bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Space-charge and current non-uniformities, and contact resistivity of end-bonded metal contacts to thin heavily doped semiconductor nanowires
Authors: Shukkoor Anvar A. , Karmalkar Shreepad
Published: August 2018

Prior work calculated the contact resistivity, ρcN, of end-bonded metal contacts on n-type silicon NanoWires (NWs) of radius, R = 5–10 nm and doping, Nd = 1018–1020 cm−3; it described the internal physics briefly and qualitatively, and considered long NWs and high barrier heights, ϕb0 = 0.8–1.0 V. The present work extends the ρcN calculations to low ϕb0 = 0.4–0.6 V contacts with long NWs, and to low to high ϕb0 = 0.4–0.8 V contacts with short NWs of length, LNW ≤ long NW space-charge width. It calculates the space-charge and current distributions in contacts with LNW = 50 nm–2 μm and low to high ϕb0 = 0.4–0.8 V to provide the following insights: (i) radial non-uniformity in space-charge width and current are high enough to violate the plane space-charge edge assumption employed to model NW junctions analytically. The non-uniformity peaks at Nd where the bulk depletion width ≈2.14R for large metals and small surface charge. (ii) Low ϕb0 contacts are tunneling dominated, and their ρcN versus Nd behaviour differs qualitatively from that of high ϕb0 contacts. (iii) Practical LNW can be ≤long NW space-charge width, for Nd ≤ 1019 cm−3. Shortening the LNW reduces the space-charge non-uniformity and increases (reduces) the tunneling [generation-recombination (GR)] current. However, the current non-uniformity is unaffected, and the change in current or ρcN is disproportionately smaller than that in LNW, since the tunneling or GR causing these occur over a small region near the junction which is less affected by NW shortening. All our calculations include the effects of contact geometry, surface defects, dielectric confinement, image force, and heavy doping. Our work provides an experimentalist clear qualitative understanding over a wide range of conditions.
Energy loss due to defect formation from 206Pb recoils in SuperCDMS germanium detectors
Authors: Agnese R. , Aralis T. , Aramaki T. , Arnquist I. J. , Azadbakht E. , Baker W. , Banik S. , Barker D. , Bauer D. A. , Binder T. , Bowles M. A. , Brink P. L. , Bunker R. , Cabrera B. , Calkins R. , Cartaro C. , Cerdenõ D. G. , Chang Y.-Y. , Cooley J. , Cornell B. , Cushman P. , Di Stefano P. C. F. , Doughty T. , Fascione E. , Figueroa-Feliciano E. , Fink C. W. , Fritts M. , Gerbier G. , Germond R. , Ghaith M. , Golwala S. R. , Harris H. R. , Hong Z. , Hoppe E. W. , Hsu L. , Huber M. E. , Iyer V. , Jardin D. , Jena C. , Kelsey M. H. , Kennedy A. , Kubik A. , Kurinsky N. A. , Lawrence R. E. , Loer B. , Lopez Asamar E. , Lukens P. , MacDonell D. , Mahapatra R. , Mandic V. , Mast N. , Miller E. H. , Mirabolfathi N. , Mohanty B. , Morales Mendoza J. D. , Nelson J. , Orrell J. L. , Oser S. M. , Page W. A. , Partridge R. , Pepin M. , Ponce F. , Poudel S. , Pyle M. , Qiu H. , Rau W. , Reisetter A. , Ren T. , Reynolds T. , Roberts A. , Robinson A. E. , Rogers H. E. , Saab T. , Sadoulet B. , Sander J. , Scarff A. , Schnee R. W. , Scorza S. , Senapati K. , Serfass B. , Speller D. , Stein M. , Street J. , Tanaka H. A. , Toback D. , Underwood R. , Villano A. N. , von Krosigk B. , Watkins S. L. , Wilson J. S. , Wilson M. J. , Winchell J. , Wright D. H. , Yellin S. , Young B. A. , Zhang X. , Zhao X.
Published: August 2018

The Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment at the Soudan Underground Laboratory studied energy loss associated with defect formation in germanium crystals at mK temperatures using in situ 210Pb sources. We examine the spectrum of 206Pb nuclear recoils near its expected 103 keV endpoint energy and determine an energy loss of (6:08 ± 0:18)%, which we attribute to defect formation. From this result and using TRIM simulations, we extract the first experimentally determined average displacement threshold energy of 19.7−0.5+0.6 eV for germanium. This has implications for the analysis thresholds of future germanium-based dark matter searches.
Optical trapping and axial shifting for strongly absorbing particle with single focused TEM00 Gaussian beam
Authors: Liu Zhihai , Wu Jiaze , Zhang Yu , Zhang Yaxun , Tang Xiaoyun , Yang Xinghua , Zhang Jianzhong , Yang Jun , Yuan Libo
Published: August 2018

We propose and demonstrate a stable three-dimensional trap and manipulation of a micron-sized strongly absorbing particle in pure liquid glycerol by using a single tight focused TEM00 Gaussian beam. We employ a bottom-side bidirectional view observation system to observe the trapped particle. We use the light at 980 nm to trap the absorbing particle and the light at 532 nm to indicate the distribution of the temperature field around the trapped particle. The trapping position of the absorbing particle is related to the incident laser power; the lower the incident laser power, the longer the particle shift distance. Our approach provides full control over trapped absorbing particles and expands optical manipulation of strong absorbing particles into a liquid media.
Stress auto-correlation tensor in glass-forming isothermal fluids: From viscous to elastic response
Authors: Maier Manuel , Zippelius Annette , Fuchs Matthias
Published: August 2018

We develop a generalized hydrodynamic theory, which can account for the build-up of long-ranged and long-lived shear stress correlations in supercooled liquids as the glass transition is approached. Our theory is based on the decomposition of tensorial stress relaxation into fast microscopic processes and slow dynamics due to conservation laws. In the fluid, anisotropic shear stress correlations arise from the tensorial nature of stress. By approximating the fast microscopic processes by a single relaxation time in the spirit of Maxwell, we find viscoelastic precursors of the Eshelby-type correlations familiar in an elastic medium. The spatial extent of shear stress fluctuations is characterized by a correlation length ξ which grows like the viscosity η or time scale τ ∼ η, whose divergence signals the glass transition. In the solid, the correlation length is infinite and stress correlations decay algebraically as r−d in d dimensions.
Multi-scale shock-to-detonation simulation of pressed energetic material: A meso-informed ignition and growth model
Authors: Sen O. , Rai N. K. , Diggs A. S. , Hardin D. B. , Udaykumar H. S.
Published: August 2018

This work presents a multiscale modeling framework for predictive simulations of shock-to-detonation transition (SDT) in pressed energetic (HMX) materials. The macro-scale computations of SDT are performed using an ignition and growth (IG) model. However, unlike in the traditional semi-empirical ignition-and-growth model, which relies on empirical fits, in this work meso-scale void collapse simulations are used to supply the ignition and growth rates. This results in a macro-scale model which is sensitive to the meso-structure of the energetic material. Energy localization at the meso-scale due to hotspot ignition and growth is reflected in the shock response of the energetic material via surrogate models for ignition and growth rates. Ensembles of meso-scale reactive void collapse simulations are used to train the surrogate model using a Bayesian Kriging approach. This meso-informed Ignition and Growth (MES-IG) model is applied to perform SDT simulations of pressed HMXs with different porosity and void diameters. The computations are successfully validated against experimental pop-plots. Additionally, the critical energy for SDT is computed and the experimentally observed Ps2τs=constant relations are recovered using the MES-IG model. While the multiscale framework in this paper is applied in the context of an ignition-and-growth model, the overall surrogate model-based multiscale approach can be adapted to any macro-scale model for predicting SDT in heterogeneous energetic materials.
Perspective: The development and applications of H Rydberg atom translational spectroscopy methods
Authors: Ashfold Michael N. R. , Yuan Kaijun , Yang Xueming
Published: August 2018

Determining the product velocities offers one of the most direct and penetrating experimental probes of the dynamics of gas phase molecular photodissociation and bimolecular collision processes and provides an obvious point of contact with theoretical molecular dynamics simulations, potential energy surfaces, and non-adiabatic couplings between such surfaces. This perspective traces the development of the H Rydberg atom translational spectroscopy technique from a serendipitous first encounter through to the present, highlights the advances that make it the method of choice for studying many benchmark photofragmentation and photoinduced collision processes that yield H (or D) atoms amongst the products, and anticipates some future opportunities afforded by the technique.
A broadband fiber-optic nonlinear interferometer
Authors: Lukens Joseph M. , Pooser Raphael C. , Peters Nicholas A.
Published: August 2018

We describe an all-fiber nonlinear interferometer based on four-wave mixing in highly nonlinear fiber. Our configuration realizes phase-sensitive interference with 97% peak visibility and >90% visibility over a broad 554 GHz optical band. By comparing the output noise power to the shot-noise level, we confirm noise cancellation at dark interference fringes, as required for quantum-enhanced sensitivity. Our device extends nonlinear interferometry to the important platform of highly nonlinear optical fiber and could find applications in a variety of fiber-based sensors.
Telomere shortening is a hallmark of genetic cardiomyopathies
Authors: Chang Alex C. Y. , Chang Andrew C. H. , Kirillova Anna , Sasagawa Koki , Su Willis , Weber Gerhard , Lin Jue , Termglinchan Vittavat , Karakikes Ioannis , Seeger Timon , Dainis Alexandra M. , Hinson John T. , Seidman Jonathan , Seidman Christine E. , Day John W. , Ashley Euan , Wu Joseph C. , Blau Helen M.
Published: August 2018

Significance

We find that telomere shortening, which usually accompanies cell division in the course of aging, occurs in cardiomyocytes (CMs) of individuals with genetic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) or dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). HCM and DCM CMs differentiated from human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) also exhibit significant telomere shortening relative to healthy controls. By contrast, no telomere shortening was detected in vascular smooth muscle cells in tissue or hiPSC-derived cells, a cell type that does not express the mutant proteins. Our findings provide evidence for accelerated aging in CMs with familial cardiomyopathy. The potential to monitor the dynamics of telomere attrition in hiPSC-CMs over time will enable future mechanistic studies and screens for novel therapeutic agents to arrest telomere shortening and disease progression.
Responses to pup vocalizations in subordinate naked mole-rats are induced by estradiol ingested through coprophagy of queen’s feces
Authors: Watarai Akiyuki , Arai Natsuki , Miyawaki Shingo , Okano Hideyuki , Miura Kyoko , Mogi Kazutaka , Kikusui Takefumi
Published: August 2018

Significance

In a colony of naked mole-rats, instead of a single breeding female (the queen) nursing alone, sexually immature members (subordinates) show positive alloparental pup care. Their response to pup vocalizations is not continuous, but rather is enhanced during the queen’s postpartum period through consumption of the pregnant queen’s feces. Furthermore, oral ingestion of the pregnant queen’s feces also induces an increase in the subordinates’ estradiol concentrations. Because subordinates’ responses to pup vocalizations were enhanced through the ingestion of nonpregnant queen’s feces amended with estradiol, we concluded that estradiol is the substance that enhances their responses to pup vocalizations in naked mole-rats. Moreover, these results suggest that naked mole-rats communicate the substance between the queen and subordinates through coprophagy.
Default mode network can support the level of detail in experience during active task states
Authors: Sormaz Mladen , Murphy Charlotte , Wang Hao-ting , Hymers Mark , Karapanagiotidis Theodoros , Poerio Giulia , Margulies Daniel S. , Jefferies Elizabeth , Smallwood Jonathan
Published: August 2018

Significance

Accounts of the default mode network (DMN) as task negative are partly based on evidence for a role of this system in off-task thought. We revisited the evidence for this assumption in a study combining experience sampling with functional neuroimaging. Whether thoughts were related or unrelated to an ongoing task was associated with patterns of neural activity in regions adjacent to unimodal sensorimotor cortex. In contrast, during periods of working-memory maintenance, activity patterns in the DMN were associated with whether thoughts were detailed. These results demonstrate that activity within the DMN encodes information associated with ongoing cognition that goes beyond whether attention is directed to the task, including detailed experiences during active task states.
Size and topology modulate the effects of frustration in protein folding
Authors: Kluber Alex , Burt Timothy A. , Clementi Cecilia
Published: August 2018

Significance

Frustration is a central concept in the study of protein folding kinetics. While it has been proposed that most proteins are minimally frustrated, recent experiments have found systems with surprisingly slow reconfiguration dynamics, suggesting an underlying landscape that is frustrated or “rough.” Our results suggest that protein size and topology play a role in determining how sensitive a protein is to frustration.
Determinants of refugee naturalization in the United States
Authors: Mossaad Nadwa , Ferwerda Jeremy , Lawrence Duncan , Weinstein Jeremy M. , Hainmueller Jens
Published: August 2018

Significance

Despite the scale of the US refugee resettlement program, policymakers and the public lack systematic information on how refugees adapt to their new environment. We focus on naturalization as a key measure of integration and draw on administrative data to provide direct estimates of the naturalization rates among refugees. Our results show that, on average, refugees acquire citizenship faster than other lawful permanent residents. We also identify the set of factors that promote or constrain naturalization among refugees. These findings have implications for policymakers seeking to improve the integration of refugees within the United States.
Absorption by water increases fluorescence image contrast of biological tissue in the shortwave infrared
Authors: Carr Jessica A. , Aellen Marianne , Franke Daniel , So Peter T. C. , Bruns Oliver T. , Bawendi Moungi G.
Published: August 2018

Significance

Shortwave infrared (SWIR) fluorescence imaging is a tool for visualizing biological processes deep within tissue or living animals. Our study shows that the contrast in a SWIR fluorescence image is primarily mediated by the absorptivity of the tissue, and can therefore be tuned through deliberate selection of imaging wavelength. We show, for example, that, in 3D tissue phantoms and in brain vasculature in vivo in mice, imaging at SWIR wavelengths of the highest water absorptivity results in the greatest fluorescence contrast. We further demonstrate, in microscopy of ex vivo mouse liver tissue, that imaging at wavelengths of high tissue absorptivity can also increase imaging penetration depth, and use a theoretical contrast model to explain this effect.
Pyruvate dehydrogenase phosphatase catalytic subunit 2 limits Th17 differentiation
Authors: Kono Michihito , Yoshida Nobuya , Maeda Kayaho , Skinner Nicole E. , Pan Wenliang , Kyttaris Vasileios C. , Tsokos Maria G. , Tsokos George C.
Published: August 2018

Significance

Th17 cells favor glycolytic metabolism. Pyruvate dehydrogenase, which facilitates entry into the oxidative phosphorylation circle, is inhibited by pyruvate dehydrogenase phosphatase catalytic subunit 2 (PDP2). Our studies demonstrate that the transcription factor ICER/CREM, which is known to promote Th17 differentiation and related pathology, suppresses the expression of PDP2 and diverts energy production into the glycolytic pathway. In lupus-prone mice and people with systemic lupus erythematosus, PDP2 levels are decreased and its replenishment suppresses Th17 differentiation.
Early postnatal behavioral, cellular, and molecular changes in models of Huntington disease are reversible by HDAC inhibition
Authors: Siebzehnrübl Florian A. , Raber Kerstin A. , Urbach Yvonne K. , Schulze-Krebs Anja , Canneva Fabio , Moceri Sandra , Habermeyer Johanna , Achoui Dalila , Gupta Bhavana , Steindler Dennis A. , Stephan Michael , Nguyen Huu Phuc , Bonin Michael , Riess Olaf , Bauer Andreas , Aigner Ludwig , Couillard-Despres Sebastien , Paucar Martin Arce , Svenningsson Per , Osmand Alexander , Andreew Alexander , Zabel Claus , Weiss Andreas , Kuhn Rainer , Moussaoui Saliha , Blockx Ines , Van der Linden Annemie , Cheong Rachel Y. , Roybon Laurent , Petersén Åsa , von Hörsten Stephan
Published: August 2018

Significance

In Huntington disease (HD) gene carriers the disease-causing mutant
Huntingtin
(m
HTT
) is already present during early developmental stages, but, surprisingly, HD patients develop clinical symptoms only many years later. While a developmental role of
Huntingtin
has been described, so far new therapeutic approaches targeting those early neurodevelopmental processes are lacking. Here, we show that behavioral, cellular, and molecular changes associated with m
HTT
in the postnatal period of genetic animal models of HD can be reverted using low-dose treatment with a histone deacetylation inhibitor. Our findings support a neurodevelopmental basis for HD and provide proof of concept that pre-HD symptoms, including aberrant neuronal differentiation, are reversible by early therapeutic intervention in vivo.
Asymptotic theory of rerandomization in treatment–control experiments
Authors: Li Xinran , Ding Peng , Rubin Donald B.
Published: August 2018

Significance

Rerandomization refers to experimental designs that enforce covariate balance. This paper studies the asymptotic properties of the difference-in-means estimator under rerandomization, based on the randomness of the treatment assignment without imposing any parametric modeling assumptions on the covariates or outcome. The non-Gaussian asymptotic distribution allows for constructing large-sample confidence intervals for the average treatment effect and demonstrates the advantages of rerandomization over complete randomization.
Uso de corpus monolingües comparables para la traducción al francés de unidades de núcleo verbal procedentes de la
sección económico-financiera del diario El País
Authors: Le Poder Marie-Évelyne
Published: August 2018

This work is based on the development of two comparable monolingual corpus works in Spanish and French, made up of articles from
the electronic versions of two daily newspapers, El País and Le Monde (from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2011).

First, based on articles published in economic and financial section of El País, we identify terminological and phraseological
units which include the word “crisis,” which we take as the verbal core of the main lexical structure of the corpus in
Spanish.

Second, we focus on the articles in the corpus in French, finding equivalents for these units. The study reveals three possible
situations: Le Monde provides clear equivalents in context; it proposes unclear equivalent words in context; or it doesn’t provide
any equivalents, which means translators must start from scratch.

The main research interest is the range of proposed translations that are presented around a ubiquitous term in today’s press,
which might be useful for both translators and translation students.

Also noteworthy: the use of a monolingual corpus composed of original texts for finding translation equivalents, as opposed to
translated texts more frequently found in traditional translation-oriented analysis.
The econo-linguistics approach to the study of investor sentiment
Authors: Chan Clara Ho-yan , Sin King-kui , T’sou Benjamin Ka Yin
Published: August 2018

This paper sets out to examine the existing literature in the study of investor sentiment, and propose research areas in the
Pan-Chinese context by use of the econo-linguistics approach. This new research may provide insights into the mindset of Chinese
investors by explicating the language that represents it. Such language arises in public financial discourse that involves the use
of special terminology and metaphorical expressions in Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan and may contribute to influencing
investment behaviour and outcome. Following the review of the research, this paper proposes the use of an innovative mechanism and
platform for systemizing financial terminologies and facilitating financial research within the inter-disciplinary framework of
econo-linguistics, especially in the Pan-Chinese regions.
Measuring emotional temperatures in Shakespeare’s drama
Authors: Culpeper Jonathan , Findlay Alison , Cortese Beth , Thelwall Mike
Published: August 2018

This paper demonstrates how the computational analysis of Shakespeare’s plays can map the emotional language used across individual
plays and across the canon more broadly, affording new insights. It explains how we adapted the “sentiment analysis” tool
SentiStrength for use with Early Modern English. Our analyses allow us to test out the long-held critical
hypothesis that Shakespeare’s work moved from a comic to a “problem” and tragic period, and thence to a more optimistic redemptive
mood in his last plays. The paper will also suggest how computational techniques can further understanding of genre, in particular
the relationship between history and tragedy in Shakespeare’s work.
Can native-speaker corpora help explain L2 acquisition of tense and aspect?
Authors: Tracy-Ventura Nicole , Cuesta Medina Jhon A.
Published: August 2018

This study investigates the distributional patterns of verb form frequencies in the Spanish past tense (the Preterit and the Imperfect) in the Corpus del Español (Davies, 2002). Following a usage-based approach, we examine the potential influence of input frequency as a driving factor in L2 learning. Results provide support for the existence of a distributional bias in L1 Spanish, with several telic predicates more often occurring in the Preterit and several atelic predicates in the Imperfect. Results also demonstrate that the distribution of verbs in the Preterit and the Imperfect is Zipfian, with the most frequent verbs overall accounting for the majority of all the tokens. Finally, an analysis of the different meanings of the Imperfect demonstrates clear differences in frequency of use with the continuous meaning as the most frequently expressed meaning, followed by habituality and progressivity. Implications for research and teaching are discussed.
Arabic learners’ acquisition of English past tense morphology
Authors: Zhao Helen , Shirai Yasuhiro
Published: August 2018

The current study investigates the roles of lexical aspect and phonological saliency in second language acquisition of English past tense morphology. It also explores whether the effects of these factors are affected by data elicitation tasks and learners’ L2 proficiency. We created a learner corpus consisting of data from oral personal narratives from twenty Arabic EFL learners from two proficiency groups (low vs. intermediate/advanced), which were transcribed in CHAT format, tagged, and included in the TalkBank corpora. We also administered a written cloze task. Despite task variations, we find strong evidence that supported the influence of lexical semantics in Arabic learners’ acquisition of past tense marking, confirming the predictions of the Aspect Hypothesis.
Les dues ironies de Dalí en el marc de l'avantguarda catalana
Authors: Mingo Vicent Santamaria de
Published: August 2018

En el marc de l’avantguarda catalana de la segona meitat dels anys vint del segle passat, Dalí fa servir dues accepcions molt diferents de la paraula ironia. La primera, molt estreta i particular, és la que deriva del músic, escriptor i pintor italià Alberto Savinio i la segona és la que es correspon amb una de les característiques d’allò que Ortega y Gasset va anomenar la «deshumanització de l’art». La primera d’aquestes accepcions està associada a la cultura clàssica i troba la seva justificació en una enigmàtica frase d’Heràclit que Dalí mai es cansarà de repetir, mentre que la segona està vinculada a la modernitat i queda identificada amb les figures de Buster Keaton i Erik Satie. Aquestes dues accepcions de la ironia reflecteixen la bipolaritat que caracteritza l’avantguardisme català, sempre vacil·lant entre la tradició i la novetat, entre la santa continuïtat i la santa innovació.
Teatre i bilingüisme a la Barcelona de postguerra
Authors: Gallen Enric
Published: August 2018

La implantació del franquisme va produir grans canvis en el funcionament general
de la cultura catalana i, concretament, en el teatre. En el primer franquisme, alguns autors desapareguts (i altres de supervivents) van ser representats en llengua espanyola fins a 1946, quan els dramaturgs desapareguts i vius es van tornar a escenificar en català. Paral·lelament, en la dècada de 1950 va aparèixer un grup d’autors nascuts bàsicament en els anys vint, que inicialment escrivien exclusivament en espanyol. A partir dels anys seixanta, l’ús literari de la llengua catalana va ser assumit com a exclusiu per alguns d’aquests dramaturgs que van esdevenir escriptors exclusius en llengua catalana. La present aportació pretén descriure el tema, tot establint-ne la història, la nòmina i la característica dels autors implicats.
Usos lingüístics en famílies italocatalanes i francocatalanes. Famílies mixtes de Catalunya davant del català
Authors: Bernat Francesc , Guerrini Rosa Maria Torrens
Published: August 2018

El nostre objectiu és presentar les dades d’un estudi en curs, fet a partir d’entrevistes semidirigides, en el qual s’analitzen i comparen els usos lingüístics declarats d’un conjunt de famílies italocatalanes i francocatalanes amb fills en edat escolar de Catalunya. L’estudi s’emmarca dins els projectes EVOTRANLING i GLOBINMED de la Universitat de Barcelona, centrats en l’estudi qualitatiu de diferents tipus de parelles lingüísticament mixtes. Descrivim els usos lingüístics dins la parella, de pares a fills, entre germans i els globals entre tots els membres familiars, així com els diferents factors que influeixen en un major o menor ús del català, i el manteniment i transmissió de les llengües dels pares als fills.
El dir i el fer lingüístic dels tortosins: entre la voluntat i la confusió
Authors: Saffroy Aurélie
Published: August 2018

En un context de bilingüisme, és interessant estudiar des d’un punt de vista sociolingüístic la comarca del Baix Ebre per caracteritzar els hàbits lingüístics dels habitants d’aquesta zona que han provocat la creació d’una identitat pròpia. En efecte, per la seva ubicació geogràfica, en aquesta zona es combina l’ús del castellà i del català, a l’hora que també hi ha un fort contacte amb les varietats valencianes, cosa que explica moltes de les característiques de la varietat lingüística tortosina i l’interès que suscita. La relació que s’estableix en aquesta zona entre llengua, els altres i el procés identitari és molt particular i de vegades origina un cert grau de confusió lingüística i de comportament que presenta un gran interès sociolingüístic. L’interès del nostre estudi es troba en l’observació dels contextos en què s’utilitzen les llengües catalana i espanyola, mirant al mateix temps quina idea tenen els interlocutors de la seva utilització. Així l’objectiu serà confrontar el dir i el fer dels interlocutors del Baix Ebre quant a la utilització de les llengües per destacar les ideologies lingüístiques més rellevants.
Els "altres catalans" a Carrer Bolívia de Maria Barbal. Ús de la llengua en la construcció de personatges
Authors: Pérez Montse Gatell
Published: August 2018

Carrer Bolívia de Maria Barbal literaturitza un dels fenòmens més importants del
segle xx en relació a la identitat catalana: les onades migratòries des de diferents punts de l’estat Espanyol que, a banda d’altres impactes, incideixen sobre la idiosincràsia de la llengua que els nouvinguts assimilen o rebutgen en funció del seu encaix en la societat d’acollida. L’estudi analitza de quina manera l’ús de la llengua és fonamental en la caracterització dels personatges com a instrument per a l’articulació de la tensió entre els espais, els models socials i de llengua i els personatges. S’analitza l’ús de la llengua en la construcció dels personatges i com la consciència metalingüística incideix en la seva creació psicològica.
A corpus study of Chinese EFL learners’ use of circumstance, demand, and significant
Authors: Liu Dilin
Published: August 2018

This study investigated Chinese EFL learners’ use of circumstance, demand, and significant, three
challenging words each being a member in a synonym set: circumstance in the
case/circumstance/event/situation set, demand in the
ask/demand/request/require set, and significant in the
important/meaningful/significant set. Via an expert rating and a close examination of all the uses of the
three words in Wen, Wang, and Liang’s (2005) Spoken and Written English Corpus of
Chinese Learners, the study has uncovered various inappropriate usages as well as successfully acquired usages involving the three
words. The results reveal a failure by many Chinese EFL learners to understand the three words’ semantic usage differences with
their respective synonyms. The study has also identified L1 interference, inadequate descriptions of these words in dictionaries,
and insufficient instructional attention to the semantic usage differences among synonyms as likely reasons for the learners’
inappropriate usages. Pedagogical and research implications are also discussed.
Le marquage du nombre (et du genre) en Normandie
Authors: Brasseur Patrice
Published: August 2018

Cet article porte sur le singulier et le pluriel des noms en -et comme bouquet dans les parlers
dialectaux normands. Le corpus est issu des atlas linguistiques, qui font au préalable l’objet d’une analyse
critique. L’opposition de -et/-ets se manifeste le plus souvent par l’aperture et la longueur de
la voyelle, selon différentes combinaisons, pouvant être regroupées dans quatre aires. Les résultats sont mis en perspective avec
les réalisations des participes passés en -é/-és/-ée/-ées. Malgré une situation complexe, on constate globalement
que le marquage porte sur le féminin singulier (vs. masculin) et sur le masculin pluriel (vs. singulier). Au total,
lorsqu’un allongement est réalisé, c’est toujours pour marquer le féminin et très souvent le pluriel, quoique les
différentes aires de -et/-ets et -é/-és ne se superposent que partiellement. On notera que la
situation dialectale se retrouve assez largement dans le français régional.
Contrastive analysis of interactional discourse markers in English and Spanish newspaper texts
Authors: Lavid-López Julia , Moratón Lara
Published: August 2018

This chapter reports on the contrastive analysis of interpersonal discourse markers (IDMs) in a sample of English and Spanish newspaper texts in three genres: news reports, editorials and letters to the editor. The sample was divided into a training dataset of eighteen (English-Spanish) comparable texts and a larger dataset of 220 texts, divided into 60 news reports, 60 editorials and 100 letters to the editor. Following the methodology of Hovy & Lavid (2010), we present a preliminary annotation scheme validated by an inter-annotation agreement study. We then present the results of annotating the larger dataset, which reveals genre-related and language-specific variation in the distribution of IDMs in these newspaper genres. We discuss and provide some possible explanations for the results obtained.
Empathy versus engagement
Authors: Martínez Maria-Ángeles
Published: August 2018

This study uses one of Hemingway’s very short stories (“The shooting of the six Greek cabinet ministers”, 1924) to explore the connections between narrative engagement, emotion and the linguistic organization of narratives. The analysis is developed within the framework of storyworld possible selves (SPSs) (Martínez 2012, 2014, 2018) or blends of readers’ self-concept and the character construct of a narrative perspectivizer, be it the narrator or a focalizing character. In Hemingway’s story, emotions may seem to emerge from empathy towards the executed ministers; however, a closer look at the language of reference and deixis suggests that engagement and emotion are connected to the ethical conflict resulting from SPS blending and perspectival alignment with their executioners.
Two dimensions of language intensity in evaluative discourse
Authors: Liebrecht Christine , Hustinx Lettica , van Mulken Margot , Schellens Peter Jan
Published: August 2018

Language intensity has been investigated within several disciplines, such as linguistics, stylistics and social psychology, and from several approaches. As a result, a wide range of intensifying elements and effects have been identified. In this chapter, we demonstrate on the basis of a qualitative corpus-analytical study that two dimensions play a decisive role in the discrimination of intensified language: contextuality and semantic richness. Contextuality reflects the degree to which the intensifying meaning of an element depends on its context. Semantic richness describes the amount of meaningful information that an intensifying element contains on top of its intensification function. This chapter is a starting point for further research concerning the characteristics of language intensity. Our insights contribute to established approaches in corpus-analytical and stylistic research.
Does the adapted version of The Amazing Race (AVOTAR) benefit Spanish language learning among technical students?
Authors: Khong Hou Keat , Cheah Swi Ee , Wan Nurul Na’imy , Martínez Vellón Susana
Published: August 2018

Students’ lack of interest and motivation in language learning has long been the focus of language scholars and researchers. In the Malaysian Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) context, this concern has posed many practical challenges particularly to the foreign language teachers. This study proposes a teaching innovation adapted from the popular reality television program, The Amazing Race, to instill and promote interest in learning Spanish among the technical students. The study on the Adapted Version of The Amazing Race (AVOTAR) was conducted using a quantitative dominant mixed methods approach in a technical university where Spanish language is a compulsory subject. The quantitative findings show that AVOTAR improves learners’ linguistic performance especially in the areas of vocabulary and reading comprehension while the qualitative findings indicate that AVOTAR helps increase learners’ motivation. This may contribute useful insights to address the challenges and improve the curriculum and instruction of foreign languages.
A relational adjective and a noun semantic binding in the specialized language of Information and Communication Technology
Authors: López Hernández Francisca , Bernardos Galindo Socorro
Published: August 2018

This study reports on a semantic analysis of a terminology pattern formed by a relational adjectiveRadjand a nounn, found in specialized texts written in English and Spanish from the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) field. This research is first based on a terminology perspective to later focus on a recurring multi-word lexical unit pattern in which the specialized concept is realized by a relational adjective. The syntactic pattern [Radj+n] will be referred to as Specialized Lexical Combination (SLC). The study presents a step forward to previous terminology research. We argue that the semantic analysis of the adjective-noun relationship will help understand the underlying knowledge organization of this ICT subject area. The analysis is approached from the framework of the Generative Lexicon specially focusing on thequaliastructure of this recurring multi-word lexical unit pattern.
Understanding the use of mediational means in academic writing
Authors: Wu Peisha , Yu Shulin
Published: August 2018

While the majority of previous studies on EAP (English for academic purposes) writing have been devoted to professional or academic writing at a more advanced level (i.e., PhD students and scholars) in ESL contexts, little attention has been paid to the academic writing of master-level novice writers in EFL contexts. From a sociocultural perspective, the present case study examined the writing strategies of a master-level novice writer – Alice in Macau context. Non-structured, semi-structured and text-based interviews were used as the primary source of data, with document analysis used for triangulation. The study identified two major categories (i.e., artifacts and community) and five subcategories of mediational means (i.e., journal articles and theses, languages, online writing materials, peers and experts) as significant in the novice writer’s academic writing activities. It also unveiled double-edged features of mediational means and recognized their interplay with the writer’s goals and relatedness to her situated context.
Dialectal variation of the preterit and imperfect
Authors: Delgado-Díaz Gibran
Published: August 2018

This investigation examines the use of the pretérito and imperfecto forms in Puerto Rican and Buenos Aires Spanish. These dialects were chosen because the pretérito can express a perfect event in Buenos Aires Spanish while this use has not been documented in Puerto Rican Spanish. This may cause differences in the use of these forms. The main goal of this investigation was to contrast the linguistic predictors in both dialects in order to determine if there are dialectal differences and if they are due to different grammaticalization pathways. The results indicate that there are some differences between the Spanish spoken by Puerto Ricans and that of the Argentines of Buenos Aires. Among the results, it was found that these two dialects had different predictors for the pretérito and imperfecto. These results show preliminary evidence that indicates that these dialects follow different grammaticalization paths.
El significado de las preposiciones españolas a través de la gramática cognitiva
Authors: Simón Francisco Romo
Published: August 2018

El presente artículo constituye un estudio exploratorio sobre la aplicación de los conceptos analíticos, descriptivos y representacionales de la gramática cognitiva a una categoría lingüística todavía inexplorada mediante esta aproximación: las preposiciones. La propia definición del sistema preposicional español y el de las partículas que lo componen resulta un tema controvertido que ha derivado en definiciones ambiguas y confusas sinonimias que se apoyan en listas con decenas de usos distintos para explicar los valores de una única partícula. Ante esta situación, proponemos la aplicación de los conceptos teóricos y las herramientas descriptivas de la gramática cognitiva para avanzar hacia una definición operativa y unificada de todos los valores semánticos de cada preposición. En el caso concreto de este artículo, utilizaremos este modelo para establecer una propuesta de proto-escena para la preposición a.
A learner-based approach of applying online reading to improve learner autonomy and lexical knowledge
Authors: Teng (Mark) Feng
Published: August 2018

This study investigated a learner-based approach of applying online reading to improve learner autonomy and lexical knowledge. Learner autonomy was operationalized as learners’ self-initiation and self-regulation. A total of 90 students at a Chinese university were divided equally into three groups. Participants in the Experimental Group One (EG1) read online after receiving a package of nine hourly sessions in metacognitive strategy training. Participants in the Experimental Group Two (EG2) read online without receiving any strategy training. Participants in the Control Group (CG) only read printed versions of the target materials. Students in the EG1 outperformed those in the other two groups in terms of their ability to plan, monitor, and evaluate reading. Planning became the most exercised skill, followed by evaluating and monitoring. A significant difference between EG2 and CG with respect to their abilities was not detected. Students in the EG1 also improved the most in lexical knowledge, and although students in the EG2 showed higher lexical knowledge scores than those in the CG, the difference was not significant. In addition, improvements in lexical knowledge were maintained best by EG1 on a delayed test. Overall, this study suggests that providing students with metacognitive strategy training for online reading is an effective approach.
Exploring strong and weak EFL readers’ strategy use after a reading strategy and extensive reading instructional intervention
Authors: Shih Ying-Chun , Reynolds Barry Lee
Published: August 2018

After 16 weeks of extensive reading and reading strategy instruction in an English as a Foreign Language class (n = 52) at a junior college in Taiwan, three weak and three strong second language readers were recruited to investigate reading strategy use. Strategies were inferred from verbal reports gained through a think aloud methodology as participants read a text equivalent to those encountered during regular classroom instruction. Results indicated strong readers used more global strategies than weak readers. Strong readers had a more diverse reading strategy repertoire while weak readers tended to lean towards the use of a single strategy. In addition, strong readers tended to combine strategies. These and other results are discussed in terms of the translation-based reading instruction currently dominating Taiwanese secondary school classrooms. Suggestions are also provided on how classroom English teachers should implement reading strategy training in the English language classroom.
An investigation into the plurilingual profile of the newly arrived students at the Melilla Campus of the University of
Granada
Authors: Cortina-Pérez Beatriz , Gallardo-Vigil Miguel Ángel , Jiménez-Jiménez M. Ángeles , López-Vallejo M. Ángeles , Molina-García M. José , Rico-Martín Ana M.
Published: August 2018

University students need to have ability in more than one language in order to foster the transmission of knowledge and research,
and so consolidating a multilingual Higher Education. In the context of Melilla (University of Granada), this requirement is added
to the plurilingualism in the city (a large majority of the population is bilingual in Spanish and Tamazight). This investigation
aims at describing the plurilingual reality of first-year students, as well as the different socio-linguistic variables that could
account for results. Data obtained in several tests and questionnaires, with 206 subjects, determine that a clearly plurilingual
profile exists among the participants, although the great challenge is centred on reaching communicative competence in a foreign
language sufficient to become independent users.
News comments on facebook – a systemic functional linguistic analysis of moves and appraisal language in reader-reader interaction
Authors: Tran Giang Hoai , Ngo Xuan Minh
Published: August 2018

Many news publishers have integrated their news on Facebook to attract wider readership. On this popular social networking site, online news readers can contribute their comments to the news post and interact with their fellow readers. This form of user-generated contents has attracted increasing scholarship and raised concerns over the salient conflict and incivility in its language, the low quality of polarized argumentation, and the complex interaction among news commenters. To contribute to the current lack of in-depth qualitative description of such reader-reader interaction, the current study explores the types of communicative moves performed by Facebook users in their news comments, the patterning of those moves, and the attitudinal language used to realize such moves. Based on the two Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) frameworks of speech functions and appraisal for a close analysis of the moves and attitudinal lexis in Facebook news readers’ comments to one news article, the research has shown that exchanges of Facebook news comments developed in different directions with varying levels and complex patterns of support and confrontation between interactants as well as different appraisal language use. Besides substantiating the existing description of online news readers’ interaction, the paper argues that the SFL frameworks of conversation analysis are helpful for understanding CMC but more updated descriptions and a more visual approach to presentation of findings are needed to make the frameworks more relevant for online interactive discourses.
Inferring gene expression networks with hubs using a degree weighted Lasso approach
Authors: Sulaimanov Nurgazy , Kumar Sunil , Burdet Frédéric , Ibberson Mark , Pagni Marco , Koeppl Heinz
Published: August 2018

Motivation

Genome-scale gene networks contain regulatory genes called hubs that have many interaction partners. These genes usually play an essential role in gene regulation and cellular processes. Despite recent advancements in high-throughput technology, inferring gene networks with hub genes from high-dimensional data still remains a challenging problem. Novel statistical network inference methods are needed for efficient and accurate reconstruction of hub networks from high-dimensional data.

Results

To address this challenge we propose DW-Lasso, a degree weighted Lasso (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) method which infers gene networks with hubs efficiently under the low sample size setting. Our network reconstruction approach is formulated as a two stage procedure: first, the degree of networks is estimated iteratively, and second, the gene regulatory network is reconstructed using degree information. A useful property of the proposed method is that it naturally favors the accumulation of neighbors around hub genes and thereby helps in accurate modeling of the high-throughput data under the assumption that the underlying network exhibits hub structure. In a simulation study, we demonstrate good predictive performance of the proposed method in comparison to traditional Lasso type methods in inferring hub and scale-free graphs. We show the effectiveness of our method in an application to microarray data of Escherichia coli and RNA sequencing data of Kidney Clear Cell Carcinoma from The Cancer Genome Atlas datasets.

Availability and implementation

Under the GNU General Public Licence at https://cran.r-project.org/package=DWLasso.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.