bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The existence of a double S-shaped process curve during reactive magnetron sputtering
Authors: Schelfhout R. , Strijckmans K. , Depla D.
Published: September 2016

The four dimensional parameter space (discharge voltage and current and reactive gas flow and pressure) related to a reactive Ar/O2 DC magnetron discharge with an aluminum target and constant pumping speed was acquired by measuring current-voltage characteristics at different oxygen flows. The projection onto the pressure-flow plane allows us to study the well-known S-shaped process curve. This experimental procedure guarantees no time dependent effects on the result. The obtained process curve appears not to be unique but rather two significantly different S-shaped curves are noticed which depend on the history of the steady state target condition. As such, this result has not only an important impact on the fundamental description of the reactive sputtering process but it can also have its consequences on typical feedback control systems for the operation in the transition regime of the hysteresis during reactive magnetron sputtering.
UV-induced modification of fused silica: Insights from ReaxFF-based molecular dynamics simulations
Authors: Tian Ye , Du Jincheng , Zu Xiaotao , Han Wei , Yuan Xiaodong , Zheng Wanguo
Published: September 2016

Atomic structural modification and defect processes of fused silica resulting from UV-laser irradiation are studied by a combination of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and the Reactive Force Field (ReaxFF). Bond state transitions by laser excitation are modeled as the result of localized recoils during energy deposition. Computations of pair distribution functions and bond angle distributions of the irradiated structure reveal that fused silica undergoes significant changes in terms of Si-O, Si-Si pair distances and Si-O-Si bond angles, which are attributed to the formation of silicon and oxygen coordination defects. It is found that nonbridging oxygen is responsible for the decreased Si-O bond length, while laser-induced five-coordinated silicon leads to small Si-O-Si bond angles in 2-membered rings.
Forage and grain yield of common buckwheat in Mediterranean conditions: response to sowing time and irrigation
Authors: Mariotti Marco , Masoni Alessandro , Arduini Iduna
Published: September 2016

With the view to extending the cultivation of common buckwheat to Mediterranean environments, we investigated the responses of two varieties to three sowing times, early spring, late spring and late summer, in rainfed and irrigated conditions. Plants were harvested at two ripening stages for forage production and at maturity for grain yield. The crop cycle lasted 82–88 days independent of sowing time, whereas the thermal time was ~1000 degree-days in early spring and late summer sowings, and 1200 degree-days when sown in late spring. Forage yield increased up to 75% between ripening stages. Early spring was the best sowing time for forage (4 t ha–1 dry weight) and grain yield (2 t ha–1 dry weight) in rainfed conditions. Late spring sowings give the highest forage yield when irrigated (6 t ha–1 dry weight), but were not suitable for producing grain, for the adverse effect of high summer temperatures on seed set and seed filling. Late summer sowings produced acceptable grain yield (1.5 t ha–1 dry weight), whereas short days and low temperatures limited forage production. Thus, in Mediterranean environments, buckwheat could be profitably introduced as a minor summer crop, sown in early spring for grain production and in late spring for forage production.
A neuroscientific toolkit for translation studies
Authors: García Adolfo M. , Mikulan Ezequiel , Ibáñez Agustín
Published: September 2016

Cognitive approaches in translation studies have long incorporated methods from other fields, including linguistics, psychology, and computer science. Despite their major contributions, such approaches are mostly uninformative about the neural systems in which translation and interpreting processes are embedded. Seeking to bridge this gap, we introduce a neuroscientific toolkit to explore the biological embeddedness of translation and interpreting. Our focus is on neuroimaging (positron emission tomography, functional magnetic resonance imaging) and electromagnetic (electroencephalography, direct electrostimulation) techniques. We survey the tenets of these methods, review relevant findings, and outline key issues for future research. Moreover, we report new evidence obtained through scalp and intracranial functional connectivity measures. In brief, we advocate a more active involvement of translation scholars in brain-based research.
Investigating the ergonomics of a technologized translation workplace
Authors: Ehrensberger-Dow Maureen , Hunziker Heeb Andrea
Published: September 2016

The modern translation workplace is characterized by intensive human-computer interaction and heavy use of language technology. In such settings, translators are subject to temporal and spatial constraints that can be mitigated or accentuated by good and poor ergonomic design, respectively. In the research reported here, an ergonomic framework encompassing physical, cognitive, and organizational aspects of the workplace has been used to gain insights into the situated activity of translation. The multi-method approach includes screen and video recordings, interviews, and ergonomic assessments at the workplace. The results of the case study reported here suggest that apparently minor disturbances can have a negative effect on the efficiency of the translation process and potentially impact job satisfaction and even health.
Match evaluation and over-editing in a translation memory environment
Authors: Mellinger Christopher D. , Shreve Gregory M.
Published: September 2016

Computer-assisted translation (CAT) has been touted as a means of increasing translator productivity and improving translation quality while decreasing the amount of effort required to complete certain translation and localization tasks. Translation memory (TM) tools are among the most prevalent in non-literary translation projects and potentially make the translation process more complex, since their use alters the task environment. To the typical comprehension-transfer-production sub-tasks of translation without a TM are added cross-language evaluation, acceptability decision-making (matching), and possible post-editing. Drawing on Angelone’s (2010) notion of uncertainty management in translation, we explore how professional translators behave when presented with translations proposed by a translation memory system. We argue that the editing behavior observed during an experimental task highlights a mismatch between the proffered TM segment and the participant’s internal conception of what an optimal translation (a match) should be. This mismatch results in a tendency to over-edit.
Cognitive efficiency in translation
Authors: Hvelplund Kristian Tangsgaard
Published: September 2016

This article concerns the cognitive mechanisms that underlie the efficient allocation of cognitive resources during the translation process. Three indicators of efficient resource allocation are outlined and examined as correlates of translation expertise: flexibility, automaticity, and processing flow. Analyses of eye tracking and keylogging data from two groups of translators – professional translators and student translators – reveal that the more experienced group performs more efficiently. Professionals exhibit greater variation in attention unit duration, indicating greater cognitive flexibility and adaptability, while analysis of pupillary data suggests a lower cognitive load on professional translators’ cognitive systems. The two groups of translators exhibit different processing flow patterns. The study demonstrates that analyses of cognitive flexibility, cognitive automaticity, and processing flow are useful to determine processing efficiency in translation.
North-South relations in linguistic science
Authors: Grinevald Colette , Sinha Chris
Published: September 2016

In this chapter, we attempt to unmask the ideological bias inherent in influential conceptions of the methods, motivations and practices of endangered language documentation research (ELDR) by addressing the unequal exchange that frequently characterizes the relationship between the linguistic researcher, on the one hand, and the language community and, in some cases, local researchers, on the other. We highlight the extent to which common answers to the question “Why document endangered languages?” suppress the sociocultural and historical relations within which ELDR practices are situated. We review the historical evolution of the conceptualization of language documentation research, and its relationship to language preservation and revitalization. We ask what it is that makes ELDR scientific, critically analysing the models of “language” and of “science” that are frequently deployed in arguments for its importance, and question the value-neutrality of the notion “scientific community” in this context. We suggest that the conjunction of dominant concepts of “language” and “data”, and the relations between “international” and “local” ELD researchers, generates an ideological construction of unequal competence that operates to justify unequal North-South exchange relations. We document this claim of unequal and at times abusive North-South exchange with brief, anonymized case studies. We conclude by noting that, in comparison with other social science disciplines, linguistics seems resistant to reflexive and self-critical analysis of its ideological dimension; and suggesting possible ways of raising awareness and generalizing models of good practice.
A cost-and-benefit approach to language loss
Authors: Mufwene Salikoko S.
Published: September 2016

The linguistics discourse on language endangerment and loss has been marked by a number of disputable assumptions about what languages are and about the terrible price humanity incurs in losing linguistic and cultural diversity as some of them die. I dispute some of those assumptions, including the claim that there are language rights. I also raise issues about the notions heritage and ancestral languages, which should not be confused with mother tongue. I argue that language loss is a consequence of the communicative habits of speakers, influenced in the here and now by their particular socioeconomic ecologies. The notion of population structure, which has to do with whether a population is integrated or segregated, who gets to interact regularly with whom, and who has to accommodate whom linguistically, plays an important role in my arguments.
Language documentation 20 years on
Authors: Austin Peter
Published: September 2016

In the last decade of the 20th century a new field of language research emerged that has come to be known as ‘language documentation’ or ‘documentary linguistics’ (Himmelmann 1998, 2002, 2006; Lehmann 2001; Austin 2010; Grenoble 2010; Woodbury 2003, 2011). In this paper we explore how it was defined in the seminal work of Himmelmann (1998) and others, including what were presented as significant characteristics that distinguished language documentation from language description, and how the field has changed and evolved over the past 20 years. A focus on best practices, standards, tools and models for documentary corpora appeared in the early years, which led later to more critical discussions of the goals and methods of language documentation. The paper examines some current developments, including new approaches to language archiving, and suggests that there are opportunities for language documentation to adopt a more socially-engaged approach to languages and linguistic research, including better engagement with language revitalisation. There are also opportunities to work towards addressing what is currently a language documentation output gap through experimentation with new genres and innovations in writing and publication.
The brief existence of Saipan Carolinian
Authors: Ellis S. James
Published: September 2016

Saipan Carolinian emerged as a unique Micronesian language in its own right only about 100 years ago due to a series of migrations from a vast language continuum in the western Caroline Islands to an uninhabited island several hundred miles to the north, an island today known as Saipan. In view of the very shallow history of Saipan Carolinian the value in documenting this language is not for the preservation of ancient traditional knowledge – its parent languages, with their rich ancient traditions will, in fact, likely outlive this offspring language. Rather, it is Saipan Carolinian’s inherited combination of linguistic features from its diverse but very-closely related parent languages that make it well-deserving to document. It offers valuable insights into how a blended language like Saipan Carolinian can derive phonemic features from one source language (Woleaian) and lexical features from another source language (Polowat) – two languages which are mutually unintelligible. This study also reveals that the history of migration events to Saipan is stored on the tongues of its speakers – a story which happens to be in contrast to what is believed by its speakers, but is nonetheless one that is historically accurate based on well-­documented written records.
Aikanã and Kwaza
Authors: van der Voort Hein
Published: September 2016

Aikanã and Kwaza are highly endangered language isolates in southeastern Rondônia, Brazil. Today, their speakers live in indigenous reserves with the last speakers of Latundê (Northern Nambikwaran) and Salamãi (Mondé, Tupian). Whereas the elderly try to maintain indigenous cultures and languages, younger generations are increasingly oriented towards Western lifestyle, and Portuguese is becoming the family language. Protection of indigenous heritage is guaranteed in the Brazilian constitution, but the authorities have little knowledge about Indians and languages, and indigenous communities are sometimes indifferent or even divided over the issue. Aikanã will probably survive this century. The future of Kwaza is unclear. Documentation and description of languages and cultures can be adapted to the community’s needs and play a role in preservation.
The art of losing
Authors: Lim Lisa
Published: September 2016

This paper discusses issues in endangerment and postvernacularity in the context of Asia, a region with complex dynamics in multilingual ecologies that also includes the presence – dominance – of English, a language that entered the ecologies through colonisation. I use as illustration two minority communities with endangered vernaculars – the Malays of Sri Lanka, brought from various parts of the Malay archipelago by the Dutch and British colonial powers, and their vernacular Sri Lanka Malay, traditionally known as java, a mixed language of trilingual base (Malay, Sinhala, Tamil); and the Peranakans, descendants of southern Chinese merchants who settled in Malaya and intermarried with local women, and their vernacular Baba Malay, a restructured variety of Malay with southern Sinitic influences, usually referred to as patois. I query if linguistic and cultural loss is inevitable, or if such situations of shift – to a language of wider communication or an emergent variety – are in fact instances of empowerment and evolution in response to change, where a repositioning of the periphery in the new global economy brings greater accessibility to and participation in the Centre, and better adaptation for surviving and thriving.
Reacting to language endangerment
Authors: Heine Bernd , König Christa , Legere Karsten
Published: September 2016

Language endangerment in Africa is of a different kind than it is in many other parts of the world. Globalization and the impact of languages such as English, French, or Portuguese are not a major problem for the maintenance of African languages. Language loss is no less a factor in Africa than it is elsewhere in the world, but the replacing languages are, with very few exceptions, not international languages such as those of the former colonial powers but rather fellow African languages (Sommer 1992; Brenzinger 2007a: 197; 2007b).
On the basis of the research findings on language endangerment that exist it is possible to understand the main factors that can be held responsible for language replacement. But there is less information on why replacement does not take place – that is, why people in certain situations do not give up their heritage language in favour of some other language even if their sociolinguistic environment discourages such a behavior. This is the question looked into in the present paper, using the Akie, a traditional hunter-gatherer people in Tanzania as an example.
Language transmission and use in a bilingual setting in rural Tanzania
Authors: Rosendal Tove
Published: September 2016

When studying languages in a bi- or multilingual language contact situation, it is necessary to go beyond the schematic evaluations and scales describing language endangerment which have been developed over the last decades. Here the case of the Tanzanian language Ngoni, represented by quantitative sociolinguistic data from fieldwork in a rural area in the Ruvuma Region in Tanzania, shows that a too general assessment can be misleading. In Tanzania it is the African language Swahili, and not the global language English and ongoing globalization, which at present represents the major threat to other African languages and the maintenance of these languages. The study indicates that Ngoni is more at risk than would have been judged from endangerment scales.
Redefining priorities, methods and standards in endangered-language lexicography
Authors: Nemo François , Cristinoi Antonia
Published: September 2016

Based on our ten-year fieldwork on Palikur (Arawakan) in French Guyana, this paper discusses the need for researchers (assisted by native speakers) to devote more time and energy to documenting the lexicons of endangered languages (EL) and the urgency to focus on the parts of the lexicon that are subject to strong lexical erosion, in order to allow the transmission of saved knowledge to younger generations. It also describes the main difficulties in documenting these sections of the lexicon and advocates the need for new principles, methods and standards in EL lexicography so as to obtain more complete and satisfactory information for interdisciplinary work, for tool, knowledge and content sharing, and finally for dismissing an all-or-nothing approach according to which incomplete lexicographical descriptions and knowledge should not be published.
Introduction to the special issue: Transnational discourses of peripheral sexualities in the Hispanic world
Authors: Horswell Michael J. , Godón Nuria
Published: September 2016

This special issue examines how the fluid historicity of peripheral sexualities are driven by their dynamic transformations, displacements, and reformulations throughout history, having been produced, interrogated by, and represented through discourses of colonialism, slavery, imperialism, and more recently are shaped by the forces of globalization and migration, among other influences. Scholars foster new critical dialogues on the artistic, literary, and linguistic forms through which these sexualities have been articulated and on the new centers that peripheral sexualities often establish in the evolution of human sexuality, societal norms, and creative uses of language. The studies demonstrate how intersections of sexualities and ideologies form critiques of normativity, whether that normativity be heteronormativity, homonationalism(s), or other orthodoxies linguistically tied to sexualities. Central to the explorations in this volume is an attention to how language is deployed in multiple media and genres, from visual and performance pieces that disrupt and reaffirm traditional colonial relationships, to politically engaged literature that grapples with questions of identity, agency, and memory, to subversive films that question revolutionary paradigms or reimagine them for a postnational world. These studies focus on examples from Spain, Peru, Cuba, Bolivia, and Puerto Rico that engage the dynamics of periphery and center, national and transnational, and the liminal spaces mediating between these polarities, all spaces constituted by language and sexuality.
Ecofeminist discourse and fluid lyrical sexualities
Authors: Esquilín Mary Ann Gosser
Published: September 2016

The traditional reading of Julia de Burgos’s (1914–1953) poem “Río Grande de Loíza” positions the river as a male lover. An ecofeminist reading yields a very different reading and raises other questions about the gendered and sexual message circulating within the poem. In my reading, the river becomes a fluid, lyrical mirror reflecting the poet’s quest for transnational and transsexual freedom unbound by female corporeality. Burgos invokes the river as a non-human Other interlocutor in order to deconstruct both the geographic and political boundaries imposed by US colonial hegemony and the sexual ones foisted by patriarchal-oriented Puerto Rican nationalists who viewed sexuality as heteronormative. By the 1930s, landscapes had been appropriated as symbols of the fatherland and a distinct Puerto Rican identity. Burgos’s language establishes instead a fluvial proto-feminist discourse of empowerment by imagining multiple sites of corporeal pleasure that transcend national barriers and offers alternative poetic fluid sexualities.
The discourses of sexual dissidence and memoria histórica in Alicia Giménez Bartlett’s Donde nadie te encuentre
Authors: Castro Elena
Published: September 2016

Giménez Bartlett’s novel recovers the historical figure of La Pastora, who was represented by Franco’s discourse as a diabolic monster. La Pastora is an intersex person, and she also is a maquis (guerrilla). It is this double level of marginalization as intersex and maquis that is to be studied in this essay. Through the analysis of La Pastora’s character, memoria histórica and sexual identity will be uncovered as central to Giménez Bartlett’s novel since they reveal as well as denounce the lack of space for the “other” stories of the Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship. At the same time, Donde nadie te encuentre lays bare the issue of marginalization and repression in Franco’s Spain of non-normative gender and sexual identities — “dissident identities” as Raquel Osborne (2012) calls them — of any identity that does not conform to the models of sexuality imposed by Francoist discourse.
David Trullo’s queer revisionist photography
Authors: Pérez-Sánchez Gema
Published: September 2016

Working with the theoretical notions of “homonationalism” (Puar 2013) and “pinkwashing” (Schulman 2011, 2012, Spade 2013) and using as a case study two photographic series by contemporary Spanish gay photographer David Trullo, I illuminate the complex situation in which contemporary queer Spanish visual artists must produce their work: they resist homonationalism and homonormativity at the same time that they must work within the very frames of homonationalism and homonormativity to fund, produce, and disseminate their particularly subversive queer politics. In analyzing Trullo’s series,Alterhistory: Una historia verdadera(2010) — a gay and lesbian, homonormative rewriting of late nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century photographic couple portraiture — I argue that he simultaneously makes visible and performatively embodies new LGBTQ visibilities and histories in Spain where they were previously erased through a queer manipulation of photographic language, specifically by altering what Roland Barthes has called photography’s “connotation procedures.” Also, I analyze Trullo’sInca: 20 perfiles peruanos sin filtro(2009), a critique of neo-colonial Spanish enterprises in Latin America and Peru’s racism towards its queer indigenous population, which the artist produced while accompanying an exhibition promoting same-sex marriage funded by the AECID (Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo). I conclude that Trullo intervenes in and complicates public debates about LGBTQ rights, visibility, embodiment, and the politics of neo-liberal commodification of progressive rights
“The museum, cross-dressed as a museum”
Authors: Horswell Michael J.
Published: September 2016

This article explicates the discursive strategies deployed by the curator of theMuseo travesti de Perú(2008), philosopher, activist, and artist Giuseppe Campuzano (1969–2013), to explore theoretical intersections of national identity and globalization(s) and to appreciate a testimonial, Neo-Baroque, peripheral aesthetic that challenges and “decolonizes” the cultural history of peripheral genders and sexualities in Latin American countries like Peru. Through an analysis of the museum’s visual codes in its works of art and a discursive interpretation of the narratives framing those pieces, this essay demonstrates how theMuseo travestiis an exaltation of difference and a critical agent for a citizenship of inclusion — a testimonial agent that activates and circulates works of art in order to not only promote knowledge of reality, but to transform that reality through effects of decolonization from the national periphery.
Kiss with a fist
Authors: Haynes Nell
Published: September 2016

Lucha libre, a form of exhibition wrestling, has recently gained popularity in Bolivia, thanks to mixed-gender matches featuring traditionally-dressed women known as thecholitas luchadoras. Within their matches, the act of kissing is often used as a form of humiliating an opponent. This article explores the convergence of eroticism and humiliation in these kisses as an entry point for a broader understanding of the deployment of power in the Bolivian context. Taking both the symbolic language of bodies in the ring and audience discourses about that action, I explore how associations between humiliation and demasculinization may reinforce the potency of masculinity as a position of power. Further, seeing thecholaas representative of the Bolivian nation helps us to understand the ways that humiliation works as a recognizable trope for Bolivian audiences, lending import to these seemingly superficial performances.
Desiring futures in Cuban cultural production
Authors: Frohlich Margaret G.
Published: September 2016

Given that the production of sexual subjects is inextricably bound to language, theorists Lee Edelman and Jasbir Puar investigate the imbrication of the sexual subject in discourses of the Child (Edelman 2004) and the nation-state (Puar 2007). Through an interdisciplinary lens, this essay builds on their conceptual frameworks in its examination of homoerotics and the figure of the Child in Cuban cultural production. Of interest is how peripheral verbal and visual language challenge discourses that fold the sexual subject and the Child into the good of the nation and the coherence of the social order. In Edelman’s argument (2004: 3), the Child and queerness are held apart: the Child is bound to futurity given that the “political order […] returns to the Child as the image of the future it intends” and queerness figures “the place of the social order’s death drive.” The queer poetics of the peripheral language examined in this essay revise the trajectory of Child to “true man,” creating new space for movement of the queer subject and the Child in the political field.
Verbal fluency in bilingual children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Authors: Gonzalez-Barrero Ana Maria , Nadig Aparna
Published: September 2016

We examine the impact of bilingualism on verbal fluency in four groups of school-age (5 to 10 years-old) children: 13 Typically-developing (TYP) monolingual children, 13 TYP bilingual children, 13 monolingual children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and 13 bilingual children with ASD. Participants were matched on chronological age and nonverbal IQ. Verbal fluency was examined via the word association subtest of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF-4; Semel et al., 2003). The bilingual ASD group performed unexpectedly well on the verbal fluency task, not differing from the typically-developing groups, but outperforming the monolingual ASD group with respect to number of correct words produced. These findings are in line with previous research on bilingual children with ASD (e.g., Hambly & Fombonne, 2012) and taken together suggest that bilingualism does not have a negative impact on the lexical-semantic skills of children with ASD.
Orienting to a co-participant’s emotion in French L2
Authors: Berger Evelyne , Lauzon Virginie Fasel
Published: September 2016

This chapter examines emotion displays in second language (L2) dyadic interactions involving an L2 French-speaking au pair and her L1 French-speaking host family. Data are drawn from a corpus of audio-recorded dinnertime talk. The analysis focuses on the ways the au pair displays her orientation to a co-­participant’s emotional stance. The study shows that the ability to appropriately display, recognize, and respond to emotions is an important part of L2 interactional competence. Orienting to a co-participant’s emotional stances plays a central role in allowing the au pair and her host family to establish “emotional solidarity,” leading to her status as an “insider,” legitimate interactional partner, and valued member of the family.
Negative self-categorization, stance, affect, and affiliation in autobiographical storytelling
Authors: Sandhu Priti
Published: September 2016

This study examines pejorative self-categorizations in troubles-tellings vis-à-vis the Hindi and English medium education of two Indian women within the institutional context of qualitative research interviews. Sequential conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis are combined to analyze how the interviewees manage emotional displays in relation to socio-linguistic identities and categories. Analysis reveals that while explicitly discriminatory categorizations with accompanying affect-implicative resources such as laughter tokens and prosodic variation are produced by the interviewees to reference themselves, this is done in the pursuit of recipient affiliation. Findings demonstrate that these Hindi-speaking interviewees orient to the same desire for recipient affiliation to their expressed emotional stances as has been found in monolingual and English troubles-tellings produced in interview and non-­interview settings.
Affective formulations in multilingual healthcare settings
Authors: Farini Federico
Published: September 2016

This chapter discusses the results of research on the management of emotions in medical interactions involving Italian healthcare providers and Arabic- or Chinese-speaking interpreters and patients. Findings suggest that the possibility for patients’ emotions to become relevant in the medical encounter is affected by the conduct of interpreters as mediators of the inter-linguistic interaction. While this study also considers examples of interpreters’ actions that exclude patients’ emotions from the interaction, the analysis focuses on affective formulations related to patients’ expression of emotions and their function to involve doctors in an affective framework previously developed within dyadic monolingual interactions. This study offers insight into the ways interpreters may effectively promote emotion-sensitive healthcare practices that support a patient-centred model of inter-linguistic medicine.
‘It hurts to hear that’
Authors: Furukawa Gavin Ken
Published: September 2016

This study looks at the interactional expression of emotions in a Japanese television talk show involving a Japanese cross-dresser, a Japanese comedian, the production staff, and 50 foreign residents from various countries living in Japan. Building on previous work on embedded frames in Japanese television, this chapter shows how emotions are used by the show’s participants and producers as resources across various interactional frames to create a collaborative discourse for entertainment. In addition to sequential conversation analysis, formulation analysis, indexicality, footing, and framing are used to show the various ways that emotions are discursively brought into being through various textual and verbal resources as well as non-lexical means such as jeering and laughter.
Effect of annealing process on atomic-scale structure, dislocation and mechanical behaviour of nano-grained Al–Cr–N thin films
Authors: Zhuang C. , Li Z. , Lin S.
Published: September 2016

Although Al–Cr–N films have excellent oxidation resistance, they also need to have matched mechanical properties. Both the oxidation resistance and mechanical property are essentially determined by microstructure. At present, atomic-scale microstructures of Al–Cr–N films are scarce due to the difficulty of tracing the evolution of nanocrystalline grains, dislocation annihilation and mechanical properties. In this work, atomic-scale structure, phase transformation and dislocation behaviour in Al–Cr–N films were studied by high-resolution transmission electron microscope. The grain size showed no obvious variation when the annealing temperature is lower than 1000°C, but it increased from ∼5 to ∼50 nm when the temperature approached up to 1100°C. Edge dislocations in the deposited films disappeared after the obtained samples were heated. Mechanical properties showed no obvious fluctuations as the temperature was lower than 800°C.
Vitamin D in relation to bone health and muscle function in young female soccer players
Authors: Brännström André , Yu Ji‐Guo , Jonsson Per , Åkerfeldt Torbjörn , Stridsberg Mats , Svensson Michael
Published: September 2016

The present work investigated serum vitamin D (25(OH)D) status in relation to bone and muscle qualities and functions in 19 female soccer players (13–16 years) resident at northern latitude with very low sun exposure (∼32–36 h/month) during winter season (late January to early March). Serum 25(OH)D, parathyroid hormone and bone turnover markers osteocalcin (OC) and beta carboxy‐terminal collagen cross‐links (β‐Ctx), as well as body composition and muscle performance were examined. Hormones were tested using routine laboratory methods. Fat mass, lean mass, and bone mineral density in whole body, as well as femur and lumbar spine were evaluated with dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry. Muscle performance was assessed through isokinetic knee extension and flexion, countermovement jump, and sprint running. 25(OH)D was low (50.5 ± 12.8 nmol l−1), whereas the values of bone turnover markers were markedly high (OC: 59.4 ± 18.6 µg l−1; β‐Ctx: 1075 ± 408 ng l−1). All bone and muscle measurements were normal or above normal. 25(OH)D was not significantly correlated with most of the parameters of bone and muscle quality or function, except the knee extension time to peak torque (r = −0.50, p = .03). In conclusion, the level of vitamin D is markedly low in adolescent female soccer players during the winter in Sweden. However, vitamin D levels did not significantly correlate with measures of bone and muscle except a moderate correlation in time to peak torque in the knee extensors. The practical implication of low vitamin D levels in young growing female athletes remains unclear.
Image Dependency in the Recognition of Newly Learnt Faces
Authors: Longmore Christopher A. , Santos Isabel M. , Silva Carlos F. , Hall Abi , Faloyin Dipo , Little Emily
Published: September 2016

Research investigating the effect of lighting and viewpoint changes on unfamiliar and newly learnt faces has revealed that such recognition is highly image dependent and that changes in either of these leads to poor recognition accuracy. Three experiments are reported to extend these findings by examining the effect of apparent age on the recognition of newly learnt faces. Experiment 1 investigated the ability to generalize to novel ages of a face after learning a single image. It was found that recognition was best for the learnt image with performance falling the greater the dissimilarity between the study and test images. Experiments 2 and 3 examined whether learning two images aids subsequent recognition of a novel image. The results indicated that interpolation between two studied images (Experiment 2) provided some additional benefit over learning a single view, but that this did not extend to extrapolation (Experiment 3). The results from all studies suggest that recognition was driven primarily by pictorial codes and that the recognition of faces learnt from a limited number of sources operates on stored images of faces as opposed to more abstract, structural, representations.
Too Burdensome to Bid: Transaction Costs and Pay‐for‐Performance Conservation
Authors: Palm‐Forster Leah H. , Swinton Scott M. , Lupi Frank , Shupp Robert S.
Published: September 2016

In a world free of transaction costs, reverse auctions have the potential to cost‐effectively allocate payment for environmental service contracts by targeting projects that provide the most benefit per dollar spent. However, auctions only succeed if enough farmers choose to bid so that the auctioneer can evaluate numerous projects for targeted funding. A 2014 conservation auction to allocate payments for practices that reduce phosphorus runoff in Northwest Ohio experienced very thin bidding. According to a follow‐up survey, auction participation was deterred by the perceived complexity of the bidding process and the need to negotiate with renters. Due to low participation, the actual conservation auction made payments for phosphorus reduction that were surprisingly costly at the margin. Applying a farmer behavioral model to the Western Lake Erie Basin, we simulate participation choice and cost‐effectiveness of environmental outcomes in reverse auctions and uniform payment conservation programs. Results reveal that when perceived transaction costs of bid preparation are high, reverse auctions can be less cost‐effective than spatially targeted, uniform payment programs that attract higher participation.
Supply Chain Design and Adoption of Indivisible Technology
Authors: Lu Liang , Reardon Thomas , Zilberman David
Published: September 2016

We develop a framework for analyzing small farms' adoption of indivisible technologies by using a threshold diffusion model. The article shows that different supply chains may emerge to enable the adoption of these technologies. When the gain from adoption is not affected by scale or ownership of the technology, independent technology dealers or larger farmers may buy the indivisible equipment that embodies the technology and rent it to farmers, or enable farmers to outsource the machine's services by supplying custom services. The article derives equilibrium prices and quantities in the output and equipment rental or outsourcing markets. The prices and quantities are a function of the heterogeneity of farmers and the features of the technology. Introducing the new indivisible technology will benefit larger adopting farmers and consumers but may hurt non‐adopters. We illustrate our conceptual findings.
Verdant: automated annotation, alignment and phylogenetic analysis of whole chloroplast genomes
Authors: McKain Michael R , Hartsock Ryan H , Wohl Molly M , Kellogg Elizabeth A
Published: September 2016

Motivation

Chloroplast genomes are now produced in the hundreds for angiosperm phylogenetics projects, but current methods for annotation, alignment and tree estimation still require some manual intervention reducing throughput and increasing analysis time for large chloroplast systematics projects.

Results

Verdant is a web-based software suite and database built to take advantage a novel annotation program, annoBTD. Using annoBTD, Verdant provides accurate annotation of chloroplast genomes without manual intervention. Subsequent alignment and tree estimation can incorporate newly annotated and publically available plastomes and can accommodate a large number of taxa. Verdant sharply reduces the time required for analysis of assembled chloroplast genomes and removes the need for pipelines and software on personal hardware.

Availability and Implementation

Verdant is available at: http://verdant.iplantcollaborative.org/plastidDB/. It is implemented in PHP, Perl, MySQL, Javascript, HTML and CSS with all major browsers supported.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
IsotopicLabelling: an R package for the analysis of MS isotopic patterns of labelled analytes
Authors: Ferrazza Ruggero , Griffin Julian L , Guella Graziano , Franceschi Pietro
Published: September 2016

Motivation

Labelling experiments in biology usually make use of isotopically enriched substrates, with the two most commonly employed isotopes for metabolism being 2H and 13C. At the end of the experiment some metabolites will have incorporated the labelling isotope, to a degree that depends on the metabolic turnover. In order to propose a meaningful biological interpretation, it is necessary to estimate the amount of labelling, and one possible route is to exploit the fact that MS isotopic patterns reflect the isotopic distributions.

Results

We developed the IsotopicLabelling R package, a tool able to extract and analyze isotopic patterns from liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and gas chromatography-MS (GC-MS) data relative to labelling experiments. This package estimates the isotopic abundance of the employed stable isotope (either 2H or 13C) within a specified list of analytes.

Availability and Implementation

The IsotopicLabelling R package is freely available at https://github.com/RuggeroFerrazza/IsotopicLabelling.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
BOSS: a novel scaffolding algorithm based on an optimized scaffold graph
Authors: Luo Junwei , Wang Jianxin , Zhang Zhen , Li Min , Wu Fang-Xiang
Published: September 2016

Motivation

While aiming to determine orientations and orders of fragmented contigs, scaffolding is an essential step of assembly pipelines and can make assembly results more complete. Most existing scaffolding tools adopt scaffold graph approaches. However, due to repetitive regions in genome, sequencing errors and uneven sequencing depth, constructing an accurate scaffold graph is still a challenge task.

Results

In this paper, we present a novel algorithm (called BOSS), which employs paired reads for scaffolding. To construct a scaffold graph, BOSS utilizes the distribution of insert size to decide whether an edge between two vertices (contigs) should be added and how an edge should be weighed. Moreover, BOSS adopts an iterative strategy to detect spurious edges whose removal can guarantee no contradictions in the scaffold graph. Based on the scaffold graph constructed, BOSS employs a heuristic algorithm to sort vertices (contigs) and then generates scaffolds. The experimental results demonstrate that BOSS produces more satisfactory scaffolds, compared with other popular scaffolding tools on real sequencing data of four genomes.

Availability and Implementation

BOSS is publicly available for download at https://github.com/bioinfomaticsCSU/BOSS.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
A theoretical discussion on Vening Meinesz-Moritz inverse problem of isostasy
Authors: Eshagh Mehdi
Published: September 2016

The Moho surface can be determined according to isostatic theories, and among them, the recent Vening Meinesz-Moritz (VMM) theory of isostasy has been successfully applied for this purpose. In this paper, this method is studied from a theoretical prospective and its connection to the Airy–Heiskanen (AH) and Vening Meinesz original theories are presented. Jeffrey's inverse solution to isostasy is developed according to the recent developments of the VMM method and both are compared in similar situations. It is shown that they are generalizations of the AH model in a global and continuous domain. In the VMM spherical harmonic solution for Moho depth, the mean Moho depth contributes only to the zero-degree term of the series, while in Jeffrey's solution it contributes to all frequencies. In addition, the VMM spherical harmonic series is improved further so that the mean Moho can contribute to all frequencies of the solution. This modification makes the VMM global solution superior to the Jeffrey one, but in a global scale, the difference between both solutions is less than 3 km. Both solutions are asymptotically convergent and we present two methods to obtain smooth solutions for Moho from them.
Reduced dynamin-related protein 1 protects against phosphorylated Tau-induced mitochondrial dysfunction and synaptic damage in Alzheimer’s disease
Authors: Kandimalla Ramesh , Manczak Maria , Fry David , Suneetha Yeguvapalli , Sesaki Hiromi , Reddy P. Hemachandra
Published: September 2016

The purpose of our study was to understand the protective effects of a partial reduction of dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) progression and pathogenesis. Increasing evidence suggests that phosphorylated Tau and mitochondrial abnormalities are involved in the loss of synapses, defective axonal transport and cognitive decline, in patients with AD. In the current study, we investigated whether a partial reduction of Drp1 protect neurons from phosphorylated Tau-induced mitochondrial and synaptic toxicities in AD progression. We crossed Drp1+/− mice with Tau transgenic mice (P301L line) and created double mutant (TauXDrp1+/−) mice. Using real-time RT-PCR, immunoblotting and immunostaining analyses, we measured mRNA expressions and protein levels of genes related to the mitochondrial dynamics—Drp1 and Fis1 (fission), Mfn1, Mfn2 and Opa1 (fusion), CypD (matrix), mitochondrial biogenesis—Nrf1, Nrf2, PGC1α and TFAM and synaptic—synaptophysin, PSD95, synapsin 1, synaptobrevin 1, neurogranin, GAP43 and synaptopodin in brain tissues from 6-month-old Drp1+/−, Tau, TauXDrp1+/− and wild-type mice. Using biochemical and immunoblotting methods, mitochondrial function and phosphorylated Tau were measured. Decreased mRNA and protein levels of fission and matrix and increased levels of fusion, mitochondrial biogenesis, and synaptic genes were found in 6-month-old TauXDrp1+/− mice relative to Tau mice. Mitochondrial dysfunction was reduced in TauXDrp1+/− mice relative to Tau mice. Phosphorylated Tau found to be reduced in TauXDrp1+/− mice relative to Tau mice. These findings suggest that a partial reduction of Drp1 decreases the production of phosphorylated Tau, reduces mitochondrial dysfunction, and maintains mitochondrial dynamics, enhances mitochondrial biogenesis and synaptic activity in Tau mice. Findings of this study may have implications for the development of Drp1 based therapeutics for patients with AD and other tauopathies.
The mirroring hypothesis: theory, evidence, and exceptions
Authors: Colfer Lyra J , Baldwin Carliss Y
Published: September 2016

The mirroring hypothesis predicts that organizational ties within a project, firm, or group of firms (e.g., communication, collocation, employment) will correspond to the technical dependencies in the work being performed. This article presents a unified picture of mirroring in terms of theory, evidence, and exceptions. First, we formally define mirroring and argue that it is an approach to technical problem-solving that conserves scarce cognitive resources. We then review 142 empirical studies, divided by organizational form into (i) industry studies, (ii) firm studies, and (iii) studies of open collaborative projects. The industry and firm studies indicate that mirroring is a prevalent pattern but not universal. However, in technologically dynamic industries, partial mirroring, where knowledge boundaries are drawn more broadly than operational boundaries, is likely to be a superior strategy. Firms can also strategically ‘break the mirror’ by implementing modular partitions within their boundaries, or by building relational contracts across their boundaries. Finally, studies of open collaborative projects, most of which focused on software, were not supportive of the hypothesis. We argue that digital technologies make possible new modes of coordination that enable groups to deviate from classical mirroring as seen in firms.