresses the controversy as to whether English will is appropriately analysed as a future tense auxiliary or a modal auxiliary: it examines the place of will within the verbal system and argues in detail on both formal and semantic grounds that it belongs with the uncontroversial modal auxiliaries can, must, may, etc. A crucial step in the formal argument is the demonstration that would needs to be analysed as the preterite counterpart of will (not as a distinct lexeme). The paper demonstrates the modal component in the meaning of will and argues against a grammatical split between modal will and future tense will.
Areal Typology and Grammaticalization
Authors: Bisang Walter
Published: January 2011

Grammaticalization processes in East and mainland South East Asian languages show remarkable areal parallels within the domain of the verb and the noun. Since language contact increases processes of reanalysis it supports grammaticalization and its cross-linguistic similarity. Grammaticalization processes are governed by attractor positions (cf. 1.1.3.) and pathways of grammaticalization (cf. 1.1..4.). The former is a good parameter for making areal distinctions, the latter is of areal relevance only within the domain of the verb. Because of attractor positions, grammaticalization processes are not necessarily slow and gradual. The distribution of attractor positions relative to each other is governed by the principles of relevance and generality (Bybee 1985).
Morphological Integrity in Ilocano
Authors: Rubino Carl
Published: January 2011

The status of morphology and procedures of morphological production vary in remarkably diverse ways among languages of different typologies. The analysis presented in this study documents pervasive phenomena manifested in the discourse of Ilocano, as a result of the unique highly-prefixing typology of the language, which may contribute to our understanding of the concepts of lexeme, morphological integrity, and affixal boundness. From a thirty-hour corpus of natural interactions among native speakers of Ilocano, certain patterns of language production are introduced that typify the need to understand the synchronic role of morphology in a polysynthetic language and the status that inflectional and/or derivational affixes have in the lexicons of the speakers (Rubino 1994a). This paper will illustrate the intricate workings of the Ilocano language with regard to inter-morphemic pausing, production of affixes without lexical roots, the post-production restructuring of affixation, and the many uses of the versatile empty root kua which is employed by speakers who have uttered the syntactic frame of the word with appropriate affixes, before accessing the lexical root, suggesting that planning and production often take place at the morphemic level. It will then become apparent how the use of discourse data can be utilized to better our understanding of morphology and morphological processes.
How to Choose a Possessive Noun Phrase Construction in Four Easy Steps
Authors: Anschutz Arlea
Published: January 2011

Why does an English speaker use an inflected possessive like 'The president's daughter" rather than a prepositional possessive like "The daughter of the president?" This question has intrigued linguists for decades. Traditional grammarians (see Curme 1947) defined and classified the relationships coded by each of the possessive forms. Transformational grammarians (see Jacobson 1968) wrote rules to transform deep structure of constructions into surface structure inflected noun phrases. Most recently, researchers (Quirk 1972, Hawkins 1981) have proposed that the use of the inflected construction is related to the position of the modifier NP on an animacy hierarchy. What all these attempts at explaining the inflected/ prepositional variation in English possessives have in common is their use of intuited data: that is, subjective judgements about whether a particular noun phrase taken out of context is grammatical, ungrammatical or "questionable". This paper attempts to answer the question initially posed in this paragraph through an appeal to actual spoken and written English by means of a database of possessive noun phrases. It concludes that four basic criteria are involved in the choice of one possessive construction over another. One of these is animacy, but a more important factor, not heretofore considered for modern English, is the information status of the two constituent NPs.
Grammaticalization of Modality in Language Acquisition
Authors: Giacalone Ramat Anna
Published: January 2011

The present study aims to provide empirical evidence for a number of claims concerning the grammaticalization of deontic and epistemic modality. It is based on results from a research project on the acquisition of Italian as a second language conventionally called the "Pavia Project". The organization is as follows: first, the relevance of Second Language Acquisition for linguistic theory and — conversely — the relevance of linguistic theory for interpreting results of empirical studies are advocated. Then a theoretical framework is established and the polysemy of modal verbs is presented as an essential issue to the present study. In Section 5 information on research design and subjects is provided and results are discussed. The focus is on the order of emergence of modal distinctions in learner varieties and the types of encoding of modal notions preferred by learners. It will be shown that deontic modality is straightforwardly expressed through modal verbs, while epistemic modality is expressed through a number of different means.
Conclusions are drawn, and implications for the study of modality and for principles governing learner languages are assessed.
Models of the Translation Process
Authors: Lörscher Wolfgang
Published: January 2011

Within translation theory, various models have been developed which claim to adequately comprehend and reflect the process of translation. Some of these models will be outlined and critically observed. The result of this critical review is that none of the suggested models is able to offer a psychologically valid reconstruction of the process of translation. Instead, the models offer idealized schematic arrangements showing the interrelations among those components which are, in all likelihood, involved in the process.
A Cognitive Approach to Source Text Difficulty in Translation1
Authors: Campbell Stuart
Published: January 2011

The notion of "difficulty" is of practical relevance to many of the stakeholders in the business of training and accrediting translators. This article proposes that difficulty can be tackled in terms of source text, translation task, and translator competence. Focussing on text difficulty, a case study is reported that shows that the source text can be an independent source of translation difficulty and that a substantial proportion of the items can be equally difficult to translate into typologically different languages. The study also highlights possible reasons for text difficulty at the level of lexis, and suggests that difficulty can be interpreted in cognitive terms, with the support of models of working memory and of language comprehension and production.
CAT Tools in an Academic Environment
Authors: Kenny Dorothy
Published: January 2011

Many universities have now incorporated commercially available translators ' workbench-style systems into their translator-training programmes. But, when it comes to computer-aided translation (CAT), the university's role need not be confined to teaching students how to operate some third party's system; rather new CAT tools open up whole new areas of research. For example, experience of Trados'sTranslator's Workbenchsuggests that workbench features such as automatic terminology recognition and translation memories stand to bring about fundamental changes in the way terminology is recorded and texts are authored. State-of-the-art CAT tools can also make a contribution to Descriptive Translation Studies and translation pedagogy.