bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
THE CYTOTOXIC EFFECT OF CHELIDONIUM MAJUS IN VITRO
Authors: Tomečková Vladimíra , Tkáčová Veronika , Urban Peter , Stupák Marek
Published: December 2015

The effect of aqueous and ether Chelidonium majus haulms extract on cervical HeLa tumor cells, mammary adenocarcinoma MCF 7 tumor cells and acute lymphoblastic leukemia CEM tumor cells in vitro have been studied. The purpose of this research was to compare the effect of aqueous and ether Chelidonium majus haulms extract on selected tumor cells. Colorimetric MTT assay have been used for the study of the antiproliferative effect of aqueous and ether haulms extract of Chelidonium majus on cell viability in vitro. The results of the experiments have shown the cytotoxic effect of the aqueous and the ether Chelidonium majus haulms extract on the individual tumor cells. The aqueous Chelidonium majus haulms extract was the most effective on CEM cells, it was less effective on MCF 7 cells and it was the least effective on HeLa cells. The ether haulms extract of Chelidonium majus was the most effective at all of studied concentrations on CEM cells and MCF 7 cells in comparison with HeLa cells, where it was significantly effective only at the highest concentration. Aqueous and ether haulms extract of Chelidonium majus tested in vitro indicated their cytotoxic activity. Both haulms extract of Chelidonium majus were more efficient on CEM cells. It is assumed that higher antiproliferative activity of ether haulms extract of Chelidonium majus is the result of higher antiproliferative activity of lipophilic substances. The lipophilic substances pass through membrane and bind to various proteins and change their biological activity.
SURGICAL REMOVAL OF THE EPIDERMAL INCLUSION CYSTS WITH SQUEEZE TECHNIQUE: CASE REPORT
Authors: Yuksel Mehmet Eren , Tamer Funda
Published: December 2015

Epidermal inclusion cysts are common benign cutaneous cysts which arise from hair follicles. These cysts usually present as asymptomatic, small, smooth, firm, round, slow growing swellings on hair bearing areas such as scalp, face, neck and trunk. Epidermal inclusion cysts are easily diagnosed by their clinical features. However, trichilemmal cyst, dermoid cyst, neurofibroma, hemangioma, lipoma and liposarcoma should also be kept in mind in differential diagnosis of cutaneous cystic lesions. As malignant transformation of epidermal inclusion cysts has been reported, histopathological evaluation of epidermal inclusion cysts is mandatory in order to rule out malignancy. Moreover, giant epidermal inclusion cysts with ulceration, rapid growth, resistance to treatment, recurrence and fistula drainage may have malignant potential. Therefore, epidermal cysts should be surgically removed. There are several different types of surgical techniques to remove cutaneous cysts. A proper surgical technique should facilitate the complete removal of the cyst wall to prevent recurrence. In addition, it should provide minimal scarring and a low wound infection rate. Epidermal inclusion cysts can be easily removed surgically with squeeze technique. In this technique, the cyst is squeezed out through a small incision using both index fingers. Thus, the cyst is not ruptured. The squeeze technique allows the cyst capsule to remain intact. Therefore, the risk of wound infection, recurrence and scar formation is minimized. Hereby, we present a 48-year-old male with multiple epidermal inclusion cysts on the scalp treated surgically with squeeze technique.
A GIANT PERINEAL NEVUS LIPOMATOSUS SUPERFICIALIS: CASE REPORT
Authors: Tamer Funda , Yuksel Mehmet Eren
Published: December 2015

Nevus lipomatosus superficialis is a rare hamartomatous malformation which is composed of ectopic adipocytes in the dermis. It was first reported in 1921 by Hoffmann and Zurhelle. Two clinical forms of nevus lipomatosus superficialis have been described: classical (multiple) and solitary. Classical form of nevus lipomatosus superficialis is usually found on pelvic girdle, trunk, buttocks and thighs as soft, skin colored papules or nodules. It is usually present at birth or it appears in the first two decades of life. The solitary form of lipomatosus superficialis appears as a solitary papule or nodule on the back, scalp and arms of the patients with late onset. The lesions are usually asymptomatic, however some patients may complain about pain and itching. Malignant transformation of nevus lipomatosis superficialis has not been reported yet. Therefore, surgical intervention is only necessary for the patients who have cosmetic concerns. Recurrence after surgical removal is very rare. Perineum is an uncommon localization for nevus lipomatosus superficialis. Hereby, we report a 55-year-old Caucasian female with a 6x5,5x4 cm mass in the perineal region. The patient had cosmetic concerns, therefore she wanted the lesion to be removed surgically. The lesion was surgically removed. The histopathological evaluation of the specimen revealed nevus lipomatosus superficialis. A solitary type of giant nevus lipomatosus superficialis in the perineal region of a patient over the age of 50 is a very rare condition. Even rarely seen, nevus lipomatosus superficialis should be kept in mind in the differential diagnosis of perineal masses.
USE OF ASSESSEMENT FOR IMPROVING READING INSTRUCTION TO EARLY GRADE PUPILS
Authors: Haxhijaha Edita
Published: December 2015

Reading is the most important skill that every child needs to develop at school. Children who do not have good reading skills at elementary level are more likely to have limited educational progress, limited economic opportunities, and poor development in the future.Traditional tests and assessments are lacking in this respect, because they grade pupils, based on overall score, rather than identifying the areas for improvement in order to assist teachers in more efficient planning of teaching curriculum. There is a need for a simple tool to provide pupils with various components of reading at their level. In this, the first steps are recognition of the letters of alphabet, reading of simple words, and understanding the structure of sentences and paragraphs.This present work uses the Research in Action method to analyze the subject of using assessment for improving reading instructions for early grade pupils. The EGRA instrument, which does not provide a total result, assesses various skills and treats each skill separately. There are no overall results for EGRA, as it tests individuals. Testing of a child takes approximately 10-12 minutes. The teacher can administer various combinations of subtests, depending on their judgement on pupils’ needs. Results of every task are characterized, based on the findings related to the pupil’s needs. This depends on whether the pupil is a “good reader”, progressing well, or is “at risk” of failing in reading.Research was conducted in the city of Prizren, Republic of Kosova, at the Primary and Lower Secondary School (PLSS) of “Emin Duraku”, class II-3. Five pupils were involved, led by the author, as teacher of this class.The research was conducted in cooperation with school management, teachers, and parents of the pupils involved. The collection of data was implemented within three weeks.It is expected that this research will have positive effects on improving the results of children that find reading difficult, as well as  the professional development of teachers.This research was carried out for use in professional and scientific literature, and from the field of assessment and reading, and applying adequate scientific methods.
LEGAL INHERITANCE IN FRANCE AND IN ALBANIA: COMMON ELEMENTS AND COMPARATIVE ASPECTS OF SUCCESSION TRADITIONS
Authors: Sulçe Nertila
Published: December 2015

Inheritance begins with the birth of ownership, and continues with property rights. Inheritance is an ancient tradition, which the Romans recognized in the Twelve Tables (303 BC), in their priority of testamentary rights. Such principles have their origin in a primitive community, although, at that time, there were no genuine inheritance rights. Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual, named the deceased (the person who dies), to the heir, who is the person entitled to receive a share of the deceased's property. This is an action of mortis causa, which happens due to the death of the deceased. The study of inheritance creates interest, because it relates to the law from the time of the deceased’s death, despite the advent of any disagreement. Inheritance by law is applied in cases when the person leaving the inheritance has not made a will, or has made a will only for a part of their property, or when the will is declared invalid. The inheritance initiates, when the deceased dies by natural death or civil death. It initiates in the place where the deceased had their last residence. The major economic and political change that occurred in Albania after the fall of the communist dictatorship, was on 1 November 1994, with the enactment of the Civil Code for the Republic of Albania. The third section and articles 316-418 of this code deal with inheritance. The French Civil Code was published on 21 March 1804. In this, the third book covers different modes of acquiring property, and under the title of “Successions” deals with inheritance, from article 718 onwards. The French and Albanian inheritance traditions share similarities and disparities. In this paper, we discuss and compare these two inheritance instruments.
QUALITÄT, EFFIZIENZSTEIGERUNG UND INTEGRIERTE MANAGEMENTSYSTEMEN IM TÜRKISCHEN EISENBAHNSEKTOR
Authors: Öztürk Fatih
Published: December 2015

The rail industry is a growing system which is subject to big international shifts and changes. To follow the changes and quality requirements of the industry International Railway Industry Standards (IRIS) was developed. It aims the global recognition in the market. The number of certified companies is steadily increasing. Even in Turkey some companies having the certificates can be found. Although Turkey has a history of 100 years in the rail sector, big changes can be observed only in the recent years. The importance of QMS seems to be understood. With the implementation of IRIS , Turkish companies have made a headway and got experiences to overcome the obstacles. Since IRIS is quite a young QMS , it needs to be introduced more to become more popular and efficient.
COWS AND GOATS AS SENTINELS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL LEAD (Pb) BURDEN IN ZARIA, NIGERIA
Authors: Ugumanim Udiba Udiba , Moses Ibrahim , Jonah Chindo Hilda , Ahmad Zakariyya , Idris Dawaki Saleh , Mahmud Abdullahi , Debora Agboun Temeweidoubra
Published: December 2015

Blood lead levels (BLLs) is considered as a good indicator of current body burden of the toxic metal. Assessment of BLLs of white Fulani cattle(Bos primigenius indicus)and red Sokoto goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) grazed freely on open pastures in Zaria was carried out by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry using Shimadzu Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (model AA-6800, Japan) after wet digestion to evaluate the potential effects of the metal on the animals, the toxicological implication of consuming this major source of animal protein by humans and most importantly as an indirect measure of the lead pollution status of Zaria ecological geochemical environment. The blood lead levels of Bos primigenius indicus ranged from a minimum of 0.62 mg/l to a maximum of 2.28 mg/l with a mean value of 1.36±0.48 mg/l. On the other hand, blood lead levels of Capra aegagrus hircus ranged between 0.26 mg/l and 1.56 mg/l with a mean value of 0.89±0.43mg/l. The BLLs of both cows and goats were found to exceed the allowable limit for the elements in blood of food animals indicating that cows and goats grazed freely on open pastures in Zaria metropolis are not safe for human consumption. Routine monitoring of the heavy metal in plant and animal products is therefore recommended to safeguard human health. Most importantly, the study indicates the presence of elevated levels of environmental lead in Zaria ecological geochemical environment.
Evaluation of the Pollution Status of River Galma Basin in the Vicinity of Dakace Industrial Layout, Zaria, Nigeria
Authors: Ugumanim Udiba Udiba , Barde Bate Garba , Abdullahi Mahmud , Shitu Umar , Ahmad Zakariyya , Debora Agboun Temeweidoubra , Nanadeinboemi Ozogu Agbe
Published: December 2015

Dakace Industrial Layout Zaria habours a number of wet industries, effluents from these industries are discharged through drains and canal that empties into River Galma. The river basin is a booming agricultural area and the river is used for irrigation. A study was conducted at River Galma Basin around Dakace Industrial Layout Zaria to evaluate its heavy metal pollution status. Lead (Pb), chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni) and manganese (Mn) concentrations were analyzed using Shimadzu atomic absorption spectrophotometer (model AA-6800, Japan) after wet digestion. The range of concentrations (mg/kg) of these metals was Pb (52.77-120.40), Cr (0.56-8.05), Ni (0.17-4.01) and Mn (6.98-22.). The heavy metals concentrations determined were found to be within US EPA, World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) limits for acceptable soil metal concentrations. However, the mean soil lead level was found to be above Dutch Target value (85 mg/kg) which is the bench mark for soil quality. Statistical analysis shows that industrial discharges from Dakace industrial layout have significant influence on the heavy metal profile of the study area. The implications of these findings for public health are fully discussed.
The Relationship between Older Adults’ Risk for a Future Fall and Difficulty Performing Activities of Daily Living
Authors: Mamikonian-Zarpas Ani , Laganá Luciana
Published: December 2015

Functional status is often defined by cumulative scores across indices of independence in performing basic and instrumental activities of daily living (ADL/IADL), but little is known about the unique relationship of each daily activity item with the fall outcome. The purpose of this retrospective study was to examine the level of relative risk for a future fall associated with difficulty with performing various tasks of normal daily functioning among older adults who had fallen at least once in the past 12 months. The sample was comprised of community-dwelling individuals 70 years and older from the 1984-1990 Longitudinal Study of Aging by Kovar, Fitti, and Chyba (1992). Risk analysis was performed on individual items quantifying 6 ADLs and 7 IADLs, as well as 10 items related to mobility limitations. Within a subsample of 1,675 older adults with a history of at least one fall within the past year, the responses of individuals who reported multiple falls were compared to the responses of participants who had a single fall and reported 1) difficulty with walking and/or balance (FRAIL group, n = 413) vs. 2) no difficulty with walking or dizziness (NDW+ND group, n = 415). The items that had the strongest relationships and highest risk ratios for the FRAIL group (which had the highest probabilities for a future fall) included difficulty with: eating (73%); managing money (70%); biting or chewing food (66%); walking a quarter of a mile (65%); using fingers to grasp (65%); and dressing without help (65%). For the NDW+ND group, the most noteworthy items included difficulty with: bathing or showering (79%); managing money (77%); shopping for personal items (75%); walking up 10 steps without rest (72%); difficulty with walking a quarter of a mile (72%); and stooping/crouching/kneeling (70%). These findings suggest that individual items quantifying specific ADLs and IADLs have substantive relationships with the fall outcome among older adults who have difficulty with walking and balance, as well as among older individuals without dizziness or difficulty with walking. Furthermore, the examination of the relationships between items that are related to more challenging activities and the fall outcome revealed that higher functioning older adults who reported difficulty with the 6 items that yielded the highest risk ratios may also be at elevated risk for a fall.
Convergence on Gauss-Seidel iterative methods for linear systems with general H-matrices
Authors: Zhang Cheng-yi , Ye Dan , Zhong Cong-Lei , SHUANGHUA SHUANGHUA
Published: December 2015

It is well known that as a famous type of iterative methods in numerical linear algebra, Gauss-Seidel iterative methods are convergent for linear systems with strictly or irreducibly diagonally dominant matrices, invertible Hâmatrices (generalized strictly diagonally dominant matrices) and Hermitian positive definite matrices. But, the same is not necessarily true for linear systems with non-strictly diagonally dominant matrices and general Hâmatrices. This paper firstly proposes some necessary and sufficient conditions for convergence on Gauss-Seidel iterative methods to establish several new theoretical results on linear systems with nonstrictly diagonally dominant matrices and general Hâmatrices. Then, the convergence results on preconditioned Gauss-Seidel (PGS) iterative methods for general Hâmatrices are presented. Finally, some numerical examples are given to demonstrate the results obtained in this paper.
Short communication: A laboratory study to validate the impact of the addition of Alnus nepalensis leaf litter on carbon and nutrients mineralization in soil
Authors: MISHRA GAURAV , GIRI KRISHNA , DUTTA ANTARA , HAZARIKA SATABDI , BROGOHAIN PRATUL
Published: December 2015

Abstract. Mishra G, Giri K, Dutta A, Hazarika S, Borgohain P. 2016. A laboratory study to validate the impact of the addition of Alnus nepalensis leaf litter on carbon and nutrients mineralization in soil. Nusantara Bioscience 8: 5-7. Plant litter or residues can be used as soil amendment to maintain the carbon stock and soil fertility. The amount and rate of mineralization depend on biochemical composition of plant litter. Alnus nepalensis (Alder) is known for its symbiotic nitrogen fixation and capability to restore fertility of degraded lands. A laboratory incubation experiment was conducted for 60 days under controlled conditions to validate the carbon and nutrients mineralization potential of alder litter. Soil fertility indicators, i.e. soil organic carbon (SOC), available nitrogen (N), available phosphorus (P), and available potassium (K) were analyzed using standard procedures. Significant differences were observed in the soil properties after addition of litter. Nutrient composition of alder litter was found superior by providing significantly higher organic matter and helped in better nutrient cycling. Therefore, alder based land use system may be replicated in other degraded lands or areas for productivity enhancement which is important for sustaining biodiversity and soil fertility.
Paid less for doing more
Authors: Simmons Gerald
Published: December 2015

Dentists will need to stand firm to escape the Obamacare insurance trap.
Aloha, Vietnam: Race and Empire in Hawai‘i’s Vietnam War
Authors: Man Simeon
Published: December 2015

In the 1950s and 1960s, Hawai‘i “paradise” emerged with new vitality in the US cultural imagination: its tropical climate, scenic sublime, and racial and ethnic diversity made it a premier destination for American tourists and a conduit of US Cold War objectives in Asia. This essay complicates this liberal narrative by exploring a lesser-known fact: the islands also served as a pivotal staging ground for the US war in Vietnam. Examining archival sources about military training exercises and civilian mobilization projects in O‘ahu, this essay demonstrates that “racial paradise” and “military garrison” emerged in productive tension in the years surrounding Hawai‘i statehood and materialized in the intensification of state violence against indigenous and racialized subjects in Hawai‘i and across the Pacific. Racial liberalism was more than a ruse for empire, this essay contends, but was instrumental to US war making in Asia, a contradiction that animated Hawai‘i’s antiwar and emergent sovereignty movement in the late 1960s and beyond.
Educating Americans for “Overseasmanship”: The Peace Corps and the Invention of Culture Shock
Authors: Schein Rebecca
Published: December 2015

Since culture shock was first coined in the mid-1950s, the term has become a fixture of popular discourse and continues to organize general understandings of the way individuals experience cultural difference. This essay examines the emergence of culture shock in relation to the 1961 establishment of the US Peace Corps, an institution that contributed to both scholarly and popular understandings of the concept. Through an analysis of both the early scholarship on culture shock and the term’s appearance in volunteers’ accounts and Peace Corps histories, the essay identifies two complementary discourses at play in the culture shock story, which together supported the Peace Corps’ project of “educating Americans for overseasmanship”: the concept of culture shock harnessed the expert authority of an emerging American social science to a classically sentimental narrative of individual crisis, growth, and recovery. Ultimately, the essay argues, culture shock offered volunteers a framework through which to make sense of their unsettling encounters abroad, but one that individualized, psychologized, and depoliticized their confrontations not only with cultural difference but also with inequality, poverty, racism, and imperialism.
Freak Bodies Politic: Charles Stratton, Dred , and the Embodiment of National Innocence
Authors: Herrero-Puertas Manuel
Published: December 2015

Examining the performances of celebrity freak Charles Stratton (a.k.a. General Tom Thumb), this essay reorients recent efforts to read the cultural construction of blackness through its intersections with disability and childhood. Stratton’s dwarfism branded him a figure of national innocence through a performative continuum that included, among others, Napoléon, Yankee Doodle, and the slave child Tom Tit in Dred; A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), a P. T. Barnum production based on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel. Unlike previous analyses of Stratton, I focus on the continuities between his different stage characters and the national identity they interpellate. Thus, both as Tom Thumb and Tom Tit, Stratton indexed a hopelessly passive and juvenile African American body politic, a vision that persuaded abolitionists, slavery apologists, and racist scientists alike. Nonetheless, as a person with a disability, Stratton was excluded from the nationalist fantasy he often incarnated.
Seeker, Surfer, Yogi: The Progressive Religious Imagination and the Cultural Politics of Place in Encinitas, California
Authors: Luhr Eileen
Published: December 2015

This essay examines Encinitas, California, as a case study for understanding how a cultural pluralism based in religious experimentation has come to define the area’s overall civic imagination. Over the years, as yoga enthusiasts and surfers flocked to the area, their lifestyle practices acquired the sanctity of religious belief. The essay uses three controversies—discussions over a competition at a popular surf spot, a debate over the meaning and legality of a public artwork, and a controversy over a public school district yoga curriculum—to show how the city’s expansive religious imaginary shaped debates about access to public space. Taken together, these incidents convey how a cosmopolitan religious imagination harnessed alternative beliefs and practices to a California dream that was increasingly characterized by an exclusionary neoliberal economy of privileged bourgeois consumption and culturally appropriative branding.
Filibusterism and Catholicity: Narciso López, William Walker, and the Antebellum Struggle for America’s Souls
Authors: Denton Andrew
Published: December 2015

U.S. Catholic commentators denounced the filibustering expeditions of the antebellum decade—particularly Narciso López’s attempts to liberate Cuba and William Walker’s brief takeover of Nicaragua—as expressions of cultural hubris and revolutionary violence. The filibuster became an emblem in the Catholic press not only of the darker aspects of America’s “Manifest Destiny” but also of a transatlantic tendency toward lawlessness; “filibusterism” became shorthand for all that threatened Christian civilization in the post-1848 world. What then did Catholic prelates and publicists make of the fact that López and Walker, not to mention many of their supporters, were themselves Catholic? By focusing on the contrition displayed in their dying moments, Catholic accounts turned the filibusters’ fate into a lesson for the United States in the fractious 1850s: either accept the Catholic faith or succumb to social disorder.
Beyond the Black Legend: Catholicism and U.S. Empire-Building in the Philippines and Puerto Rico, 1898−1914
Authors: Moran Katherine D.
Published: December 2015

In 1898, the United States occupied two territories with long Catholic histories and large Catholic populations: the Philippines and Puerto Rico. While existing scholarship on U.S. colonial empire has focused on anti-Catholicism, Manifest Destiny, and Protestant evangelism (and Catholic responses to these), the turn of the twentieth century also saw new calls for cross-confessional understanding and collaboration, tied to a growing appreciation (on the part of both Catholics and non-Catholics) for the role the Catholic Church could play in the United States’ path to global power. Many American writers and government officials celebrated the export of religious liberty to both the Philippines and Puerto Rico as a mark of the exceptional nature of U.S. empire. They acknowledged the Catholic Church as a powerful, legitimate, and even useful institution in the colonies, and championed the export of an “Americanized” Catholicism to the islands. Yet the different religious histories of each place, and different responses to the U.S. occupation, led to the development of diverse ideas about the particular role that Catholicism could play in each colony.
Patrick Peyton, C.S.C., and the International Rosary Crusade, 1948–1959
Authors: Gribble Richard
Published: December 2015

For the twenty year period after World War II, Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C. (1909–1992) became an international “superstar” as he traversed all the habitable continents of the world proclaiming a message of family unity and prayer through the rosary. Recovering somewhat miraculously from a near fatal bout with tuberculosis as a seminarian, Peyton dedicated his fifty year ministry as a Holy Cross priest to promoting devotion to the Blessed Version Mary utilizing a simple but profound message, “The family that prays together stays together.” Beginning in 1948, his international crusades drew millions, making him a household name in Catholic circles. His ministry, while standing as a good example of the post war evangelistic spirit in American religion, as typified by notables such as Billy Graham, was rather unique for Catholics and, therefore, significant in U.S. Church history.
William Donovan, the Office of Strategic Services, and Catholic Intelligence Sources during World War II
Authors: Graziano Michael
Published: December 2015

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), an American intelligence agency during World War II, demonstrates the changing nature of anti-Catholicism within the American national security state during and after the war. Led by the Catholic lawyer, soldier, and politician William J. Donovan (1883−1959), the OSS eagerly sought to utilize Catholic individuals, ideas, and institutions as part of the war effort. The OSS worked with prominent Catholic leaders at home and abroad in an attempt to both guide Catholic perceptions of the war and leverage Catholic institutions as sources of strategic information. Somewhat paradoxically, the OSS and Donovan were interested in this information at least in part because of anti-Catholic assumptions then prevalent within the defense community and broader American culture. These anti-Catholic ideas shaped American intelligence operations during World War II and inadvertently increased demand for Catholic and other minority religious expertise within the post-war American intelligence system. The OSS’s success in working with Catholic institutions, including the Holy See, helped convince American defense and intelligence leaders of the strategic necessity of religious toleration and contributed to the growing pluralist discourse within the domestic United States.
Two Law Book Lists from 1870s Arakan
Authors: Huxley Andrew
Published: December 2015

The legal history of Arakan has not yet been written. We have a few surviving dhammathat texts, but no reliable information as to when they were first written or last copied. Were the surviving texts written before the conquest of Arakan? Can we treat them as evidence for tradition as it was under the Arakanese kings? The two 1870s lists discussed herein bring us closer to answering these questions.
Three More Sanskrit Inscriptions of Arakan: New Perspectives on Its Name, Dynastic History, and Buddhist Culture in the First Millennium
Authors: Griffiths Arlo
Published: December 2015

The earliest phase of Arakan history, between about the fifth and the tenth centuries, has to be written on the basis of inscriptions and related material such as coins bearing Sanskrit texts, as well as sculpture and architecture. These show Arakan to have had strong ties to Southeastern Bengal (the Samataṭa and Harikela regions) and beyond this with the Buddhist communities of Northeastern India using Sanskrit as preferential medium of expression. A first batch of Arakan Sanskrit inscriptions was studied by E.H. Johnston and published posthumously in 1943. Since then, this field has moved forward thanks mainly to three articles by D. C. Sircar that appeared in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, no further epigraphic material of early Arakan has been published. The Sanskrit inscriptions of Arakan are often in deplorable state of preservation. But even fragmentary material can throw new light on the past, especially when studied in combination with epigraphical and numismatic discoveries made in Southeast Bengal over the past half-century. This article deals with three such fragmentary inscriptions, all previously unpublished. It presents the discovery that the ancient name of Arakan was Kāmaraṅga, discusses aspects of the history of Buddhism in Arakan during the first millennium, and discusses the problem of the chronology of early Arakan based on a detailed palaeographic analysis of the inscriptions published here.
The Lord of the Elephant: Interpreting the Islamicate Epigraphic, Numismatic, and Literary Material from the Mrauk U Period of Arakan (ca. 1430−1784)
Authors: d’Hubert Thibaut
Published: December 2015

With this article, I propose to revisit a corpus of multilingual inscriptions on coins, as well as one Persian stone inscription, whose dates range from the fifteenth to the first half of the seventeenth centuries of the Mrauk U period of Arakan ( ca. 1430−1784). My primary aim is to revise the readings of some of those inscriptions and, with these revisions in mind, to reassess the significance of such texts in light of recent scholarship on the Mrauk U period. Rather than derive conclusions based on anecdotal evidence of the existence of an Islamicate idiom in Arakan during this period, I observe the internal features of those inscriptions and possible readings that could be made of the message they contain. I also extend my analysis beyond coin inscriptions and trace the various forms of the Arakanese royal title “Lord of the Elephant” and its use as a generic epithet associated with political power in later ( ca. 17 th −18 th CE) Bengali Muslim literature.
King Maṅḥ Co Mvan’s Exile in Bengal: Legend, History, and Context
Authors: Leider Jacques P. , Htin Kyaw Minn
Published: December 2015

Maṅḥ Co Mvan is the name of an Arakanese king known as the founder, in 1430, of the city of Mrauk U (Mrok Ūḥ). Mrauk U was the capital of Arakan until 1785, when the kingdom was conquered by the Burmese. It became the seat of a Burmese governor, but lost its status after 1825 following the occupation of Arakan by troops of the East India Company. Accounts about and stories related to this important king, his biography and his rule vary in the sources. Still, some stories have been more successful than others. Since the colonial period they have been considered as historical or at least partly historical facts. This article reviews one of these stories in particular, namely the king's alleged stay in exile for an extended period of time. As far as our knowledge about the troubled political context of the early fifteenth century goes, the king might indeed have left his country for some time looking for support to regain his throne. Nonetheless, there are no sources to prove this point. We deconstruct the master narrative that has been built on the exile story by investigating the historical context and the literary devices used to embed the story in a traditional framework, which show that beyond the issue of historical facticity, there is a compelling interest to study the way the story has been both rationalized and mythologized to satisfy different audiences.
Prosodic boundaries effect on segment articulation in standard Chinese: An articulatory and acoustic study
Authors: Li Yinghao
Published: December 2015

This paper presents an electropalatographic (EPG) and acoustic study of prosodic boundaries effect on the domain-initial segments in Standard Chinese. Two speech sounds, namely, the voiceless unaspirated alveolar stop /t/ and the high front vowel /i/, were studied to examine the domain-initial strengthening in both spatial and temporal dimensions. The articulatory and acoustic parameters of the speech sounds were compared in initial positions of five prosodic constituents in Standard Chinese, namely, a Syllable, a Foot, an Immediate Phrase, an Intonational Phrase, and an Utterance. The results show that: (1) the production of the domain-initial consonantal gesture was prosodically encoded. The linguopalatal contact and the seal duration varied as a function of the prosodic boundary strength. The linguopalatal contact was dependent on the seal duration in a nonlinear fashion. Of the acoustic properties of the domain-initial stop, the total voiceless interval and voicing during closure were found to be reliable acoustic correlates that mark the hierarchical structure of the prosody. (2) At the release moment of the domain-initial stop, no consistent pattern was found to support the domain-initial strengthening. The linguopalatal contact of the vowel immediately following the domain-initial consonant did not show a clear trend of domain-initial strengthening; however, the phonatory features of vowels were indicative of pitch reset at major prosodic boundaries. These indicate that the domain-initial strengthening is restricted on the segment immediately following the boundary. In conclusion Standard Chinese strengthens the phonetic features of the domain-initial segments as a function of boundary strength, which serves as an important way to mark prosodic structure in Standard Chinese.
A study on the features of chest and abodominal breathing between reciting and chanting Chinese poetry
Authors: Yang Feng
Published: December 2015

This research studies the features of chest and abdominal breathing between reciting and chanting Chinese poems of different styles. Eight participants were recruited to recite and chant 85 modern style poems and 39 Song poems. The chest and abdominal breathing signals as well as speech signal were recorded simultaneously. Programs for breathing analysis have been written to extract parameters, such as breathing reset amplitude, time of inhalation phase, and slope of exhalation phase. The results show that the poem chanting has a larger depth of breathing and amount of breath, and more frequent exhalations compared with the poem reciting. In both poem reciting and chanting, the pause and declination of chest breathing is closely correlated with the prosodic boundaries. The major function of chest breathing in speaking is to keep the chest extended and provide enough breath for articulation and chest resonance. The function of abdominal breathing is to provide stable sub-glottal pressure through contraction of abdominal muscle and diaphragm, controlling continuous airflow to produce continuous sound.
An aerodynamic study on articulation of Mandarin initials
Authors: Li Yonghong , Fang Huaping , Hu Axu , Lü Shiliang
Published: December 2015

This paper presents findings on the aerodynamic features of Mandarin initial consonants on different articulatory places and manners. Signals of speech, airflow, and air-pressure from 20 speakers (10 males and 10 females) were collected by using Phonatory Aerodynamic System (PAS6600). Parameters, including duration, sound pressure, air-pressure peak, airflow peak, airflow volume were measured. The results showed that: 1) The aerodynamic features of initials vary among different speakers, which might be attributed to their gender or articulation habits. Male speakers have higher air-pressure, airflow peak and expiratory volume (EV) than females, which might be attributed to a greater lung capacity of the male. 2) Aspirated consonants have higher sound pressure level (SPL), expiratory airflow duration (EAD), peak air-pressure (PAP), peak expiratory airflow (PEA) and EV than their unaspirated counterparts. Therefore all these parameters can be regarded as criteria for distinguishing aspirated and unaspirated consonants. 3) The vibration of vocal cords in voiced consonants has an immediate impact on SPL, which leads to higher SPL values than those in voiceless consonants, but air-pressure is just the opposite. The PEA and EV of voiced consonants are close to those of voiceless stops, but these two parameters are far smaller than those for other consonants. 4) The aerodynamics of consonants with different articulatory manners are significantly different, thus the EAD, PAP, PEA and EV parameters can all be regarded as the distinctive features of consonants.
An articulatory model of standard Chinese using MRI and X-ray movie
Authors: Wang Gaowu , Kong Jiangping
Published: December 2015

To better understand speech production from the phonological inputs to articulatory movements and then to acoustic outputs, it is important to establish an elaborate articulatory model of the vocal tract. This paper has explored the articulatory mechanism of speech production in Standard Chinese and developed a geometric articulatory model in both the visual and acoustic modalities. This model was based on the data of MRI images and X-ray movie, with the former providing detailed volumetric information of the vocal tract, and the latter the dynamic information of articulation. In this model, the seven articulators have been studied and modeled, including the hard palate, pharynx, jaw, lips, velum, tongue, and larynx. The tongue is modeled as two parts: tongue tip and tongue body, thus reducing the necessary number of parameters. The relation between larynx height and fundamental frequency in regard to the four tones is also modeled. These two improvements on tongue and larynx modeling have contributed new ideas to the articulatory modeling of Standard Chinese. This model can serve as a research tool for linguists, phoneticians, and speech engineers, and can be used in parameter speech synthesis, virtual speaker, and visual assistant speech training of Standard Chinese. 提要: 爲了更好地理解言語的產生過程,即如何從音位輸入到調音器官的動 作、再到聲學輸出,需要建立詳盡的聲道調音模型。本文是對漢語普 通話言語產生中調音機制的探索與研究,建立了一個具有視覺和聲學 輸出的幾何調音模型。該調音模型的數據源自於聲道的磁共振圖像和 X 光錄影,前者主要提供聲道的立體形狀,後者提供調音的動態過程。 在這個模型中,聲道被分解為七個調音部位進行研究:硬齶、喉腔後 壁、下頜、雙唇、軟齶、舌頭和喉管。其中創新性地,舌頭又被分為 舌體(相對簡單)和舌尖(更為靈活)兩部份,從而簡化所需要的參 數;另外,普通話四聲中基頻高低與喉管上下高度的關係也加入到模 型中。該模型可以作為研究工具服務於語言學、語音學和言語工程, 並可用於語音參數合成、虛擬說話人、普通話輔助教學等領域。
Variations of laryngeal features in Jianchuan Bai
Authors: Wang Feng
Published: December 2015

The tonal system in Jianchuan Bai has attracted much attention for its complex combinations of pitch and phonation type. In this paper, based on EGG signals, three parameters, namely F0, Open Quotient (OQ) and Speed Quotient (SQ), are extracted to examine the tonal quality. It is found that there are two non-modal phonation types, Harsh and Pressed, and roughly four groups of pitch pattern (31/31/41; 33/433; 55/54; 35) in the eight tonal categories. One pair of tones can only be distinguished from each other by phonation type since their pitches are the same. As for other pairs, both pitch and phonation type may contribute to the distinction between them. Notably, non-modal phonation types vary across different Bai speakers. For a particular non-modal tone, one speaker may employ harsh voice, while another may use pressed voice. Sometimes, the non-modal phonation type even changed within a syllable. It is then suggested that different strategies may be used to produce non-modal tones in contrast with their modal counterpart. Moreover, based on the Bai data, how to define different phonation types based on the three basic parameters, F0, OQ and SQ, is discussed. Harsh voice is a better term for the type with the laryngeal features [Middle falling F0, -OQ, -SQ] rather than high-pitched voice.
A two-dimensional lip model for Mandarin Chinese
Authors: Pan Xiaosheng
Published: December 2015

A two-dimensional lip model with inner lip information is provided in this paper. The lip model can precisely describe all possible lip states, which generally include complete closure, half opening, and full opening. By changing the values of the lip model’s parameters, all kinds of lip contours with different shapes can be generated, and the lip contours can fit the real lip shape quite well. The lip geometrical features based on lip contour are extracted and used to define a basic linguistic term, lip rounding. This paper has shown that the width of the inner lip is as important as the width of the outer lip when defining lip rounding. In the Audio-Visual (AV) speech perception experiment of the McGurk Effect, samples are developed with the aid of the lip model. The first sample is to keep all lip information including the tongue and the teeth information, the second sample is to keep both outer and inner lip information, and the last sample is to keep the outer lip information only. The result proves that the inner lip provides the most visual information of speech in the McGurk Effect experiment. It is concluded that the inner lip information is indispensable in the lip model for linguistic study based on the above research.
The role of phonation cues in Mandarin tonal perception
Authors: Yang Ruoxiao
Published: December 2015

This study investigates the role of phonation cues in perceiving Mandarin tones in isolated syllables. Mandarin tones have been previously reported to be sufficiently identified by F0 contour, while phonation cues are redundant. This study provides evidence to show that native Mandarin speakers are sensitive to phonation cues in identifying the four mandarin tones in isolated syllables. Moreover, Mandarin Tone 3 more strongly relies on phonation cues in its identification than the other three tones, which probably derives from the usual accompanying non-modal voice (creaky voice) in Tone 3 production. These results thus indicate the need to define language tones in a finer model that incorporates detailed phonation parameters.
A dynamic glottal model through high-speed imaging
Authors: Kong Jiangping
Published: December 2015

This paper is a study for an improved dynamic glottal model through high-speed imaging (HSI). As is well known, speech production comprises three parts, namely speech source, speech resonance and lip radiation. Among these three parts, speech source is the most important one because it is the basis of speech. In research on speech production, acoustical models of speech source have been well established. But the physiological speech source, that is to say, the activity of the glottis is seldom researched, because the vibration of the vocal folds is difficult to observe and sample. A study on the glottal model was established many years ago (Kong 2007), and in that model, the static glottis was modeled by four quarters of ellipses in three modes namely normal mode, leakage mode and open mode. The dynamic glottal control function was modeled by an approximation of multiplication of sine and exponential. The problem of the dynamic glottal model is that the control parameters can’t be well explained, though the glottis can be simulated. In this study, more high-speed images were sampled, the image processing was greatly improved and the dynamic glottal control function was modeled with parameters which were significant to speech perception.
The creaky voice and its tonal description method: Based on the field work on Dilu dialect in Mengshan
Authors: Guan Yingwei
Published: December 2015

The Dilu dialect (spoken in Mengshan, Guangxi) shows, disparity in the categorization of phonation types in phonetic and phonological analyses. While the phonological analysis proposes that Dilu operates with two phonation types, i.e. creaky and modal, phonetic facts show a three-way distinction, i.e. creaky, male modal and female modal. In this paper acoustic features are investigated for modal and creaky voices in Dilu. In particular, the parameters of Open Quotient (OQ) and Speed Quotient (SQ) are examined. We discuss whether it is necessary and possible for female and male modal voices to collapse into one category to serve the purpose of phonological transcription. Finally, based on an independent five-level tone scale, we propose a tone transcription system for languages that have various phonation types.