bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Towards high throughput GPCR crystallography: In Meso soaking of Adenosine A2A Receptor crystals
Authors: Rucktooa Prakash , Cheng Robert K. Y. , Segala Elena , Geng Tian , Errey James C. , Brown Giles A. , Cooke Robert M. , Marshall Fiona H. , Doré Andrew S.
Published: January 2018

Here we report an efficient method to generate multiple co-structures of the A2A G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) with small-molecules from a single preparation of a thermostabilised receptor crystallised in Lipidic Cubic Phase (LCP). Receptor crystallisation is achieved following purification using a low affinity “carrier” ligand (theophylline) and crystals are then soaked in solutions containing the desired (higher affinity) compounds. Complete datasets to high resolution can then be collected from single crystals and seven structures are reported here of which three are novel. The method significantly improves structural throughput for ligand screening using stabilised GPCRs, thereby actively driving Structure-Based Drug Discovery (SBDD).
Aeromagnetic anomalies reveal the link between magmatism and tectonics during the early formation of the Canary Islands
Authors: Blanco-Montenegro Isabel , Montesinos Fuensanta G. , Arnoso José
Published: January 2018

The 3-D inverse modelling of a magnetic anomaly measured over the NW submarine edifice of the volcanic island of Gran Canaria revealed a large, reversely-magnetized, elongated structure following an ENE-WSW direction, which we interpreted as a sill-like magmatic intrusion emplaced during the submarine growth of this volcanic island, with a volume that could represent up to about 20% of the whole island. The elongated shape of this body suggests the existence of a major crustal fracture in the central part of the Canary Archipelago which would have favoured the rapid ascent and emplacement of magmas during a time span from 0.5 to 1.9 My during a reverse polarity chron of the Earth’s magnetic field prior to 16 Ma. The agreement of our results with those of previous gravimetric, seismological and geodynamical studies strongly supports the idea that the genesis of the Canary Islands was conditioned by a strike-slip tectonic framework probably related to Atlas tectonic features in Africa. These results do not contradict the hotspot theory for the origin of the Canary magmatism, but they do introduce the essential role of regional crustal tectonics to explain where and how those magmas both reached the surface and built the volcanic edifices.
A magnetic-based SERS approach for highly sensitive and reproducible detection of cancer-related serum microRNAs
Authors: Zhang Hao , Fu Chaopeng , Yi Yu , Zhou Xiangdong , Zhou Chunhui , Ying Guoqing , Shen Youqing , Zhu Yifeng
Published: January 2018

A highly sensitive and reproducible magnetic-capture SERS assay for detecting cancer-related microRNAs was developed using silica coated SERS nanotags.
Electrochemical immunosensor detection of tumor markers based on a GO composite nanoprobe for signal amplification
Authors: Wang Jing , Yang Dongcheng , Chen Mifa , Liu Beifang , Chen Hou , Xu Hui , Wang Wenxiang , Bai Liangjiu
Published: January 2018

A novel strategy based on nanoprobes for signal amplification was introduced in an electrochemical immunoassay platform.
Methane decomposition to tip and base grown carbon nanotubes and COx-free H2 over mono- and bimetallic 3d transition metal catalysts
Authors: Ayillath Kutteri Deepa , Wang I-Wen , Samanta Anupam , Li Lili , Hu Jianli
Published: January 2018

Catalytic shale gas decomposition for tunable tip/base grown CNTs and CO2-free H2.
Epidermal growth factor and transforming growth factor-α in human milk of different lactation stages and different regions and their relationship with maternal diet
Authors: Lu Mengqing , Jiang Jiajing , Wu Kejian , Li Duo
Published: January 2018

Epidermal growth factor (EGF) and transforming growth factor-α (TGF-α) are important growth-promoting factors in human milk and play an important role in a newborn's gastrointestinal function.
Decarboxylation-promoted Pd-catalyzed asymmetric propargylic [3 + 2] annulation for the enantioselective construction of a quaternary stereocenter in 2,3-dihydrofurans
Authors: Li Kun , Zhu Fu-Lin , Liu Zhen-Ting , Tong Jing , Hu Xiang-Ping
Published: January 2018

A Pd-catalyzed asymmetric [3 + 2] cycloaddition of tertiary propargylic carbonates with β-ketoesters has been developed, in which a quaternary stereocenter was formed in high enantioselectivity.
Asymmetric synthesis of (−)-sedacryptine through a diastereoselective Mannich reaction ofN,O-acetals with ketones
Authors: Liu Yi-Wen , Ma Rui-Jun , Yan Jia-Hang , Zhou Zhu , Wei Bang-Guo
Published: January 2018

An approach to access the 3-hydroxyl-2,6-disubstituted piperidine scaffold has been developed through the Mannich process involvingN,O-acetals and ketones, and the process is demonstrated by the asymmetric synthesis of (−)-sedacryptine.
Lipidomic characterisation discovery for coronary heart disease diagnosis based on high-throughput ultra-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry
Authors: Liu Chang , Zong Wen-jing , Zhang Ai-hua , Zhang Hua-min , Luan Yi-han , Sun Hui , Cao Hong-xin , Wang Xi-jun
Published: January 2018

Although many diagnostic tools have been developed for coronary heart disease (CHD), its diagnosis is still challenging.
Systematic studies on YbxBi1−xVO4:Tm3+solid solutions: experiments and DFT calculations on up-conversion photoluminescence properties
Authors: Yi Juan , Zhao Zong-Yan , Wang Yu-An
Published: January 2018

By a small amount of Tm3+doping, YbxBi1−xVO4solid solutions can achieve broad up-conversion photoluminescence from UV-light to NIR-light.
Oxygen vacancy and doping atom effect on electronic structure and optical properties of Cd2SnO4
Authors: Tang Mei , Shang JiaXiang , Zhang Yue
Published: January 2018

The electronic structure and optical properties of oxygen vacancy and La-doped Cd2SnO4 were calculated using the plane-wave-based pseudopotential method based on the density functional theory (DFT) within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA).
Fabrication of ultralong perovskite structure nanotubes
Authors: Wu Xiaofeng , Huang Keke , Yuan Long , Feng Shouhua
Published: January 2018

We elucidate a facile method for the preparation of perovskite manganite nanotubes using a sacrificial template assisted pulsed laser deposition technique.
Two new luminescence cadmium coordination polymers constructed by 4,4′-di(4H-1,2,4-triazol-4-yl)-1,1′-biphenyl and polycarboxylic acids: syntheses, structures, Fe3+ identifying and photo-degradable properties
Authors: Huang Qi , Huang Ji-Han , Gu Lei , Ruan Jia-xin , Yu Ying-Hui , Gao Jin-Sheng
Published: January 2018

Two Cd centered coordination polymers (CPs) constructed from triazole derivative and different polycarboxylic acids exhibit diverse structures and different behaviors on Fe3+ identifying and photo-degradation of MB.
The effect of beta-sitosterol and its derivatives on depression by the modification of 5-HT, DA and GABA-ergic systems in mice
Authors: Yin Yongxia , Liu Xiaofeng , Liu Jinping , Cai Enbo , Zhao Yan , Li Haijun , Zhang Lianxue , Li Pingya , Gao Yugang
Published: January 2018

Beta-sitosterol and its derivatives exhibit antidepressant-like activity mediated by the modification of 5-HT, DA and GABA-ergic systems.
Detection of mercury ions in water using a membrane-based colorimetric sensor
Authors: Azmi N. A. , Ahmad S. H. , Low S. C.
Published: January 2018

The effectiveness of a colorimetric sensor is highly influential by the morphology characteristics of a membrane platform that affect the color change responses.
Highly efficient removal of sulfuric acid aerosol by a combined wet electrostatic precipitator
Authors: Yang Zhengda , Zheng Chenghang , Zhang Xuefeng , Chang Qianyun , Weng Weiguo , Wang Yi , Gao Xiang
Published: January 2018

A perforated pre-charger improves the removal efficiency of sulfuric acid aerosol by a wet electrostatic precipitator.
Synthesis and characterization of poly(amide-imide)s derived from a new ortho-functional unsymmetrical dicarboxylic acid
Authors: Canto-Acosta Rodrigo Javier , Loría-Bastarrachea María Isabel , Carrillo-Escalante Hugo Joel , Hernández-Núñez Emanuel , Aguilar-Vega Manuel , Santiago-García José Luis
Published: January 2018

Herein, we report a new diacid monomer containing an imide ring and a methoxy pendant group, 3-trimellitimido-4-methoxybenzoic acid TMBA, for the preparation of poly(amide-imide)s.
Recognition of osmotolerant yeast spoilage in kiwi juices by near-infrared spectroscopy coupled with chemometrics and wavelength selection
Authors: Niu Chen , Yuan Yahong , Guo Hong , Wang Xin , Wang Xuan , Yue Tianli
Published: January 2018

The study developed a NIR-SVM model for accurate recognition of osmotolerant yeasts in kiwi juice for the first time.
Evaluation of a combined emulsion process to encapsulate methylene blue into PLGA nanoparticles
Authors: Gutiérrez-Valenzuela Cindy Alejandra , Esquivel Reynaldo , Guerrero-Germán Patricia , Zavala-Rivera Paul , Rodríguez-Figueroa José Carlos , Guzmán-Z Roberto , Lucero-Acuña Armando
Published: January 2018

The delivery of photosensitizer compounds using biodegradable nanoparticles could improve dosage, controlled release and its bioavailability.
Hydrogen-bonded mesomorphic complexes combining hydrophilic and fluorophilic molecular segments
Authors: Vogel Laura , Janietz Dietmar , Prehm Marko , Tschierske Carsten
Published: January 2018

Molecular recognition between a diamino-1,3,5-triazine carrying a polar EO chain and complementary semiperfluorinated benzoic acids generates disc-like aggregates which self-assemble in columns arranged on a hexagonal lattice.
Criticality of the zero-temperature jamming transition probed by self-propelled particles
Authors: Liao Qinyi , Xu Ning
Published: January 2018

Critical scaling of athermal self-propelled particles suggests the criticality of the jamming transition in the perspective of active particles.
On skin microrelief and the emergence of expression micro-wrinkles
Authors: Limbert G. , Kuhl E.
Published: January 2018

Human skin microrelief conditions the pattern of expression micro-wrinkles at moderate stiffness ratios between stratum corneum layer and underlying substrate.
Adaptable liquid crystal elastomers with transesterification-based bond exchange reactions
Authors: Hanzon Drew W. , Traugutt Nicholas A. , McBride Matthew K. , Bowman Christopher N. , Yakacki Christopher M. , Yu Kai
Published: January 2018

Adaptable liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) have recently emerged to provide a new and robust method to program monodomain LCE samples.
Composition, thickness and properties of grafted copolymer brush coatings determined by ellipsometry: calculation and prediction
Authors: Kostruba Andriy , Stetsyshyn Yurij , Mayevska Sofija , Yakovlev Maksym , Vankevych Petro , Nastishin Yuriy , Kravets Vasyl
Published: January 2018

Predicted changes in comparison with the experimental data for the refractive index and thickness of [P(4VP-co-OEGMA246)] copolymer grafted brush coatings.
Investigation of a less rare-earth permanent-magnet machine with the consequent pole rotor
Authors: Bai Jingang , Liu Jiaqi , Wang Mingqiao , Zheng Ping , Liu Yong , Gao Haibo , Xiao Lijun
Published: January 2018

Due to the rising price of rare-earth materials, permanent-magnet (PM) machines in different applications have a trend of reducing the use of rare-earth materials. Since iron-core poles replace half of PM poles in the consequent pole (CP) rotor, the PM machine with CP rotor can be a promising candidate for less rare-earth PM machine. Additionally, the investigation of CP rotor in special electrical machines, like hybrid excitation permanent-magnet PM machine, bearingless motor, etc., has verified the application feasibility of CP rotor. Therefore, this paper focuses on design and performance of PM machines when traditional PM machine uses the CP rotor. In the CP rotor, all the PMs are of the same polarity and they are inserted into the rotor core. Since the fundamental PM flux density depends on the ratio of PM pole to iron-core pole, the combination rule between them is investigated by analytical and finite-element methods. On this basis, to comprehensively analyze and evaluate PM machine with CP rotor, four typical schemes, i.e., integer-slot machines with CP rotor and surface-mounted PM (SPM) rotor, fractional-slot machines with CP rotor and SPM rotor, are designed to investigate the performance of PM machine with CP rotor, including electromagnetic performance, anti-demagnetization capacity and cost.
Design and analysis of a flux intensifying permanent magnet embedded salient pole wind generator
Authors: Guo Yujing , Jin Ping , Lin Heyun , Yang Hui , Lyu Shukang
Published: January 2018

This paper presents an improved flux intensifying permanent magnet embedded salient pole wind generator (FI-PMESPWG) with mirror symmetrical magnetizing directions permanent magnet (PM) for improving generator’s performances. The air-gap flux densities, the output voltage, the cogging torque and the d- and q-axis inductances of FI-PMESPWG are all calculated and analyzed by using the finite element method (FEM). To highlight the advantages of the proposed FI-PMESPWG, an original permanent magnet embedded salient pole wind generator (PMESPWG) model is adopted for comparison under the same operating conditions. The calculating results show that the air-gap flux densities of FI-PMESPWG are intensified with the same magnet amounts because the PMs are set in a form of V shape in each pole. The difference between d-axis inductance and q-axis inductance of the proposed FI-PMESPWG is reduced. Thus, the output power of the proposed FI-PMESPWG reaches a higher value than that of the original PMESPWG at the same current phase angle. The cogging torque is diminished because the flux path is changed. All the analysis results indicate that the electromagnetic characteristics of the proposed FI-PMESPWG are significantly better than that of the original PMESPWG.
Basics of Fluid Construction Grammar
Authors: Steels Luc
Published: December 2017

Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG) is a fully operational computational platform for developing grammars from a constructional perspective. It contains mechanisms for representing grammars and for using them in computational experiments and applications in language understanding, production and learning. FCG can be used by grammar writers who want to test whether their grammar fragments are complete and coherent for the domain they are investigating (for example verb phrases) or who are working in a team and have to share grammar fragments with others. It can be used by computational linguists implementing practical language processing systems or exploring how machine learning algorithms can acquire grammars. This paper introduces some of the basic mechanisms of FCG, illustrated with examples.
How a Construction Grammar account solves the auxiliary
controversy
Authors: van Trijp Remi
Published: December 2017

The English auxiliaries have been a matter of dispute for decades with two
opposing views: one analysis treats them as main verbs that take a VP
complement; the other considers them as feature carriers. Proponents of both
approaches have convincingly pointed out each other’s weaknesses without however
settling the debate and without accounting for the fact that the English VP is
still evolving today. The goal of this paper is to show that Construction
Grammar offers a way out of the current status quo. This claim is substantiated
by a computational formalization of the English verb phrase in Fluid
Construction Grammar that includes a bi-directional processing model for
formulation and comprehension available for online testing.
An open-ended computational construction grammar for Spanish verb
conjugation
Authors: Beuls Katrien
Published: December 2017

The Spanish verb phrase can take on many forms, depending on the temporal,
aspectual and modal interpretation that a speaker wants to convey. At least half
a dozen constructions work together to build or analyze even the simplest verb
form such as hablo ‘I speak’. This paper documents how the
complete Spanish verb conjugation system can be operationalized in a
computational construction grammar formalism, namely Fluid Construction Grammar.
Moreover, it shows how starting from a seed grammar that handles regular
morphology and grammar one can create a productive grammar that captures
systematicity in Spanish verb conjugation and can expand its construction
inventory when new verbs are encountered.
Russian verbs of motion and their aspectual partners in Fluid Construction Grammar
Authors: Beuls Katrien , Knight Yana , Spranger Michael
Published: December 2017

Russian boasts a highly complex aspectual system which can appear irregular and difficult to learn. It has recently been suggested that motion verbs, which are normally seen as exceptional in their nature, may in fact be at the core of this system, motivating aspectual behavior based on stem directionality. This suggests that analyzing motion verbs may help understand the Russian aspectual system as a whole. The present work demonstrates how Russian motion verbs and their aspectual partners can be implemented and processed successfully with Fluid Constructional Grammar. The study presents an example of language processing in both production and comprehension in operation and highlights the flexibility and power of this formalism, despite the challenges that this complex aspectual system poses.
Regional languages on Twitter
Authors: Jongbloed-Faber Lysbeth , van Loo Jolie , Cornips Leonie
Published: December 2017

This paper addressed the question how the use of Dutch and the regional languages Frisian or Limburgish differ on Twitter and which patterns in language choice can be identified. Previous quantitative studies (Jongbloed-Faber, Van de Velde, Van der Meer & Klinkenberg, 2016;Nguyen, Trieschnigg & Cornips, 2015;Trieschnigg, 2015) have already shown that people in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Limburg tweet in Frisian or Limburgish respectively, but most often in Dutch interspersed with some English. In this qualitative study, we compared the tweets from twenty twitterers in Friesland and Limburg who use both Dutch and Frisian or Limburgish regularly in order to get insight into their language use patterns. The following patterns in language use were identified: when a twitterer aims to maximise his/her audience, Dutch is regularly employed. However, as soon as an interpersonal, addressed tweet is formulated, Frisian or Limburgish is often used. General tweets in Dutch may therefore very well get a Frisian or Limburgish continuation. Another mechanism frequently found in responding tweets is following the language used in the original tweet, notwithstanding such a tweet was in Dutch or in a regional language. Finally, the data show that, although Twitter is a global medium which can be accessed at any time and any place provided that one has access to the needed technical equipment and Internet connection, twitterers sometimes construct localness i.e. what is perceived as local culture through using Frisian or Limburgish exclusively.
Does it ‘feel’ non-native?
Authors: van Hilten Myrte , van Vuuren Sanne
Published: December 2017

Previous studies on information-structural transfer in texts produced by Dutch advanced learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) have found that one of the defining features in learners’ writing is a marked use of initial adverbials. The present study investigates the effect of this hypothesized L1 interference on native speakers’ perceptions. In line withRosén (2006), it was hypothesized that the frequency and contextual use of clause-initial place adverbials in L1 Dutch EFL writing would lead native speakers of English to judge texts to be less coherent, continuous, and native-like than texts written by native speakers. Our qualitative and quantitative empirical study demonstrates that native speakers are not necessarily aware of initial adverbials and are more concerned with other elements of the text that influence cohesion and flow. This new perspective on information-structural transfer forms a starting point for further research into the communicative effect of interlanguage features.1
Anders, of toch niet?
Authors: Urbanek Lukas , Poarch Greg , Schimke Sarah , Fanta Johanna , De Vogelaer Gunther
Published: December 2017

Samenvatting

Both in Dutch and to a lesser extent in German, pronouns can agree with a noun’s lexical gender or be chosen on semantic grounds. It is well-known that for non-human antecedents, Dutch seems to be shifting towards a more semantic system, via a process labelled ‘hersemantisering’, in which gender marking on the pronoun increasingly depends on the degree of individuation of the antecedent. This article presents a psycholinguistic investigation on how German learners of Dutch as a foreign language (NVT), who distinguish between three nominal genders in their native language, handle the Dutch gender system, which has largely lost its three-way nominal gender, and in which resemanticisation has progressed significantly. More specifically, a speeded grammaticality judgement task (GJ) was used in conjunction with a sentence completion task to examine the German NVT-learners’ perception as well as the production of pronominal gender in the L2 (in this case Dutch). It was found that German learners of Dutch judge more combinations of pronouns and their antecedents to be grammatical than they actually use. However, unlike in Flanders and the Netherlands, grammatical gender still trumps semantic gender, which we explain as a L1 transfer effect. In addition, the role of participants’ proficiency in Dutch is discussed.
Sprachkompetenz und Sprachförderkompetenz frühpädagogischer Fachkräfte
Authors: Ofner Daniela
Published: December 2017

Studies have shown positive relationships between teachers’ language proficiency and children’s language development as well as between educators language-related knowledge and skills (language support competence) and children’s language development. This study is the first to investigate the relation between language proficiency and language support competences for the professional group of educators. It is hypothesized that language support competence increases with language proficiency in L1. In a cross-sectional study language-related knowledge, pedagogic skills and language proficiency of 42 educators in Germany were assessed with standardized tests. Correlation and regression analyses revealed a positive relationship between knowledge, language proficiency and educational factors, whereas pedagogic skills were explained to some extent by knowledge and the amount of professional education, but not by language proficiency. Results are discussed with respect to language support practices in early childhood education and current efforts to qualify educators lacking explicit linguistic knowledge and pedagogic skills for this task.
Academic language in elementary school mathematics
Authors: Dokter N. , Aarts R. , Kurvers J. , Ros A. , Kroon S.
Published: December 2017

Students who are proficient academic language (AL) users, achieve better in school. To develop students’ AL register teachers’ AL input is necessary. The goal of this study was to investigate the extent of AL features in the language input first and second grade teachers give their students in whole class mathematics instruction. Five key features could be distinguished: lexical diversity, lexical complexity, lexical specificity, syntactic complexity and textual complexity. Teachers used all features, but the amount in which they used them varied. While all teachers used lexical specific language when teaching mathematics, they did not use very complex language input. The academicness of teachers’ input was significantly higher in grade 2 than in grade 1 with respect to lexical diversity and lexical specificity. The input during explanation and discussion only differed with regard to textual complexity, which was higher during explanation.
漢語詞形韻律結構的變化與上古君王人名長度的演進
Authors: Jiang Di
Published: December 2017

抽象

文章提出一種重新看待早期漢語詞形韻律結構的新觀點並採納新的方法加以分析。與漢語從上古單音節詞伊始演變而來觀點不同，我們認為，承繼甲骨文語言而來的早期漢語實際是從遠古多音節詞語言發展而來，至商周乃至春秋戰國時代已經轉變為單音節詞為詞彙主體的語言。商周詞形韻律結構有 SS，CS，SC，MS，BW（雙音節、弱首音節、重首音節、單音節、雙詞音節）五類。MS是主體，BW初萌發，餘三類是遠古遺存，也是本文分析重點。我們嘗試用輕重韻律說明為什麼早期君王名難以釋讀，輕重韻律如何影響詞形結構變化以及對君王名的制約。
Three Korean transcription systems for Mandarin loanwords
Authors: Qian Youyong
Published: December 2017

This paper investigates the factors involved in the adaptation of loanwords and how these factors influence each other through a case study of three systems of transcription for Mandarin loanwords in Korean. The result of this study demonstrates that perception, phonology, and source-language orthography are all important factors in the three systems of transcription. This study provides empirical evidence to what causes speakers of the same native language – in our case, Korean – to propose different adapted forms for the same source input and argues that variation in adaption patterns can be viewed as results of different constraints and different rankings of the same constraints. Last, this study invites researchers to pay more attention to the role of borrowers in the hope of building a more robust model of loanword adaptation.
Mandarin associative plural -menand NPs with -men
Authors: Jiang Li Julie
Published: December 2017

This paper discusses the syntax and semantics of-menand four types of phrases containing-menin Mandarin. I defend the view that-menshould be analyzed as a plural morpheme as first argued inLi (1999)but argue against the analysis of positing-menin the D position or treating it as a definite determiner. It will be shown that definiteness is not inherent to-menand that-menis compatible with numerals and classifiers and should be in a position local to nouns. I propose an analysis of-menas an associative plural and explain the properties of the four types of expressions containing-menwithin a Neocarlsonian account of bare nominals. The formal account of the syntax and semantics of phrases containing-menadvanced in this paper shows that it is not necessary to assume a functional category D that is always invisible in the grammar of Mandarin in order to account for the behaviors of its nominal arguments and argues for the lack of DP projections in Mandarin.
From pitch contour variation to tone change
Authors: Huang Karen
Published: December 2017

This study illustrates how three level tones might have developed diachronically by comparing two synchronic Mandarin dialects. In Standard Mandarin (SM), the four lexical tones are denoted as /H, LH, L, HL/ or /H, R, L, F/ phonologically. However, based on evidence from two acoustic experiments, this study proposes that the four lexical tones in Taiwan Mandarin (TM) should be analyzed as /H, M, L, HM/, with /H, HM/ in a high register and /M, L/ in a low register. The proposed tonal structure can account for all the tone sandhi in TM using the framework of Optimality theory, and the register difference plays an important role in the analyses. Also, the new TM tonal representation has an advantage in explaining the absence of the SM Tone 2 Sandhi. The new tonal representations illuminate how pitch contour differences might have developed into structural tone changes.
The emergence ofe5 khuan2个款 as a sensory evidential marker in TSM
Authors: Lien Chinfa
Published: December 2017

This paper takes the stringe5khuan2个款 (EK for short) as an ambiguous case to show the emergence of a grammatical function out of a lexical category. It examines the ambiguity of EK in conjunction with the analysis of its syntactic structure. It explores the collocates of EK including a range of matrix predicates and sentence-final particles. It pins down EK as a sensory evidential marker in semantic interpretation. Finally, it teases out the unique syntactic and semantic properties of EK in terms of the layered structure of sentence-final particles.
Just testing
Authors: Deygers Bart
Published: December 2017

Justice has been the topic of comparatively few papers in the fields of applied linguistics or language assessment. This may be due to the lack of a clear and agreed-upon definition on the one hand, or to the difficulty of operationalizing justice for test development on the other. This paper aims to remedy both problems by discussing prior conceptualizations of justice and by introducing six justice principles, which are based on theories of distributive justice that focus on human rights, fairness, equal opportunity, and dignity. The overarching aim of this paper is to advance the debate on justice, and to provide a consistent way of considering ethical and moral dilemmas that language testers face today.
Morphological variability in L2 Italian
Authors: Romano Francesco Bryan
Published: December 2017

Key accounts of morphological variability in L2 acquisition posit either deficits in the representation of abstract morphosyntactic features or the mapping between morpho-phonological forms and syntactic features due to computational limitations. This study extends previous research to L2 Italian, a richly inflected language. The production and grammatical intuitions of suppletive and affixal verb inflection were elicited from a cross-section of instructed adult L2 learners with L1 Spanish and L1 English. Although a clear production-intuition gap was found, supporting computational views, a strong regularity in the degree of variability across test conditions, L1s, and proficiency levels was also attested, supporting representational accounts. The findings suggest morphological development in L2 Italian is consistent with structure-building models that assume no L1 transfer of functional features. Imperative verb forms in L2 Italian are proposed as defaults equivalent to the bare verb forms of L2 English and non-finite defaults of L2 French and German.
Incidental acquisition of collocations in L2
Authors: Vilkaitė Laura
Published: December 2017

As collocations are very numerous, at least a part of them has to be learned incidentally when acquiring a second language. There is now an increasing body of evidence showing that incidental learning of collocations seems to be possible. The present study sets out to investigate whether collocations can be learned incidentally if encountered in their nonadjacent form (with words intervening between collocates). It also looks at the role of prior vocabulary knowledge in incidental acquisition of adjacent and nonadjacent collocations. The results show that nonadjacent collocations can be learned equally well as adjacent ones, at least to the recognition level of knowledge. Also, larger prior vocabulary knowledge seems to lead to better chances of learning both adjacent and nonadjacent collocations incidentally.
Application, results and perceptions of a think-aloud study in listening comprehension of Spanish
Authors: Nogueroles López Marta
Published: December 2017

The present article outlines the procedure and shows the outcomes of a think-aloud study intended to, first, find out what listening strategies Hong Kong students of Spanish use to comprehend a particular oral passage in the target language, second, discover what strategies the learners perceive to be the most effective, and, third, understand the participants’ perceptions of the think-aloud protocol. Such a protocol was developed during interviews in which students listened to a text in Spanish, and were asked to verbalize the processes they were using. After listening, they completed five comprehension questions, reflected on their strategic behaviour, and evaluated the protocol itself. Results reveal that problem identification and evaluation are the most used strategies; while the strategies of focusing attention, note taking, and cooperation are reported to be the most effective ones. Findings also show that students have a very positive view of the developed think-aloud protocol.
Duty, desire, and Japaneseness
Authors: Durbidge Levi
Published: December 2017

This qualitative study draws on identity theory to explore the short-term study abroad and language learning experiences of Japanese high school students from a private high school near Tokyo as they travelled to the UK and the USA. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews both before and after the program, combined with daily journals written by the students, and then subjected to thematic analysis. Several themes emerged among the students’ accounts of their experiences, including drawing on Japanese cultural identities to interpret difficult intercultural experiences, seeing English-mediated identities as a means to overcome pressure to conform to idealized notions of Japanese femininity, and feeling a sense of duty to parents as a motivator to study abroad. These findings demonstrate the diversity of experiences in high school programs and highlight a need for further research on students travelling from non-English-speaking backgrounds to study abroad.
Linguistic identity changes of Chinese international students in Germany
Authors: Maeder-Qian Jingyue
Published: December 2017

This article presents findings from a pilot study that aimed to examine Chinese international students’ linguistic identity changes in relation to their English as a lingua franca (ELF) experience and their multilingual competencies in Germany. Data were collected through two rounds of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with seven Chinese postgraduate students over a period of three to five months, with email reports as a supplementary method. A phenomenological approach was then used to interpret four students’ study-abroad experience by looking at relationships among language, identity, and context. The findings suggest that most of the ELF-users demonstrated positive transformation of linguistic identities within the university setting, but ELF also led to a role of ‘bystander’ in German society. The Chinese students’ multilingual identity development demonstrated diverse features and various reasons for this were identified, such as the context in which their social interaction took place, the perceived power relationships between speakers, and the extent of their multilingual competencies.
The American gaze east
Authors: Trentman Emma , Diao Wenhao
Published: December 2017

The 21st century has seen an emphasis in US media and policy documents on increasing the numbers of US students studying abroad and also the amount of US students studying ‘critical’ languages. This paper examines the intersection of these discourses, or the experiences of critical language learners abroad. We analyze this intersection by using critical discourse analysis to examine US media and policy documents and data from students studying Arabic in Egypt and Mandarin in China. This analysis reveals considerable discrepancies between rhetoric and experience in terms of language and intercultural learning. We argue that a critical examination of current discourses of study abroad (SA) reveals that they in fact recreate the colonial map, mask global inequalities, and create a new global elite. We conclude that language and intercultural learning abroad will remain a source of tension until SA students and programs critically engage with these discourses.
L1-L2 speaker interaction in a study abroad setting
Authors: McMeekin Abigail
Published: December 2017

Analyzing approximately nine hours of video-recorded naturally-occurring conversations over eight weeks of study abroad between three L2 speakers of Japanese and their L1 speaker host family members, the present study uses conversation analysis to explore how the participants manage intersubjectivity using communication strategies in word searches. Specifically the study explores the following: (a) how participants deploy, manipulate, and respond to communication strategies as interactional resources used to co-construct meaning and progressively disambiguate the referent sought; (b) how strategies are used within the sequential organization of word searches to guide the trajectory of the search on a turn-by-turn basis; (c) how linguistic and non-linguistic resources such as intonation and eye gaze are used in conjunction with strategies to organize participant structure and relevant action in the unfolding talk; and (d) how a microanalytic, interactional approach can redefine our understanding of how strategic mechanisms are used and labeled in interaction.
Challenges for study abroad in contemporary Japan
Authors: Grimes-MacLellan Dawn
Published: December 2017

As the number of university students studying abroad has skyrocketed globally, waning Japanese participation stands in sharp contrast. What accounts for this decline? Drawing on ethnographic research, including surveys and semi-structured interviews, conducted in fall 2016 with 14 Japanese undergraduate students majoring in the social sciences, this article discusses current challenges influencing outbound Japanese student mobility. In contrast to contemporary social discourse in Japan that has criticized young Japanese as ‘inward-looking’ and unwilling to take on new challenges, including studying abroad, my results reveal that students continue to aspire to overseas study but are also concerned about costs and other challenges. The article closes with a discussion of how a small but growing number of Japanese students are addressing impediments by taking matters into their own hands, and how this emerging trend may require a reinterpretation of statistics suggesting a decline in Japanese participation in study abroad.
Quantifying the Linguistic Landscape
Authors: Lyons Kate , Rodríguez-Ordóñez Itxaso
Published: December 2017

Study of speech and written texts has provided significant insight regarding linguistic variation and its social correlates. Variation in therepresentationordisplayof language, however, remains a relatively understudied phenomenon. With this in mind, we present a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the variation observed in the Linguistic Landscape (LL) of Pilsen, Chicago. A community undergoing perceived processes of gentrification, Pilsen is an active site of economic, sociocultural change as well as newly intensified language contact. To investigate Pilsen’s displayed language variation, we implement a series of logistic regression models that analyze the distribution of both language and contextual framing observed on signs in four key areas in Pilsen. In doing so, we present an informed means with which to understand the sociolinguistic context of Pilsen as a community undergoing change and provide a replicable framework for future study of LLs that experience similar dynamics.
Restricciones de concordancia
Authors: Escalante María Fernanda , Ortiz López Luis A.
Published: December 2017

El español colombiano ha sido un referente constante de las oraciones con ser fozalizado (SF); sin embargo, son muy limitados los estudios con datos naturales que describan y expliquen el comportamiento microparamétrico y sociolingüístico en cuanto a las restricciones de concordancia de las SF en relación con las cláusulas seudohendidas (CLSH). Los trabajos existentes se basan en comunidades del interior de Colombia, y apenas se han investigado las variedades dialectales, consideradas marcadamente diferenciadas, como la zona caribeña colombiana (Montes 2000; Rodríguez2005,2007). Por ende, esta investigación documenta, analiza y explica la variación entre las estructuras con ser focalizado (SF), compuestas por un verbo matriz y el verboser+constituyente focalizado, y las cláusulas seudohendidas (CLSH), caracterizadas por la presencia de una clausula relativa + el verbo ser + un constituyente focalizado,en datos naturales del corpus de PRESEEA de Barranquilla, Colombia, Los resultados confirman que el español de Barranquilla, contrario a los resultados de otras variedades,usa con mayor frecuencia las SF frente a las CLSH, con y sin concordancia con el verbo matriz, principalmente entre participantes jóvenes con menos educación formal. Este estudio concluye que el SF es un fenómeno sintáctico complejo de microvariación dialectal, que trasciende las descripciones sintácticas, propuestas en estudios previos (Sedano 1988;2001;2010;2015;Méndez Vallejo 2009;2015;Vázquez-Larruscaín 2014;2015, entre otros).
Contextualising the emergence of English-induced morphological borrowing in Spanish
Authors: Roig-Marín Amanda
Published: December 2017

This article concentrates on the competing forces underlying the use of the English morpheme-erin Spanish. Despite some asymmetries concerning the semantics of this morpheme in Spanish and English, I argue that we are witnessing one of the earliest instances of morphological borrowing in Spanish:-erhas achieved a unique status in peninsular Spanish in so far as speakers have started to use it productively to mean “an avid fan of X”. In order to support my argument, I provide empirical evidence and place this phenomenon within the framework of both contact language studies and fandom studies, particularly online fandom communities, the forerunners of this linguistic innovation in fields such as music, politics, or TV shows.
Lexical frequency and morphosyntactic variation
Authors: Bayley Robert , Greer Kristen A. , Holland Cory L.
Published: December 2017

The role of frequency in language variation has received a great deal of attention in recent years, especially in phonology. Recently,Erker and Guy (2012)extended the analysis of frequency to morphosyntactic variation and examined frequency effects in variation between null and overt subject personal pronouns (SPPs) in New York City Spanish. Their results suggest that frequency activates or amplifies the effects of other influences on speakers’ choices between overt and null pronouns, such as person and number. Here we attempt to replicate their study. Analysis of more than 8,600 examples of possible sites of SPP variation collected from Mexican immigrant and Mexican American Spanish shows that frequency has only a small effect on a speaker’s choice between an overt and a null pronoun. The results presented here suggest that factors such as a change in reference from the subject of the preceding tensed verb or the person and number of the verb operate independently of frequency effects and provide a better explanation of observed patterns of variation than frequency.
Anglicisms and their use in an Internet forum addressed to Spanish-speaking teenagers
Authors: Luján García Carmen
Published: December 2017

Despite the vast amount of literature that has dealt with the increasing presence of Anglicisms in multiple domains in Spanish, little attention has been paid to the use of Anglicisms by teenagers in internet forums, which have become a popular medium of communication among adolescents. This paper intends to analyze the use of Anglicisms by Spanish-speaking teenagers in this context. After having examined the contributions in www.forojovenes.com for six months (October 2015 to March 2016), the findings reveal that teenagers tend to use pure Anglicisms more frequently than other kinds; despite the existence of equivalents for some of the examined Anglicisms, the English term is chosen; the most prolific subject area to the use of Anglicisms is that of ICT. Sources such as corpus CREA, the project COLA and several well-known dictionaries have allowed to verify these uses. The employment of Anglicisms in this field may be justified in many cases, due to the lack of Spanish equivalent, but in other cases, these borrowings are connected with the prestige and sense of modernity associated with English.
Pervivencia de las relativas oblicuas sin artículo
Authors: Vellón Lahoz Javier , Moya Isach Rosa Ana
Published: December 2017

Abstracto

El artículo estudia los contextos en los que pervive el pronombre relativo simple (sin artículo) en las proposiciones de relativo oblicuas introducidas por la preposiciónen. Para ello, se aplica una metodología variacionista, con el análisis multivariante de las ocurrencias obtenidas de un corpus formado por textos periodísticos del año 2014. De este análisis se desprende que, pese al dominio de la forma innovadora con artículo (en el que), existen contextos que favorecen la pervivencia de la variante etimológica. En su mayoría estos factores se relacionan con el antecedente (distancia, determinación, valores semánticos), pero otros se vinculan con el tipo de proposición relativa, la función sintáctica del relativo, la polaridad de la subordinada, etc. La incidencia de estos contextos como factores condicionantes de la estructura simple sitúa el fenómeno en el ámbito de la variación morfosintáctica más que en el de la gramaticalización y creación de una unidad gramatical.
Electrodeposited iron-based nanofoams as precursors for transducers
Authors: Berkesi Kata
Published: December 2017

The aim of this work is the electrochemical preparation of iron-based oxide (Fe2O3, Fe3O4) nanofoams on metal substrate by accompanying hydrogen-evolution as promising precursors for transducers. Various metal substrates have been tested and the most satisfying electrolyte composition have been determined. However, various deposition parameters determine various nanofoam properties, like pore-size, density, pore-type, thickness of interconnections etc. The crystallographic composition and morphology of the electrodeposited samples have been studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively.
RETRACTED: Research on Application of Automatic Weather Station Based on Internet of Things
Authors: Jianyun Chen , Yunfan Sun , Chunyan Lin
Published: December 2017

In this paper, the Internet of Things is briefly introduced, and then its application in the weather station is studied. A method of data acquisition and transmission based on NB-iot communication mode is proposed, Introduction of Internet of things technology, Sensor digital and independent power supply as the technical basis, In the construction of Automatic To realize the intelligent interconnection of the automatic weather station, and then to form an automatic weather station based on the Internet of things. A network structure of automatic weather station based on Internet of things technology is constructed to realize the independent operation of intelligent sensors and wireless data transmission. Research on networking data collection and dissemination of meteorological data, through the data platform for data analysis, the preliminary work of meteorological information publishing standards, networking of meteorological information receiving terminal provides the data interface, to the wisdom of the city, the wisdom of the purpose of the meteorological service.