WorldWideScience

Sample records for grammatical practice variations

  1. Forms and effects of the humanists' grammatical metadiscourse

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Horster, Camilla

    2016-01-01

    Taking clauses with quia as an example, this article addresses the relationship between grammatical metadiscourse on how one should compose in Latin and actual practice among humanist writers in order to shed light on the workings of grammatical metadiscourse. The investigation compares quantitat......Taking clauses with quia as an example, this article addresses the relationship between grammatical metadiscourse on how one should compose in Latin and actual practice among humanist writers in order to shed light on the workings of grammatical metadiscourse. The investigation compares...

  2. Variation in the pattern of omissions and substitutions of grammatical morphemes in the spontaneous speech of so-called agrammatic patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miceli, G; Silveri, M C; Romani, C; Caramazza, A

    1989-04-01

    We describe the patterns of omissions (and substitutions) of freestanding grammatical morphemes and the patterns of substitutions of bound grammatical morphemes in 20 so-called agrammatic patients. Extreme variation was observed in the patterns of omissions and substitutions of grammatical morphemes, both in terms of the distribution of errors for different grammatical morphemes as well as in terms of the distribution of omissions versus substitutions. Results are discussed in the context of current debates concerning the possibility of a theoretically motivated distinction between the clinical categories of agrammatism and paragrammatism and, more generally, concerning the theoretical usefulness of any clinical category. The conclusion is reached that the observed heterogeneity in the production of grammatical morphemes among putatively agrammatic patients renders the clinical category of agrammatism, and by extension all other clinical categories from the classical classification scheme (e.g., Broca's aphasia, Wernicke's aphasia, and so forth) to more recent classificatory attempts (e.g., surface dyslexia, deep dysgraphia, and so forth), theoretically useless.

  3. Understanding Disorder Within Variation: Production of English Grammatical Forms by English Language Learners.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bedore, Lisa M; Peña, Elizabeth D; Anaya, Jissel B; Nieto, Ricardo; Lugo-Neris, Mirza J; Baron, Alisa

    2018-04-05

    This study examines English performance on a set of 11 grammatical forms in Spanish-English bilingual, school-age children in order to understand how item difficulty of grammatical constructions helps correctly classify language impairment (LI) from expected variability in second language acquisition when taking into account linguistic experience and exposure. Three hundred seventy-eight children's scores on the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment-Middle Extension (Peña, Bedore, Gutiérrez-Clellen, Iglesias, & Goldstein, 2008) morphosyntax cloze task were analyzed by bilingual experience groups (high Spanish experience, balanced English-Spanish experience, high English experience, ability (typically developing [TD] vs. LI), and grammatical form. Classification accuracy was calculated for the forms that best differentiated TD and LI groups. Children with LI scored lower than TD children across all bilingual experience groups. There were differences by grammatical form across bilingual experience and ability groups. Children from high English experience and balanced English-Spanish experience groups could be accurately classified on the basis of all the English grammatical forms tested except for prepositions. For bilinguals with high Spanish experience, it was possible to rule out LI on the basis of grammatical production but not rule in LI. It is possible to accurately identify LI in English language learners once they use English 40% of the time or more. However, for children with high Spanish experience, more information about development and patterns of impairment is needed to positively identify LI.

  4. Grammatical inference algorithms, routines and applications

    CERN Document Server

    Wieczorek, Wojciech

    2017-01-01

    This book focuses on grammatical inference, presenting classic and modern methods of grammatical inference from the perspective of practitioners. To do so, it employs the Python programming language to present all of the methods discussed. Grammatical inference is a field that lies at the intersection of multiple disciplines, with contributions from computational linguistics, pattern recognition, machine learning, computational biology, formal learning theory and many others. Though the book is largely practical, it also includes elements of learning theory, combinatorics on words, the theory of automata and formal languages, plus references to real-world problems. The listings presented here can be directly copied and pasted into other programs, thus making the book a valuable source of ready recipes for students, academic researchers, and programmers alike, as well as an inspiration for their further development.>.

  5. Grammatical Impairments in PPA.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Cynthia K; Mack, Jennifer E

    2014-09-01

    Grammatical impairments are commonly observed in the agrammatic subtype of primary progressive aphasia (PPA-G), whereas grammatical processing is relatively preserved in logopenic (PPA-L) and semantic (PPA-S) subtypes. We review research on grammatical deficits in PPA and associated neural mechanisms, with discussion focused on production and comprehension of four aspects of morphosyntactic structure: grammatical morphology, functional categories, verbs and verb argument structure, and complex syntactic structures. We also address assessment of grammatical deficits in PPA, with emphasis on behavioral tests of grammatical processing. Finally, we address research examining the effects of treatment for progressive grammatical impairments. PPA-G is associated with grammatical deficits that are evident across linguistic domains in both production and comprehension. PPA-G is associated with damage to regions including the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and dorsal white matter tracts, which have been linked to impaired comprehension and production of complex sentences. Detailing grammatical deficits in PPA is important for estimating the trajectory of language decline and associated neuropathology. We, therefore, highlight several new assessment tools for examining different aspects of morphosyntactic processing in PPA. Individuals with PPA-G present with agrammatic deficit patterns distinct from those associated with PPA-L and PPA-S, but similar to those seen in agrammatism resulting from stroke, and patterns of cortical atrophy and white matter changes associated with PPA-G have been identified. Methods for clinical evaluation of agrammatism, focusing on comprehension and production of grammatical morphology, functional categories, verbs and verb argument structure, and complex syntactic structures are recommended and tools for this are emerging in the literature. Further research is needed to investigate the real-time processes underlying grammatical impairments in

  6. Correspondence between Grammatical Categories and Grammatical Functions in Chinese.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tan, Fu

    1993-01-01

    A correspondence is shown between grammatical categories and grammatical functions in Chinese. Some syntactic properties distinguish finite verbs from nonfinite verbs, nominals from other categories, and verbs from other categories. (Contains seven references.) (LB)

  7. Grammatical workspace sharing during language production and language comprehension: Evidence from grammatical multitasking

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Kempen, G.; Olsthoorn, N.; Sprenger, S.

    2012-01-01

    Grammatical encoding and grammatical decoding (in sentence production and comprehension, respectively) are often portrayed as independent modalities of grammatical performance that only share declarative resources: lexicon and grammar. The processing resources subserving these modalities are

  8. Predictable grammatical constructions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lucas, Sandra

    2015-01-01

    My aim in this paper is to provide evidence from diachronic linguistics for the view that some predictable units are entrenched in grammar and consequently in human cognition, in a way that makes them functionally and structurally equal to nonpredictable grammatical units, suggesting that these p......My aim in this paper is to provide evidence from diachronic linguistics for the view that some predictable units are entrenched in grammar and consequently in human cognition, in a way that makes them functionally and structurally equal to nonpredictable grammatical units, suggesting...... that these predictable units should be considered grammatical constructions on a par with the nonpredictable constructions. Frequency has usually been seen as the only possible argument speaking in favor of viewing some formally and semantically fully predictable units as grammatical constructions. However, this paper...... semantically and formally predictable. Despite this difference, [méllo INF], like the other future periphrases, seems to be highly entrenched in the cognition (and grammar) of Early Medieval Greek language users, and consequently a grammatical construction. The syntactic evidence speaking in favor of [méllo...

  9. Grammatical Relations and Grammatical Categories in Malay; the Indonesian Prefix MeN- Revisited

    OpenAIRE

    Tjia, Johnny

    2015-01-01

    The lexical roots of Malay are flexible with regard to their grammatical categories, which presents a problem in providing grammatical evidence for their category determination. This paper attempts to propose the use of affixes as one way to deal with the issue. Data from Indonesian and Ambon (Malay) language are among others given for clarification. The grammatical evidence from Indonesian active meN-, together with other affixes, are revisited as they can contribute to our understanding of ...

  10. Grammatical relations and grammatical categories in Malay; The Indonesian prefix meN- revisited

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Johnny Tjia

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available The lexical roots of Malay are flexible with regard to their grammatical categories, which presents a problem in providing grammatical evidence for their category determination. This paper attempts to propose the use of affixes as one way to deal with the issue. Data from Indonesian and Ambon (Malay language are among others given for clarification. The grammatical evidence from Indonesian active meN-, together with other affixes, are revisited as they can contribute to our understanding of the matter.

  11. FUNCTIONAL INTERACTION OF LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL FACTORS IN THE ENGLISH VERB SYSTEM

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    Nina Sergeevna Kotova

    2017-03-01

    factors. In this material this tendency is traceable in cases of using the verbs pertaining to 4-th and 5-th oppositions in the forms of Continuous which are used instead if Indefinite. The grammatical form meaning modifies the verb meaning specifying particularly the action intensity giving it the particular emotional coloring. Practical implications. The material investigated can be used in the sphere of practical and theoretical lexicography, in teaching general and particular (English lexicology. The research can be of assistance in teaching practical English courses in secondary school and higher educational establishments if the programs are oriented on the functional study of the language grammatical system.

  12. Can Translation Improve EFL Students' Grammatical Accuracy? [

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carol Ebbert-Hübner

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available This report focuses on research results from a project completed at Trier University in December 2015 that provides insight into whether a monolingual group of learners can improve their grammatical accuracy and reduce interference mistakes in their English via contrastive analysis and translation instruction and activities. Contrastive analysis and translation (CAT instruction in this setting focusses on comparing grammatical differences between students’ dominant language (German and English, and practice activities where sentences or short texts are translated from German into English. The results of a pre- and post-test administered in the first and final week of a translation class were compared to two other class types: a grammar class which consisted of form-focused instruction but not translation, and a process-approach essay writing class where students received feedback on their written work throughout the semester. The results of our study indicate that with C1 level EAP students, more improvement in grammatical accuracy is seen through teaching with CAT than in explicit grammar instruction or through language feedback on written work alone. These results indicate that CAT does indeed have a place in modern language classes.

  13. Sentence processing and grammaticality in functional linguistics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Poulsen, Mads

    finding from research on sentence processing that sentences are processed incrementally. Empirical methods for establishing grammaticality status are discussed and applied in relation to non-WH extraction phenomena in Danish. In Chapter 2, I discuss the use of the notions of grammaticality......The dissertation presents a functional linguistic model of grammaticality and investigates methods for applying this notion in empirical work. The use of the notion of grammaticality in generative grammar has been criticized by functionalists (Harder, 1996; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999), but attempts...... grammaticality. It is concluded that the intuitions of linguists should in principle be considered hypotheses of grammaticality, and that such hypotheses need to be tested with independent data. Such data can for example take the form of corpus data or acceptability judgment experiments. It is furthermore argued...

  14. A universal cue for grammatical categories in the input to children: Frequent frames.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moran, Steven; Blasi, Damián E; Schikowski, Robert; Küntay, Aylin C; Pfeiler, Barbara; Allen, Shanley; Stoll, Sabine

    2018-06-01

    How does a child map words to grammatical categories when words are not overtly marked either lexically or prosodically? Recent language acquisition theories have proposed that distributional information encoded in sequences of words or morphemes might play a central role in forming grammatical classes. To test this proposal, we analyze child-directed speech from seven typologically diverse languages to simulate maximum variation in the structures of the world's languages. We ask whether the input to children contains cues for assigning syntactic categories in frequent frames, which are frequently occurring nonadjacent sequences of words or morphemes. In accord with aggregated results from previous studies on individual languages, we find that frequent word frames do not provide a robust distributional pattern for accurately predicting grammatical categories. However, our results show that frames are extremely accurate cues cross-linguistically at the morpheme level. We theorize that the nonadjacent dependency pattern captured by frequent frames is a universal anchor point for learners on the morphological level to detect and categorize grammatical categories. Whether frames also play a role on higher linguistic levels such as words is determined by grammatical features of the individual language. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  15. Grammatical realization of Russian etiquette speech genres: The ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The article is devoted to the issue of grammatical approach application during the teaching of Russian etiquette speech for foreigners. In the practice of teaching Russian as a foreign language, the issues related to the development of etiquette speech genres arise at all stages of language learning, beginning with the first ...

  16. Grammatical constraints on phonological encoding in speech production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heller, Jordana R; Goldrick, Matthew

    2014-12-01

    To better understand the influence of grammatical encoding on the retrieval and encoding of phonological word-form information during speech production, we examine how grammatical class constraints influence the activation of phonological neighbors (words phonologically related to the target--e.g., MOON, TWO for target TUNE). Specifically, we compare how neighbors that share a target's grammatical category (here, nouns) influence its planning and retrieval, assessed by picture naming latencies, and phonetic encoding, assessed by word productions in picture names, when grammatical constraints are strong (in sentence contexts) versus weak (bare naming). Within-category (noun) neighbors influenced planning time and phonetic encoding more strongly in sentence contexts. This suggests that grammatical encoding constrains phonological processing; the influence of phonological neighbors is grammatically dependent. Moreover, effects on planning times could not fully account for phonetic effects, suggesting that phonological interaction affects articulation after speech onset. These results support production theories integrating grammatical, phonological, and phonetic processes.

  17. Grammatical Constructions as Relational Categories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goldwater, Micah B

    2017-07-01

    This paper argues that grammatical constructions, specifically argument structure constructions that determine the "who did what to whom" part of sentence meaning and how this meaning is expressed syntactically, can be considered a kind of relational category. That is, grammatical constructions are represented as the abstraction of the syntactic and semantic relations of the exemplar utterances that are expressed in that construction, and it enables the generation of novel exemplars. To support this argument, I review evidence that there are parallel behavioral patterns between how children learn relational categories generally and how they learn grammatical constructions specifically. Then, I discuss computational simulations of how grammatical constructions are abstracted from exemplar sentences using a domain-general relational cognitive architecture. Last, I review evidence from adult language processing that shows parallel behavioral patterns with expert behavior from other cognitive domains. After reviewing the evidence, I consider how to integrate this account with other theories of language development. Copyright © 2017 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  18. Modeling of the Case Grammatical Meaning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Алексей Львович Новиков

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The article raises the problem of constructing a semantic model to describe the meaning of the grammatical category of case in the languages of different types. The main objective of this publication - to provide an overview of different points of view on the semantic structure of the category of case and to compare different models of case semantics. Initial impulse to the development of problems of case semantics became the grammar and typological ideas of A.A. Potebnya and R. Jakobson. The basis of these models, which differ from each other in the number and nature of the allocation of features is the idea of the possibility of representing grammatical meaning as a structured set of semantic features. The analysis shows that the construction of formal models of grammatical categories is impossible without referring to the content of the dominant semantic features in the structure of grammatical meaning. Despite all the difficulties of modeling grammatical semantics, to construct a semantic model of case is an interesting and promising task of general morphology and typological linguistics.

  19. NON-GRAMMATICAL APOPHONY IN ENGLISH.

    Science.gov (United States)

    WESCOTT, ROGER W.

    AN APOPHONE MAY BE DEFINED GENERALLY AS A POLYSYLLABIC VOWEL SEQUENCE SUCH THAT EACH CONTAINED VOWEL IS LOWER OR MORE RETRACTED THAN THE VOWEL WHICH PRECEDES IT --"SING, SANG, SUNG," AND "CLINK, CLANK, CLUNK" ARE EXAMPLES IN ENGLISH. FOR NEARLY EVERY CASE OF GRAMMATICAL APOPHONY IN ENGLISH THERE IS A NON-GRAMMATICAL (YET…

  20. Grammatical Structures in Cross-Cultural Comparisons

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    Анна Н Гладкова

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The article discusses how cultural information is embedded at the level of grammar and it treats grammar as inseparable from semantics and pragmatics. The study is done within the approach known as ethnosyntax. The article provides examples of cultural meaning embedded at the level of syntax relying on examples from Russian and English. In particular, it demonstrates variation in impersonal constructions in Russian and causative constructions in English. It then discusses variation in the use of grammatical structures due to the influence of cultural factors on the basis of ways of wording ‘requests’ in English and Russian. The linguistic examples in the discussion are sources from the Russian National Corpus for Russian and Collins Wordbanks Online for English. The article argues for the importance of culture-sensitive linguistic studies in language teaching.

  1. Information theory and artificial grammar learning: inferring grammaticality from redundancy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jamieson, Randall K; Nevzorova, Uliana; Lee, Graham; Mewhort, D J K

    2016-03-01

    In artificial grammar learning experiments, participants study strings of letters constructed using a grammar and then sort novel grammatical test exemplars from novel ungrammatical ones. The ability to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical strings is often taken as evidence that the participants have induced the rules of the grammar. We show that judgements of grammaticality are predicted by the local redundancy of the test strings, not by grammaticality itself. The prediction holds in a transfer test in which test strings involve different letters than the training strings. Local redundancy is usually confounded with grammaticality in stimuli widely used in the literature. The confounding explains why the ability to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical strings has popularized the idea that participants have induced the rules of the grammar, when they have not. We discuss the judgement of grammaticality task in terms of attribute substitution and pattern goodness. When asked to judge grammaticality (an inaccessible attribute), participants answer an easier question about pattern goodness (an accessible attribute).

  2. Grammatical category dissociation in multilingual aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Faroqi-Shah, Yasmeen; Waked, Arifi N

    2010-03-01

    Word retrieval deficits for specific grammatical categories, such as verbs versus nouns, occur as a consequence of brain damage. Such deficits are informative about the nature of lexical organization in the human brain. This study examined retrieval of grammatical categories across three languages in a trilingual person with aphasia who spoke Arabic, French, and English. In order to delineate the nature of word production difficulty, comprehension was tested, and a variety of concomitant lexical-semantic variables were analysed. The patient demonstrated a consistent noun-verb dissociation in picture naming and narrative speech, with severely impaired production of verbs across all three languages. The cross-linguistically similar noun-verb dissociation, coupled with little evidence of semantic impairment, suggests that (a) the patient has a true "nonsemantic" grammatical category specific deficit, and (b) lexical organization in multilingual speakers shares grammatical class information between languages. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of the architecture of lexical organization in bilinguals.

  3. Using Language Sample Analysis in Clinical Practice: Measures of Grammatical Accuracy for Identifying Language Impairment in Preschool and School-Aged Children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eisenberg, Sarita; Guo, Ling-Yu

    2016-05-01

    This article reviews the existing literature on the diagnostic accuracy of two grammatical accuracy measures for differentiating children with and without language impairment (LI) at preschool and early school age based on language samples. The first measure, the finite verb morphology composite (FVMC), is a narrow grammatical measure that computes children's overall accuracy of four verb tense morphemes. The second measure, percent grammatical utterances (PGU), is a broader grammatical measure that computes children's accuracy in producing grammatical utterances. The extant studies show that FVMC demonstrates acceptable (i.e., 80 to 89% accurate) to good (i.e., 90% accurate or higher) diagnostic accuracy for children between 4;0 (years;months) and 6;11 in conversational or narrative samples. In contrast, PGU yields acceptable to good diagnostic accuracy for children between 3;0 and 8;11 regardless of sample types. Given the diagnostic accuracy shown in the literature, we suggest that FVMC and PGU can be used as one piece of evidence for identifying children with LI in assessment when appropriate. However, FVMC or PGU should not be used as therapy goals directly. Instead, when children are low in FVMC or PGU, we suggest that follow-up analyses should be conducted to determine the verb tense morphemes or grammatical structures that children have difficulty with. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

  4. Grammatical gender affects odor cognition

    OpenAIRE

    Speed, L.J.; Majid, A.

    2016-01-01

    Language interacts with olfaction in exceptional ways. Olfaction is believed to be weakly linked with language, as demonstrated by our poor odor naming ability, yet olfaction seems to be particularly susceptible to linguistic descriptions. We tested the boundaries of the influence of language on olfaction by focusing on a non-lexical aspect of language (grammatical gender). We manipulated the grammatical gender of fragrance descriptions to test whether the congruence with fragrance gender wou...

  5. The grammatical function, morphological status and hierarchical ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The aim of this article is to investigate the different types of grammatical status of the Northern Sotho form ka and its multiple functions in language contexts. The various ranks that ka occupies in the taxonomy of Northern Sotho verb forms are identified and described. Grammatical descriptions by some prominent ...

  6. Development of Abstract Grammatical Categorization in Infants

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cyr, Marilyn; Shi, Rushen

    2013-01-01

    This study examined abstract syntactic categorization in infants, using the case of grammatical gender. Ninety-six French-learning 14-, 17-, 20-, and 30-month-olds completed the study. In a preferential looking procedure infants were tested on their generalized knowledge of grammatical gender involving pseudonouns and gender-marking determiners.…

  7. Effect of X-Word Grammar and Traditional Grammar Instruction on Grammatical Accuracy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Livingston, Sue; Toce, Andi; Casey, Toce; Montoya, Fernando; Hart, Bonny R.; O'Flaherty, Carmela

    2018-01-01

    This study first briefly describes an instructional approach to teaching grammar known as X-Word Grammar and then compares its effectiveness in assisting students in achieving grammatical accuracy with traditionally taught grammar. Two groups of L2 pre-college students were taught using curricula and practice procedures in two different grammar…

  8. The lexicographical handling of grammatical equivalence: the case ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Lexicographers compiling translating dictionaries are not exclusively concerned with semantic equivalence when selecting translating equivalents for lemmata, but often include also grammatical information in illustrative examples when the lexical item to be translated does not have an exact grammatical counterpart in the ...

  9. Rara and grammatical theory

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rijkhoff, Jan

    2010-01-01

    This paper argues that grammatical theorizing and linguistic typologizing must go hand in hand and that rare typological features play a central role in the interaction of typology and theory. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses a sampling method that (compared to other samplin...... Functional (Discourse) Grammar and sections 4 and 5 are concerned with the crucial role of rara both in theory driven data collection and in data driven theory building.......This paper argues that grammatical theorizing and linguistic typologizing must go hand in hand and that rare typological features play a central role in the interaction of typology and theory. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses a sampling method that (compared to other sampling...

  10. The representation of grammatical categories in the brain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shapiro, Kevin; Caramazza, Alfonso

    2003-05-01

    Language relies on the rule-based combination of words with different grammatical properties, such as nouns and verbs. Yet most research on the problem of word retrieval has focused on the production of concrete nouns, leaving open a crucial question: how is knowledge about different grammatical categories represented in the brain, and what components of the language production system make use of it? Drawing on evidence from neuropsychology, electrophysiology and neuroimaging, we argue that information about a word's grammatical category might be represented independently of its meaning at the levels of word form and morphological computation.

  11. Planning and production of grammatical and lexical verbs in multi-word messages.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Violaine Michel Lange

    Full Text Available Grammatical words represent the part of grammar that can be most directly contrasted with the lexicon. Aphasiological studies, linguistic theories and psycholinguistic studies suggest that their processing is operated at different stages in speech production. Models of sentence production propose that at the formulation stage, lexical words are processed at the functional level while grammatical words are processed at a later positional level. In this study we consider proposals made by linguistic theories and psycholinguistic models to derive two predictions for the processing of grammatical words compared to lexical words. First, based on the assumption that grammatical words are less crucial for communication and therefore paid less attention to, it is predicted that they show shorter articulation times and/or higher error rates than lexical words. Second, based on the assumption that grammatical words differ from lexical words in being dependent on a lexical host, it is hypothesized that the retrieval of a grammatical word has to be put on hold until its lexical host is available, and it is predicted that this is reflected in longer reaction times (RTs for grammatical compared to lexical words. We investigated these predictions by comparing fully homonymous sentences with only a difference in verb status (grammatical vs. lexical elicited by a specific context. We measured RTs, duration and accuracy rate. No difference in duration was observed. Longer RTs and a lower accuracy rate for grammatical words were reported, successfully reflecting grammatical word properties as defined by linguistic theories and psycholinguistic models. Importantly, this study provides insight into the span of encoding and grammatical encoding processes in speech production.

  12. Planning and production of grammatical and lexical verbs in multi-word messages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Messerschmidt, Maria; Harder, Peter; Siebner, Hartwig Roman; Boye, Kasper

    2017-01-01

    Grammatical words represent the part of grammar that can be most directly contrasted with the lexicon. Aphasiological studies, linguistic theories and psycholinguistic studies suggest that their processing is operated at different stages in speech production. Models of sentence production propose that at the formulation stage, lexical words are processed at the functional level while grammatical words are processed at a later positional level. In this study we consider proposals made by linguistic theories and psycholinguistic models to derive two predictions for the processing of grammatical words compared to lexical words. First, based on the assumption that grammatical words are less crucial for communication and therefore paid less attention to, it is predicted that they show shorter articulation times and/or higher error rates than lexical words. Second, based on the assumption that grammatical words differ from lexical words in being dependent on a lexical host, it is hypothesized that the retrieval of a grammatical word has to be put on hold until its lexical host is available, and it is predicted that this is reflected in longer reaction times (RTs) for grammatical compared to lexical words. We investigated these predictions by comparing fully homonymous sentences with only a difference in verb status (grammatical vs. lexical) elicited by a specific context. We measured RTs, duration and accuracy rate. No difference in duration was observed. Longer RTs and a lower accuracy rate for grammatical words were reported, successfully reflecting grammatical word properties as defined by linguistic theories and psycholinguistic models. Importantly, this study provides insight into the span of encoding and grammatical encoding processes in speech production. PMID:29091940

  13. Planning and production of grammatical and lexical verbs in multi-word messages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michel Lange, Violaine; Messerschmidt, Maria; Harder, Peter; Siebner, Hartwig Roman; Boye, Kasper

    2017-01-01

    Grammatical words represent the part of grammar that can be most directly contrasted with the lexicon. Aphasiological studies, linguistic theories and psycholinguistic studies suggest that their processing is operated at different stages in speech production. Models of sentence production propose that at the formulation stage, lexical words are processed at the functional level while grammatical words are processed at a later positional level. In this study we consider proposals made by linguistic theories and psycholinguistic models to derive two predictions for the processing of grammatical words compared to lexical words. First, based on the assumption that grammatical words are less crucial for communication and therefore paid less attention to, it is predicted that they show shorter articulation times and/or higher error rates than lexical words. Second, based on the assumption that grammatical words differ from lexical words in being dependent on a lexical host, it is hypothesized that the retrieval of a grammatical word has to be put on hold until its lexical host is available, and it is predicted that this is reflected in longer reaction times (RTs) for grammatical compared to lexical words. We investigated these predictions by comparing fully homonymous sentences with only a difference in verb status (grammatical vs. lexical) elicited by a specific context. We measured RTs, duration and accuracy rate. No difference in duration was observed. Longer RTs and a lower accuracy rate for grammatical words were reported, successfully reflecting grammatical word properties as defined by linguistic theories and psycholinguistic models. Importantly, this study provides insight into the span of encoding and grammatical encoding processes in speech production.

  14. Grammatical competence of ESL teachers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mafisa, Palesa J.

    2002-12-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this article is to report on a study investigating the grammatical competence of English Second Language teachers in secondary schools. This study came about as a result of the widespread concern that these teachers may not always be competent enough in English. We determined the teachers’ familiarity with standard English grammar as well as their acceptance of Black South African English features. The findings indicate that teachers had problems with the grammatical structures tested and accepted some Black South African English grammatical features as correct usage. Die doel van hierdie artikel is om verslag te doen oor ‘n studie wat die grammatikale vermoë van onderwysers van Engels Tweedetaal-onderwysers in sekondêre skole gemeet het. Die studie is gedoen na aanleiding van ‘n wydverspreide besorgdheid dat onderwysers van Engels nie altyd vaardig genoeg in Engels is nie. Ons het die onderwysers se bekendheid met standaard-Engels grammatika vasgestel asook hul aanvaarding van Swart Suid-Afrikaanse Engelse grammatikale verskynsels. Die bevindinge dui aan dat onderwysers probleme het met die grammatikale strukture wat getoets is en dat hulle sekere Swart Suid-Afrikaanse Engelse grammatikale verskynsels as korrek aanvaar.

  15. The grammatical structure of Sowetan tsotsitaal | Gunnink | Southern ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Tsotsitaal is a language variety widely spoken in South Africa. It is recognisable by its distinct lexicon, which is usually combined with the grammar of another language. In this paper I present data of a tsotsitaal variety spoken in Soweto that uses the grammatical structure of Sowetan Zulu, as well as certain grammatical ...

  16. Planning and production of grammatical and lexical verbs in multi-word messages

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lange, Violaine Michel; Messerschmidt, Maria; Harder, Peter

    2017-01-01

    to lexical words. First, based on the assumption that grammatical words are less crucial for communication and therefore paid less attention to, it is predicted that they show shorter articulation times and/or higher error rates than lexical words. Second, based on the assumption that grammatical words...... were reported, successfully reflecting grammatical word properties as defined by linguistic theories and psycholinguistic models. Importantly, this study provides insight into the span of encoding and grammatical encoding processes in speech production....

  17. Effects of Instructions on Theme Grading: Grammatical vs. Holistic

    Science.gov (United States)

    Follman, John; And Others

    1971-01-01

    Twelve college seniors in an English methods course were assigned to three treatment groups, Grammatical, Holistic, and Both. Each group received different instructions but graded the same 10 themes. Themes graded for grammatical errors received lower grades than the same themes graded holistically. (NH)

  18. Grounding grammatical categories: attention bias in hand space influences grammatical congruency judgment of Chinese nominal classifiers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lobben, Marit; D'Ascenzo, Stefania

    2015-01-01

    Embodied cognitive theories predict that linguistic conceptual representations are grounded and continually represented in real world, sensorimotor experiences. However, there is an on-going debate on whether this also holds for abstract concepts. Grammar is the archetype of abstract knowledge, and therefore constitutes a test case against embodied theories of language representation. Former studies have largely focussed on lexical-level embodied representations. In the present study we take the grounding-by-modality idea a step further by using reaction time (RT) data from the linguistic processing of nominal classifiers in Chinese. We take advantage of an independent body of research, which shows that attention in hand space is biased. Specifically, objects near the hand consistently yield shorter RTs as a function of readiness for action on graspable objects within reaching space, and the same biased attention inhibits attentional disengagement. We predicted that this attention bias would equally apply to the graspable object classifier but not to the big object classifier. Chinese speakers (N = 22) judged grammatical congruency of classifier-noun combinations in two conditions: graspable object classifier and big object classifier. We found that RTs for the graspable object classifier were significantly faster in congruent combinations, and significantly slower in incongruent combinations, than the big object classifier. There was no main effect on grammatical violations, but rather an interaction effect of classifier type. Thus, we demonstrate here grammatical category-specific effects pertaining to the semantic content and by extension the visual and tactile modality of acquisition underlying the acquisition of these categories. We conclude that abstract grammatical categories are subjected to the same mechanisms as general cognitive and neurophysiological processes and may therefore be grounded.

  19. Aging and the statistical learning of grammatical form classes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwab, Jessica F; Schuler, Kathryn D; Stillman, Chelsea M; Newport, Elissa L; Howard, James H; Howard, Darlene V

    2016-08-01

    Language learners must place unfamiliar words into categories, often with few explicit indicators about when and how that word can be used grammatically. Reeder, Newport, and Aslin (2013) showed that college students can learn grammatical form classes from an artificial language by relying solely on distributional information (i.e., contextual cues in the input). Here, 2 experiments revealed that healthy older adults also show such statistical learning, though they are poorer than young at distinguishing grammatical from ungrammatical strings. This finding expands knowledge of which aspects of learning vary with aging, with potential implications for second language learning in late adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  20. Grammatical distinctions in the left frontal cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shapiro, K A; Pascual-Leone, A; Mottaghy, F M; Gangitano, M; Caramazza, A

    2001-08-15

    Selective deficits in producing verbs relative to nouns in speech are well documented in neuropsychology and have been associated with left hemisphere frontal cortical lesions resulting from stroke and other neurological disorders. The basis for these impairments is unresolved: Do they arise because of differences in the way grammatical categories of words are organized in the brain, or because of differences in the neural representation of actions and objects? We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to suppress the excitability of a portion of left prefrontal cortex and to assess its role in producing nouns and verbs. In one experiment subjects generated real words; in a second, they produced pseudowords as nouns or verbs. In both experiments, response latencies increased for verbs but were unaffected for nouns following rTMS. These results demonstrate that grammatical categories have a neuroanatomical basis and that the left prefrontal cortex is selectively engaged in processing verbs as grammatical objects.

  1. Grammatical Errors Produced by English Majors: The Translation Task

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mohaghegh, Hamid; Zarandi, Fatemeh Mahmoudi; Shariati, Mohammad

    2011-01-01

    This study investigated the frequency of the grammatical errors related to the four categories of preposition, relative pronoun, article, and tense using the translation task. In addition, the frequencies of these grammatical errors in different categories and in each category were examined. The quantitative component of the study further looked…

  2. The role of grammatical category information in spoken word retrieval.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duràn, Carolina Palma; Pillon, Agnesa

    2011-01-01

    We investigated the role of lexical syntactic information such as grammatical gender and category in spoken word retrieval processes by using a blocking paradigm in picture and written word naming experiments. In Experiments 1, 3, and 4, we found that the naming of target words (nouns) from pictures or written words was faster when these target words were named within a list where only words from the same grammatical category had to be produced (homogeneous category list: all nouns) than when they had to be produced within a list comprising also words from another grammatical category (heterogeneous category list: nouns and verbs). On the other hand, we detected no significant facilitation effect when the target words had to be named within a homogeneous gender list (all masculine nouns) compared to a heterogeneous gender list (both masculine and feminine nouns). In Experiment 2, using the same blocking paradigm by manipulating the semantic category of the items, we found that naming latencies were significantly slower in the semantic category homogeneous in comparison with the semantic category heterogeneous condition. Thus semantic category homogeneity caused an interference, not a facilitation effect like grammatical category homogeneity. Finally, in Experiment 5, nouns in the heterogeneous category condition had to be named just after a verb (category-switching position) or a noun (same-category position). We found a facilitation effect of category homogeneity but no significant effect of position, which showed that the effect of category homogeneity found in Experiments 1, 3, and 4 was not due to a cost of switching between grammatical categories in the heterogeneous grammatical category list. These findings supported the hypothesis that grammatical category information impacts word retrieval processes in speech production, even when words are to be produced in isolation. They are discussed within the context of extant theories of lexical production.

  3. Grammatical complexity for two-dimensional maps

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hagiwara, Ryouichi; Shudo, Akira

    2004-01-01

    We calculate the grammatical complexity of the symbol sequences generated from the Henon map and the Lozi map using the recently developed methods to construct the pruning front. When the map is hyperbolic, the language of symbol sequences is regular in the sense of the Chomsky hierarchy and the corresponding grammatical complexity takes finite values. It is found that the complexity exhibits a self-similar structure as a function of the system parameter, and the similarity of the pruning fronts is discussed as an origin of such self-similarity. For non-hyperbolic cases, it is observed that the complexity monotonically increases as we increase the resolution of the pruning front

  4. Grammatical complexity for two-dimensional maps

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hagiwara, Ryouichi; Shudo, Akira [Department of Physics, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Minami-Ohsawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397 (Japan)

    2004-11-05

    We calculate the grammatical complexity of the symbol sequences generated from the Henon map and the Lozi map using the recently developed methods to construct the pruning front. When the map is hyperbolic, the language of symbol sequences is regular in the sense of the Chomsky hierarchy and the corresponding grammatical complexity takes finite values. It is found that the complexity exhibits a self-similar structure as a function of the system parameter, and the similarity of the pruning fronts is discussed as an origin of such self-similarity. For non-hyperbolic cases, it is observed that the complexity monotonically increases as we increase the resolution of the pruning front.

  5. Grammatical complexity for two-dimensional maps

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hagiwara, Ryouichi; Shudo, Akira

    2004-11-01

    We calculate the grammatical complexity of the symbol sequences generated from the Hénon map and the Lozi map using the recently developed methods to construct the pruning front. When the map is hyperbolic, the language of symbol sequences is regular in the sense of the Chomsky hierarchy and the corresponding grammatical complexity takes finite values. It is found that the complexity exhibits a self-similar structure as a function of the system parameter, and the similarity of the pruning fronts is discussed as an origin of such self-similarity. For non-hyperbolic cases, it is observed that the complexity monotonically increases as we increase the resolution of the pruning front.

  6. Peculiarities of Grammatical Properties in Nominal Word Combinations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Irina B. Klienkova

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The article examines some peculiarities if grammatical properties of nominal word combinations based on the study of German-speaking Swiss press. The accumulated experience of linguists is analyzed and certain factors influencing the choice of syntactic relations in nominal word combinations with quantitative meaning are researched. It has been established that the choice of syntactic relations in such word combinations is determined by functional style, semantics and grammatical features of nouns - first or second components in a word combination. The aforementioned factors influencing the choice of syntactic relations in quantitative nominal word combinations are studied on the material of Germanspeaking Swiss press. The research revealed a number of peculiarities. First of all, German-speaking Swiss press uses such syntactic relation as genitive subordination quite often, not only on "special occasion" and unlike its use in Germany does not produce a magniloquent, pompous impression. Secondly, it has been established that the choice of syntactic relations in word combinations of the above-mentioned type of word combinations greatly depends on the semantic meaning of the noun - the first component of the word combination - and does not always coincide with the grammatical properties in nominal combinations in Germany. Thirdly, a clear dependence of syntactic relations choice is observed. Moreover, the article highlights the importance of grammatical features of the second component. These are such features as gender, number, case accompanied by noun declension. All the afore-mentioned features help to define the type of syntactic relations, which nominal quantitative word combinations may be connected by. The results of the comparisons of grammatical properties of quantitative nominal word combinations in German and Swiss press are demonstrated in a table below.

  7. Transfer effects in learning a second language grammatical gender system

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sabourin, Laura; Stowe, Laurie A; de Haan, Ger J

    In this article second language (L2) knowledge of Dutch grammatical gender is investigated. Adult speakers of German, English and a Romance language (French, Italian or Spanish) were investigated to explore the role of transfer in learning the Dutch grammatical gender system. In the first language

  8. The Use of Grammatical Morphemes by Mandarin-Speaking Children with High Functioning Autism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Peng; Crain, Stephen; Gao, Liqun; Tang, Ye; Jia, Meixiang

    2015-01-01

    The present study investigated the production of grammatical morphemes by Mandarin-speaking children with high functioning autism. Previous research found that a subgroup of English-speaking children with autism exhibit deficits in the use of grammatical morphemes that mark tense. In order to see whether this impairment in grammatical morphology…

  9. GRAMMATICAL SYLLABUS AND EFL TEXTBOOKS: THE NEED FOR CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING ACTIVITIES

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    Sasan Baleghizadeh

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, the role of the grammatical syllabus in EFL settings is examined. To this end, the grammatical syllabus and its shortcomings are first explored. It is then argued that the grammatical syllabus is perhaps the best channel through which grammar instruction can take shape, and hence the importance of grammar instruction is discussed. Finally, the concept of consciousness-raising activities is introduced and it is suggested that the explicit presentation of grammar in traditional EFL textbooks still used in certain settings be replaced by consciousness-raising activities.

  10. Role of Grammatical Gender and Semantics in German Word Production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vigliocco, Gabriella; Vinson, David P.; Indefrey, Peter; Levelt, Willem J. M.; Hellwig, Frauke

    2004-01-01

    Semantic substitution errors (e.g., saying "arm" when "leg" is intended) are among the most common types of errors occurring during spontaneous speech. It has been shown that grammatical gender of German target nouns is preserved in the errors (E. Mane, 1999). In 3 experiments, the authors explored different accounts of the grammatical gender…

  11. Grammatical Means of Temporality Expression in Translation

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    Tulegen Asylbekovich Merkibayev

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Creation problem of model of grammatical means of temporality expression in translation from English into Kazakh and Russian languages is considered in the article. At a choice of translation of transformations of aspectual-temporal categories of a verb from English into Kazakh and Russian languages it is considered not only grammatical compliance of categories of tense, but also the contextual use of a functional and semantic field of verbs, comparison of lexical temporality with positions of concepts, specific to each language world picture, with positions of modern philosophy and logic of language. Authors come to a conclusion that productive use of analytical forms in the Kazakh and English languages is the result of structural features of categories of tense and a type of English and Kazakh languages. Comparison of a phase of actions of a verb in English and Kazakh languages allows creation of reference model of grammatical means of expression of temporality in translation from English into Kazakh and Russian languages on the basis of a functional and semantic field of verbs, comparison of lexical temporality from positions specific on each language picture of the world.

  12. Internal Grammar and Children's Grammatical Creativity against Poor Inputs

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    Adriana Belletti

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available This article is about the unexpected linguistic behavior that young children sometimes display by producing structures that are only marginally present in the adult language in a constrained way, and that adults do not adopt in the same experimental conditions. It is argued here that children's capacity to overextend the use of given syntactic structures thereby resulting in a grammatical creative behavior is the sign of an internal grammatical pressure which manifests itself given appropriate discourse conditions and factors of grammatical complexity and which does not necessarily require a rich input to be put into work. This poverty of the stimulus type situation is illustrated here through the overextended use of a-Topics and reflexive-causative passives by young Italian speaking children when answering eliciting questions concerning the direct object of the clause.

  13. Grammatical Templates: Improving Text Difficulty Evaluation for Language Learners

    OpenAIRE

    Wang, Shuhan; Andersen, Erik

    2016-01-01

    Language students are most engaged while reading texts at an appropriate difficulty level. However, existing methods of evaluating text difficulty focus mainly on vocabulary and do not prioritize grammatical features, hence they do not work well for language learners with limited knowledge of grammar. In this paper, we introduce grammatical templates, the expert-identified units of grammar that students learn from class, as an important feature of text difficulty evaluation. Experimental clas...

  14. Grammatical Conception of Yuriy Shevel'ov: Nominative ↔ Vocative in the System of Substantial Categoriality

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    Anatoliy Zahnitko

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Background. Analysis of Yuriy Shevel'ov’s approaches to the interpretation of the morphological tier of language, as well as his examination of particular phenomena of this level – substantiality, verbality, and others – reflects not only the author's understanding itself of all the grammatical system as a whole, and morphological one in particular, but also represents the features of modification of scientific approaches in the history of linguistic thought of mid-twentieth century, its strengthening in the studies of the XX – XXI century. The researcher’s definition of nominative and vocative cases as interrelated within the categorical substantiality is of particular importance. Purpose: to determine the main components of interpretation of the status dimension of the nominative and vocative cases within morpho-substantial categoriality of Yuriy Shevel'ov with the definition of theoretical foundations and practical principles, revealing the patterns of establishing internal sentence dimension of the nominative and vocative cases. Results: In the case theory with reliance on the sequence of forms of dependencies in the internal sentence space Yuriy Shevel'ov distinguishes five cases: genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, locative. In the statement about the nominative as grammatically independent case the scientist relies on sentence. Two-dimensionality of grammatically independent case opposes to the one-dimensional grammatically dependent nominative that is traceable in syntactic positions of predicate and apposition. Yuriy Shevel'ov did not consider addressing that is not grammatically linked to the sentence with a specific expression as an individual case. The forms of vocative case show functional three-componentity, because in its functional-semantic paradigm it covers the function of the addressee – potential subject of action (primary function that is represented in formal grammar sentence structure by the main element of

  15. The Differential Role of Phonological and Distributional Cues in Grammatical Categorisation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monaghan, P.; Chater, N.; Christiansen, M.H.

    2005-01-01

    Recognising the grammatical categories of words is a necessary skill for the acquisition of syntax and for on-line sentence processing. The syntactic and semantic context of the word contribute as cues for grammatical category assignment, but phonological cues, too, have been implicated as important sources of information. The value of…

  16. No grammatical gender effect on affective ratings: evidence from Italian and German languages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Montefinese, Maria; Ambrosini, Ettore; Roivainen, Eka

    2018-06-06

    In this study, we tested the linguistic relativity hypothesis by studying the effect of grammatical gender (feminine vs. masculine) on affective judgments of conceptual representation in Italian and German. In particular, we examined the within- and cross-language grammatical gender effect and its interaction with participants' demographic characteristics (such as, the raters' age and sex) on semantic differential scales (affective ratings of valence, arousal and dominance) in Italian and German speakers. We selected the stimuli and the relative affective measures from Italian and German adaptations of the ANEW (Affective Norms for English Words). Bayesian and frequentist analyses yielded evidence for the absence of within- and cross-languages effects of grammatical gender and sex- and age-dependent interactions. These results suggest that grammatical gender does not affect judgments of affective features of semantic representation in Italian and German speakers, since an overt coding of word grammar is not required. Although further research is recommended to refine the impact of the grammatical gender on properties of semantic representation, these results have implications for any strong view of the linguistic relativity hypothesis.

  17. Dissociable neural representations of grammatical gender in Broca's area investigated by the combination of satiation and TMS.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cattaneo, Zaira; Devlin, Joseph T; Vecchi, Tomaso; Silvanto, Juha

    2009-08-15

    Along with meaning and form, words can be described on the basis of their grammatical properties. Grammatical gender is often used to investigate the latter as it is a grammatical property that is independent of meaning. The left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) has been implicated in the encoding of grammatical gender, but its causal role in this process in neurologically normal observers has not been demonstrated. Here we combined verbal satiation with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to demonstrate that subpopulations of neurons within Broca's area respond preferentially to different classes of grammatical gender. Subjects were asked to classify Italian nouns into living and nonliving categories; half of these words were of masculine and the other half of feminine grammatical gender. Prior to each test block, a satiation paradigm (a phenomenon in which verbal repetition of a category name leads to a reduced access to that category) was used to modulate the initial state of the representations of either masculine or feminine noun categories. In the No TMS condition, subjects were slower in responding to exemplars to the satiated category relative to exemplars of the nonsatiated category, implying that the neural representations for different classes of grammatical gender are partly dissociable. The application of TMS over Broca's area removed the behavioral impact of verbal (grammatical) satiation, demonstrating the causal role of this region in the encoding of grammatical gender. These results show that the neural representations for different cases of a grammatical property within Broca's area are dissociable.

  18. The acquisition of grammatical gender in L2 German by learners ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The study reported in this paper investigated the adult L2 acquisition of grammatical gender in German by first language (L1) speakers of Afrikaans, English and Italian, respectively. The aim of the study was to determine how similarities and differences between the L1 and L2 in terms of grammatical gender affect the ...

  19. Variation and Linguistic Theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bailey, Charles-James N.

    This volume presents principles and models for describing language variation, and introduces a time-based, dynamic framework for linguistic description. The book first summarizes some of the problems of grammatical description encountered from Saussure through the present and then outlines possibilities for new descriptions of language which take…

  20. Interaction between lexical and grammatical language systems in the brain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ardila, Alfredo

    2012-06-01

    This review concentrates on two different language dimensions: lexical/semantic and grammatical. This distinction between a lexical/semantic system and a grammatical system is well known in linguistics, but in cognitive neurosciences it has been obscured by the assumption that there are several forms of language disturbances associated with focal brain damage and hence language includes a diversity of functions (phoneme discrimination, lexical memory, grammar, repetition, language initiation ability, etc.), each one associated with the activity of a specific brain area. The clinical observation of patients with cerebral pathology shows that there are indeed only two different forms of language disturbances (disturbances in the lexical/semantic system and disturbances in the grammatical system); these two language dimensions are supported by different brain areas (temporal and frontal) in the left hemisphere. Furthermore, these two aspects of the language are developed at different ages during child's language acquisition, and they probably appeared at different historical moments during human evolution. Mechanisms of learning are different for both language systems: whereas the lexical/semantic knowledge is based in a declarative memory, grammatical knowledge corresponds to a procedural type of memory. Recognizing these two language dimensions can be crucial in understanding language evolution and human cognition.

  1. How Persistent Are Grammatical Gender Effects? The Case of German and Tamil

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sedlmeier, Peter; Tipandjan, Arun; Jänchen, Anastasia

    2016-01-01

    Does the language we speak shape the way we think? The present research concentrated on the impact of grammatical gender on cognition and examined the persistence of the grammatical gender effect by (a) concentrating on German, a three-gendered language, for which previous results have been inconsistent, (b) statistically controlling for common…

  2. Grammatical Gender and Mental Representation of Object: The Case of Musical Instruments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vuksanovic, Jasmina; Bjekic, Jovana; Radivojevic, Natalija

    2015-01-01

    A body of research shows that grammatical gender, although an arbitrary category, is viewed as the system with its own meaning. However, the question remains to what extent does grammatical gender influence shaping our notions about objects when both verbal and visual information are available. Two experiments were conducted. The results obtained…

  3. Grammatical production deficits in PPA: Relating narrative and structured task performance

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    Elena Barbieri

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Introduction Grammatical production impairments in primary progressive aphasia (PPA have been investigated using structured language tasks and analysis of narrative language samples (for review see Thompson & Mack, 2014; Wilson et al., 2012. However, little research has examined the relationship between them in PPA. Whereas structured tasks often assess production accuracy at different levels of syntactic complexity (e.g., Thompson et al., 2013, narrative measures typically assess overall lexical and grammatical usage (e.g., % grammatical sentences; noun-to-verb ratio, with lesser emphasis on complexity. The present study investigated the relationship between narrative measures of grammatical production and performance on structured language tests in the domains of syntax, verb morphology, and verb-argument structure (VAS. Materials and methods Data from 101 individuals with PPA were included. Participants completed a test battery including the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS, Thompson, 2011, the Northwestern Assessment of Verb Inflection (NAVI, Lee & Thompson, experimental version and the Northwestern Anagram Test (NAT, Thompson, Weintraub, & Mesulam, 2012. Grammatical production deficits were quantified as follows: for syntax, accuracy of non-canonical sentence production on the NAVS Sentence Production Priming Test (SPPT and the NAT; for morphology, the accuracy on finite verbs on the NAVI; for VAS, the accuracy of sentences produced with 2- and 3-argument verbs on the NAVS Argument Structure Production Test (ASPT. Cinderella narrative samples were analyzed using the Northwestern Narrative Language Analysis system (e.g., Thompson et al., 2012. For syntax, complexity was measured by the ratio of syntactically complex to simple sentences produced, whereas accuracy was indexed by computing the proportion of words with a locally grammatical lexical category. Morphological complexity was measured by mean number of verb

  4. Grammatical Deviations in the Spoken and Written Language of Hebrew-Speaking Children With Hearing Impairments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tur-Kaspa, Hana; Dromi, Esther

    2001-04-01

    The present study reports a detailed analysis of written and spoken language samples of Hebrew-speaking children aged 11-13 years who are deaf. It focuses on the description of various grammatical deviations in the two modalities. Participants were 13 students with hearing impairments (HI) attending special classrooms integrated into two elementary schools in Tel Aviv, Israel, and 9 students with normal hearing (NH) in regular classes in these same schools. Spoken and written language samples were collected from all participants using the same five preplanned elicitation probes. Students with HI were found to display significantly more grammatical deviations than their NH peers in both their spoken and written language samples. Most importantly, between-modality differences were noted. The participants with HI exhibited significantly more grammatical deviations in their written language samples than in their spoken samples. However, the distribution of grammatical deviations across categories was similar in the two modalities. The most common grammatical deviations in order of their frequency were failure to supply obligatory morphological markers, failure to mark grammatical agreement, and the omission of a major syntactic constituent in a sentence. Word order violations were rarely recorded in the Hebrew samples. Performance differences in the two modalities encourage clinicians and teachers to facilitate target linguistic forms in diverse communication contexts. Furthermore, the identification of linguistic targets for intervention must be based on the unique grammatical structure of the target language.

  5. Disrupted behaviour in grammatical morphology in French speakers with autism spectrum disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Le Normand, Marie-Thérèse; Blanc, Romuald; Caldani, Simona; Bonnet-Brilhault, Frédérique

    2018-01-18

    Mixed and inconsistent findings have been reported across languages concerning grammatical morphology in speakers with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Some researchers argue for a selective sparing of grammar whereas others claim to have identified grammatical deficits. The present study aimed to investigate this issue in 26 participants with ASD speaking European French who were matched on age, gender and SES to 26 participants with typical development (TD). The groups were compared regarding their productivity and accuracy of syntactic and agreement categories using the French MOR part-of-speech tagger available from the CHILDES. The groups significantly differed in productivity with respect to nouns, adjectives, determiners, prepositions and gender markers. Error analysis revealed that ASD speakers exhibited a disrupted behaviour in grammatical morphology. They made gender, tense and preposition errors and they omitted determiners and pronouns in nominal and verbal contexts. ASD speakers may have a reduced sensitivity to perceiving and processing the distributional structure of syntactic categories when producing grammatical morphemes and agreement categories. The theoretical and cross-linguistic implications of these findings are discussed.

  6. Testing the Processing Hypothesis of word order variation using a probabilistic language model

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bloem, J.

    2016-01-01

    This work investigates the application of a measure of surprisal to modeling a grammatical variation phenomenon between near-synonymous constructions. We investigate a particular variation phenomenon, word order variation in Dutch two-verb clusters, where it has been established that word order

  7. Simultaneous Treatment of Grammatical and Speech-Comprehensibility Deficits in Children with Down Syndrome

    Science.gov (United States)

    Camarata, Stephen; Yoder, Paul; Camarata, Mary

    2006-01-01

    Children with Down syndrome often display speech-comprehensibility and grammatical deficits beyond what would be predicted based upon general mental age. Historically, speech-comprehensibility has often been treated using traditional articulation therapy and oral-motor training so there may be little or no coordination of grammatical and…

  8. Inter-practice variation in diagnosing hypertension and diabetes mellitus: a cross-sectional study in general practice

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nielen, M.M.J.; Schellevis, F.G.; Verheij, R.A.

    2009-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Previous studies of inter-practice variation of the prevalence of hypertension and diabetes mellitus showed wide variations between practices. However, in these studies inter-practice variation was calculated without controlling for clustering of patients within practices and without

  9. Inter-practice variation in diagnosing hypertension and diabetes mellitus: a cross-sectional study in general practice.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nielen, M.M.J.; Schellevis, F.G.; Verheij, R.A.

    2009-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Previous studies of inter-practice variation of the prevalence of hypertension and diabetes mellitus showed wide variations between practices. However, in these studies inter-practice variation was calculated without controlling for clustering of patients within practices and without

  10. Symbolic Dynamics and Grammatical Complexity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hao, Bai-Lin; Zheng, Wei-Mou

    The following sections are included: * Formal Languages and Their Complexity * Formal Language * Chomsky Hierarchy of Grammatical Complexity * The L-System * Regular Language and Finite Automaton * Finite Automaton * Regular Language * Stefan Matrix as Transfer Function for Automaton * Beyond Regular Languages * Feigenbaum and Generalized Feigenbaum Limiting Sets * Even and Odd Fibonacci Sequences * Odd Maximal Primitive Prefixes and Kneading Map * Even Maximal Primitive Prefixes and Distinct Excluded Blocks * Summary of Results

  11. Ammonius Hermiae and the grammatical aspects in Aristotle’s logic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Garin Sergey Vyacheslavovich

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with logical and grammatical aspects of Aristotle’s “Categories” within the framework of the anonymous “Commentary” attributed to Ammonius Herminae. Grammatical backgrounds for Aristotelian doctrine of homonyms are revealed. The paper describes the phenomenon of Attic figures (σχῆμα Ἀττικόν and Attic syntax (Αττική Σύνταξη in terms of relationship between subject and predicate considered by Ammonius in his “Commentary”.

  12. AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE GAP BETWEEN KOREAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL AWARENESS AND PERCEPTION

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    Kyung-Im Han

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Despite the consistent emphasis on grammar instruction in English classrooms in South Korea, studies regarding grammar instruction have not yet been extensively conducted. The present study aims to discover the gap between learners’ grammatical awareness and their perception of major grammatical items. A total of 60 EFL learners from two local universities in South Korea participated in the study and were divided into two groups, a high-level and a low-level group. A set of tests was utilized to examine learners’ grammatical awareness and their perception of six major grammatical items—tense, prepositions, articles, voices, morphology, and vocabulary. The results demonstrated that there was a significant difference in the scores of tense, article, and voice for grammatical awareness between the high-level and the low-level group. Also, both groups scored high for the category of voice while they received low scores for vocabulary and morphology. In addition, they showed a significant difference in the scores for the perceived difficulty of articles and voice. The high-level group perceived voice as the most difficult, whereas the low-level group perceived articles as the most difficult. These findings demonstrate a gap between the learners’ grammar awareness and perception and highlight a need to design an individualized curriculum for the effectiveness of teaching as well as self-initiated studying.

  13. Description and grammatical analysis of Persian to Persian teaching series of Jame’at al-Mostafa al-‘alamiye books

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nafise Raisi

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Persian as the second language of the world of Islam is closely related to the teachings of this divine religion, so learning Persian besides Islamic and Shia teachings would be helpful for Islamic scholars. In this regard, Jame’at al-Mostafa al-‘alamiye in the context of the Persian language tries to train Islamic scholars, translators and missioners. Center of language education and Islamic teachings which is the subset of Jame’at al-Mostafa, has formulated a collection of eight books named Persian to Persian teaching which is taught in different centers of Jame’at al-Mostafa inside and outside of the country. High goals of this Shia association represents the importance of authoring and analyzing education books. So their accuracy needs more attention and research. This essay aimed at describing and grammatical analyzing of this educational series. The present study deals with the importance and methods of teaching grammar to non-Persian speakers after introducing the Jame’at al-Mostafa al-‘alamiye; also, besides introducing the required grammatical issues, it describes eight volumes books of teaching Persian-to-Persian grammatically. Then the grammatical difficulties of these books are investigated in ten separate sections with giving some examples. The study ends with providing some strategies to improve the grammatical issues of this educational set and other books of teaching Persian language to non-Persian speakers. In the early years after the Islamic revolution, some foreign students came to Iran to study Islamic studies so the supervisory board of non-Iranian students was established to answer and to organize their educational and livelihood status in 1979. “Jame’at al-Mostafa al-‘alamiye” was founded in Qom and other cities after the continuous changes in 2007. This center tries to grow the Islamic scholar, translator, and missionary by teaching Persian language; in this way, center of language and

  14. Effects of stress typicality during speeded grammatical classification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arciuli, Joanne; Cupples, Linda

    2003-01-01

    The experiments reported here were designed to investigate the influence of stress typicality during speeded grammatical classification of disyllabic English words by native and non-native speakers. Trochaic nouns and iambic gram verbs were considered to be typically stressed, whereas iambic nouns and trochaic verbs were considered to be atypically stressed. Experiments 1a and 2a showed that while native speakers classified typically stressed words individual more quickly and more accurately than atypically stressed words during differences reading, there were no overall effects during classification of spoken stimuli. However, a subgroup of native speakers with high error rates did show a significant effect during classification of spoken stimuli. Experiments 1b and 2b showed that non-native speakers classified typically stressed words more quickly and more accurately than atypically stressed words during reading. Typically stressed words were classified more accurately than atypically stressed words when the stimuli were spoken. Importantly, there was a significant relationship between error rates, vocabulary size and the size of the stress typicality effect in each experiment. We conclude that participants use information about lexical stress to help them distinguish between disyllabic nouns and verbs during speeded grammatical classification. This is especially so for individuals with a limited vocabulary who lack other knowledge (e.g., semantic knowledge) about the differences between these grammatical categories.

  15. On projecting grammatical persons into social neurocognition: a view from linguistics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Evans, Nicholas

    2013-08-01

    Though it draws on the grammatical metaphor of person (first, third, second) in terms of representations, Schilbach et al.'s target article does not consider an orthogonal line of evidence for the centrality of interaction to social cognition: the many grammatical phenomena, some widespread cross-linguistically and some only being discovered, which are geared to supporting real-time interaction. My commentary reviews these, and the contribution linguistic evidence can make to a fuller account of social cognition.

  16. A Study of the Use of the Weak Forms of English Grammatical Words ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Nekky Umera

    than not, strong vowels from the mother tongue were substituted for the weak sound / ə / which is the commonest vowel found in the weak forms of English grammatical words. Elision, which often occurs to English grammatical words, was also found not to manifest remarkably in this 'geo-tribal' variety of Nigerian English.

  17. Grammatical polysemy and grammaticalization in cognitive and ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Cognitive and generative approaches to linguistics have taken a different perspective on grammatical polysemy and grammaticalization. While the former see polysemy as a core characteristic of language and a necessary result of grammaticalization within idiolects, the latter see it as a less interesting phenomenon ...

  18. Persistent grammatical difficulties in Specific Language Impairment : Deficits in knowledge or in knowledge implementation?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Duinmeijer, I.

    2017-01-01

    This study examines the grammatical abilities of children and adolescents with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). There were two research goals. Firstly, the persistence of grammatical problems over time was examined by comparing a younger group of children with SLI and an older group of

  19. Grammatical gender in the discourse of multilingual children's acquisition of German

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Montanari, Elke

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available The acquisition of grammatical gender by multilingual pre-school children (aged six was investigated by observing their narration and discourse. It emerged that only three of the 17 children actually used gender to classify nouns. Grammatical agreement is acknowledged as a key feature of gender acquisition, and it reflects developmental steps. Children growing up with mostly bilingual German input at a low proficiency level had the greatest difficulties in acquiring gender and agreement in the group investigated.

  20. Newborn infants' sensitivity to perceptual cues to lexical and grammatical words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, R; Werker, J F; Morgan, J L

    1999-09-30

    In our study newborn infants were presented with lists of lexical and grammatical words prepared from natural maternal speech. The results show that newborns are able to categorically discriminate these sets of words based on a constellation of perceptual cues that distinguish them. This general ability to detect and categorically discriminate sets of words on the basis of multiple acoustic and phonological cues may provide a perceptual base that can help older infants bootstrap into the acquisition of grammatical categories and syntactic structure.

  1. A systematic review of medical practice variation in OECD countries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corallo, Ashley N; Croxford, Ruth; Goodman, David C; Bryan, Elisabeth L; Srivastava, Divya; Stukel, Therese A

    2014-01-01

    Major variations in medical practice have been documented internationally. Variations raise questions about the quality, equity, and efficiency of resource allocation and use, and have important implications for health care and health policy. To perform a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature on medical practice variations in OECD countries. We searched MEDLINE to find publications on medical practice variations in OECD countries published between 2000 and 2011. We present an overview of the characteristics of published studies as well as the magnitude of variations for select high impact conditions. A total of 836 studies were included. Consistent with the gray literature, there were large variations across regions, hospitals and physician practices for almost every condition and procedure studied. Many studies focused on high-impact conditions, but very few looked at the causes or outcomes of medical practice variations. While there were an overwhelming number of publications on medical practice variations the coverage was broad and not often based on a theoretical construct. Future studies should focus on conditions and procedures that are clinically important, policy relevant, resource intensive, and have high levels of public awareness. Further study of the causes and consequences of variations is important. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Lexicographic presentation of grammatical divergence in Sesotho ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Relying on existing insights from the field of theoretical lexicography this article gives an innovative application to the relation of divergence by introducing the notion of grammatical divergence. In bilingual dictionaries with English and Sesotho sa Leboa as language pair lexicographers are confronted with a real challenge ...

  3. Some Dictionary Descriptions of Grammatical Structure | Branford ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This paper examines some points in the treatment of grammatical structure in four recent dictionaries of English as Ll. These are viewed against the background concepts of "Iexicogrammar" (Halliday 1978) and of the interdependence of lexicographical and syntactic descriptions of language. Its scope is necessari1y ...

  4. Grammatical Aspect and Gesture in French: A kinesiological approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Доминик Бутэ

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we defend the idea that research on Gesture with Speech can provide ways of studying speakers’ conceptualization of grammatical notions as they are speaking. Expressing an idea involves a dynamic interplay between our construal, shaped by the sensori-motoric and interactive experiences linked to that idea, the plurisemiotic means at our disposal for expressing it, and the linguistic category available for its expression in our language. By analyzing the expression of aspect in Speech with Gesture (GeSp in semi-guided oral interactions, we would like to make a new contribution to the field of aspect by exploring how speakers’ construal of aspectual differences grammaticalized in their language, may be enacted and visible in gesture. More specifically we want to see the degree to which event structure differences expressed in different grammatical aspects (perfective and imperfective correlate with kinesiological features of the gestures. To this end, we will focus on the speed and flow of the movements as well as on the segments involved (fingers, hand, forearm, arm, shoulder. A kinesiological approach to gestures enables us to analyze the movements of human bodies according to a biomechanical point of view that includes physiological features. This study is the first contribution focused on the links between speech and gesture in French in the domain of grammatical aspect. Grammatical aspect was defined by Comrie (1976 [1989] as involving the internal unfurling of the process, «[...] tense is a deictic category, i.e. locates situations in time, usually with reference to the present moment [...]. Aspect is not concerned with relating time of the situation to any other time-point, but rather with the internal temporal constituency of the one situation; one could state the difference as one between situation-internal time (aspect and situation-external time (tense » (Comrie, 1976 [1989]: 5. Can kinesic features express and make

  5. Practice Variation in Public Sector Internal Auditing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Arena, Marika; Jeppesen, Kim Klarskov

    2016-01-01

    This article aims to analyze the rise of practice variations in public sector internal auditing (IA), giving special attention to the role of agents’ embeddedness in multiple institutional arrangements. IA's trends of development and the characteristics of the public sector context, in fact, make...... types of IA developed in three case settings, shaped by the agents’ embeddedness in different institutional fields. This article provides a more comprehensive approach to the study of IA adoption and development in public sector organizations than previous literature, and it highlights the relevance...... of the interplay between actors’ contemporary embeddedness in professional systems and the focal social system as a relevant source of practice variation. In this respect, the case of IA can contribute to previous studies of practice variation in the field of management accounting, shedding some light on the types...

  6. L2 Chinese: Grammatical Development and Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mai, Ziyin

    2016-01-01

    Two recent books (Jiang, 2014, "Advances in Chinese as a second language"; Wang, 2013, "Grammatical development of Chinese among non-native speakers") provide new resources for exploring the role of processing in acquiring Chinese as a second language (L2). This review article summarizes, assesses and compares some of the…

  7. Aligning Grammatical Theories and Language Processing Models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lewis, Shevaun; Phillips, Colin

    2015-01-01

    We address two important questions about the relationship between theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics. First, do grammatical theories and language processing models describe separate cognitive systems, or are they accounts of different aspects of the same system? We argue that most evidence is consistent with the one-system view. Second,…

  8. Toddlers' Verb Lexicon Diversity and Grammatical Outcomes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hadley, Pamela A.; Rispoli, Matthew; Hsu, Ning

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: The goals of this study were to quantify longitudinal expectations for verb lexicon growth and to determine whether verb lexicon measures were better predictors of later grammatical outcomes than noun lexicon measures. Method: Longitudinal parent-report measures from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (Fenson et al.,…

  9. Grammatical Constructions in Typical Developing Children: Effects of Explicit Reinforcement, Automatic Reinforcement and Parity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ostvik, Leni; Eikeseth, Svein; Klintwall, Lars

    2012-01-01

    This study replicated and extended Wright (2006) and Whitehurst, Ironsmith, and Goldfein (1974) by examining whether preschool aged children would increase their use of passive grammatical voice rather than using the more age-appropriate active grammatical construction when the former was modeled by an adult. Results showed that 5 of the 6…

  10. Grammatical gender vs. natural gender in French Williams syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ibernon, Laure; Boloh, Yves

    2010-01-01

    This article reports grammatical gender attribution scores in French Williams participants (N=28, mean chronological age=15.1) in an experiment similar to the classic one from Karmiloff-Smith (1979) where grammatical gender was pitted against natural gender. WS participants massively opted for the masculine gender as the default one, just as MA-controls did. They differed from CA-controls, however, in that they provided fewer sex-based responses. Splitting the WS group into two subgroups did not reveal a shift to sex-based responses similar to the one found in controls. It is argued that this latter difference could plausibly be related to differences in cognitive, lexical or meta-linguistic abilities. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Variation in clinical practice: forests and trees revisited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wallis, Christopher J D; Naylor, C David; Detsky, Allan S

    2017-09-01

    Variations in clinical practice are commonly viewed as a sign of uneven quality of care and attributed to provider self-interest. However, patient preferences, physician practice patterns, and diagnostic and therapeutic uncertainty also cause variations. Greater attention to both doctor-patient interactions and limits to the available evidence might enable more effective assessment and improvement of health-care quality.

  12. Effects of Grammatical Categories on Children's Visual Language Processing: Evidence from Event-Related Brain Potentials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weber-Fox, Christine; Hart, Laura J.; Spruill, John E., III

    2006-01-01

    This study examined how school-aged children process different grammatical categories. Event-related brain potentials elicited by words in visually presented sentences were analyzed according to seven grammatical categories with naturally varying characteristics of linguistic functions, semantic features, and quantitative attributes of length and…

  13. Structural Facilitation: Mere Exposure Effects for Grammatical Acceptability as Evidence for Syntactic Priming in Comprehension

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luka, B.J.; Barsalou, L.W.

    2005-01-01

    In five experiments, participants first read grammatical sentences of English and later rated identical, structurally similar, or novel sentences for grammatical acceptability. The experimental method was modeled after ''mere exposure'' and artificial grammar learning paradigms in which preference ratings are enhanced by prior experience with the…

  14. Identifying the factors influencing practice variation in thrombosis medicine: A qualitative content analysis of published practice-pattern surveys.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Skeith, Leslie; Gonsalves, Carol

    2017-11-01

    Practice variation, the differences in clinical management between physicians, is one reason why patient outcomes may differ. Identifying factors that contribute to practice variation in areas of clinical uncertainty or equipoise may have implications for understanding and improving patient care. To discern what factors may influence practice variation, we completed a qualitative content analysis of all practice-pattern surveys in thrombosis medicine in the last 10years. Out of 2117 articles screened using a systematic search strategy, 33 practice-pattern surveys met eligibility criteria. Themes were identified using constant comparative analysis of qualitative data. Practice variation was noted in all 33 practice-pattern surveys. Contributing factors to variation included lack of available evidence, lack of clear and specific guideline recommendations, past experience, patient context, institutional culture and the perceived risk and benefit of a particular treatment. Additional themes highlight the value placed on expertise in challenging clinical scenarios, the complexity of practice variation and the value placed on minimizing practice variation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. On the co-variation between form and function of adnominal possessive modifiers in Dutch and English

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rijkhoff, Jan

    2009-01-01

    in the noun phrase (section 3); a tentative explanation is given in section 4. The more general point this paper wants to make is that functional modifier categories like CLASSIFYING MODIFIER or QUALIFYING MODIFIER can be characterized in grammatical terms and, furthermore, that important grammatical...... that the remarkable variation in the grammatical properties of this possessive construction directly correlates with the kind of modifier function it has in the noun phrase. It is first shown that lexical possessive modifiers with van ‘of’ (“adnominal possessives” for short) are used to express most of the modifier...... functions recognized in a semantic, five-layered model of the noun phrase (section 2). I will then argue that the values for certain grammatical parameters (here subsumed under the labels MODIFICATION, PREDICATION, REFERENCE) correlate with the kind of modifier function the adnominal possessive has...

  16. Teachers and Peers as Communication Models to Teach Grammatical Forms to Preschoolers with Hearing Loss

    Science.gov (United States)

    Richels, Corrin G.; Bobzien, Jonna L.; Schwartz, Kathryn S.; Raver, Sharon A.; Browning, Ellen L.; Hester, Peggy P.

    2016-01-01

    Structured input from both teachers and peers maximizes the opportunities for preschoolers to learn grammatical forms. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using a teacher and a peer with typical hearing and language skills to model grammatically correct verbal responses to action "wh-" questions…

  17. Using sound to solve syntactic problems: the role of phonology in grammatical category assignments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, M H

    1992-04-01

    One ubiquitous problem in language processing involves the assignment of words to the correct grammatical category, such as noun or verb. In general, semantic and syntactic cues have been cited as the principal information for grammatical category assignment, to the neglect of possible phonological cues. This neglect is unwarranted, and the following claims are made: (a) Numerous correlations between phonology and grammatical class exist, (b) some of these correlations are large and can pervade the entire lexicon of a language and hence can involve thousands of words, (c) experiments have repeatedly found that adults and children have learned these correlations, and (d) explanations for how these correlations arose can be proposed and evaluated. Implications of these phenomena for language representation and processing are discussed.

  18. THE UKRAINIAN ELEMENT IN THE GRAMMATICAL WORKS OF JURAJ KRIZANIĆ

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jevgenij Paščenko

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available Grammatical works of Juraj Križanić which were written in Russia, are observed from the viewpoint of their connection with the Ukrainian philology of the 17th century. Concrete examples show significant knowledge that this Croatian scientist had of the contemporary East-Slavic lexicographic and grammatical tradition. The challenge to create a grammatical vision of «the Slavic language» came to Križanić from the work of Meletija Smotry'ckyj, an eminent representative of Ukrainian philology. However, the Croatian author used the Ukrainian folk language to a great extent, which, unfortunately, hasn’t been recognized enough in the past extensive Križanićology. His connections to the Ukraine have traditionally been identified with the ones with Russia, and that is the consequence of a kind of inertia in distinguishing the Ukrainian from the Russian element on the East-Slavic territory. This work uses concrete examples to show the presence of various forms of the Ukrainian language culture in the works of the Croatian author. These works make Križanić the founder of the Croatian Ukrainian school. Through Križanić’s work Croatian philology enters the Ukrainian baroque linguistic culture.

  19. Lexical and Grammatical Collocations in Writing Production of EFL Learners

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maryam Bahardoust

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Lewis (1993 recognized significance of word combinations including collocations by presenting lexical approach. Because of the crucial role of collocation in vocabulary acquisition, this research set out to evaluate the rate of collocations in Iranian EFL learners' writing production across L1 and L2. In addition, L1 interference with L2 collocational use in the learner' writing samples was studied. To achieve this goal, 200 Persian EFL learners at BA level were selected. These participants were taking paragraph writing and essay writing courses in two successive semesters. As for the data analysis, mid-term, final exam, and also the assignments of L2 learners were evaluated. Because of the nominal nature of the data, chi-square test was utilized for data analysis. Then, the rate of lexical and grammatical collocations was calculated. Results showed that the lexical collocations outnumbered the grammatical collocations. Different categories of lexical collocations were also compared with regard to their frequencies in EFL writing production. The rate of the verb-noun and adjective-noun collocations appeared to be the highest and noun-verb collocations the lowest. The results also showed that L1 had both positive and negative effect on the occurrence of both grammatical and lexical collocations.

  20. Variation in handshape and orientation in British Sign Language: The case of the ‘1’ hand configuration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fenlon, Jordan; Schembri, Adam; Rentelis, Ramas; Cormier, Kearsy

    2013-01-01

    This paper investigates phonological variation in British Sign Language (BSL) signs produced with a ‘1’ hand configuration in citation form. Multivariate analyses of 2084 tokens reveals that handshape variation in these signs is constrained by linguistic factors (e.g., the preceding and following phonological environment, grammatical category, indexicality, lexical frequency). The only significant social factor was region. For the subset of signs where orientation was also investigated, only grammatical function was important (the surrounding phonological environment and social factors were not significant). The implications for an understanding of pointing signs in signed languages are discussed. PMID:23805018

  1. On the relation between grammatical number and cardinal numbers in development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sarnecka, Barbara W

    2014-01-01

    This mini-review focuses on the question of how the grammatical number system of a child's language may help the child learn the meanings of cardinal number words (e.g., "one" and "two"). Evidence from young children learning English, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, Slovenian, or Saudi Arabic suggests that trajectories of number-word learning differ for children learning different languages. Children learning English, which distinguishes between singular and plural, seem to learn the meaning of the cardinal number "one" earlier than children learning Japanese or Mandarin, which have very little singular/plural marking. Similarly, children whose languages have a singular/dual/plural system (Slovenian and Saudi Arabic) learn the meaning of "two" earlier than English-speaking children. This relation between grammatical and cardinal number may shed light on how humans acquire cardinal-number concepts. There is an ongoing debate about whether mental symbols for small cardinalities (concepts for "oneness," "twoness," etc.) are innate or learned. Although an effect of grammatical number on number-word learning does not rule out nativist accounts, it seems more consistent with constructivist accounts, which portray the number-learning process as one that requires significant conceptual change.

  2. Event-related potentials to event-related words: grammatical class and semantic attributes in the representation of knowledge.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barber, Horacio A; Kousta, Stavroula-Thaleia; Otten, Leun J; Vigliocco, Gabriella

    2010-05-21

    A number of recent studies have provided contradictory evidence on the question of whether grammatical class plays a role in the neural representation of lexical knowledge. Most of the previous studies comparing the processing of nouns and verbs, however, confounded word meaning and grammatical class by comparing verbs referring to actions with nouns referring to objects. Here, we recorded electrical brain activity from native Italian speakers reading single words all referring to events (e.g., corsa [the run]; correre [to run]), thus avoiding confounding nouns and verbs with objects and actions. We manipulated grammatical class (noun versus verb) as well as semantic attributes (motor versus sensory events). Activity between 300 and 450ms was more negative for nouns than verbs, and for sensory than motor words, over posterior scalp sites. These grammatical class and semantic effects were not dissociable in terms of latency, duration, or scalp distribution. In a later time window (450-110ms) and at frontal regions, grammatical class and semantic effects interacted; motor verbs were more positive than the other three word categories. We suggest that the lack of a temporal and topographical dissociation between grammatical class and semantic effects in the time range of the N400 component is compatible with an account in which both effects reflect the same underlying process related to meaning retrieval, and we link the later effect with working memory operations associated to the experimental task. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Grammatical Planning Units during Real-Time Sentence Production in Speakers with Agrammatic Aphasia and Healthy Speakers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Jiyeon; Yoshida, Masaya; Thompson, Cynthia K.

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: Grammatical encoding (GE) is impaired in agrammatic aphasia; however, the nature of such deficits remains unclear. We examined grammatical planning units during real-time sentence production in speakers with agrammatic aphasia and control speakers, testing two competing models of GE. We queried whether speakers with agrammatic aphasia…

  4. Eliminating Undesirable Variation in Neonatal Practice: Balancing Standardization and Customization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balakrishnan, Maya; Raghavan, Aarti; Suresh, Gautham K

    2017-09-01

    Consistency of care and elimination of unnecessary and harmful variation are underemphasized aspects of health care quality. This article describes the prevalence and patterns of practice variation in health care and neonatology; discusses the potential role of standardization as a solution to eliminating wasteful and harmful practice variation, particularly when it is founded on principles of evidence-based medicine; and proposes ways to balance standardization and customization of practice to ultimately improve the quality of neonatal care. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. Lexical and grammatical skills in toddlers on the autism spectrum compared to late talking toddlers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ellis Weismer, Susan; Gernsbacher, Morton Ann; Stronach, Sheri; Karasinski, Courtney; Eernisse, Elizabeth R; Venker, Courtney E; Sindberg, Heidi

    2011-08-01

    This study compared language development in 30-month-old toddlers on the autism spectrum and 25- month-old late talking toddlers without autism. Groups were matched on overall productive vocabulary (and nonverbal cognition was controlled) in order to compare language acquisition patterns related to vocabulary composition and early lexical–grammatical relationships. Findings revealed that semantic categories of words— including psychological state terms—used by toddlers on the autism spectrum were very similar to those of late talkers. Both groups were equivalent with respect to grammatical complexity and proportion of toddlers combining words, though late talkers displayed a relatively stronger association between lexical–grammatical abilities. These tentative findings are consistent with a dimensional account of early, core linguistic abilities across different populations of children with language delay.

  6. A net presentation of Lithuanian sentences containing verbal forms with the grammatical suffix -dav-

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Danuta Roszko

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available A net presentation of Lithuanian sentences containing verbal forms with the grammatical suffix -dav- In the article the authors make an attempt to present the meaning of Lithuanian sentences containing verbal forms with the grammatical suffix -dav- (the so-called iterative past tense forms by means of Petri nets. The authors gradually develop the net to such complexity that it makes it possible to avoid interpretative similarities to other Lithuanian verbal forms.

  7. Error-Related Activity and Correlates of Grammatical Plasticity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davidson, Doug J.; Indefrey, Peter

    2011-01-01

    Cognitive control involves not only the ability to manage competing task demands, but also the ability to adapt task performance during learning. This study investigated how violation-, response-, and feedback-related electrophysiological (EEG) activity changes over time during language learning. Twenty-two Dutch learners of German classified short prepositional phrases presented serially as text. The phrases were initially presented without feedback during a pre-test phase, and then with feedback in a training phase on two separate days spaced 1 week apart. The stimuli included grammatically correct phrases, as well as grammatical violations of gender and declension. Without feedback, participants’ classification was near chance and did not improve over trials. During training with feedback, behavioral classification improved and violation responses appeared to both types of violation in the form of a P600. Feedback-related negative and positive components were also present from the first day of training. The results show changes in the electrophysiological responses in concert with improving behavioral discrimination, suggesting that the activity is related to grammar learning. PMID:21960979

  8. Flexible word classes in linguistic typology and grammatical theory

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    van Lier, Eva; Rijkhoff, Jan

    2013-01-01

    Currently one of the most controversial topics in linguistic typology and grammatical theory concerns the existence of FLEXIBLE LANGUAGES, i.e. languages with a word class whose members cover functions that are typically associated with two or more of the traditional word classes (verb, noun...

  9. A usage-based theory of grammatical status and grammaticalization

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Harder, Peter; Boye, Kasper

    2012-01-01

    of hitherto disparate phenomena into a motivated relationship, while certain well-entrenched criteria (such as ‘closed paradigms’) are shown to be incidental to grammatical status and grammaticalization. The central idea is that grammar is constituted by expressions that by linguistic convention are ancillary...

  10. The modality-specific organization of grammatical categories: evidence from impaired spoken and written sentence production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rapp, B; Caramazza, A

    1997-02-01

    We describe the case of a brain-damaged individual whose speech is characterized by difficulty with practically all words except for elements of the closed class vocabulary. In contrast, his written sentence production exhibits a complementary impairment involving the omission of closed class vocabulary items and the relative sparing of nouns. On the basis of these differences we argue: (1) that grammatical categories constitute an organizing parameter of representation and/or processing for each of the independent, modality-specific lexicons, and (2) that these observations contribute to the growing evidence that access to the orthographic and phonological forms of words can occur independently.

  11. On the Relation Between Grammatical Number and Cardinal Numbers in Development

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Barbara W Sarnecka

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available This mini-review focuses on the question of how the grammatical number system of a child’s language may help the child learn the meanings of cardinal number words (e.g., ‘one’ and ‘two’. Evidence from young children learning English, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, Slovenian or Saudi Arabic suggests that trajectories of number-word learning differ for children learning different languages. Children learning English, which distinguishes between singular and plural, seem to learn the meaning of the cardinal number ‘one’ earlier than children learning Japanese or Mandarin, which have very little singular/plural marking. Similarly, children whose languages have a singular/dual/plural system (Slovenian and Saudi Arabic learn the meaning of ‘two’ earlier than English-speaking children. This relation between grammatical and cardinal number may shed light on how humans acquire cardinal-number concepts. There is an ongoing debate about whether mental symbols for small cardinalities (concepts for ‘oneness,’ ‘twoness,’ etc. are innate or learned. Although an effect of grammatical number on number-word learning does not rule out nativist accounts, it seems more consistent with constructivist accounts, which portray the number-learning process as one that requires significant conceptual change.

  12. LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL POTENTIAL OF THE VERB LASSEN IN MODERN GERMAN

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rogozhnikova Irina Nikolaevna

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available A solution to the problem of verbal meaning identity is offered with the support of semantic analysis of the verb lassen and determination of grammatical construction types with it. Studies of dictionary definitions helped to reveal formal and conceptual asymmetry of semantic meanings of the verb lassen, which is presented in correlation between homonymy and polysemy. The author characterizes three homonymous verbs: lassen I with the meaning "to get free, separate", lassen II with the meaning "to perform a volition act towards another person", lassen III with the meaning "to cause something". The semantic structure of every homonym is considered as a distinct system of individual meanings tied with chained polysemy relations. The data collected on the homonyms' usage in various texts laid the basis for the typology of grammatical constructions with respect to a functional and semantic factor, indicated coordination between a grammar construction and a certain meaning of the verb lassen. It is stated that the particle sich if joined to the verb lassen may perform two grammatical functions: mainly it is an independent predicate, but in some cases when it is added to the verb lassen II ('to have opportunity to perform some activity' it is transferred into a constituent of a predicate.

  13. Competition between Word Order and Case-Marking in Interpreting Grammatical Relations: A Case Study in Multilingual Acquisition

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Shannessy, Carmel

    2011-01-01

    The study examines strategies multilingual children use to interpret grammatical relations, focusing on their two primary languages, Lajamanu Warlpiri and Light Warlpiri. Both languages use mixed systems for indicating grammatical relations. In both languages ergative-absolutive case-marking indicates core arguments, but to different extents in…

  14. Collocations and Grammatical Patterns in a Multilingual Online Term ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This article considers the importance of including various types of collocations in a terminological database, with the aim of making this information available to the user via the user interface. We refer specifically to the inclusion of empirical and phraseological collocations, and information on grammatical patterning.

  15. Categorizing with gender: does implicit grammatical gender affect semantic processing in 24-month-old toddlers?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bobb, Susan C; Mani, Nivedita

    2013-06-01

    The current study investigated the interaction of implicit grammatical gender and semantic category knowledge during object identification. German-learning toddlers (24-month-olds) were presented with picture pairs and heard a noun (without a preceding article) labeling one of the pictures. Labels for target and distracter images either matched or mismatched in grammatical gender and either matched or mismatched in semantic category. When target and distracter overlapped in both semantic and gender information, target recognition was impaired compared with when target and distracter overlapped on only one dimension. Results suggest that by 24 months of age, German-learning toddlers are already forming not only semantic but also grammatical gender categories and that these sources of information are activated, and interact, during object identification. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Representation of grammatical categories of words in the brain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hillis, A E; Caramazza, A

    1995-01-01

    We report the performance of a patient who, as a consequence of left frontal and temporoparietal strokes, makes far more errors on nouns than on verbs in spoken output tasks, but makes far more errors on verbs than on nouns in written input tasks. This double dissociation within a single patient with respect to grammatical category provides evidence for the hypothesis that phonological and orthographic representations of nouns and verbs are processed by independent neural mechanisms. Furthermore, the opposite dissociation in the verbal output modality, an advantage for nouns over verbs in spoken tasks, by a different patient using the same stimuli has also been reported (Caramazza & Hillis, 1991). This double dissociation across patients on the same task indicates that results cannot be ascribed to "greater difficulty" with one type of stimulus, and provides further evidence for the view that grammatical category information is an important organizational principle of lexical knowledge in the brain.

  17. The effectiveness of linguistic plays on the grammatical skills of hearing-impaired children with hearing aids

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sahar Mohammad Esmaeilzadeh

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Background and Aim: Grammatical skills development of hearing-impaired children depends on using appropriate educational rehabilitation programs. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of linguistic plays on the grammatical skills in hearing-impaired children with hearing aids.Methods: Ten hearing-impaired children with hearing aids, aged between 5 and 7, were randomly assigned to two groups (5 children in each group. Each treatment group received 12 sessions on linguistic plays. The grammatical skills of these children were evaluated via the TOLD-P: 3 (Persian version; in addition, their level of intelligence was assessed by the Raven test.Results: The difference between the scores of both control and treatment groups revealed a statistically significant difference in grammatical skills (t=7.61, p=0.001 and three subskills of the children who participated in the linguistic plays. These subskills include syntactic understanding (t=3.16, p=0.013, sentence imitation (t=1.71, p=0.006, and morphological completion (t=6.55, p=0.001. In other words, the findings suggest that linguistic plays have a significant impact on the improvement of the aforementioned skills in hearing-impaired children.Conclusion: Results suggest that it would be beneficial to include linguistic plays as part of routine rehabilitation programs as a means of improving the grammatical difficulties of children. After partaking in linguistic plays, children significantly improved their ability to comprehend the meaning of sentences and also to recognize, understand, and use common Persian morphological forms.

  18. Sleep promotes the extraction of grammatical rules.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ingrid L C Nieuwenhuis

    Full Text Available Grammar acquisition is a high level cognitive function that requires the extraction of complex rules. While it has been proposed that offline time might benefit this type of rule extraction, this remains to be tested. Here, we addressed this question using an artificial grammar learning paradigm. During a short-term memory cover task, eighty-one human participants were exposed to letter sequences generated according to an unknown artificial grammar. Following a time delay of 15 min, 12 h (wake or sleep or 24 h, participants classified novel test sequences as Grammatical or Non-Grammatical. Previous behavioral and functional neuroimaging work has shown that classification can be guided by two distinct underlying processes: (1 the holistic abstraction of the underlying grammar rules and (2 the detection of sequence chunks that appear at varying frequencies during exposure. Here, we show that classification performance improved after sleep. Moreover, this improvement was due to an enhancement of rule abstraction, while the effect of chunk frequency was unaltered by sleep. These findings suggest that sleep plays a critical role in extracting complex structure from separate but related items during integrative memory processing. Our findings stress the importance of alternating periods of learning with sleep in settings in which complex information must be acquired.

  19. A cost-effective method to characterize variation in clinical practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, K; Sauereisen, S; Dlutowski, M; Veloski, J J; Nash, D B

    1999-06-01

    This study's objective was to measure variation in physicians' practice styles and policies. Family physicians and general internists were surveyed about evidence-based medicine in the areas of asthma, congestive heart failure, and diabetes mellitus. They were asked about clinical recommendations where standards of practice were uncertain, controversial, or changing in response to published guidelines. Also included were items dealing with managed care. Although there was wide variation in responses to 20 of 36 items, some responses were consistent with practice guidelines. Responses to several items indicated a tendency to overuse expensive tests. Overall, the results indicate that a brief, open-ended survey can assess practice variation quickly and economically, as contrasted with more expensive analyses of medical records or claims data. With proper validation such assessments can be used as baselines to guide interventions, as well as measures of the outcomes of these interventions to change practice styles.

  20. Obligatory Grammatical Categories and the Expression of Temporal Events

    Science.gov (United States)

    Winskel, Heather; Luksaneeyanawin, Sudaporn

    2009-01-01

    Thai has imperfective aspectual morphemes that are not obligatory in usage, whereas English has obligatory grammaticized imperfective aspectual marking on the verb. Furthermore, Thai has verb final deictic-path verbs that form a closed class set. The current study investigated if obligatoriness of these grammatical categories in Thai and English…

  1. Cognitive Predictors of Generalization of Russian Grammatical Gender Categories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kempe, Vera; Brooks, Patricia J.; Kharkhurin, Anatoliy

    2010-01-01

    This study explores how learners generalize grammatical categories such as noun gender. Adult native English speakers with no prior knowledge of Russian (N = 47, ages 17-55 years) were trained to categorize Russian masculine and feminine diminutive nouns according to gender. The training set was morphophonologically homogeneous due to similarities…

  2. Description and grammatical analysis of Persian to Persian teaching series of Jame’at al-Mostafa al-‘alamiye books

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nafise Raisi

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available  Abstract Persian as the second language of the world of Islam is closely related to the teachings of this divine religion, so learning Persian besides Islamic and Shia teachings would be helpful for Islamic scholars. In this regard, Jame’at al-Mostafa al-‘alamiye in the context of the Persian language tries to train Islamic scholars, translators and missioners. Center of language education and Islamic teachings which is the subset of Jame’at al-Mostafa, has formulated a collection of eight books named Persian to Persian teaching which is taught in different centers of Jame’at al-Mostafa inside and outside of the country. High goals of this Shia association represents the importance of authoring and analyzing education books. So their accuracy needs more attention and research. This essay aimed at describing and grammatical analyzing of this educational series. The present study deals with the importance and methods of teaching grammar to non-Persian speakers after introducing the Jame’at al-Mostafa al-‘alamiye; also, besides introducing the required grammatical issues, it describes eight volumes books of teaching Persian-to-Persian grammatically. Then the grammatical difficulties of these books are investigated in ten separate sections with giving some examples. The study ends with providing some strategies to improve the grammatical issues of this educational set and other books of teaching Persian language to non-Persian speakers. In the early years after the Islamic revolution, some foreign students came to Iran to study Islamic studies so the supervisory board of non-Iranian students was established to answer and to organize their educational and livelihood status in 1979. “Jame’at al-Mostafa al-‘alamiye” was founded in Qom and other cities after the continuous changes in 2007. This center tries to grow the Islamic scholar, translator, and missionary by teaching Persian

  3. On the semantic content of grammatical gender and its impact on the representation of human referents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Irmen, Lisa; Kurovskaja, Julia

    2010-01-01

    Grammatical gender has been shown to provide natural gender information about human referents. However, due to formal and conceptual differences between masculine and feminine forms, it remains an open question whether these gender categories influence the processing of person information to the same degree. Experiment 1 compared the semantic content of masculine and feminine grammatical gender by combining masculine and feminine role names with either gender congruent or incongruent referents (e.g., Dieser Lehrer [masc.]/Diese Lehrerin [fem.] ist mein Mann/meine Frau; This teacher is my husband/my wife). Participants rated sentences in terms of correctness and customariness. In Experiment 2, in addition to ratings reading times were recorded to assess processing more directly. Both experiments were run in German. Sentences with grammatically feminine role names and gender incongruent referents were rated as less correct and less customary than those with masculine forms and incongruent referents. Combining a masculine role name with an incongruent referent slowed down reading to a greater extent than combining a feminine role name with an incongruent referent. Results thus specify the differential effects of masculine and feminine grammatical gender in denoting human referents.

  4. Grammatical number processing and anticipatory eye movements are not tightly coordinated in English spoken language comprehension

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brian eRiordan

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Recent studies of eye movements in world-situated language comprehension have demonstrated that rapid processing of morphosyntactic information – e.g., grammatical gender and number marking – can produce anticipatory eye movements to referents in the visual scene. We investigated how type of morphosyntactic information and the goals of language users in comprehension affected eye movements, focusing on the processing of grammatical number morphology in English-speaking adults. Participants’ eye movements were recorded as they listened to simple English declarative (There are the lions. and interrogative (Where are the lions? sentences. In Experiment 1, no differences were observed in speed to fixate target referents when grammatical number information was informative relative to when it was not. The same result was obtained in a speeded task (Experiment 2 and in a task using mixed sentence types (Experiment 3. We conclude that grammatical number processing in English and eye movements to potential referents are not tightly coordinated. These results suggest limits on the role of predictive eye movements in concurrent linguistic and scene processing. We discuss how these results can inform and constrain predictive approaches to language processing.

  5. Variations in the service quality of medical practices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ly, Dan P; Glied, Sherry A

    2013-11-01

    To examine regional variation in the service quality of physician practices and to assess the association of this variation with the supply and organization of physicians. Secondary analyses of the Community Tracking Study (CTS) household and physician surveys. A total of 40,339 individuals who had seen a primary care physician because of an illness or injury and 17,345 generalist physicians across 4 survey time periods in 60 CTS sites were included. Service quality measures used were lag between making an appointment and seeing a physician, and wait time at the physician's office. Our supply measure was the physician-to-population ratio. Our organizational measure was the percentage of physicians in group practices. Multivariate regressions were performed to examine the relationship between service quality and the supply and organization of physicians. There was substantial variation in the service quality of physician visits across the country. For example, in 2003, the average wait time to see a doctor was 16 minutes in Milwaukee but more than 41 minutes in Miami; the average appointment lag for a sick visit in 2003 was 1.2 days in west-central Alabama but almost 6 days in Northwestern Washington. Service quality was not associated with the primary care physician-to-population ratio and had varying associations with the organization of practices. Cross-site variation in service quality of care in primary care has been large, persistent, and associated with the organization of practices. Areas with higher primary care physician-to-population ratios had longer, not shorter, appointment lags.

  6. Eye movements during listening reveal spontaneous grammatical processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huette, Stephanie; Winter, Bodo; Matlock, Teenie; Ardell, David H; Spivey, Michael

    2014-01-01

    Recent research using eye-tracking typically relies on constrained visual contexts in particular goal-oriented contexts, viewing a small array of objects on a computer screen and performing some overt decision or identification. Eyetracking paradigms that use pictures as a measure of word or sentence comprehension are sometimes touted as ecologically invalid because pictures and explicit tasks are not always present during language comprehension. This study compared the comprehension of sentences with two different grammatical forms: the past progressive (e.g., was walking), which emphasizes the ongoing nature of actions, and the simple past (e.g., walked), which emphasizes the end-state of an action. The results showed that the distribution and timing of eye movements mirrors the underlying conceptual structure of this linguistic difference in the absence of any visual stimuli or task constraint: Fixations were shorter and saccades were more dispersed across the screen, as if thinking about more dynamic events when listening to the past progressive stories. Thus, eye movement data suggest that visual inputs or an explicit task are unnecessary to solicit analog representations of features such as movement, that could be a key perceptual component to grammatical comprehension.

  7. Eye movements during listening reveal spontaneous grammatical processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stephanie eHuette

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Recent research using eye-tracking typically relies on constrained visual contexts in particular goal-oriented contexts, viewing a small array of objects on a computer screen and performing some overt decision or identification. Eyetracking paradigms that use pictures as a measure of word or sentence comprehension are sometimes touted as ecologically invalid because pictures and explicit tasks are not always present during language comprehension. This study compared the comprehension of sentences with two different grammatical forms: the past progressive (e.g., was walking, which emphasizes the ongoing nature of actions, and the simple past (e.g., walked, which emphasizes the end-state of an action. The results showed that the distribution and timing of eye movements mirrors the underlying conceptual structure of this linguistic difference in the absence of any visual stimuli or task constraint: Fixations were shorter and saccades were more dispersed across the screen, as if thinking about more dynamic events when listening to the past progressive stories. Thus, eye movement data suggest that visual inputs or an explicit task are unnecessary to solicit analogue representations of features such as movement, that could be a key perceptual component to grammatical comprehension.

  8. The Effect of Incidental Focus on Form on EFL Learners’ Grammatical Accuracy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Somaieh Abdollahzadeh

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Focus on form instruction is a kind of instruction that draws students, attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in meaning based instruction.  There are different types of focus on form instruction. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of incidental focus on form on grammatical accuracy among Iranian L2 learners. Eighty learners from Sahand language Institute in Miandoab after taking grammatical judgment test which was administered to homogenize them, were placed in two control and experimental groups. Learners in experimental group received feedback through recasting during retelling the reading passage according to principles of Jigsaw task. But learners in control group did not receive any feedback. After treatment, which lasted for eight sessions, post-test was given to both control and experimental groups to observe the difference resulted from the treatment. To be sure about the significance of the difference between post-test means of both groups, a t-test was used. The results at the end supported the hypotheses of the study and positive effect of incidental focus on form on grammatical accuracy of L2 learners. After that, for the purpose of analyzing the effect of incidental focus on form on accuracy of pronouns, tenses, articles and propositions separately, other tests (pronoun, article, tense, proposition tests was given to the learners in both control and experimental groups. The data collected was computed through t-test which revealed that the effect of incidental focus on form on grammatical accuracy of articles is greater than pronouns and tenses but incidental focus on form didn’t have any effect on accuracy of propositions. Pedagogical implications have been discussed. Keywords:  Focus on form, Incidental focus on form, recast, task, Accuracy

  9. Multiple Logics as a Source of New Practices and Variations in Employee Recruitment Practices

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Holm, Anna

    Academic research in recruitment lacks insights into why there are variations in organizations’ recruitment strategies and practices. The contribution of this research is to address this question from the perspective of institutional logic at the organizational level of analysis and thereby go some...... way to filling this gap. The data for the research were collected from a population of organizations in Denmark in 2008-2009, mainly by means of qualitative interviews. Three major institutional logics which guide recruitment practices were identified and are presented in this paper. These logics...... - administration, efficiency and effectiveness – suggest that organizations’ recruitment practices are dominated by diverse goals and different means of achieving them, which can explain the variations in recruitment strategies and practices....

  10. Evolving Personalized Content for Super Mario Bros Using Grammatical Evolution

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Shaker, Noor; Yannakakis, Georgios N.; Togelius, Julian

    2012-01-01

    -adapted content by employing an adaptation mechanism as a fitness function in grammatical evolution to optimize the player experience of three emotional states: engagement, frustration and challenge. The fitness functions used are models of player experience constructed in our previous work from crowd...

  11. What's in the input? Frequent frames in child-directed speech offer distributional cues to grammatical categories in Spanish and English.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weisleder, Adriana; Waxman, Sandra R

    2010-11-01

    Recent analyses have revealed that child-directed speech contains distributional regularities that could, in principle, support young children's discovery of distinct grammatical categories (noun, verb, adjective). In particular, a distributional unit known as the frequent frame appears to be especially informative (Mintz, 2003). However, analyses have focused almost exclusively on the distributional information available in English. Because languages differ considerably in how the grammatical forms are marked within utterances, the scarcity of cross-linguistic evidence represents an unfortunate gap. We therefore advance the developmental evidence by analyzing the distributional information available in frequent frames across two languages (Spanish and English), across sentence positions (phrase medial and phrase final), and across grammatical forms (noun, verb, adjective). We selected six parent-child corpora from the CHILDES database (three English; three Spanish), and analyzed the input when children were aged 2 ; 6 or younger. In each language, frequent frames did indeed offer systematic cues to grammatical category assignment. We also identify differences in the accuracy of these frames across languages, sentences positions and grammatical classes.

  12. Toy Talk: Simple Strategies to Create Richer Grammatical Input

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hadley, Pamela A.; Walsh, Kathleen M.

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this initial feasibility study was to determine whether brief instruction in toy talk would change grammatical properties of adult language, specifically 3rd person lexical noun phrase (NP) subjects. Method: Eighteen college students participated in the study. The use of 3rd person subjects was examined before and after…

  13. A Bibliography of Generative-Based Grammatical Analyses of Spanish.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nuessel, Frank H.

    One hundred sixty-eight books, articles, and dissertations written between 1960 and 1973 are listed in this bibliography of linguistic studies of the Spanish language within the grammatical theory originated by Noam Chomsky in his "Syntactic Structures" (1957). The present work is divided into two general categories: (1) phonology and (2) syntax…

  14. Use of a Novel Grammatical Inference Approach in Classification of Amyloidogenic Hexapeptides

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    Wojciech Wieczorek

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The present paper is a novel contribution to the field of bioinformatics by using grammatical inference in the analysis of data. We developed an algorithm for generating star-free regular expressions which turned out to be good recommendation tools, as they are characterized by a relatively high correlation coefficient between the observed and predicted binary classifications. The experiments have been performed for three datasets of amyloidogenic hexapeptides, and our results are compared with those obtained using the graph approaches, the current state-of-the-art methods in heuristic automata induction, and the support vector machine. The results showed the superior performance of the new grammatical inference algorithm on fixed-length amyloid datasets.

  15. Grammatical Adaptation of English Loanwords of Gaming Industry in the Russian Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Semen V. Gornostaev

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to the grammatical adaptation of borrowed from the English lexems in the sphere of the interactive entertainment industry. It has been given also other processes of development of language units of the thematic groups: phonetic, lexical, semantic. Nominations were taken by continuous sampling of periodicals (magazine «Gambling», various Internet sources and lively conversation, presented on Internet forums. The subject of the analysis is one-component substantive derivative and nonderivative nomination. During the study the following results were obtained. 1. The leading features of grammatical adaptation of anglicisms in the sphere of the gaming industry are: a the appearance of declinability, stabilization of generic relatedness (not only animated, but also inanimate nouns, b expansion of the capacity of the diversion, which is manifested in the formation of word-forming nest of three types - nest-pairs, nest-bundles and nest-chains. 2. Derivative words included in their composition, may belong to different parts of speech (nouns and verbs and formed by affix (suffixes and prefixing and non-affix (abbriviation, clipping, adding ways. 3. There are units in the language-recipient that have not undergone the process of grammatical adaptation: blotches and immutable acronyms.

  16. Representations of abstract grammatical feature agreement in young children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Melançon, Andréane; Shi, Rushen

    2015-11-01

    A fundamental question in language acquisition research is whether young children have abstract grammatical representations. We tested this question experimentally. French-learning 30-month-olds were first taught novel word-object pairs in the context of a gender-marked determiner (e.g., un MASC ravole 'a ravole'). Test trials presented the objects side-by-side while one of them was named in new phrases containing other determiners and an adjective (e.g., le MASC joli ravole MASC 'the pretty ravole'). The gender agreement between the new determiner and the non-adjacent noun was manipulated in different test trials (e.g., le MASC __ravole MASC; *la FEM __ravole MASC). We found that online comprehension of the named target was facilitated in gender-matched trials but impeded in gender-mismatched trials. That is, children assigned the determiner genders to the novel nouns during word learning. They then processed the non-adjacent gender agreement between the two categories (Det, Noun) during test. The results demonstrate abstract featural representation and grammatical productivity in young children.

  17. The influence of rTMS over prefrontal and motor areas in a morphological task: grammatical vs. semantic effects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gerfo, Emanuele Lo; Oliveri, Massimiliano; Torriero, Sara; Salerno, Silvia; Koch, Giacomo; Caltagirone, Carlo

    2008-01-31

    We investigated the differential role of two frontal regions in the processing of grammatical and semantic knowledge. Given the documented specificity of the prefrontal cortex for the grammatical class of verbs, and of the primary motor cortex for the semantic class of action words, we sought to investigate whether the prefrontal cortex is also sensitive to semantic effects, and whether the motor cortex is also sensitive to grammatical class effects. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to suppress the excitability of a portion of left prefontal cortex (first experiment) and of the motor area (second experiment). In the first experiment we found that rTMS applied to the left prefrontal cortex delays the processing of action verbs' retrieval, but is not critical for retrieval of state verbs and state nouns. In the second experiment we found that rTMS applied to the left motor cortex delays the processing of action words, both name and verbs, while it is not critical for the processing of state words. These results support the notion that left prefrontal and motor cortex are involved in the process of action word retrieval. Left prefrontal cortex subserves processing of both grammatical and semantic information, whereas motor cortex contributes to the processing of semantic representation of action words without any involvement in the representation of grammatical categories.

  18. Grammatical Aspect in uences Event Duration Estimations: Evidence from Dutch

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Flecken, M.E.P.; Gerwien, J.; Knauff, M.; Pauen, M.; Sebanz, N.; Wachsmuth, I.

    2013-01-01

    This study investigates the effect of grammatical aspect marking in Dutch sentences, on speakers’ estimations of the duration of highly familiar, everyday events. We first established the ‘inherent’ or natural duration of different events (Exp. 1). This was then used for the manipulation of aspect

  19. A Program Based on the Pragmatic Theory to Develop Grammatical Structure Comprehension Skills for Foreign Learners of Arabic

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elsamman, Marwan

    2014-01-01

    This study aimed at designing a program based on the Pragmatic theory to develop grammatical structure comprehension skills for foreign learners of Arabic and examining its effectiveness. Hence, the problem of the study has been summarized in the weakness of grammatical structure comprehension skills for foreign learners of Arabic and in the need…

  20. An Agent-Based Model for the Role of Short-Term Memory Enhancement in the Emergence of Grammatical Agreement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vera, Javier

    2018-01-01

    What is the influence of short-term memory enhancement on the emergence of grammatical agreement systems in multi-agent language games? Agreement systems suppose that at least two words share some features with each other, such as gender, number, or case. Previous work, within the multi-agent language-game framework, has recently proposed models stressing the hypothesis that the emergence of a grammatical agreement system arises from the minimization of semantic ambiguity. On the other hand, neurobiological evidence argues for the hypothesis that language evolution has mainly related to an increasing of short-term memory capacity, which has allowed the online manipulation of words and meanings participating particularly in grammatical agreement systems. Here, the main aim is to propose a multi-agent language game for the emergence of a grammatical agreement system, under measurable long-range relations depending on the short-term memory capacity. Computer simulations, based on a parameter that measures the amount of short-term memory capacity, suggest that agreement marker systems arise in a population of agents equipped at least with a critical short-term memory capacity.

  1. Role of grammatical gender and semantics in German word production

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vigliocco, G.; Vinson, D.P.; Indefrey, P.; Levelt, W.J.M.; Hellwig, F.

    2004-01-01

    Semantic substitution errors (e.g., saying "arm" when "leg" is intended) are among the most common types of errors occurring during spontaneous speech. It has been shown that grammatical gender of German target nouns is preserved in the errors ( E. Marx, 1999). In 3 experiments, the authors explored

  2. Grammaticality, Acceptability, and Probability: A Probabilistic View of Linguistic Knowledge.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lau, Jey Han; Clark, Alexander; Lappin, Shalom

    2017-07-01

    The question of whether humans represent grammatical knowledge as a binary condition on membership in a set of well-formed sentences, or as a probabilistic property has been the subject of debate among linguists, psychologists, and cognitive scientists for many decades. Acceptability judgments present a serious problem for both classical binary and probabilistic theories of grammaticality. These judgements are gradient in nature, and so cannot be directly accommodated in a binary formal grammar. However, it is also not possible to simply reduce acceptability to probability. The acceptability of a sentence is not the same as the likelihood of its occurrence, which is, in part, determined by factors like sentence length and lexical frequency. In this paper, we present the results of a set of large-scale experiments using crowd-sourced acceptability judgments that demonstrate gradience to be a pervasive feature in acceptability judgments. We then show how one can predict acceptability judgments on the basis of probability by augmenting probabilistic language models with an acceptability measure. This is a function that normalizes probability values to eliminate the confounding factors of length and lexical frequency. We describe a sequence of modeling experiments with unsupervised language models drawn from state-of-the-art machine learning methods in natural language processing. Several of these models achieve very encouraging levels of accuracy in the acceptability prediction task, as measured by the correlation between the acceptability measure scores and mean human acceptability values. We consider the relevance of these results to the debate on the nature of grammatical competence, and we argue that they support the view that linguistic knowledge can be intrinsically probabilistic. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  3. Sensorimotor Behaviour Reflects Lexical and Grammatical Aspect in Czech: An Eye Tracking Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michal Kořenář

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Thinking and speaking about events is a process tightly connected with time perception. We can express when an event has occurred with respect to other events, whether it was a durative or a one-time event, whether it was an ongoing or already finished event, etc. Every human language has its own way and extent to which this complex temporal structure of experienced events is expressed. Upon hearing a story we construct a mental representation of the communicated event (e.g. Givón 1992. Some studies show that this construction already evolves during online processing, thanks to instantly accessible language processing cues (Altman and Kamide 1999, Ferretti, McRae and Hatherell 2001, McRae, Ferretti and Amyote 1997. These cues are employed to capture the intricate temporal structure of the story, for instance. They arise from the interplay of the three basic linguistic components (structure, meaning and function and as such are consistent with a constructional view of language (e.g. Fillmore 1988. Even subtle changes of any of the linguistic cues may lead to a different mental representation. Examples of the sources of grammatical markers and lexical categories from which the linguistic cues arise are grammatical and lexical aspect. In the linguistic field, a lot of attention has been paid to analyses of how those sources of temporal cues function within a language system. However, there is a lack of empirical data on how grammatical and lexical aspect interact, and what the effects of such an interaction are. The present study aims to investigate the link between the complex system of temporal cues and sensorimotor representation in Czech speakers, with specific focus on grammatical verb aspect and so-called event telicity, i.e. lexical aspect, all of which will be further described below.

  4. A cross-linguistic study of real-word and non-word repetition as predictors of grammatical competence in children with typical language development

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dispaldro, Marco; Deevy, Patricia; Altoe, Gianmarco; Benelli, Beatrice; Leonard Purdue, Laurence B.

    2013-01-01

    Background Although relationships among non-word repetition, real-word repetition and grammatical ability have been documented, it is important to study whether the specific nature of these relationships is tied to the characteristics of a given language. Aims The aim of this study is to explore the potential cross-linguistic differences (Italian and English) in the relationship among non-word repetition, real-word repetition, and grammatical ability in three- and four-year-old children with typical language development. Methods & Procedures To reach this goal, two repetition tasks (one real-word list and one non-word list for each language) were used. In Italian the grammatical categories were the third person plural inflection and the direct-object clitic pronouns, while in English they were the third person singular present tense inflection and the past tense in regular and irregular forms. Outcomes & Results A cross-linguistic comparison showed that in both Italian and English, non-word repetition was a significant predictor of grammatical ability. However, performance on real-word repetition explained children’s grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Conclusions & Implications Abilities underlying non-word repetition performance (e.g., the processing and/or storage of phonological material) play an important role in the development of children’s grammatical abilities in both languages. Lexical ability (indexed by real-word repetition) showed a close relationship to grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of cross-linguistic differences, genetic research, clinical intervention and methodological issues. PMID:21899673

  5. A cross-linguistic study of real-word and non-word repetition as predictors of grammatical competence in children with typical language development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dispaldro, Marco; Deevy, Patricia; Altoé, Gianmarco; Benelli, Beatrice; Leonard, Laurence B

    2011-01-01

    Although relationships among non-word repetition, real-word repetition and grammatical ability have been documented, it is important to study whether the specific nature of these relationships is tied to the characteristics of a given language. The aim of this study is to explore the potential cross-linguistic differences (Italian and English) in the relationship among non-word repetition, real-word repetition, and grammatical ability in three-and four-year-old children with typical language development. To reach this goal, two repetition tasks (one real-word list and one non-word list for each language) were used. In Italian the grammatical categories were the third person plural inflection and the direct-object clitic pronouns, while in English they were the third person singular present tense inflection and the past tense in regular and irregular forms. A cross-linguistic comparison showed that in both Italian and English, non-word repetition was a significant predictor of grammatical ability. However, performance on real-word repetition explained children's grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Abilities underlying non-word repetition performance (e.g., the processing and/or storage of phonological material) play an important role in the development of children's grammatical abilities in both languages. Lexical ability (indexed by real-word repetition) showed a close relationship to grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of cross-linguistic differences, genetic research, clinical intervention and methodological issues. © 2011 Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists.

  6. Syntactic processes in speech production: The retrieval of grammatical gender.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Berkum, J.J.A.

    1997-01-01

    Two picture-naming experiments tested the hypothesis that the speed with which native speakers of a gender-marking language retrieve the grammatical gender of a noun from their mental lexicon may depend on the recency of earlier access to that same noun's gender. Ss were 96 native speakers of Dutch.

  7. A comparative evaluation of deep and shallow approaches to the automatic detection of common grammatical errors

    OpenAIRE

    Wagner, Joachim; Foster, Jennifer; van Genabith, Josef

    2007-01-01

    This paper compares a deep and a shallow processing approach to the problem of classifying a sentence as grammatically wellformed or ill-formed. The deep processing approach uses the XLE LFG parser and English grammar: two versions are presented, one which uses the XLE directly to perform the classification, and another one which uses a decision tree trained on features consisting of the XLE’s output statistics. The shallow processing approach predicts grammaticality based on n-gram freque...

  8. The acquisition of grammatical gender in L2 German by learners ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    grammatical gender in German by first language (L1) speakers of Afrikaans, English ... feminine – and the target L2 has three genders – masculine, feminine and neuter ..... L1 transfer revisited: the L2 acquisition of telicity marking in English by.

  9. TEACHING GRAMMAR-IN-CONTEXT AND ITS IMPACT IN MINIMIZING STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL ERRORS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yadhi Nur Amin

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available This study is conducted to determine the effectiveness of teaching grammar-in-context to minimize students‘ grammatical errors in writing. The design of the study was a quasi-experimental with a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group. The samples of the study were taken from the population of the tenth-grade students. The control group was taught by conventional grammar which was separately given with writing skills. Likewise, the experimental one was treated by teaching grammar-in-context. The results of the study showed that the mean score in the post-test was higher than that in the pretest; and the mean score of experimental group increased 16.20 point after the treatment. This result indicated that teaching grammarin-context is considered to be effective in minimizing students‘ grammatical errors in writing.

  10. A database for semantic, grammatical, and frequency properties of the first words acquired by Italian children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rinaldi, Pasquale; Barca, Laura; Burani, Cristina

    2004-08-01

    The CFVlexvar.xls database includes imageability, frequency, and grammatical properties of the first words acquired by Italian children. For each of 519 words that are known by children 18-30 months of age (taken from Caselli & Casadio's, 1995, Italian version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory), new values of imageability are provided and values for age of acquisition, child written frequency, and adult written and spoken frequency are included. In this article, correlations among the variables are discussed and the words are grouped into grammatical categories. The results show that words acquired early have imageable referents, are frequently used in the texts read and written by elementary school children, and are frequent in adult written and spoken language. Nouns are acquired earlier and are more imageable than both verbs and adjectives. The composition in grammatical categories of the child's first vocabulary reflects the composition of adult vocabulary. The full set of these norms can be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive/.

  11. Grammatical gender and the notion of default: insights from language acquisition

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tsimpli, I.M.; Hulk, A.

    2013-01-01

    The aim of this study is to investigate the contrast in the timing of acquisition of grammatical gender attested in Dutch and Greek child learners. Greek children show precocious acquisition of neuter gender in particular, while Dutch children experience a long delay in the acquisition of neuter

  12. Variation in Physician Practice Styles within and across Emergency Departments.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jessica Van Parys

    Full Text Available Despite the significant responsibility that physicians have in healthcare delivery, we know surprisingly little about why physician practice styles vary within or across institutions. Estimating variation in physician practice styles is complicated by the fact that patients are rarely randomly assigned to physicians. This paper uses the quasi-random assignment of patients to physicians in emergency departments (EDs to show how physicians vary in their treatment of patients with minor injuries. The results reveal a considerable degree of variation in practice styles within EDs; physicians at the 75th percentile of the spending distribution spend 20% more than physicians at the 25th percentile. Observable physician characteristics do not explain much of the variation across physicians, but there is a significant degree of sorting between physicians and EDs over time, with high-cost physicians sorting into high-cost EDs as they gain experience. The results may shed light on why some EDs remain persistently higher-cost than others.

  13. Attentional Requirements for the Selection of Words from Different Grammatical Categories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ayora, Pauline; Janssen, Niels; Dell'Acqua, Roberto; Alario, F.-Xavier

    2009-01-01

    Two grammatical classes are commonly distinguished in psycholinguistic research. The open-class includes content words such as nouns, whereas the closed-class includes function words such as determiners. A standing issue is to identify whether these words are retrieved through similar or distinct selection mechanisms. We report a comparative…

  14. Basic lexical and grammatical transformations in translation of German print advertising

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Артур Нарманович Мамедов

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The article presents basic lexical and grammatical transformations, which contribute to preserving the semantic and syntactic structure of a German advertising text and reproducing the image of the advertised product. This shows that the translation has the same communicative effect as that achieved by the source text.

  15. The usefulness of the grammaticality-acceptability distinction in functional approaches to language

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Poulsen, Mads

    2013-01-01

    between competence and performance, rather than on a distinction between syntax and meaning. The basic rationale for having such a distinction is that much of linguistics is concerned with describing relatively stable grammatical knowledge, rather than the psycholinguistic dynamics of language use...

  16. Does Grammatical Gender Influence Perception? A Study of Polish and French Speakers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Haertlé Izabella

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Can the perception of a word be influenced by its grammatical gender? Can it happen that speakers of one language perceive an object to have masculine features, while speakers of another language perceive the same object to have feminine features? Previous studies suggest that this is the case, and also that there is some supra-language gender categorisation of objects as natural/feminine and artefact/masculine. This study was an attempt to replicate these findings on another population of subjects. This is the first Polish study of this kind, comparing the perceptions of objects by Polish- and French-speaking individuals. The results of this study show that grammatical gender may cue people to assess objects as masculine or feminine. However, the findings of some previous studies, that feminine features are more often ascribed to natural objects than artifacts, were not replicated.

  17. Effects of statistical learning on the acquisition of grammatical categories through Qur'anic memorization: A natural experiment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zuhurudeen, Fathima Manaar; Huang, Yi Ting

    2016-03-01

    Empirical evidence for statistical learning comes from artificial language tasks, but it is unclear how these effects scale up outside of the lab. The current study turns to a real-world test case of statistical learning where native English speakers encounter the syntactic regularities of Arabic through memorization of the Qur'an. This unique input provides extended exposure to the complexity of a natural language, with minimal semantic cues. Memorizers were asked to distinguish unfamiliar nouns and verbs based on their co-occurrence with familiar pronouns in an Arabic language sample. Their performance was compared to that of classroom learners who had explicit knowledge of pronoun meanings and grammatical functions. Grammatical judgments were more accurate in memorizers compared to non-memorizers. No effects of classroom experience were found. These results demonstrate that real-world exposure to the statistical properties of a natural language facilitates the acquisition of grammatical categories. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  18. Exploring the longitudinal relationships between the use of grammar in text messaging and performance on grammatical tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wood, Clare; Kemp, Nenagh; Waldron, Sam

    2014-11-01

    Research has demonstrated that use of texting slang (textisms) when text messaging does not appear to impact negatively on children's literacy outcomes and may even benefit children's spelling attainment. However, less attention has been paid to the impact of text messaging on the development of children's and young people's understanding of grammar. This study therefore examined the interrelationships between children's and young adults' tendency to make grammatical violations when texting and their performance on formal assessments of spoken and written grammatical understanding, orthographic processing and spelling ability over the course of 1 year. Zero-order correlations showed patterns consistent with previous research on textism use and spelling, and there was no evidence of any negative associations between the development of the children's performance on the grammar tasks and their use of grammatical violations when texting. Adults' tendency to use ungrammatical word forms ('does you') was positively related to performance on the test of written grammar. Grammatical violations were found to be positively associated with growth in spelling for secondary school children. However, not all forms of violation were observed to be consistently used in samples of text messages taken 12 months apart or were characteristic of typical text messages. The need to differentiate between genuine errors and deliberate violation of rules is discussed, as are the educational implications of these findings. © 2014 The Authors. British Journal of Developmental Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.

  19. Complex syntax in the isolated right hemisphere: Receptive grammatical abilities after cerebral hemispherectomy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Bode, Stella; Smets, Lieselotte; Mathern, Gary W; Dubinsky, Stanley

    2015-10-01

    In this study, we explored the syntactic competence of the right hemisphere (RH) after left cerebral hemispherectomy, on the premise that it (syntactic competence) is known to be one of the most strongly left-lateralized language functions. As basic syntactic development for individuals in this subject pool has already been extensively explored, we focused instead on the investigation of complex syntactic constructions that are normally acquired later in childhood, i.e., between 7 and 9years of age. Grammatical competence in 10 participants who had undergone left cerebral hemispherectomy was compared to that of a group of normally developing children, with the two groups matched by the size of their vocabulary. The two tests we used for this research were created by the 1st language acquisition linguists and were designed to test sets of constructions categorized and differentiated by the order in which they are normally acquired and by the type of grammatical competence that they involve. We found that both groups followed the same developmental sequence of syntactic development with five (50%) postsurgical participants (all with prenatal etiologies) reaching nearly mature command of sentence grammar. Seizures negatively impacted performance on all tests. The isolated RH has the potential to support the complex grammatical categories that emerge relatively late in the normal acquisition of English by native speakers. Successful performance may be related to the timing of the initial insult and seizure control following hemispherectomy. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. AN ANALYSIS OF ACEHNESE EFL STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qudwatin Nisak M. Isa

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available This study aims at finding empirical evidence of the most common types of grammatical errors and sources of errors in recount texts written by the first-year students of SMAS Babul Maghfirah, Aceh Besar. The subject of the study was a collection of students’ personal writing documents of recount texts about their lives experience. The students’ recount texts were analyzed by referring to Betty S. Azar classification and Richard’s theory on sources of errors. The findings showed that the total number of error is 436. Two frequent types of grammatical errors were Verb Tense and Word Choice. The major sources of error were Intralingual Error, Interference Error and Developmental Error respectively. Furthermore, the findings suggest that it is necessary for EFL teachers to apply appropriate techniques and strategies in teaching recount texts, which focus on past tense and language features of the text in order to reduce the possible errors to be made by the students.

  1. Distributional Cues to Grammatical Categorization: Acquiring Categories in a Miniature Artificial Grammar

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reeder, Patricia A.

    2010-01-01

    A crucial component of language acquisition involves organizing words into grammatical categories and discovering relations between them. The organization of words into categories, and the generalization of patterns from some seen word combinations to novel ones, account for important aspects of the expansion of linguistic knowledge in the early…

  2. Frequent Frames as a Cue for Grammatical Categories in Child Directed Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mintz, Toben H.

    2003-01-01

    This paper introduces the notion of frequent frames, distributional patterns based on co-occurrence patterns of words in sentences, then investigates the usefulness of this information in grammatical categorization. A frame is defined as two jointly occurring words with one word intervening. Qualitative and quantitative results from distributional…

  3. Enfocando la competencia linguistica: concienciacion gramatical (Focusing on Linguistic Competence: Grammatical Consciousness).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Melles, Gavin

    1997-01-01

    Argues that communicative competence in Spanish as a second language can not be taught without giving attention to the grammatical component of language. Compares aspects of the traditional and communicative approaches to language teaching, refers to theory on grammar instruction, and offers examples of classroom activities supporting the learning…

  4. L1 effects on the processing of grammatical gender in L2

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sabourin, L; Foster-Cohen, S.; Nizegorodcew, A.

    2001-01-01

    This paper explores L1 effects on the L2 off-line processing of Dutch (grammatical gender) agreement The L2 participants had either German, English or a Romance language as their L1. Non-gender agreement (finiteness and agreement) was tested to ascertain the level of proficiency of the participants

  5. Variations in dementia diagnosis in England and association with general practice characteristics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Ian F; Lord, Paul A; Farragher, Tracey M

    2017-05-01

    Improving dementia diagnosis rates in England has been a key strategic aim of the UK Government but the variation and low diagnosis rates are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to explore the variation in actual versus expected diagnosis of dementia across England, and how these variations were associated with general practice characteristics. A cross-sectional, ecological study design using secondary data sources and median regression modelling was used. Data from the year 2011 for 7711 of the GP practices in England (92.7%). Associations of dementia diagnosis rates (%) per practice, calculated using National Health Service England's 'Dementia Prevalence Calculator' and various practice characteristics were explored using a regression model. The median dementia diagnosis rate was 41.6% and the interquartile range was 31.2-53.9%. Multivariable regression analysis demonstrated positive associations between dementia diagnosis rates and deprivation of the population, overall Quality and Outcomes Framework performance, type of primary care contract and size of practice list. Negative associations were found between dementia diagnosis rates and average experience of GPs in the practice and the proportion of the practice caseload over 65 years old. Dementia diagnosis rates vary greatly across GP practices in England. This study has found independent associations between dementia diagnosis rates and a number of patient and practice characteristics. Consideration of these factors locally may provide targets for case-finding interventions and so facilitate timely diagnosis.

  6. A Proposed Conceptual Model to Measure Unwarranted Practice Variation

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Barr, Andrew M

    2007-01-01

    .... Employing a unit of analysis of the U.S. Army healthcare system and utilizing research by Wennberg and the Institute of Medicine, a model describing healthcare quality in terms of unwarranted practice variation and healthcare outcomes...

  7. Incubator weaning in preterm infants and associated practice variation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schneiderman, R; Kirkby, S; Turenne, W; Greenspan, J

    2009-08-01

    To evaluate the relationship of weight of preterm infants when first placed into an open crib with days to full oral feedings, growth velocity and length of stay (LOS), and to identify unwarranted variation in incubator weaning after adjusting for severity indices. A retrospective study using the ParadigmHealth neonatal database from 2003 to 2006 reviewed incubator weaning to an open crib in appropriate-for-gestational-age (AGA) infants from 22 to weeks gestation. Primary outcome measurements included days to full oral (PO) feeding, weight gain from open crib to discharge and length of stay. Models were severity adjusted. To understand hospital practice variation, we also used a regression model to estimate the weight at open crib for the top 10 volume hospitals. In all 2908 infants met the inclusion criteria for the study. Their mean weight at open crib was 1850 g. On average every additional 100 g an infant weighed at the open crib was associated with increased time to full PO feeding by 0.8 days, decreased weight gained per day by 1 gram and increased LOS by 0.9 days. For the top 10 volume hospitals, severity variables alone accounted for 9% of the variation in weight at open crib, whereas the hospital in which the baby was treated accounted for an additional 19% of the variation. Even after controlling for severity, significant practice variation exists in weaning to an open crib, leading to potential delays in achieving full-volume oral feeds, decreased growth velocity and prolonged LOS.

  8. A Study of the Use of the Weak Forms of English Grammatical Words ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    More often than not, when grammatical words such as determiners, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs and prepositions occur in Standard English sentences, they are produced in their weak forms. The concern of this study is whether educated Yoruba English speakers appropriately use the weak forms of English ...

  9. Variation in home-birth rates between midwifery practices in the Netherlands.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wiegers, T.A.; Zee, J. van der; Kerssens, J.J.; Keirse, M.J.N.C.

    2000-01-01

    Objective: to examine the reasons for the variation in home-birth rates between midwifery practices. method: multi-level analysis of client and midwife associated, case-specific and structural factors in relation to 4420 planned and actual home or hospital births in 42 midwifery practices. Findings:

  10. Negative Input for Grammatical Errors: Effects after a Lag of 12 Weeks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saxton, Matthew; Backley, Phillip; Gallaway, Clare

    2005-01-01

    Effects of negative input for 13 categories of grammatical error were assessed in a longitudinal study of naturalistic adult-child discourse. Two-hour samples of conversational interaction were obtained at two points in time, separated by a lag of 12 weeks, for 12 children (mean age 2;0 at the start). The data were interpreted within the framework…

  11. Variation in CAD Secondary Prevention Prescription among Outpatient Cardiology Practices: Insights from the NCDR®

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maddox, Thomas M.; Chan, Paul S.; Spertus, John A.; Tang, Fengming; Jones, Phil; Ho, P. Michael; Bradley, Steven M.; Tsai, Thomas T.; Bhatt, Deepak L.; Peterson, Pamela N.

    2014-01-01

    Objectives This study assesses practice variation of secondary prevention medication prescription among coronary artery disease (CAD) patients treated in outpatient practices participating in the NCDR® PINNACLE Registry®. Background Among patients with CAD, secondary prevention with a combination of beta-blockers, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers, and statins reduces cardiac mortality and myocardial infarction (MI). Accordingly, every CAD patient should receive the combination of these medications for which they are eligible. However, little is known about current prescription patterns of these medications and the variation in use among outpatient cardiology clinics. Methods Using data from NCDR® PINNACLE Registry®, a national outpatient cardiology practice registry, we assessed medication prescription patterns among eligible CAD patients between July 2008 and December 2010. Overall rates of prescription and variation by practice were calculated, adjusting for patient characteristics. Results Among 156,145 CAD patients in 58 practices, 103,830 (66.5%) were prescribed the optimal combination of medications for which they were eligible. The median rate of optimal combined prescription by practice was 73.5% and varied from 28.8% to 100%. After adjustment for patient factors, the practice median rate ratio for prescription was 1.25 (95% CI 1.2,1.32), indicating a 25% likelihood that 2 random practices would differ in treating identical CAD patients. Conclusions Among a national registry of CAD patients treated in outpatient cardiology practices, over one-third of patients failed to receive their optimal combination of secondary prevention medications. Significant variation was observed across practices, even after adjusting for patient characteristics, suggesting that quality improvement efforts may be needed to support more uniform practice. PMID:24184238

  12. Development of morphosyntactic accuracy and grammatical complexity in Dutch school-age children with SLI

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zwitserlood, R.L.M.; Weerdenburg, M.W.C. van; Verhoeven, L.T.W.; Wijnen, F.N.K.

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the development of morphosyntactic accuracy and grammatical complexity in Dutch school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Morphosyntactic accuracy, the use of dummy auxiliaries, and complex syntax were assessed using a

  13. Development of morphosyntactic accuracy and grammatical complexity in dutch school-age children with SLI

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zwitserlood, Rob; van Weerdenburg, Marjolijn; Verhoeven, Ludo; Wijnen, Frank

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the development of morphosyntactic accuracy and grammatical complexity in Dutch school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Morphosyntactic accuracy, the use of dummy auxiliaries, and complex syntax were assessed using a

  14. Syntactic processes in speech production: The retrieval of grammatical gender

    OpenAIRE

    Van Berkum, J.

    1997-01-01

    Jescheniak and Levelt (Jescheniak, J.-D., Levelt, W.J.M. 1994. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 20 (4), 824–843) have suggested that the speed with which native speakers of a gender-marking language retrieve the grammatical gender of a noun from their mental lexicon may depend on the recency of earlier access to that same noun's gender, as the result of a mechanism that is dedicated to facilitate gender-marked anaphoric reference to recently introduced discou...

  15. A Grammatical Approach to the Modeling of an Autonomous Robot

    OpenAIRE

    Gabriel López-García; A. Javier Gallego-Sánchez; J. Luis Dalmau-Espert; Rafael Molina-Carmona; Patricia Compañ-Rosique

    2012-01-01

    Virtual Worlds Generator is a grammatical model that is proposed to define virtual worlds. It integrates the diversity of sensors and interaction devices, multimodality and a virtual simulation system. Its grammar allows the definition and abstraction in symbols strings of the scenes of the virtual world, independently of the hardware that is used to represent the world or to interact with it. A case study is presented to explain how to use the proposed model to formalize a robot navigation s...

  16. First language acquisition differs from second language acquisition in prelingually deaf signers: evidence from sensitivity to grammaticality judgement in British Sign Language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cormier, Kearsy; Schembri, Adam; Vinson, David; Orfanidou, Eleni

    2012-07-01

    Age of acquisition (AoA) effects have been used to support the notion of a critical period for first language acquisition. In this study, we examine AoA effects in deaf British Sign Language (BSL) users via a grammaticality judgment task. When English reading performance and nonverbal IQ are factored out, results show that accuracy of grammaticality judgement decreases as AoA increases, until around age 8, thus showing the unique effect of AoA on grammatical judgement in early learners. No such effects were found in those who acquired BSL after age 8. These late learners appear to have first language proficiency in English instead, which may have been used to scaffold learning of BSL as a second language later in life. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. L2 Grammatical Gender in a Complex Morphological System: The Case of German

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spinner, Patti; Juffs, Alan

    2008-01-01

    In order to determine the nature of naturalistic learners' difficulty with grammatical gender in a complex morphological system, the longitudinal production data of an early naturalistic L1-Italian and L1-Turkish learner who are acquiring German are examined in light of current theories of gender within Chomsky's (1995) Minimalist Program. After…

  18. Grammatical markers switch roles and elicit different electrophysiological responses under shallow and deep semantic requirements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soshi, Takahiro; Nakajima, Heizo; Hagiwara, Hiroko

    2016-10-01

    Static knowledge about the grammar of a natural language is represented in the cortico-subcortical system. However, the differences in dynamic verbal processing under different cognitive conditions are unclear. To clarify this, we conducted an electrophysiological experiment involving a semantic priming paradigm in which semantically congruent or incongruent word sequences (prime nouns-target verbs) were randomly presented. We examined the event-related brain potentials that occurred in response to congruent and incongruent target words that were preceded by primes with or without grammatical case markers. The two participant groups performed either the shallow (lexical judgment) or deep (direct semantic judgment) semantic tasks. We hypothesized that, irrespective of the case markers, the congruent targets would reduce centro-posterior N400 activities under the deep semantic condition, which induces selective attention to the semantic relatedness of content words. However, the same congruent targets with correct case markers would reduce lateralized negativity under the shallow semantic condition because grammatical case markers are related to automatic structural integration under semantically unattended conditions. We observed that congruent targets (e.g., 'open') that were preceded by primes with congruent case markers (e.g., 'shutter-object case') reduced lateralized negativity under the shallow semantic condition. In contrast, congruent targets, irrespective of case markers, consistently yielded N400 reductions under the deep semantic condition. To summarize, human neural verbal processing differed in response to the same grammatical markers in the same verbal expressions under semantically attended or unattended conditions.

  19. The forgotten grammatical category: Adjective use in agrammatic aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meltzer-Asscher, Aya; Thompson, Cynthia K

    2014-07-01

    In contrast to nouns and verbs, the use of adjectives in agrammatic aphasia has not been systematically studied. However, because of the linguistic and psycholinguistic attributes of adjectives, some of which overlap with nouns and some with verbs, analysis of adjective production is important for testing theories of word class production deficits in agrammatism. The objective of the current study was to compare adjective use in agrammatic and healthy individuals, focusing on three factors: overall adjective production rate, production of predicative and attributive adjectives, and production of adjectives with complex argument structure. Narratives elicited from 14 agrammatic and 14 control participants were coded for open class grammatical category production (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives), with each adjective also coded for its syntactic environment (attributive/predicative) and argument structure. Overall, agrammatic speakers used adjectives in proportions similar to that of cognitively healthy speakers. However, they exhibited a greater proportion of predicative adjectives and a lesser proportion of attributive adjectives, compared to controls. Additionally, agrammatic participants produced adjectives with less complex argument structure than controls. The overall normal-like frequency of adjectives produced by agrammatic speakers suggests that agrammatism does not involve an inherent difficulty with adjectives as a word class or with predication, or that it entails a deficit in processing low imageability words. However, agrammatic individuals' reduced production of attributive adjectives and adjectives with complements extends previous findings of an adjunction deficit and of impairment in complex argument structure processing, respectively, to the adjectival domain. The results suggest that these deficits are not tied to a specific grammatical category.

  20. A research-based study of foreign students' use of grammatical codes in five leading British learners' dictionaries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marjeta Vrbinc

    2006-12-01

    Full Text Available Grammatical codes are one of several ways of including grammar in learners' dictionaries. In our research we focussed on the usability and user-friendliness of learners' dictionaries as regards grammatical information. The results presented and discussed in this article are based on answers obtained by a questionnaire that tested the understanding of codes found in five leading British monolingual learners' dictionaries and the success of the explanations of the same codes provided in the front matter of each dictionary. The results are presented by dictionaries and by codes. The most important finding of this research is that the understanding of the code and thus its usefulness depends on the code itself rather than on the dictionary.

  1. Grey matter volume in the cerebellum is related to the processing of grammatical rules in a second language: a structural voxel-based morphometry study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pliatsikas, Christos; Johnstone, Tom; Marinis, Theodoros

    2014-02-01

    The experience of learning and using a second language (L2) has been shown to affect the grey matter (GM) structure of the brain. Importantly, GM density in several cortical and subcortical areas has been shown to be related to performance in L2 tasks. Here, we show that bilingualism can lead to increased GM volume in the cerebellum, a structure that has been related to the processing of grammatical rules. Additionally, the cerebellar GM volume of highly proficient L2 speakers is correlated to their performance in a task tapping on grammatical processing in an L2, demonstrating the importance of the cerebellum for the establishment and use of grammatical rules in an L2.

  2. Exploring the acquisition and production of grammatical constructions through human-robot interaction with echo state networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hinaut, Xavier; Petit, Maxime; Pointeau, Gregoire; Dominey, Peter Ford

    2014-01-01

    One of the principal functions of human language is to allow people to coordinate joint action. This includes the description of events, requests for action, and their organization in time. A crucial component of language acquisition is learning the grammatical structures that allow the expression of such complex meaning related to physical events. The current research investigates the learning of grammatical constructions and their temporal organization in the context of human-robot physical interaction with the embodied sensorimotor humanoid platform, the iCub. We demonstrate three noteworthy phenomena. First, a recurrent network model is used in conjunction with this robotic platform to learn the mappings between grammatical forms and predicate-argument representations of meanings related to events, and the robot's execution of these events in time. Second, this learning mechanism functions in the inverse sense, i.e., in a language production mode, where rather than executing commanded actions, the robot will describe the results of human generated actions. Finally, we collect data from naïve subjects who interact with the robot via spoken language, and demonstrate significant learning and generalization results. This allows us to conclude that such a neural language learning system not only helps to characterize and understand some aspects of human language acquisition, but also that it can be useful in adaptive human-robot interaction.

  3. Quirky Quotes and Needles in the Haystack: Tracing Grammatical Change in Untagged Corpora

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Norde, Muriel

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper discusses pivotal theoretical and methodological problems of historical corpus linguistics. In two case studies from Swedish language history, the development of the epistemic adverb kanske and the group genitive respectively, it illustrates how the use of qualitative method in addition to corpus investigation can contribute to understanding grammatical change.

  4. Sample Size for Measuring Grammaticality in Preschool Children from Picture-Elicited Language Samples

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eisenberg, Sarita L.; Guo, Ling-Yu

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a shorter language sample elicited with fewer pictures (i.e., 7) would yield a percent grammatical utterances (PGU) score similar to that computed from a longer language sample elicited with 15 pictures for 3-year-old children. Method: Language samples were elicited by asking forty…

  5. Modelling multiple hospital outcomes: the impact of small area and primary care practice variation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Congdon Peter

    2006-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background: Appropriate management of care – for example, avoiding unnecessary attendances at, or admissions to, hospital emergency units when they could be handled in primary care – is an important part of health strategy. However, some variations in these outcomes could be due to genuine variations in health need. This paper proposes a new method of explaining variations in hospital utilisation across small areas and the general practices (GPs responsible for patient primary care. By controlling for the influence of true need on such variations, one may identify remaining sources of excess emergency attendances and admissions, both at area and practice level, that may be related to the quality, resourcing or organisation of care. The present paper accordingly develops a methodology that recognises the interplay between population mix factors (health need and primary care factors (e.g. referral thresholds, that allows for unobserved influences on hospitalisation usage, and that also reflects interdependence between hospital outcomes. A case study considers relativities in attendance and admission rates at a North London hospital involving 149 small areas and 53 GP practices. Results: A fixed effects model shows variations in attendances and admissions are significantly related (positively to area and practice need, and nursing home patients, and related (negatively to primary care access and distance of patient homes from the hospital. Modelling the impact of known factors alone is not sufficient to produce a satisfactory fit to the observations, and random effects at area and practice level are needed to improve fit and account for overdispersion. Conclusion: The case study finds variation in attendance and admission rates across areas and practices after controlling for need, and remaining differences between practices may be attributable to referral behaviour unrelated to need, or to staffing, resourcing, and access issues. In

  6. Effects of Length, Complexity, and Grammatical Correctness on Stuttering in Spanish-Speaking Preschool Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watson, Jennifer B.; Byrd, Courtney T.; Carlo, Edna J.

    2011-01-01

    Purpose: To explore the effects of utterance length, syntactic complexity, and grammatical correctness on stuttering in the spontaneous speech of young, monolingual Spanish-speaking children. Method: Spontaneous speech samples of 11 monolingual Spanish-speaking children who stuttered, ages 35 to 70 months, were examined. Mean number of syllables,…

  7. Grammatical dissociation during acquired childhood aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martins, Isabel Pavão; Loureiro, Clara; Ramos, Sara; Moreno, Teresa

    2009-12-01

    We report the case of a 6-year-old female who suffered a left hemisphere stroke attributed to a genetically determined prothrombotic state. She presented a fluent speech pattern with selective difficulty in retrieving names but not verbs. An evaluation was designed to clarify whether her symptoms represented a specific impairment of name retrieval. The child undertook an experimental battery of visual naming tasks requiring the production of 52 nouns (belonging to nine different semantic categories) and 44 verbs. Her performance was compared with that of 12 healthy children, matched for age and IQ, attending a local kindergarten. The child retrieved significantly more verbs than nouns (chi(2)=16.27, pgrammatical dissociation in a child. It suggests that nouns and verbs are subject to different processing early in development, at least before the formal acquisition of grammar. It contradicts theories that postulate a common processing of different grammatical categories early in life.

  8. Verbalizing in the Second Language Classroom: The Development of the Grammatical Concept of Aspect

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garcia, Prospero N.

    2012-01-01

    Framed within a Sociocultural Theory of Mind (SCT) in the field of Second Language Acquisition (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006), this dissertation explores the role of verbalizing in the internalization of grammatical categories through the use of Concept-based Instruction (henceforth CBI) in the second language (L2) classroom. Using Vygotsky's…

  9. Can Colors, Voices, and Images Help Learners Acquire the Grammatical Gender of German Nouns?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dias de Oliveira Santos, Victor

    2015-01-01

    Knowledge of lexical items is arguably the most essential aspect of being able to communicate in a foreign language (Richards, 2000). Many studies have examined effective strategies for retaining the meaning of foreign words, but studies investigating the effectiveness of different methods for the retention of essential grammatical features of…

  10. Grammatical markers switch roles and elicit different electrophysiological responses under shallow and deep semantic requirements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Takahiro Soshi

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Static knowledge about the grammar of a natural language is represented in the cortico-subcortical system. However, the differences in dynamic verbal processing under different cognitive conditions are unclear. To clarify this, we conducted an electrophysiological experiment involving a semantic priming paradigm in which semantically congruent or incongruent word sequences (prime nouns–target verbs were randomly presented. We examined the event-related brain potentials that occurred in response to congruent and incongruent target words that were preceded by primes with or without grammatical case markers. The two participant groups performed either the shallow (lexical judgment or deep (direct semantic judgment semantic tasks. We hypothesized that, irrespective of the case markers, the congruent targets would reduce centro-posterior N400 activities under the deep semantic condition, which induces selective attention to the semantic relatedness of content words. However, the same congruent targets with correct case markers would reduce lateralized negativity under the shallow semantic condition because grammatical case markers are related to automatic structural integration under semantically unattended conditions. We observed that congruent targets (e.g., ‘open' that were preceded by primes with congruent case markers (e.g., ‘shutter-object case' reduced lateralized negativity under the shallow semantic condition. In contrast, congruent targets, irrespective of case markers, consistently yielded N400 reductions under the deep semantic condition. To summarize, human neural verbal processing differed in response to the same grammatical markers in the same verbal expressions under semantically attended or unattended conditions. Keyword: Neuroscience

  11. Effects of Different Variations of Mental and Physical Practice on Sport Skill Learning in Adolescents with Mental Retardation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hemayattalab, Rasool; Movahedi, Ahmadreza

    2010-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of five variations of imagery and physical practice on learning of Basketball free throws in adolescents with mental retardation (AWMR). Forty AWMR were randomly assigned to five groups and performed a variation of practice: physical practice, mental practice, physical practice followed by…

  12. The influence of population characteristics on variation in general practice based morbidity estimations

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    van den Dungen C

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background General practice based registration networks (GPRNs provide information on morbidity rates in the population. Morbidity rate estimates from different GPRNs, however, reveal considerable, unexplained differences. We studied the range and variation in morbidity estimates, as well as the extent to which the differences in morbidity rates between general practices and networks change if socio-demographic characteristics of the listed patient populations are taken into account. Methods The variation in incidence and prevalence rates of thirteen diseases among six Dutch GPRNs and the influence of age, gender, socio economic status (SES, urbanization level, and ethnicity are analyzed using multilevel logistic regression analysis. Results are expressed in median odds ratios (MOR. Results We observed large differences in morbidity rate estimates both on the level of general practices as on the level of networks. The differences in SES, urbanization level and ethnicity distribution among the networks' practice populations are substantial. The variation in morbidity rate estimates among networks did not decrease after adjusting for these socio-demographic characteristics. Conclusion Socio-demographic characteristics of populations do not explain the differences in morbidity estimations among GPRNs.

  13. Modeling children's early grammatical knowledge

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bannard, Colin; Lieven, Elena; Tomasello, Michael

    2009-01-01

    Theories of grammatical development differ in how much abstract knowledge they attribute to young children. Here, we report a series of experiments using a computational model to evaluate the explanatory power of child grammars based not on abstract rules but on concrete words and phrases and some local abstractions associated with these words and phrases. We use a Bayesian procedure to extract such item-based grammars from transcriptions of 28+ h of each of two children's speech at 2 and 3 years of age. We then use these grammars to parse all of the unique multiword utterances from transcriptions of separate recordings of these same children at each of the two ages. We found that at 2 years of age such a model had good coverage and predictive fit, with the children showing radically limited productivity. Furthermore, adding expert-annotated parts of speech to the induction procedure had little effect on coverage, with the exception of the category of noun. At age 3, the children's productivity sharply increased and the addition of a verb and a noun category markedly improved the model's performance. PMID:19805057

  14. Grammatical norm problem in diachronies (on the material of the manuscript of the XVII century “Jesus Christ passions”

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    Serebryakova Elina Valerievna

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available The article describes the results of the study in terms of the implementation of the grammatical rules of the text of the apocryphal writings of «Jesus Christ Passion», forming the bulk of convolutes of the XVII century, which is stored in the Mordovian regional museum and has not been introduced in the scientific sphere. It is given the definition of the grammatical norm, summarized the point of view of well-known scientists who study the evolution of the norms of book-Slavic language at different stages of its development and in the establishment and description of the main characteristics of the «strict» and reduced norm of the Church Slavonic language. It is use/disuse of a complicated system of past tenses of verbs, the dual number, principles in the use of participle forms, formation of imperative, causal, conditional and temporary relations and other features. An analysis of the graphic-orthographic and grammatical features of the manuscript concluded that the language of the monument is in the center of the Church Slavonic language of the reduced standard of the XVII century with the appearance of dialectal features inherent to the southern Russian dialects.

  15. Grammatical Gender Trouble and Hungarian Gender[lessness]. Part I: Comparative Linguistic Gender

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    Louise O. Vasvári

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this study is to define linguistic gender[lessness], with particular reference in the latter part of the article to Hungarian, and to show why it is a feminist issue. I will discuss the [socio]linguistics of linguistic gender in three types of languages, those, like German and the Romance languages, among others, which possess grammatical gender, languages such as English, with only pronominal gender (sometimes misnamed ‘natural gender’, and languages such as Hungarian and other Finno-Ugric languages, as well as many other languages in the world, such as Turkish and Chinese, which have no linguistic or pronomial gender, but, like all languages, can make lexical gender distinctions. While in a narrow linguistic sense linguistic gender can be said to be afunctional, this does not take into account the ideological ramifications in gendered languages of the “leakage” between gender and sex[ism], while at the same time so-called genderless languages can express societal sexist assumptions linguistically through, for example, lexical gender, semantic derogation of women, and naming conventions. Thus, both languages with overt grammatical gender and those with gender-related asymmetries of a more covert nature show language to represent traditional cultural expectations, illustrating that linguistic gender is a feminist issue.

  16. The Ineffectiveness of the Provision of Input on the Problematic Grammatical Feature of Articles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morgan, Gareth

    2017-01-01

    This study examined the value of giving specific input on the use of articles on an undergraduate English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course. This topic was chosen as previous cohorts had generated a noticeable amount of errors in their use of articles, and developing written grammatical accuracy was one of the course's aims. Participants were…

  17. Factors Affecting Grammatical and Lexical Complexity of Long-Term L2 Speakers' Oral Proficiency

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lahmann, Cornelia; Steinkrauss, Rasmus; Schmid, Monika S.

    2016-01-01

    There remains considerable disagreement about which factors drive second language (L2) ultimate attainment. Age of onset (AO) appears to be a robust factor, lending support to theories of maturational constraints on L2 acquisition. The present study is an investigation of factors that influence grammatical and lexical complexity at the stage of L2…

  18. Investigating the Grammatical and Pragmatic Origins of Wh-Questions in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

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    Manya Jyotishi

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Compared to typically developing children, children with autism (ASD show delayed production of wh-questions. It is currently controversial the degree to which such deficits derive from social-pragmatic requirements and/or because these are complex grammatical structures. The current study employed the intermodal preferential looking (IPL paradigm, which reduces social-pragmatic demands. The IPL paradigm can help distinguish these proposals, as successful comprehension promotes the “pragmatics-origins” argument whereas comprehension difficulties would implicate a “grammatical-origins” argument. Additionally, we tested both the linguistic and social explanations by assessing the contributions of children's early grammatical knowledge (i.e., SVO word order and their social-pragmatic scores on the Vineland to their later wh-question comprehension. Fourteen children with ASD and 17 TD children, matched on language level, were visited in their homes at 4-month intervals. Comprehension of wh-questions and SVO word order were tested via IPL: the wh-question video showed a costumed horse and bird serving as agents or patients of familiar transitive actions. During the test trials, they were displayed side by side with directing audios (e.g., “What did the horse tickle?”, “What hugged the bird?”, “Where is the horse/bird?”. Children's eye movements were coded offline; the DV was their percent looking to the named item during test. To show comprehension, children should look longer at the named item during a where-question than during a subject-wh or object-wh question. Results indicated that TD children comprehended both subject and object wh-questions at 32 months of age. Comprehension of object-wh questions emerged chronologically later in children with ASD compared to their TD peers, but at similar levels of language. Moreover, performance on word order and social-pragmatic scores independently predicted both groups' later

  19. Contributions of Children's Linguistic and Working Memory Proficiencies to Their Judgments of Grammaticality

    Science.gov (United States)

    Noonan, Nicolette B.; Redmond, Sean M.; Archibald, Lisa M. D.

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: The authors explored the cognitive mechanisms involved in language processing by systematically examining the performance of children with deficits in the domains of working memory and language. Method: From a database of 370 school-age children who had completed a grammaticality judgment task, groups were identified with a co-occurring…

  20. Evolving Levels for Super Mario Bros Using Grammatical Evolution

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Shaker, Noor; Nicolau, Miguel; Yannakakis, Georgios N.

    2012-01-01

    This paper presents the use of design grammars to evolve playable 2D platform levels through grammatical evolution (GE). Representing levels using design grammars allows simple encoding of important level design constraints, and allows remarkably compact descriptions of large spaces of levels....... The expressive range of the GE-based level generator is analyzed and quantitatively compared to other feature-based and the original level generators by means of aesthetic and similarity based measures. The analysis reveals strengths and shortcomings of each generator and provides a general frame- work...... for comparing content generated by different generators. The approach presented can be used as an assistive tool by game designers to compare and analyze generators’ capabilities within the same game genre....

  1. Multiple Regions of a Cortical Network Commonly Encode the Meaning of Words in Multiple Grammatical Positions of Read Sentences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, Andrew James; Lalor, Edmund C; Lin, Feng; Binder, Jeffrey R; Fernandino, Leonardo; Humphries, Colin J; Conant, Lisa L; Raizada, Rajeev D S; Grimm, Scott; Wang, Xixi

    2018-05-16

    Deciphering how sentence meaning is represented in the brain remains a major challenge to science. Semantically related neural activity has recently been shown to arise concurrently in distributed brain regions as successive words in a sentence are read. However, what semantic content is represented by different regions, what is common across them, and how this relates to words in different grammatical positions of sentences is weakly understood. To address these questions, we apply a semantic model of word meaning to interpret brain activation patterns elicited in sentence reading. The model is based on human ratings of 65 sensory/motor/emotional and cognitive features of experience with words (and their referents). Through a process of mapping functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging activation back into model space we test: which brain regions semantically encode content words in different grammatical positions (e.g., subject/verb/object); and what semantic features are encoded by different regions. In left temporal, inferior parietal, and inferior/superior frontal regions we detect the semantic encoding of words in all grammatical positions tested and reveal multiple common components of semantic representation. This suggests that sentence comprehension involves a common core representation of multiple words' meaning being encoded in a network of regions distributed across the brain.

  2. Unlimited Gender: The Discursive Construction of the Travesti Identity Through the Manipulation of the Grammatical Gender System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rodrigo Borba

    2008-05-01

    Full Text Available This study investigates Southern Brazilian traveestis’ manipulation of the Portuguese grammatical gender system. During field work, it was verified that feminine forms are the preferred choice in the group. However, ideological and bodily tensions that surround travestis seem to force them to make use of masculine forms in specific discursive contexts. Travestis use masculine forms 1 to produce narratives about the time before their body modifications took place; 2 to report speech produced by others when talking about transvestites; 3 to talk about themselves within their family relationships; and 4 to distinguish themselves from ‘other’ travestis they do not identify with. Thus, the study shows how Southern Brazilian travestis use the Brazilian Portuguese grammatical gender system as a resource to manipulate their identities and the identities of the community they belong to.

  3. "Speaking Volumes": A Longitudinal Study of Lexical and Grammatical Growth between 17 and 42 Months

    Science.gov (United States)

    Labrell, Florence; van Geert, Paul; Declercq, Christelle; Baltazart, Véronique; Caillies, Stéphanie; Olivier, Marie; Le Sourn-Bissaoui, Sandrine

    2014-01-01

    Dynamic analyses of language growth tell us how vocabulary and grammar develop and how the two might be intertwined. Analyses of growth curves between 17 and 42 months, based on longitudinal data for 34 children, revealed interesting patterns of vocabulary and grammatical developments. They showed that these patterns were nonlinear, but with…

  4. Rationality, practice variation and person?centred health policy: a threshold hypothesis

    OpenAIRE

    Djulbegovic, Benjamin; Hamm, Robert M.; Mayrhofer, Thomas; Hozo, Iztok; Van den Ende, Jef

    2015-01-01

    Abstract Variation in practice of medicine is one of the major health policy issues of today. Ultimately, it is related to physicians' decision making. Similar patients with similar likelihood of having disease are often managed by different doctors differently: some doctors may elect to observe the patient, others decide to act based on diagnostic testing and yet others may elect to treat without testing. We explain these differences in practice by differences in disease probability threshol...

  5. Noun or Verb? Adult Readers' Sensitivity to Spelling Cues to Grammatical Category in Word Endings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kemp, Nenagh; Nilsson, Jodi; Arciuli, Joanne

    2009-01-01

    The spelling of many disyllabic English word endings holds cues to their grammatical category, beyond obvious inflectional endings such as "-ing" for verbs. For example, some letter sequences are clearly associated with nouns (e.g., "-oon") and others with verbs (e.g., "-erge"). This study extended recent research by Arciuli and Cupples (2006),…

  6. Community pharmacists' prescription intervention practices--exploring variations in practice in Norwegian pharmacies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mandt, Ingunn; Horn, Anne Marie; Ekedahl, Anders; Granas, Anne Gerd

    2010-03-01

    Evidence suggests that prescription intervention frequencies have been found to vary as much as 10-fold among Norwegian pharmacies and among pharmacists within the same pharmacy. To explore community pharmacists' perceptions of how their prescription intervention practices were influenced by their working environment, their technological resources, the physical and social structures of the pharmacies, their relations with colleagues, and to the individual pharmacist's professional skills. Two focus groups consisting of 14 community pharmacists in total, from urban and rural areas in Norway, discussed their working procedures and professional judgments related to prescription interventions. Organizational theories were used as theoretical and analytical frameworks in the study. A framework based on Leavitt's organizational model was to structure our interview guide. The study units were the statements of the individual pharmacists. Recurrent themes were identified and condensed. Two processes describing variations in the dispensing workflow including prescription interventions were derived--an active dispensing process extracting information about the patient's medication from several sources and a fast dispensing process focusing mainly on the information available on the prescription. Both workflow processes were used in the same pharmacies and by the same pharmacist but on different occasions. A pharmacy layout allowing interactions between pharmacist and patients and a convenient organization of technology, layout, pharmacist-patient and pharmacist-coworker transactions at the workplace was essential for detecting and solving prescription problems. Pharmacists limited their contact with general practitioners when they considered the problem a formality and/or when they knew the answers themselves. The combined use of dispensing software and the Internet was a driving force toward more independent and cognitively advanced prescription interventions

  7. Is there a time trend in medical practice variations?: a review of the literature and an critical analysis of theoretical approaches.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Groenewegen, P.P.; Westert, G.P.

    2004-01-01

    The aim of this study was to review the research evidence for a decreasing time trend in medical practice variation and to contribute to our theoretical understanding of trends in medical practice variations. We searched Pubmed for articles reporting on time trends in medical practice variations.

  8. PHONOLOGICAL AND GRAMMATICAL PERFORMANCE OF DISABLED STUDENTS IN SLB NEGERI UNGARAN

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Muhimatul Ifadah

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available In Indonesia, disabled students are taught in particular schools. The research was aimed to give an overview of phonological and grammatical performance of those students and to find out how the teachers deliver English. English was not taught since primary school due to the competence of the teachers and some complexities of the students themselves, so English taught only for those with cognitive or learning disability and autism. The English teachers at the school did not have qualification in English because their major was not English; however, this gave impact on their teaching. In the process of teaching, the students were much asked to listen and imitate the teachers’ pronunciation, and they always used pictures as media. Unfortunately, words found in the material distributed in the classroom pronounced differently by the teacher and he seems do not realize with this weakness. Meanwhile, in grammatical performance they always use present progressive in the process of teaching. The students were much taught lexical or vocabulary to simplify the concept of English subject.Hence, the students were already sat on the senior high level, and the material were the same with the elementary. Meanwhile, the students made many unappropriate pronunciation because the teacher inconsistently pronouncing the words or sentences. It is suggested that teachers should have adequate skill in English to help those students in English class, because in a classroom setting, communication means a lot of things, and it is represented by the sufficient competence in English skills.

  9. Variations in Beliefs and Practices: Teaching English in Cross-Cultural Contexts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gu, Qing

    2010-01-01

    This article examines variations in beliefs and practices between British English language teaching (ELT) specialists and their Chinese colleagues in a cross-cultural educational development project which used interviews and a questionnaire survey to gather the perceptions and retrospective experiences of Chinese tertiary teachers and expatriate…

  10. Practice variation of vaginal birth after cesarean and the influence of risk factors at patient level: a retrospective cohort study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vankan, E.; Schoorel, E.N.; Kuijk, S.M. van; Mol, B.J.; Nijhuis, J.G.; Aardenburg, R.; Alink, M.; Boer, K. de; Delemarre, F.M.; Dirksen, C.D.; Dooren, I.M. van; Franssen, M.T.; Kaplan, M.; Kleiverda, G.; Kuppens, S.M.; Kwee, A.; Langenveld, J.; Lim, F.T.; Melman, S.; Sikkema, M.J.; Smits, L.J; Visser, H.; Woiski, M.D.; Scheepers, H.C.; Hermens, R.P.M.G.

    2017-01-01

    INTRODUCTION: Large practice variation exists in mode of delivery after cesarean section, suggesting variation in implementation of contemporary guidelines. We aim to evaluate this practice variation and to what extent this can be explained by risk factors at patient level. MATERIAL AND METHODS:

  11. Practice variation of vaginal birth after cesarean and the influence of risk factors at patient level : A retrospective cohort study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vankan, Emy; Schoorel, Ellen N. C.; van Kuijk, Sander M. J.; Mol, Ben-Willem J.; Nijhuis, Jan G.; Aardenburg, Robert; Alink, Marleen; de Boer, Karin; Delemarre, Friso M. C.; Dirksen, Carmen D.; Van Dooren, Ivo M. A.; Franssen, Maureen T. M.; Kaplan, Mesrure; Kleiverda, Gunilla; Kuppens, Simone M. I.; Kwee, Anneke; Langenveld, Josje; Lim, Frans T. H.; Melman, Sonja; Sikkema, Marko J.; Smits, Luc J.; Visser, Harry; Woiski, Mallory; Scheepers, Hubertina C.; Hermens, Rosella P. M. G.

    IntroductionLarge practice variation exists in mode of delivery after cesarean section, suggesting variation in implementation of contemporary guidelines. We aim to evaluate this practice variation and to what extent this can be explained by risk factors at patient level. Material and methodsThis

  12. Empathy Variation in General Practice: A Survey among General Practitioners in Denmark

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahnfeldt-Mollerup, Peder; Søndergaard, Jens

    2018-01-01

    Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that high levels of physician empathy may be correlated with improved patient health outcomes and high physician job satisfaction. Knowledge about variation in empathy and related general practitioner (GP) characteristics may allow for a more informed approach to improve empathy among GPs. Objective: Our objective is to measure and analyze variation in physician empathy and its association with GP demographic, professional, and job satisfaction characteristics. Methods: 464 Danish GPs responded to a survey containing the Danish version of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy for Health Professionals (JSE-HP) and questions related to their demographic, professional and job satisfaction characteristics. Descriptive statistics and a quantile plot of the ordered empathy scores were used to describe empathy variation. In addition, random-effect logistic regression analysis was performed to explore the association between empathy levels and the included GP characteristics. Results: Empathy scores were negatively skewed with a mean score of 117.9 and a standard deviation of 10.1 within a range from 99 (p5) to 135 (p95). GPs aged 45–54 years and GPs who are not employed outside of their practice were less likely to have high empathy scores (≥120). Neither gender, nor length of time since specialization, length of time in current practice, practice type, practice location, or job satisfaction was associated with odds of having high physician empathy. However, odds of having a high empathy score were higher for GPs who stated that the physician-patient relationship and interaction with colleagues has a high contribution to job satisfaction compared to the reference groups (low and medium contribution of these factors). This was also the trend for GPs who stated a high contribution to job satisfaction from intellectual stimulation. In contrast, high contribution of economic profit and prestige did not contribute to increased odds

  13. Visual Input Enhancement via Essay Coding Results in Deaf Learners' Long-Term Retention of Improved English Grammatical Knowledge

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berent, Gerald P.; Kelly, Ronald R.; Schmitz, Kathryn L.; Kenney, Patricia

    2009-01-01

    This study explored the efficacy of visual input enhancement, specifically "essay enhancement", for facilitating deaf college students' improvement in English grammatical knowledge. Results documented students' significant improvement immediately after a 10-week instructional intervention, a replication of recent research. Additionally, the…

  14. On the Autonomy of the Grammatical Gender Systems of the Two Languages of a Bilingual

    Science.gov (United States)

    Costa, Albert; Kovacic, Damir; Franck, Julie; Caramazza, Alfonso

    2003-01-01

    In five experiments highly-proficient bilinguals were asked to name two sets of pictures in their L2: a) pictures whose names in the L2 and their corresponding L1 translations have the same grammatical gender value, and b) pictures whose names in the L2 and their corresponding L1 translations have different gender values. In Experiments 1, 2, and…

  15. On the Flexibility of Grammatical Advance Planning During Sentence Production: Effects of Cognitive Load on Multiple Lexical Access

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wagner, V.; Jescheniak, J.D.; Schriefers, H.J.

    2010-01-01

    Three picture-word interference experiments addressed the question of whether the scope of grammatical advance planning in sentence production corresponds to some fixed unit or rather is flexible. Subjects produced sentences of different formats under varying amounts of cognitive load. When speakers

  16. A Case-based Reasoning Approach to Validate Grammatical Gender and Number Agreement in Spanish language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jorge Bacca

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available Across Latin America 420 indigenous languages are spoken. Spanish is considered a second language in indigenous communities and is progressively introduced in education. However, most of the tools to support teaching processes of a second language have been developed for the most common languages such as English, French, German, Italian, etc. As a result, only a small amount of learning objects and authoring tools have been developed for indigenous people considering the specific needs of their population. This paper introduces Multilingual–Tiny as a web authoring tool to support the virtual experience of indigenous students and teachers when they are creating learning objects in indigenous languages or in Spanish language, in particular, when they have to deal with the grammatical structures of Spanish. Multilingual–Tiny has a module based on the Case-based Reasoning technique to provide recommendations in real time when teachers and students write texts in Spanish. An experiment was performed in order to compare some local similarity functions to retrieve cases from the case library taking into account the grammatical structures. As a result we found the similarity function with the best performance

  17. Dose variation in the practice of medical examination

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Huyskens, C.

    1989-01-01

    A discussion is presented on dose variation in the practice of the x-ray examination and on the desirability of checks in the framework of quality care. It is shown that, roughly speaking, for all examination types the dose distribution per action shows the same character. About 20% of the actions cause about half of the collective dose and the individual radiation burden in this is a factor 3 up to 10 larger than average, the remaining 80%. Insight in the distribution of the use of radiation per action is characterized as a necessary step in the control of patient doses. Radiation protection of patients is of avail mostly when the attention is aimed in first instance at examination categories with an average high dose and at the 2-% group of actions with the relatively highest radiation use. Regularly measuring of the 'actual practice' in relation to the 'good practice' is a logical test which makes part of the general quality assurance of medical action. It is recommended to take in hand the care for radiation protection of the patient in this way, within the own department or institute as well as by means of inter collegial checks on a national level. (author). 2 refs.; 3 figs

  18. Auditing Practice Style Variation in Pediatric Inpatient Asthma Care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silber, Jeffrey H; Rosenbaum, Paul R; Wang, Wei; Ludwig, Justin M; Calhoun, Shawna; Guevara, James P; Zorc, Joseph J; Zeigler, Ashley; Even-Shoshan, Orit

    2016-09-01

    Asthma is the most prevalent chronic illness among children, remaining a leading cause of pediatric hospitalizations and representing a major financial burden to many health care systems. To implement a new auditing process examining whether differences in hospital practice style may be associated with potential resource savings or inefficiencies in treating pediatric asthma admissions. A retrospective matched-cohort design study, matched for asthma severity, compared practice patterns for patients admitted to Children's Hospital Association hospitals contributing data to the Pediatric Hospital Information System (PHIS) database. With 3 years of PHIS data on 48 887 children, an asthma template was constructed consisting of representative children hospitalized for asthma between April 1, 2011, and March 31, 2014. The template was matched with either a 1:1, 2:1, or 3:1 ratio at each of 37 tertiary care children's hospitals, depending on available sample size. Treatment at each PHIS hospital. Cost, length of stay, and intensive care unit (ICU) utilization. After matching patients (n = 9100; mean [SD] age, 7.1 [3.6] years; 3418 [37.6%] females) to the template (n = 100, mean [SD] age, 7.2 [3.7] years; 37 [37.0%] females), there was no significant difference in observable patient characteristics at the 37 hospitals meeting the matching criteria. Despite similar characteristics of the patients, we observed large and significant variation in use of the ICUs as well as in length of stay and cost. For the same template-matched populations, comparing utilization between the 12.5th percentile (lower eighth) and 87.5th percentile (upper eighth) of hospitals, median cost varied by 87% ($3157 vs $5912 per patient; P audit, hospitals and stakeholders can better understand where this excess variation occurs and can help to pinpoint practice styles that should be emulated or avoided.

  19. Documenting Sociolinguistic Variation in Lesser-Studied Indigenous Communities: Challenges and Practical Solutions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mansfield, John; Stanford, James

    2017-01-01

    Documenting sociolinguistic variation in lesser-studied languages presents methodological challenges, but also offers important research opportunities. In this paper we examine three key methodological challenges commonly faced by researchers who are outsiders to the community. We then present practical solutions for successful variationist…

  20. ‘Right now, Sophie *swims in the pool?!’: Brain potentials of grammatical aspect processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Monique eFlecken

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available We investigated whether brain potentials of grammatical aspect processing resemble semantic or morpho-syntactic processing, or whether they instead are characterized by an entirely distinct pattern in the same individuals. We studied aspect from the perspective of agreement between the temporal information in the context (temporal adverbials, e.g., Right now and a morpho-syntactic marker of grammatical aspect (e.g., progressive is swimming. Participants read questions providing a temporal context that was progressive (What is Sophie doing in the pool right now? or habitual (What does Sophie do in the pool every Monday?. Following a lead-in sentence context such as Right now, Sophie…, we measured ERPs time-locked to verb phrases in four different conditions, e.g., (a is swimming (control; (b *is cooking (semantic violation; (c *are swimming (morpho-syntactic violation; or (d?swims (aspect mismatch; …in the pool. The collected ERPs show typical N400 and P600 effects for semantics and morpho-syntax, while aspect processing elicited an Early Negativity (250-350 ms. The aspect-related Negativity was short-lived and had a central scalp distribution with an anterior onset. This differentiates it not only from the semantic N400 effect, but also from the typical (LAN (Left Anterior Negativity, that is frequently reported for various types of agreement processing. Moreover, aspect processing was not accompanied by a clear P600 modulation.We argue that the specific context for each item in this experiment provided a trigger for agreement checking with temporal information encoded on the verb, i.e., morphological aspect marking. The aspect-related Negativity obtained for aspect agreement mismatches reflects a violated expectation concerning verbal inflection (in the example above, the expected verb phrase was Sophie is X-ing rather than Sophie X-s in condition d. The absence of an additional P600 for aspect processing suggests that the mismatch did not

  1. Population health needs as predictors of variations in NHS practice payments: a cross-sectional study of English general practices in 2013-2014 and 2014-2015.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levene, Louis S; Baker, Richard; Wilson, Andrew; Walker, Nicola; Boomla, Kambiz; Bankart, M John G

    2017-01-01

    NHS general practice payments in England include pay for performance elements and a weighted component designed to compensate for workload, but without measures of specific deprivation or ethnic groups. To determine whether population factors related to health needs predicted variations in NHS payments to individual general practices in England. Cross-sectional study of all practices in England, in financial years 2013-2014 and 2014-2015. Descriptive statistics, univariable analyses (examining correlations between payment and predictors), and multivariable analyses (undertaking multivariable linear regressions for each year, with logarithms of payments as the dependent variables, and with population, practice, and performance factors as independent variables) were undertaken. Several population variables predicted variations in adjusted total payments, but inconsistently. Higher payments were associated with increases in deprivation, patients of older age, African Caribbean ethnic group, and asthma prevalence. Lower payments were associated with an increase in smoking prevalence. Long-term health conditions, South Asian ethnic group, and diabetes prevalence were not predictive. The adjusted R 2 values were 0.359 (2013-2014) and 0.374 (2014-2015). A slightly different set of variables predicted variations in the payment component designed to compensate for workload. Lower payments were associated with increases in deprivation, patients of older age, and diabetes prevalence. Smoking prevalence was not predictive. There was a geographical differential. Population factors related to health needs were, overall, poor predictors of variations in adjusted total practice payments and in the payment component designed to compensate for workload. Revising the weighting formula and extending weighting to other payment components might better support practices to address these needs. © British Journal of General Practice 2017.

  2. Adaptive CGFs Based on Grammatical Evolution

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jian Yao

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Computer generated forces (CGFs play blue or red units in military simulations for personnel training and weapon systems evaluation. Traditionally, CGFs are controlled through rule-based scripts, despite the doctrine-driven behavior of CGFs being rigid and predictable. Furthermore, CGFs are often tricked by trainees or fail to adapt to new situations (e.g., changes in battle field or update in weapon systems, and, in most cases, the subject matter experts (SMEs review and redesign a large amount of CGF scripts for new scenarios or training tasks, which is both challenging and time-consuming. In an effort to overcome these limitations and move toward more true-to-life scenarios, a study using grammatical evolution (GE to generate adaptive CGFs for air combat simulations has been conducted. Expert knowledge is encoded with modular behavior trees (BTs for compatibility with the operators in genetic algorithm (GA. GE maps CGFs, represented with BTs to binary strings, and uses GA to evolve CGFs with performance feedback from the simulation. Beyond-visual-range air combat experiments between adaptive CGFs and nonadaptive baseline CGFs have been conducted to observe and study this evolutionary process. The experimental results show that the GE is an efficient framework to generate CGFs in BTs formalism and evolve CGFs via GA.

  3. Progressive Treatment and Self-Assessment: Effects on Students' Automatisation of Grammatical Spelling and Self-Efficacy Beliefs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Reybroeck, Marie; Penneman, Jessica; Vidick, Charline; Galand, Benoît

    2017-01-01

    The production of grammatical markers takes a long time to master. Even when students know the rules, they do not systematically apply them. However, few studies have demonstrated the efficacy of interventions to improve this competence, and no study has addressed the issue at the cognitive and motivational levels jointly. Our study demonstrates…

  4. Agent-based models of strategies for the emergence and evolution of grammatical agreement.

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    Katrien Beuls

    Full Text Available Grammatical agreement means that features associated with one linguistic unit (for example number or gender become associated with another unit and then possibly overtly expressed, typically with morphological markers. It is one of the key mechanisms used in many languages to show that certain linguistic units within an utterance grammatically depend on each other. Agreement systems are puzzling because they can be highly complex in terms of what features they use and how they are expressed. Moreover, agreement systems have undergone considerable change in the historical evolution of languages. This article presents language game models with populations of agents in order to find out for what reasons and by what cultural processes and cognitive strategies agreement systems arise. It demonstrates that agreement systems are motivated by the need to minimize combinatorial search and semantic ambiguity, and it shows, for the first time, that once a population of agents adopts a strategy to invent, acquire and coordinate meaningful markers through social learning, linguistic self-organization leads to the spontaneous emergence and cultural transmission of an agreement system. The article also demonstrates how attested grammaticalization phenomena, such as phonetic reduction and conventionalized use of agreement markers, happens as a side effect of additional economizing principles, in particular minimization of articulatory effort and reduction of the marker inventory. More generally, the article illustrates a novel approach for studying how key features of human languages might emerge.

  5. On the Flexibility of Grammatical Advance Planning during Sentence Production: Effects of Cognitive Load on Multiple Lexical Access

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wagner, Valentin; Jescheniak, Jorg D.; Schriefers, Herbert

    2010-01-01

    Three picture-word interference experiments addressed the question of whether the scope of grammatical advance planning in sentence production corresponds to some fixed unit or rather is flexible. Subjects produced sentences of different formats under varying amounts of cognitive load. When speakers described 2-object displays with simple…

  6. Children's grammatical categories of verb and noun: a comparative look at children with specific language impairment (SLI) and normal language (NL).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Skipp, Amy; Windfuhr, Kirsten L; Conti-Ramsden, Gina

    2002-01-01

    The study investigated the development of grammatical categories (noun and verb) in young language learners. Twenty-eight children with specific language impairment (SLI) with a mean language age of 35 months and 28 children with normal language (NL) with a mean language age of 34 months were exposed to four novel verbs and four novel nouns during 10 experimental child-directed play sessions. The lexical items were modelled with four experimentally controlled argument structures. Both groups of children showed little productivity with syntactic marking of arguments in the novel verb conditions. Thus, both groups of children mostly followed the surface structure of the model presented to them, regardless of the argument they were trying to express. Therefore, there was little evidence of verb-general processes. In contrast, both groups used nouns in semantic roles that had not been modelled for them. Importantly, however, children with SLI still appeared to be more input dependent than NL children. This suggests that children with NL were working with a robust noun schema, whereas children with SLI were not. Taken together, the findings suggest that neither group of children had a grammatical category of verb, but demonstrated a general knowledge of the grammatical category of noun. These findings are discussed in relation to current theories of normal and impaired language development.

  7. Variation in Clinical Practice of Intravenous Thrombolysis in Stroke in the Netherlands

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Auke Bauer

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available In the Netherlands in 2010, 11% of patients with ischemic stroke received intravenous thrombolysis (IVT, varying from 4 to 26% between hospitals. The aim of this study was to investigate variation in clinical practice and organization of IVT in relationship to performance and outcome. In all 84 Dutch hospitals performing IVT, a stroke neurologist was approached using a web-based survey. The response rate was 82%. The study showed considerable variation. For example, door-to-needle time ranged from 25 to 80 min. High blood pressure was actively lowered before performing IVT by 57% of neurologists, while 35% chose to wait. 28% started IVT without knowledge of laboratory results. Better follow-up data are needed to see whether this variation results in differences in outcome.

  8. Aspectual asymmetries in the mental representation of events: Role of lexical and grammatical aspect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yap, Foong Ha; Chu, Patrick Chun Kau; Yiu, Emily Sze Man; Wong, Stella Fay; Kwan, Stella Wing Man; Matthews, Stephen; Tan, Li Hai; Li, Ping; Shirai, Yasuhiro

    2009-07-01

    Temporal information is important in the construction of situation models, and many languages make use of perfective and imperfective aspect markers to distinguish between completed situations (e.g., He made a cake) and ongoing situations (e.g., He is making a cake). Previous studies in which the effect of grammatical aspect has been examined have shown that perfective sentences are often processed more quickly than imperfective ones (e.g., Chan, Yap, Shirai, & Matthews, 2004; Madden & Zwaan, 2003; Yap et al., 2004; Yap et al., 2006). However, these studies used only accomplishment verbs (i.e., verbs with an inherent endpoint, such as bake a cake). The present study on the processing of Cantonese includes activity verbs (i.e., durative verbs with no inherent endpoint, such as play the piano), and the results indicate a strong interaction between lexical aspect (i.e., verb type) and grammatical aspect. That is, perfective sentences were processed more quickly with accomplishment verbs, consistent with previous findings, but imperfective sentences were processed more quickly with activity verbs. We suggest that these different aspectual asymmetries emerge as a result of the inherent associations between accomplishment verbs and the bounded features of perfective aspect and between activity verbs and the unbounded features of imperfective aspect. The sentence stimuli from this study may be downloaded from mc.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

  9. Grammatical morphology is not a sensitive marker of language impairment in Icelandic in children aged 4-14 years.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thordardottir, Elin

    2016-01-01

    Grammatical morphology continues to be widely regarded as an area of extraordinary difficulty in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). A main argument for this view is the purported high diagnostic accuracy of morphological errors for the identification of SLI. However, findings are inconsistent across age groups and across languages. Studies show morphological difficulty to be far less pronounced in more highly inflected languages and the diagnostic accuracy of morphology in such languages is largely unknown. This study examines the morphological use of Icelandic children with and without SLI in a cross-sectional sample of children ranging from preschool age to adolescence and assesses the usefulness of morphology as a clinical marker to identify SLI. Participants were 57 monolingual Icelandic-speaking children age 4-14 years; 31 with SLI and 26 with typical language development (TD). Spontaneous language samples were coded for correct and incorrect use of grammatical morphology. The diversity of use of grammatical morphemes was documented for each group at different age and MLU levels. Individual accuracy scores were plotted against age as well as MLU and diagnostic accuracy was calculated. MLU and morphological accuracy increased with age for both children with SLI and TD, with the two groups gradually approaching each other. Morphological diversity and sequence of acquisition was similar across TD and SLI groups compared based on age or MLU. Morphological accuracy was overall high, but was somewhat lower in the SLI group, in particular at ages below 12 years and MLU levels below 6.0. However, overlap between the groups was important in all age groups, involving a greater tendency for errors in both groups at young ages and scores close to or at ceiling at older ages. Sensitivity rates as well as likelihood ratios for each morpheme were all below the range considered acceptable for clinical application, whereas better specificity rates in some age

  10. Variation in Pediatric Organ Donor Management Practices Among US Organ Procurement Organizations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ream, Robert S; Armbrecht, Eric S

    2018-03-01

    Reports of actual pediatric organ donor management practice among US organ procurement organizations are sparse, and the use of standardized management guidelines is unknown. A recent consensus statement from the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the American College of Chest Physicians, and the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations offers guidelines for the management of the pediatric organ donor. To describe the use of guidelines and routine practices in the management of the pediatric organ donor with respect to hemodynamics, lung and ventilator management, fluid and electrolytes, hormonal replacement therapy, the use of blood products, thermoregulation, and prophylactic antibiotics. Cross-sectional observational study using a survey and follow-up telephone interview with respondents from all 58 US organ procurement organizations. All 58 US Organ Procurement Organizations participated. A majority employed written guidelines for the management of pediatric donor hemodynamics, thermoregulation, fluids, and electrolytes. Management of blood products, the lung, and mechanical ventilation were less commonly committed to written guidelines, but common practices were described. All used various forms of hormonal replacement therapy and the majority administered empiric antibiotic therapy. Wide variation was observed in the management of the lung, mechanical ventilation, and glycemic control. Most OPOs used forms of standardized donor management for the pediatric organ donor although variation in the content of that management exists. Barriers to an evidence-based approach to the pediatric donor need to be determined and addressed.

  11. Variació morfofonològica. Variants morfològiques

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria Rosa Lloret

    2015-07-01

    It focuses on the variations of the morphological variables, that is to say, on the actual realizations of morphological variation. There are two kinds of morphological variations: of formal and of grammatical nature. Formal morphological variations are those with a phonological representations in which morphological variation is present. These are existing morphological variations. Grammatical morphological variations are those which determine several formal variations in the declention of words. These morphological variations not readily available, but that become available through the corresponding formal morphological variations. Both kinds of variations are analyzed in terms of typology and of class.

  12. Variation of Linguistic Form of News Titles of Indonesian National Newspapers

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    Atiqa Sabardila

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available This descriptive-qualitative study aims at describing the linguistic form on news title. Related to data classification, this study uses segmenting immediate constituents technique. This technique is also utilized to separate the elements of the sentence function. The data is combined based on the similarities of their pattern and category. Furthermore, in order to classify the similarity of the meaning on the phrase or clause on title, this study provides the paraphrase and substitutes the constituent position of function in clause to recognize the arrangement. Moreover, in identifying the constituent of omitted clause, the technique is by inserting or expanding the structure of the title. The variation of the linguistic form is also based on whether or not the figurative language of the title appears. The news title is written by considering these several aspects: phonology, lexicon, grammatical, sentence modus, cohesion, and figurative language. Those aspects are intended to fulfill several functions, such as informing, influencing, preserving the social connection between the server and the receiver of the information or delivering the response about a phenomenon. Based on these several aspects, the characteristics of the linguistics of the titles give the practically ease of understanding for those who are learning to write the straight news discourse.

  13. Does EFL Readers' Lexical and Grammatical Knowledge Predict Their Reading Ability? Insights from a Perceptron Artificial Neural Network Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aryadoust, Vahid; Baghaei, Purya

    2016-01-01

    This study aims to examine the relationship between reading comprehension and lexical and grammatical knowledge among English as a foreign language students by using an Artificial Neural Network (ANN). There were 825 test takers administered both a second-language reading test and a set of psychometrically validated grammar and vocabulary tests.…

  14. A first look at chorioamnionitis management practice variation among US obstetricians.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greenberg, Mara B; Anderson, Britta L; Schulkin, Jay; Norton, Mary E; Aziz, Natali

    2012-01-01

    Objective. To examine practice patterns for diagnosis and treatment of chorioamnionitis among US obstetricians. Study Design. We distributed a mail-based survey to members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, querying demographics, practice setting, and chorioamnionitis management strategies. We performed univariable and multivariable analyses. Results. Of 500 surveys distributed, 53.8% were returned, and 212 met study criteria and were analyzed. Most respondents work in group practice (66.0%), perform >100 deliveries per year (60.0%), have been in practice >10 years (77.3%), and work in a nonuniversity setting (85.1%). Temperature plus one additional criterion (61.3%) was the most common diagnostic strategy. Over 25 different primary antibiotic regimens were reported, including use of a single agent by 30.0% of respondents. A wide range of postpartum antibiotic duration was reported from no postpartum treatment (34.5% after vaginal delivery, 11.3% after cesarean delivery) to 48 hours of postpartum treatment (24.7% after vaginal delivery, 32.1% after cesarean delivery). No practitioner characteristic was independently associated with diagnostic or therapeutic strategies in multivariable analysis. Conclusion. There is a wide variation in contemporary clinical practices for the management of chorioamnionitis. This may represent a dearth of level I evidence. Future prospective clinical trials may provide more evidence-based practice recommendations for diagnosis and treatment of chorioamnionitis.

  15. A First Look at Chorioamnionitis Management Practice Variation among US Obstetricians

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mara B. Greenberg

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Objective. To examine practice patterns for diagnosis and treatment of chorioamnionitis among US obstetricians. Study Design. We distributed a mail-based survey to members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, querying demographics, practice setting, and chorioamnionitis management strategies. We performed univariable and multivariable analyses. Results. Of 500 surveys distributed, 53.8% were returned, and 212 met study criteria and were analyzed. Most respondents work in group practice (66.0%, perform >100 deliveries per year (60.0%, have been in practice >10 years (77.3%, and work in a nonuniversity setting (85.1%. Temperature plus one additional criterion (61.3% was the most common diagnostic strategy. Over 25 different primary antibiotic regimens were reported, including use of a single agent by 30.0% of respondents. A wide range of postpartum antibiotic duration was reported from no postpartum treatment (34.5% after vaginal delivery, 11.3% after cesarean delivery to 48 hours of postpartum treatment (24.7% after vaginal delivery, 32.1% after cesarean delivery. No practitioner characteristic was independently associated with diagnostic or therapeutic strategies in multivariable analysis. Conclusion. There is a wide variation in contemporary clinical practices for the management of chorioamnionitis. This may represent a dearth of level I evidence. Future prospective clinical trials may provide more evidence-based practice recommendations for diagnosis and treatment of chorioamnionitis.

  16. Production Practice During Language Learning Improves Comprehension.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hopman, Elise W M; MacDonald, Maryellen C

    2018-04-01

    Language learners often spend more time comprehending than producing a new language. However, memory research suggests reasons to suspect that production practice might provide a stronger learning experience than comprehension practice. We tested the benefits of production during language learning and the degree to which this learning transfers to comprehension skill. We taught participants an artificial language containing multiple linguistic dependencies. Participants were randomly assigned to either a production- or a comprehension-learning condition, with conditions designed to balance attention demands and other known production-comprehension differences. After training, production-learning participants outperformed comprehension-learning participants on vocabulary comprehension and on comprehension tests of grammatical dependencies, even when we controlled for individual differences in vocabulary learning. This result shows that producing a language during learning can improve subsequent comprehension, which has implications for theories of memory and learning, language representations, and educational practices.

  17. Keeping it simple: Studying grammatical encoding with lexically-reduced item sets

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alma eVeenstra

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Compared to the large body of work on lexical access, little research has been done on grammatical encoding in language production. An exception is the generation of subject-verb agreement. Here, two key findings have been reported: (1 Speakers make more agreement errors when the head and local noun of a phrase mismatch in number than when they match (e.g., the key to the cabinet(s; and (2 this attraction effect is asymmetric, with stronger attraction for singular than for plural head nouns. Although these findings are robust, the cognitive processes leading to agreement errors and their significance for the generation of correct agreement are not fully understood. We propose that future studies of agreement, and grammatical encoding in general, may benefit from using paradigms that tightly control the variability of the lexical content of the material.We report two experiments illustrating this approach. In both of them, the experimental items featured combinations of four nouns, four color adjectives, and two prepositions. In Experiment 1, native speakers of Dutch described pictures in sentences such as the circle next to the stars is blue. In Experiment 2, they carried out a forced-choice task, where they read subject noun phrases (e.g., the circle next to the stars and selected the correct verb-phrase (is blue or are blue with a button press. Both experiments showed an attraction effect, with more errors after subject phrases with mismatching, compared to matching head and local nouns. This effect was stronger for singular than plural heads, replicating the attraction asymmetry. In contrast, the response times recorded in Experiment 2 showed similar attraction effects for singular and plural head nouns. These results demonstrate that critical agreement phenomena can be elicited reliably in lexically-reduced contexts. We discuss the theoretical implications of the findings and the potential and limitations of studies using lexically simple

  18. Grammatical replacements in translation of German advertising texts of utomotive subject including participial constructions with attributive meaning

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    Артур Нарманович Мамедов

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Informative capacity of participial construction of source and target languages contributes to a more complex and multi aspect image of an expensive car. Dangling participles and attributive clauses placed after the determined word are being used in translation of extended adjectives with participles I and II. These grammatical transformations connected with reconstruction of semantic structure remain logically rational argumentation of an advertising text of the source language.

  19. Language identification of information blocks based on lexico-grammatic markers

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    Sergey N. Kalegin

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available This article is a continuation of the author's series of publications on the subjects of language identification of texts. In the article is being considered the creation of a technological basis for language identification systems of unstructured information blocks based on lexico-grammatical markers, in which are used the forms of verbs, verbal formations or functionally analogous constructions, are described method and algorithm for its software implementation. These developments will significantly reduce the resource intensity and improve the quality of such systems, which will give a significant economic effect and the possibility of creating fundamentally new technologies for determining the linguistic affiliation of information in a multilingual environment. Consequently, the study is of interest for computer linguists and developers of automatic word processing systems, such as: global monitoring systems, multilingual knowledge bases, automatic translation systems, information retrieval systems, document summarizing systems, literature catalogers, etc.

  20. Institutional Variation in Traumatic Brain Injury Acute Rehabilitation Practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seel, Ronald T; Barrett, Ryan S; Beaulieu, Cynthia L; Ryser, David K; Hammond, Flora M; Cullen, Nora; Garmoe, William; Sommerfeld, Teri; Corrigan, John D; Horn, Susan D

    2015-08-01

    To describe institutional variation in traumatic brain injury (TBI) inpatient rehabilitation program characteristics and evaluate to what extent patient factors and center effects explain how TBI inpatient rehabilitation services are delivered. Secondary analysis of a prospective, multicenter, cohort database. TBI inpatient rehabilitation programs. Patients with complicated mild, moderate, or severe TBI (N=2130). Not applicable. Mean minutes; number of treatment activities; use of groups in occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, therapeutic recreation, and psychology inpatient rehabilitation sessions; and weekly hours of treatment. A wide variation was observed between the 10 TBI programs, including census size, referral flow, payer mix, number of dedicated beds, clinician experience, and patient characteristics. At the centers with the longest weekday therapy sessions, the average session durations were 41.5 to 52.2 minutes. At centers with the shortest weekday sessions, the average session durations were approximately 30 minutes. The centers with the highest mean total weekday hours of occupational, physical, and speech therapies delivered twice as much therapy as the lowest center. Ordinary least-squares regression modeling found that center effects explained substantially more variance than patient factors for duration of therapy sessions, number of activities administered per session, use of group therapy, and amount of psychological services provided. This study provides preliminary evidence that there is significant institutional variation in rehabilitation practice and that center effects play a stronger role than patient factors in determining how TBI inpatient rehabilitation is delivered. Copyright © 2015 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. Does Grammatical Structure Accelerate Number Word Learning? Evidence from Learners of Dual and Non-Dual Dialects of Slovenian.

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    Franc Marušič

    Full Text Available How does linguistic structure affect children's acquisition of early number word meanings? Previous studies have tested this question by comparing how children learning languages with different grammatical representations of number learn the meanings of labels for small numbers, like 1, 2, and 3. For example, children who acquire a language with singular-plural marking, like English, are faster to learn the word for 1 than children learning a language that lacks the singular-plural distinction, perhaps because the word for 1 is always used in singular contexts, highlighting its meaning. These studies are problematic, however, because reported differences in number word learning may be due to unmeasured cross-cultural differences rather than specific linguistic differences. To address this problem, we investigated number word learning in four groups of children from a single culture who spoke different dialects of the same language that differed chiefly with respect to how they grammatically mark number. We found that learning a dialect which features "dual" morphology (marking of pairs accelerated children's acquisition of the number word two relative to learning a "non-dual" dialect of the same language.

  2. Does Grammatical Structure Accelerate Number Word Learning? Evidence from Learners of Dual and Non-Dual Dialects of Slovenian

    Science.gov (United States)

    Plesničar, Vesna; Razboršek, Tina; Sullivan, Jessica; Barner, David

    2016-01-01

    How does linguistic structure affect children’s acquisition of early number word meanings? Previous studies have tested this question by comparing how children learning languages with different grammatical representations of number learn the meanings of labels for small numbers, like 1, 2, and 3. For example, children who acquire a language with singular-plural marking, like English, are faster to learn the word for 1 than children learning a language that lacks the singular-plural distinction, perhaps because the word for 1 is always used in singular contexts, highlighting its meaning. These studies are problematic, however, because reported differences in number word learning may be due to unmeasured cross-cultural differences rather than specific linguistic differences. To address this problem, we investigated number word learning in four groups of children from a single culture who spoke different dialects of the same language that differed chiefly with respect to how they grammatically mark number. We found that learning a dialect which features “dual” morphology (marking of pairs) accelerated children’s acquisition of the number word two relative to learning a “non-dual” dialect of the same language. PMID:27486802

  3. Comparative Study of the Passive Verb in Arabic and Persian Languages from the Perspective of Grammatical and Semantic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mansooreh Zarkoob

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Verb is one the important categories and main elements of sentence which is sometimes divided in similar types in Arabic and Persian. One of the main types of verb existed in both languages is passive verb. Although this appellation is apparently common in both languages, it seems passive verbs are completely equivalent in both languages but since passive verb in the Persian language has been discussed from different aspects compared with Arabic, in this article we are looking for some answers to these questions that if we can find other structures apart from passive structure which are accounted as passive in their meanings? Which kind of relationship is there between grammatical and semantic structures of passive verb in both languages? What are grammatical and semantic differences and similarities of passive verb in Persian and Arabic languages? The results of this survey decreased translation errors of students. We also state this example as a result of this research that, not only there is an auxiliary verb in both languages is investigated as a passive-maker but also, there are some planar verbs in both languages and also voice changes are occurred in addition to inflection changes.

  4. Variation in Constructions with se: a Challenge for Teaching Portuguese

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Angela Marina Bravin dos Santos

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available This article discusses the complexity underlying the study, in Brazilian schools, of constructions with direct transitive verbs combined with the particle “if”. To this end, the start point is the results of a sociolinguistic survey conducted in academic texts produced by the publishers of UFRRJ. The research is based on the Theory of Variation and Change (WEINREICH, LABOV, HERZOG, 1968, aiming at analyzing the behavior of such variable constructions in contexts of indeterminacy of the subject, in order to show that the difficulty of the student in understanding them is the fact that the grammatical tradition considers them as passive, but actually they are active forms with the feature [+arbitrary reference], varying with the 1st person of plural.

  5. Practice variation in the structure of stroke rehabilitation in four rehabilitation centres in the Netherlands

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Groeneveld, Iris F.; Meesters, Jorit J. L.; Arwert, Henk J.; Roux-Otter, Nienke; Ribbers, Gerard M.; van Bennekom, Coen A. M.; Goossens, Paulien H.; Vliet Vlieland, Thea P. M.

    2016-01-01

    To describe practice variation in the structure of stroke rehabilitation in 4 specialized multidisciplinary rehabilitation centres in the Netherlands. A multidisciplinary expert group formulated a set of 23 elements concerning the structure of inpatient and outpatient stroke rehabilitation,

  6. Geographic variation in the surgical management of lumbar spondylolisthesis: characterizing practice patterns and outcomes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Azad, Tej D; Vail, Daniel; O'Connell, Chloe; Han, Summer S; Veeravagu, Anand; Ratliff, John K

    2018-05-07

    The role of arthrodesis in the surgical management of lumbar spondylolisthesis remains controversial. We hypothesized that practice patterns and outcomes for this patient population may vary widely. To characterize geographic variation in surgical practices and outcomes for patients with lumbar spondylolisthesis. Retrospective analysis on a national longitudinal database between 2007 and 2014. We calculated arthrodesis rates, inpatient and long term costs, and key quality indicators (e.g. reoperation rates). Using linear and logistic regression models, we then calculated expected quality indicator values, adjusting for patient-level demographic factors, and compared these values to the observed values, to assess quality variation apart from differences in patient populations. We identified a cohort of 67,077 patients (60.7% female, mean age of 59.8 years (SD, 12.0) with lumbar spondylolisthesis who received either laminectomy or laminectomy with arthrodesis. The majority of patients received arthrodesis (91.8%). Actual rates of arthrodesis varied from 97.5% in South Dakota to 81.5% in Oregon. Geography remained a significant predictor of arthrodesis even after adjusting for demographic factors (pgeographic variation was also observed in initial costs ($32,485 in Alabama to $78,433 in Colorado), two-year post-operative costs ($15,612 in Arkansas to $34,096 in New Jersey), length of hospital stay (2.6 days in Arkansas to 4.5 in Washington, D.C.), 30-day complication rates (9.5% in South Dakota to 22.4% in Maryland), 30-day readmission rates (2.5% in South Dakota to 13.6% in Connecticut), and reoperation rates (1.8% in Maine to 12.7% in Alabama). There is marked geographic variation in the rates of arthrodesis in treatment of spondylolisthesis within the United States. This variation remains pronounced after accounting for patient-level demographic differences. Costs of surgery and quality outcomes also vary widely. Further study is necessary to understand the drivers

  7. Real-time parallel processing of grammatical structure in the fronto-striatal system: a recurrent network simulation study using reservoir computing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hinaut, Xavier; Dominey, Peter Ford

    2013-01-01

    Sentence processing takes place in real-time. Previous words in the sentence can influence the processing of the current word in the timescale of hundreds of milliseconds. Recent neurophysiological studies in humans suggest that the fronto-striatal system (frontal cortex, and striatum--the major input locus of the basal ganglia) plays a crucial role in this process. The current research provides a possible explanation of how certain aspects of this real-time processing can occur, based on the dynamics of recurrent cortical networks, and plasticity in the cortico-striatal system. We simulate prefrontal area BA47 as a recurrent network that receives on-line input about word categories during sentence processing, with plastic connections between cortex and striatum. We exploit the homology between the cortico-striatal system and reservoir computing, where recurrent frontal cortical networks are the reservoir, and plastic cortico-striatal synapses are the readout. The system is trained on sentence-meaning pairs, where meaning is coded as activation in the striatum corresponding to the roles that different nouns and verbs play in the sentences. The model learns an extended set of grammatical constructions, and demonstrates the ability to generalize to novel constructions. It demonstrates how early in the sentence, a parallel set of predictions are made concerning the meaning, which are then confirmed or updated as the processing of the input sentence proceeds. It demonstrates how on-line responses to words are influenced by previous words in the sentence, and by previous sentences in the discourse, providing new insight into the neurophysiology of the P600 ERP scalp response to grammatical complexity. This demonstrates that a recurrent neural network can decode grammatical structure from sentences in real-time in order to generate a predictive representation of the meaning of the sentences. This can provide insight into the underlying mechanisms of human cortico

  8. Rationality, practice variation and person-centred health policy: a threshold hypothesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Djulbegovic, Benjamin; Hamm, Robert M; Mayrhofer, Thomas; Hozo, Iztok; Van den Ende, Jef

    2015-12-01

    Variation in practice of medicine is one of the major health policy issues of today. Ultimately, it is related to physicians' decision making. Similar patients with similar likelihood of having disease are often managed by different doctors differently: some doctors may elect to observe the patient, others decide to act based on diagnostic testing and yet others may elect to treat without testing. We explain these differences in practice by differences in disease probability thresholds at which physicians decide to act: contextual social and clinical factors and emotions such as regret affect the threshold by influencing the way doctors integrate objective data related to treatment and testing. However, depending on a theoretical construct each of the physician's behaviour can be considered rational. In fact, we showed that the current regulatory policies lead to predictably low thresholds for most decisions in contemporary practice. As a result, we may expect continuing motivation for overuse of treatment and diagnostic tests. We argue that rationality should take into account both formal principles of rationality and human intuitions about good decisions along the lines of Rawls' 'reflective equilibrium/considered judgment'. In turn, this can help define a threshold model that is empirically testable. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  9. DEVELOPMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STYLISTIC COMPETENCE OF FUTURE PHILOLOGISTS: GRAMMATICAL ASPECT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Олена Вовк

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available The article studies a grammatical aspect of developing stylistic competence of students of linguistic departments. Particularly, the stylistic competence which is defined as a capacity to create adequate utterances under natural conditions of communication according to a concrete situation is characterized. To highlight the importance of acquiring stylistic competence the levels of speech development of an individual are indentified and the stages of teaching grammar are differentiated. The approaches to teaching stylistic grammar are characterized within a communicative framework and relevant skills are elucidated. The role of functional styles in teaching a foreign language is clarified. The idea of teaching students to be able to make register shifts and mixture of speech registers in the process of foreign language competence acquiring are highlihgted. The theoretical principles are illustrated with the appropriate examples of exercises.

  10. The Effects of Variations in Lesson Control and Practice on Learning from Interactive Video.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hannafin, Michael J.; Colamaio, MaryAnne E.

    1987-01-01

    Discussion of the effects of variations in lesson control and practice on the learning of facts, procedures, and problem-solving skills during interactive video instruction focuses on a study of graduates and advanced level undergraduates learning cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Embedded questioning methods and posttests used are described.…

  11. A Grammatical Approach to the Modeling of an Autonomous Robot

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gabriel López-García

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Virtual Worlds Generator is a grammatical model that is proposed to define virtual worlds. It integrates the diversity of sensors and interaction devices, multimodality and a virtual simulation system. Its grammar allows the definition and abstraction in symbols strings of the scenes of the virtual world, independently of the hardware that is used to represent the world or to interact with it. A case study is presented to explain how to use the proposed model to formalize a robot navigation system with multimodal perception and a hybrid control scheme of the robot. The result is an instance of the model grammar that implements the robotic system and is independent of the sensing devices used for perception and interaction. As a conclusion the Virtual Worlds Generator adds value in the simulation of virtual worlds since the definition can be done formally and independently of the peculiarities of the supporting devices

  12. Grammatical and pragmatic properties of the DP in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and in children with High Functioning Autism (HFA)

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Creemers, A.; Schaeffer, J.C.; Köhnlein, B.; Audring, J.

    2015-01-01

    This study investigates whether grammar and pragmatics are separate linguistic components or not, and whether children with SLI and children with HFA have overlapping or distinct linguistic profiles. We examine two DP-related phenomena: the mass-count distinction (grammatical) and the choice for a

  13. Total joint arthroplasty: practice variation of physiotherapy across the continuum of care in Alberta

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    C. Allyson Jones

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Comprehensive and timely rehabilitation for total joint arthroplasty (TJA is needed to maximize recovery from this elective surgical procedure for hip and knee arthritis. Administrative data do not capture the variation of treatment for rehabilitation across the continuum of care for TJA, so we conducted a survey for physiotherapists to report practice for TJA across the continuum of care. The primary objective was to describe the reported practice of physiotherapy for TJA across the continuum of care within the context of a provincial TJA clinical pathway and highlight possible gaps in care. Method A cross-sectional on-line survey was accessible to licensed physiotherapists in Alberta, Canada for 11 weeks. Physiotherapists who treated at least five patients with TJA annually were asked to complete the survey. The survey consisted of 58 questions grouped into pre-operative, acute care and post-acute rehabilitation. Variation of practice was described in terms of number, duration and type of visits along with goals of care and program delivery methods. Results Of the 80 respondents, 26 (33 % stated they worked in small centres or rural settings in Alberta with the remaining respondents working in two large urban sites. The primary treatment goal differed for each phase across the continuum of care in that pre-operative phase was directed at improving muscle strength, functional activities were commonly reported for acute care, and post-acute phase was directed at improving joint range-of-motion. Proportionally, more physiotherapists from rural areas treated patients in out-patient hospital departments (59 %, whereas a higher proportion in urban physiotherapists saw patients in private clinics (48 %. Across the continuum of care, treatment was primarily delivered on an individual basis rather than in a group format. Conclusions Variation of practice reported with pre-and post-operative care in the community will stimulate

  14. Total joint arthroplasty: practice variation of physiotherapy across the continuum of care in Alberta.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, C Allyson; Martin, Ruben San; Westby, Marie D; Beaupre, Lauren A

    2016-11-04

    Comprehensive and timely rehabilitation for total joint arthroplasty (TJA) is needed to maximize recovery from this elective surgical procedure for hip and knee arthritis. Administrative data do not capture the variation of treatment for rehabilitation across the continuum of care for TJA, so we conducted a survey for physiotherapists to report practice for TJA across the continuum of care. The primary objective was to describe the reported practice of physiotherapy for TJA across the continuum of care within the context of a provincial TJA clinical pathway and highlight possible gaps in care. A cross-sectional on-line survey was accessible to licensed physiotherapists in Alberta, Canada for 11 weeks. Physiotherapists who treated at least five patients with TJA annually were asked to complete the survey. The survey consisted of 58 questions grouped into pre-operative, acute care and post-acute rehabilitation. Variation of practice was described in terms of number, duration and type of visits along with goals of care and program delivery methods. Of the 80 respondents, 26 (33 %) stated they worked in small centres or rural settings in Alberta with the remaining respondents working in two large urban sites. The primary treatment goal differed for each phase across the continuum of care in that pre-operative phase was directed at improving muscle strength, functional activities were commonly reported for acute care, and post-acute phase was directed at improving joint range-of-motion. Proportionally, more physiotherapists from rural areas treated patients in out-patient hospital departments (59 %), whereas a higher proportion in urban physiotherapists saw patients in private clinics (48 %). Across the continuum of care, treatment was primarily delivered on an individual basis rather than in a group format. Variation of practice reported with pre-and post-operative care in the community will stimulate dialogue within the profession as to what is the minimal

  15. Variation in practice: an analysis of Scottish Surgical Profiles ENT data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yeo, J C L; Ah-See, K W; Mackenzie, K

    2013-02-01

    Variation in otolaryngology intervention rates is reported in the Scottish Surgical Profiles Project. Tonsillectomy is one of the selected key indicator procedures. The variation in practice was discussed nationally at the Scottish Otolaryngology Society summer meetings in 2009 and 2010. NHS Grampian had a significantly higher tonsillectomy rate compared with other Scottish NHS boards. To determine the accuracy of NHS Grampian data reported by the Information Service Division (ISD) and to record the appropriateness of listing of patients for tonsillectomy with reference to the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN). Retrospective review of case notes and surgical records of patients who had undergone tonsillectomy between March 2007 and March 2008 in NHS Grampian. Between March 2007 and March 2008, 509 tonsillectomy cases were performed in NHS Grampian. This corresponded to the data received from ISD. 87% of tonsillectomies performed were compliant with SIGN guidelines. The Scottish otolaryngology clinicians have found the reporting of the intervention rates stimulating and challenging. Discussion of the surgical profile project regularly at national specialty meetings resulted in a preliminary detailed targeted audit of those who were persistent outliers for tonsillectomy. This refuted the presumed reasons for this variation, namely inaccurate figures from ISD and inappropriate listings by clinicians.

  16. Phonological and acoustic bases for earliest grammatical category assignment: a cross-linguistic perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, R; Morgan, J L; Allopenna, P

    1998-02-01

    Maternal infant-directed speech in Mandarin Chinese and Turkish (two mother-child dyads each; ages of children between 0;11 and 1;8) was examined to see if cues exist in input that might assist infants' assignment of words to lexical and functional item categories. Distributional, phonological, and acoustic measures were analysed. In each language, lexical and functional items (i.e. syllabic morphemes) differed significantly on numerous measures. Despite differences in mean values between categories, distributions of values typically displayed substantial overlap. However, simulations with self-organizing neural networks supported the conclusion that although individual dimensions had low cue validity, in each language multidimensional constellations of presyntactic cues are sufficient to guide assignment of words to rudimentary grammatical categories.

  17. Blood lipid measurements. Variations and practical utility.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cooper, G R; Myers, G L; Smith, S J; Schlant, R C

    1992-03-25

    To describe the magnitude and impact of the major biological and analytical sources of variation in serum lipid and lipoprotein levels on risk of coronary heart disease; to present a way to qualitatively estimate the total intraindividual variation; and to demonstrate how to determine the number of specimens required to estimate, with 95% confidence, the "true" underlying total cholesterol value in the serum of a patient. Representative references on each source of variation were selected from more than 300 reviewed publications, most published within the past 5 years, to document current findings and concepts. Most articles reviewed were in English. Studies on biological sources of variation were selected using the following criteria: representative of published findings, clear statement of either significant or insignificant results, and acquisition of clinical and laboratory data under standardized conditions. Representative results for special populations such as women and children are reported when results differ from those of adult men. References were selected based on acceptable experimental design and use of standardized laboratory lipid measurements. The lipid levels considered representative for a selected source of variation arose from quantitative measurements by a suitably standardized laboratory. Statistical analysis of data was examined to assure reliability. The proposed method of estimating the biological coefficient of variation must be considered to give qualitative results, because only two or three serial specimens are collected in most cases for the estimation. Concern has arisen about the magnitude, impact, and interpretation of preanalytical as well as analytical sources of variation on reported results of lipid measurements of an individual. Preanalytical sources of variation from behavioral, clinical, and sampling sources constitute about 60% of the total variation in a reported lipid measurement of an individual. A technique is presented

  18. Thirty-day Readmission Rates and Associated Factors: A Multilevel Analysis of Practice Variations in French Public Psychiatry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gandré, Coralie; Gervaix, Jeanne; Thillard, Julien; Macé, Jean-Marc; Roelandt, Jean-Luc; Chevreul, Karine

    2018-03-01

    Inpatient psychiatric readmissions are often used as an indicator of the quality of care and their reduction is in line with international recommendations for mental health care. Research on variations in inpatient readmission rates among mental health care providers is therefore of key importance as these variations can impact equity, quality and efficiency of care when they do not result from differences in patients' needs. Our objectives were first to describe variations in inpatient readmission rates between public mental health care providers in France on a nationwide scale, and second, to identify their association with patient, health care providers and environment characteristics. We carried out a study for the year 2012 using data from ten administrative national databases. 30-day readmissions in inpatient care were identified in the French national psychiatric discharge database. Variations were described numerically and graphically between French psychiatric sectors and factors associated with these variations were identified by carrying out a multi-level logistic regression accounting for the hierarchical structure of the data. Significant practice variations in 30-day inpatient readmission rates were observed with a coefficient of variation above 50%. While a majority of those variations was related to differences within sectors, individual patient characteristics explained a lower part of the variations resulting from differences between sectors than the characteristics of sectors and of their environment. In particular, an increase in the mortality rate and in the acute admission rate for somatic disorders in sectors' catchment area was associated with a decrease in the probability of 30-day readmission. Similarly, an increase in the number of psychiatric inpatient beds in private for-profit hospitals per 1,000 inhabitants in sectors' catchment area was associated with a decrease in this probability, which also varied with overall sectors' case

  19. "Situatedness" and Variations in Student Adoption of Technology Practices: Towards a Critical Techno-Pedagogy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neufeld, Philip G.; Delcore, Henry D.

    2018-01-01

    Aim/Purpose: The effective adoption of an ICT across every segment of the student population may occur where the design, implementation and supports recognize and adjust for variations in adoption practices across the student population and the situatedness of the promoted ICT adoption. The goal of this study was to demonstrate methods to…

  20. Intensive Care Unit Structure Variation and Implications for Early Mobilization Practices. An International Survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bakhru, Rita N; McWilliams, David J; Wiebe, Douglas J; Spuhler, Vicki J; Schweickert, William D

    2016-09-01

    Early mobilization (EM) improves outcomes for mechanically ventilated patients. Variation in structure and organizational characteristics may affect implementation of EM practices. We queried intensive care unit (ICU) environment and standardized ICU practices to evaluate organizational characteristics that enable EM practice. We recruited 151 ICUs in France, 150 in Germany, 150 in the United Kingdom, and 500 in the United States by telephone. Survey domains included respondent characteristics, hospital and ICU characteristics, and ICU practices and protocols. We surveyed 1,484 ICU leaders and received a 64% response rate (951 ICUs). Eighty-eight percent of respondents were in nursing leadership roles; the remainder were physiotherapists. Surveyed ICUs were predominantly mixed medical-surgical units (67%), and 27% were medical ICUs. ICU staffing models differed significantly (P equipment were highly variable among respondents. International ICU structure and practice is quite heterogeneous, and several factors (multidisciplinary rounds, setting daily goals for patients, presence of a dedicated physiotherapist, country, and nurse/patient staffing ratio) are significantly associated with the practice of EM. Practice and barriers may be far different based upon staffing structure. To achieve successful implementation, whether through trials or quality improvement, ICU staffing and practice patterns must be taken into account.

  1. Reform-based science teaching: A mixed-methods approach to explaining variation in secondary science teacher practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jetty, Lauren E.

    The purpose of this two-phase, sequential explanatory mixed-methods study was to understand and explain the variation seen in secondary science teachers' enactment of reform-based instructional practices. Utilizing teacher socialization theory, this mixed-methods analysis was conducted to determine the relative influence of secondary science teachers' characteristics, backgrounds and experiences across their teacher development to explain the range of teaching practices exhibited by graduates from three reform-oriented teacher preparation programs. Data for this study were obtained from the Investigating the Meaningfulness of Preservice Programs Across the Continuum of Teaching (IMPPACT) Project, a multi-university, longitudinal study funded by NSF. In the first quantitative phase of the study, data for the sample (N=120) were collected from three surveys from the IMPPACT Project database. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to examine the separate as well as the combined influence of factors such as teachers' personal and professional background characteristics, beliefs about reform-based science teaching, feelings of preparedness to teach science, school context, school culture and climate of professional learning, and influences of the policy environment on the teachers' use of reform-based instructional practices. Findings indicate three blocks of variables, professional background, beliefs/efficacy, and local school context added significant contribution to explaining nearly 38% of the variation in secondary science teachers' use of reform-based instructional practices. The five variables that significantly contributed to explaining variation in teachers' use of reform-based instructional practices in the full model were, university of teacher preparation, sense of preparation for teaching science, the quality of professional development, science content focused professional, and the perceived level of professional autonomy. Using the results

  2. Accounting for medical variation: the case of prescribing activity in a New Zealand general practice sample.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, P B; Yee, R L; Millar, J

    1994-08-01

    Medical practice variation is extensive and well documented, particularly for surgical interventions, and raises important questions for health policy. To date, however, little work has been carried out on interpractitioner variation in prescribing activity in the primary care setting. An analytical model of medical variation is derived from the literature and relevant indicators are identified from a study of New Zealand general practice. The data are based on nearly 9,500 completed patient encounter records drawn from over a hundred practitioners in the Waikato region of the North Island, New Zealand. The data set represents a 1% sample of all weekday general practice office encounters in the Hamilton Health District recorded over a 12-month period. Overall levels of prescribing, and the distribution of drug mentions across diagnostic groupings, are broadly comparable to results drawn from international benchmark data. A multivariate analysis is carried out on seven measures of activity in the areas of prescribing volume, script detail, and therapeutic choice. The analysis indicates that patient, practitioner and practice attributes exert little systematic influence on the prescribing task. The principal influences are diagnosis, followed by practitioner identity. The pattern of findings suggests also that the prescribing task cannot be viewed as an undifferentiated activity. It is more usefully considered as a process of decision-making in which 'core' judgements--such as the decision to prescribe and the choice of drug--are highly predictable and strongly influenced by diagnosis, while 'peripheral' features of the task--such as choosing a combination drug or prescribing generically--are less determinate and more subject to the exercise of clinical discretion.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

  3. Further Evidence in Support of the Universal Nilpotent Grammatical Computational Paradigm of Quantum Physics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Marcer, Peter J.; Rowlands, Peter

    2010-01-01

    Further evidence is presented in favour of the computational paradigm, conceived and constructed by Rowlands and Diaz, as detailed in Rowlands' book Zero to Infinity (2007), and in particular the authors' paper 'The Grammatical Universe: the Laws of Thermodynamics and Quantum Entanglement'. The paradigm, which has isomorphic group and algebraic quantum mechanical language interpretations, not only predicts the well-established facts of quantum physics, the periodic table, chemistry / valence and of molecular biology, whose understanding it extends; it also provides an elegant, simple solution to the unresolved quantum measurement problem. In this fundamental paradigm, all the computational constructs / predictions that emerge, follow from the simple fact, that, as in quantum mechanics, the wave function is defined only up to an arbitrary fixed phase. This fixed phase provides a simple physical understanding of the quantum vacuum in quantum field theory, where only relative phases, known to be able to encode 3+1 relativistic space-time geometries, can be measured. It is the arbitrary fixed measurement standard, against which everything that follows is to be measured, even though the standard itself cannot be, since nothing exists against which to measure it. The standard, as an arbitrary fixed reference phase, functions as the holographic basis for a self-organized universal quantum process of emergent novel fermion states of matter where, following each emergence, the arbitrary standard is re-fixed anew so as to provide a complete history / holographic record or hologram of the current fixed past, advancing an unending irreversible evolution, such as is the evidence of our senses. The fermion states, in accord with the Pauli exclusion principle, each correspond to a unique nilpotent symbol in the infinite alphabet (which specifies the grammar in this nilpotent universal computational rewrite system (NUCRS) paradigm); and the alphabet, as Hill and Rowlands

  4. Grammatical gender effects on cognition: implications for language learning and language use.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vigliocco, Gabriella; Vinson, David P; Paganelli, Federica; Dworzynski, Katharina

    2005-11-01

    In 4 experiments, the authors addressed the mechanisms by which grammatical gender (in Italian and German) may come to affect meaning. In Experiments 1 (similarity judgments) and 2 (semantic substitution errors), the authors found Italian gender effects for animals but not for artifacts; Experiment 3 revealed no comparable effects in German. These results suggest that gender effects arise as a generalization from an established association between gender of nouns and sex of human referents, extending to nouns referring to sexuated entities. Across languages, such effects are found when the language allows for easy mapping between gender of nouns and sex of human referents (Italian) but not when the mapping is less transparent (German). A final experiment provided further constraints: These effects during processing arise at a lexical-semantic level rather than at a conceptual level. Copyright (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved.

  5. Variation in esophageal physiology testing in clinical practice: Results from an international survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sweis, R; Heinrich, H; Fox, M

    2018-03-01

    Advances in clinical measurement of esophageal motility and function have improved the assessment of swallowing disorders and reflux symptoms. Variation in data acquisition, analysis, and reporting exists and impacts on diagnosis and management. This study examined variation in esophageal manometry methodology between institutions to establish the status in current practice. A structured survey was distributed through international NGM societies using an Internet-based platform. Questions explored infrastructure, technology, analysis, and reporting. Responses were received from 91 centers from 29 countries. Eighteen (20%) centers used "conventional" manometry, 75 (82%) high-resolution manometry, and 53 (58%) HR impedance manometry. All centers documented motility for single water swallows. The Chicago Classification was applied by 65 (71.4%) centers. In contrast, analysis of EGJ morphology varied widely. Adjunctive testing was often applied: multiple rapid swallows (77%), rapid drink challenge (77%), single solid swallows (63%), and a standard test meal (18%). Of 86 (94.5%) units that offered pH impedance (pH-Z) studies, approximately half (53.5%) performed tests on acid-suppressant medication in patients with a high pretest probability (eg, erosive esophagitis). Most (75.6%) centers manually reviewed every reflux event. Others examined pH-Z data only prior to symptoms. To assess symptom association with reflux events, 73.6% centers analyzed each symptom separately, whereas 29.7% centers pooled symptoms. There is marked variation in the data acquisition, analysis, and reporting of esophageal manometry studies. Further efforts to improve quality and uniformity in testing and reporting are required. This survey provides information upon which best-practice guidelines can be developed. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  6. Functional Grammar in the ESL Classroom: Noticing, Exploring and Practicing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lock, Graham; Jones, Rodney

    2011-01-01

    A set of easy to use techniques helps students discover for themselves how grammar works in real world contexts and how grammatical choices are not just about form but about meaning. Sample teaching ideas, covering a wide range of grammatical topics including verb tense, voice, reference and the organization of texts, accompanies each procedure.…

  7. Practice variation in the management of intrapartum fetal distress in The Netherlands and the Western world

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bullens, L.M.; Moors, S.; Runnard Heimel, van P.J.; van der Hout-van der Jagt, M.B.; Oei, G.

    2016-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: Solid evidence on the effect of intrauterine resuscitation on neonatal outcome is limited, and superiority of one intervention over the others is not clear. We therefore surveyed the clinical practice variation in fetal monitoring and the management of fetal distress during labor, in

  8. Practice pattern variation in surgical management of pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence in The Netherlands

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ijsselmuiden, M.N.; Detollenaere, R.J.; Kampen, M.Y.; Engberts, M.K.; Eijndhoven, H.W. van

    2015-01-01

    INTRODUCTION: Practice pattern variation (PPV) is the difference in care that cannot be explained by the underlying medical condition. The aim of this study was to describe PPV among Dutch gynecologists regarding treatment of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and urinary incontinence (UI). MATERIALS AND

  9. Practice Variation in Management of Childhood Asthma Is Associated with Outcome Differences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garbutt, Jane M; Yan, Yan; Strunk, Robert C

    2016-01-01

    Although specialist asthma care improves children's asthma outcomes, the impact of primary care management is unknown. To determine whether variation in preventive and acute care for asthma in pediatric practices affects patients' outcomes. For 22 practices, we aggregated 12-month patient data obtained by chart review and parent telephone interviews for 948 children, 3 to 12 years old, diagnosed with asthma to obtain practice-level measures of preventive (≥1 asthma maintenance visit/year) and acute (≥1 acute asthma visit/year) asthma care. Relationships between practice-level measures and individual asthma outcomes (symptom-free days, parental quality of life, emergency department [ED] visits, and hospitalizations) were explored using generalized estimating equations, adjusting for seasonality, specialist care, Medicaid insurance, single-family status, and race. For every 10% increase in the proportion of children in the practice receiving preventive care, symptom-free days per child increased by 7.6 days (P = .02) and ED visits per child decreased by 16.5% (P = .002), with no difference in parental quality of life or hospitalizations. Only the association between more preventive care and fewer ED visits persisted in adjusted analysis (12.2% reduction; P = .03). For every 10% increase in acute care provision, ED visits per child and hospitalizations per child decreased by 18.1% (P = .02) and 16.5% (P asthma care had improved outcomes, both impairment and risk. Persistence of improved risk outcomes in the adjusted analyses suggests that practice-level interventions to increase asthma care may reduce childhood asthma disparities. Copyright © 2016 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. Chinese L1 children's English L2 verb morphology over time: individual variation in long-term outcomes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paradis, Johanne; Tulpar, Yasemin; Arppe, Antti

    2016-05-01

    This study examined accuracy in production and grammaticality judgements of verb morphology by eighteen Chinese-speaking children learning English as a second language (L2) followed longitudinally from four to six years of exposure to English, and who began to learn English at age 4;2. Children's growth in accuracy with verb morphology reached a plateau by six years, where 11/18 children did not display native-speaker levels of accuracy for one or more morphemes. Variation in children's accuracy with verb morphology was predicted by their English vocabulary size and verbal short-term memories primarily, and quality and quantity of English input at home secondarily. This study shows that even very young L2 learners might not all catch up to native speakers in this time frame and that non-age factors play a role in determining individual variation in child L2 learners' long-term outcomes with English morphology.

  11. AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN SPEECH AT THE STUDENTS OF ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM OF MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF METRO ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/2014

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    Septian Dwi Sondiana

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available The objectives of the research are to find out the types of grammatical errors in English students’ speech; to find out the percentage of grammatical errors in English students’ speech; to find out the factors influencing English students’ grammatical errors in their speech. Based on the data, the students have problem in producing verb group, errors in subject-verb agreement, errors in the use of articles, errors in the use of prepositions, errors in noun pluralization, errors in the use of pronouns, and errors in the use of conjunctions. It shows that Anisa made eleven sentences in 2 minutes 28 seconds. She made eight errors. Dewi made seven sentences in 1 minutes 57 seconds. She made five errors. Fatika made sixteen sentences in 4 minutes 14 seconds. She made eight errors. Fitri made sixteen sentences in 4 minutes 23 seconds. She made seven errors. Ibnu  made  ten sentences in 2 minutes 18 seconds. He made eight errors. Linda made fiveteen sentences in 3 minutes 7 seconds. She made eight errors. Musli made fourteen sentences in 2 minutes 39 seconds. She made six errors. Nyoman made twelve sentences in 3 minutes 43 seconds. He made nine errors. Pera made ten sentences in 2 minutes 23 seconds. She made seven errors. Sri made fourteen sentences in 6 minutes 34 seconds. She made eleven errors. And about the percentages of errors, here is the data; Anisa: 72,73% of errors; Dewi: 71,4% of errors; Fatika: 50% of errors; Fitri: 43,75% of errors; Ibnu: 80% of errors; Linda: 53,3% of errors; Musli: 42,8% of errors; Nyoman: 75% of errors; Pera: 70% of errors; Sri: 78,57% of errors. Based on interview, it shows it can be concluded the factors influence of English students’ grammatical errors in their speech when their speak using grammar rule. The internal factors are; The first, the students are still difficult to make feeling, for example; confident, feel scary, when they are speaking in public. The second, the students are not mastered in

  12. Annotated corpus and the empirical evaluation of probability estimates of grammatical forms

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    Ševa Nada

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the present study is to demonstrate the usage of an annotated corpus in the field of experimental psycholinguistics. Specifically, we demonstrate how the manually annotated Corpus of Serbian Language (Kostić, Đ. 2001 can be used for probability estimates of grammatical forms, which allow the control of independent variables in psycholinguistic experiments. We address the issue of processing Serbian inflected forms within two subparadigms of feminine nouns. In regression analysis, almost all processing variability of inflected forms has been accounted for by the amount of information (i.e. bits carried by the presented forms. In spite of the fact that probability distributions of inflected forms for the two paradigms differ, it was shown that the best prediction of processing variability is obtained by the probabilities derived from the predominant subparadigm which encompasses about 80% of feminine nouns. The relevance of annotated corpora in experimental psycholinguistics is discussed more in detail .

  13. Practice variation in the transfer of premature infants from incubators to open cots in Australian and New Zealand neonatal nurseries: results of an electronic survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    New, Karen; Bogossian, Fiona; East, Christine; Davies, Mark William

    2010-06-01

    The incubator environment is essential for optimal physiological functioning and development of the premature infant but the infant is ultimately required to make a successful transfer from incubator to open cot in order to be discharged from hospital. Criteria for transfer lack a systematic approach because no clear, specific guideline predominates in clinical practice. Practice variation exists between continents, regions and nurseries in the same countries, but there is no recent review of current practices utilised for transferring premature infants from incubators to open cots. To document current practice for transferring premature infants to open cots in neonatal nurseries. A descriptive, cross-sectional survey. Twenty-two neonatal intensive care units and fifty-six high dependency special care baby units located in public hospitals in Australia and New Zealand. A sample of 78 key clinical nursing leaders (nurse unit managers, clinical nurse consultants or clinical nurse specialists) within neonatal nurseries identified through email or telephone contact. Data were collected using a web-based survey on practice, decision-making and strategies utilised for transferring premature infants from incubators to open cots. Descriptive statistics (frequencies and crosstabs) were used to analyse data. Comparisons between groups were tested for statistical significance using Chi-squared or Fisher's exact test. Significant practice variation between countries was found for only one variable, nursing infants clothed (p=0.011). Processes and practices undertaken similarly in both countries include use of incubator air control mode, current weight criterion, thermal challenging, single-walled incubators and heated mattress systems. Practice variation was significant between neonatal intensive care units and special care baby units for weight range (p=0.005), evidence-based practice (p=0.004), historical nursery practice (p=0.029) and incubator air control mode (p=0

  14. Calculus of variations

    CERN Document Server

    Elsgolc, Lev D

    2007-01-01

    This concise text offers both professionals and students an introduction to the fundamentals and standard methods of the calculus of variations. In addition to surveys of problems with fixed and movable boundaries, it explores highly practical direct methods for the solution of variational problems.Topics include the method of variation in problems with fixed boundaries; variational problems with movable boundaries and other problems; sufficiency conditions for an extremum; variational problems of constrained extrema; and direct methods of solving variational problems. Each chapter features nu

  15. Towards the Lexicographic Description of the Grammatical Behaviour of Japanese Loanwords: A Case Study

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    Toshinobu MOGI

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available The present papers offers a case study of a Japanese loanword verb, with the aim of contributing to corpus-based research on Japanese loanwords and of providing a foundation for the compilation of a dictionary of grammatical patterns of loanwords for learners of Japanese as a foreign language. The case study presents an analysis of actual usage of loanword suru-verbs in the large-scale Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese, which is followed by a detailed analysis of all examples of the polysemous verb katto-suru. It is thereby shown how corpora can help in describing loanwords by matching a word’s meaning with its patterns of usage, and how such a description can be useful to learners of Japanese as a foreign language.

  16. The Main Anatomic Variations of the Hepatic Artery and Their Importance in Surgical Practice: Review of the Literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Noussios, George; Dimitriou, Ioannis; Chatzis, Iosif; Katsourakis, Anastasios

    2017-04-01

    Anatomical variations of the hepatic artery are important in the planning and performance of abdominal surgical procedures. Normal hepatic anatomy occurs in approximately 80% of cases, for the remaining 20% multiple variations have been described. The purpose of this study was to review the existing literature on the hepatic anatomy and to stress out its importance in surgical practice. Two main databases were searched for eligible articles during the period 2000 - 2015, and results concerning more than 19,000 patients were included in the study. The most common variation was the replaced right hepatic artery (type III according to Michels classification) which is the chief source of blood supply to the bile duct.

  17. The Grammar of Technique: Inside "Continuidad de los Parques" (Continuity of the Parks).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lunn, Patricia V.; Albrecht, Jane W.

    1997-01-01

    Discusses the manipulation of various grammatical devices in a Spanish short story. Points out that variations in the use of verbal aspect mark stages in the development of the plot and that modal and lexical choices reinforce its reflexive and repetitive nature. Argues that this story exemplifies creative use of grammatical choices. (13…

  18. On the flexibility of grammatical advance planning during sentence production: Effects of cognitive load on multiple lexical access.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wagner, Valentin; Jescheniak, Jörg D; Schriefers, Herbert

    2010-03-01

    Three picture-word interference experiments addressed the question of whether the scope of grammatical advance planning in sentence production corresponds to some fixed unit or rather is flexible. Subjects produced sentences of different formats under varying amounts of cognitive load. When speakers described 2-object displays with simple sentences of the form "the frog is next to the mug," the 2 nouns were found to be lexically-semantically activated to similar degrees at speech onset, as indexed by similarly sized interference effects from semantic distractors related to either the first or the second noun. When speakers used more complex sentences (including prenominal color adjectives; e.g., "the blue frog is next to the blue mug") much larger interference effects were observed for the first than the second noun, suggesting that the second noun was lexically-semantically activated before speech onset on only a subset of trials. With increased cognitive load, introduced by an additional conceptual decision task and variable utterance formats, the interference effect for the first noun was increased and the interference effect for second noun disappeared, suggesting that the scope of advance planning had been narrowed. By contrast, if cognitive load was induced by a secondary working memory task to be performed during speech planning, the interference effect for both nouns was increased, suggesting that the scope of advance planning had not been affected. In all, the data suggest that the scope of advance planning during grammatical encoding in sentence production is flexible, rather than structurally fixed.

  19. Marked variation in newborn resuscitation practice: A national survey in the UK☆

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mann, Chantelle; Ward, Carole; Grubb, Mark; Hayes-Gill, Barrie; Crowe, John; Marlow, Neil; Sharkey, Don

    2012-01-01

    Background Although international newborn resuscitation guidance has been in force for some time, there are no UK data on current newborn resuscitation practices. Objective Establish delivery room (DR) resuscitation practices in the UK, and identify any differences between neonatal intensive care units (NICU), and other local neonatal services. Methods We conducted a structured two-stage survey of DR management, among UK neonatal units during 2009–2010 (n = 192). Differences between NICU services (tertiary level) and other local neonatal services (non-tertiary) were analysed using Fisher's exact and Student's t-tests. Results There was an 89% response rate (n = 171). More tertiary NICUs institute DR CPAP than non-tertiary units (43% vs. 16%, P = 0.0001) though there was no significant difference in frequency of elective intubation and surfactant administration for preterm babies. More tertiary units commence DR resuscitation in air (62% vs. 29%, P < 0.0001) and fewer in 100% oxygen (11% vs. 41%, P < 0.0001). Resuscitation of preterm babies in particular, commences with air in 56% of tertiary units. Significantly more tertiary units use DR pulse oximeters (58% vs. 29%, P < 0.01) and titrate oxygen based on saturations. Almost all services use occlusive wrapping to maintain temperature for preterm infants. Conclusions In the UK, there are many areas of good evidence based DR practice. However, there is marked variation in management, including between units of different designation, suggesting a need to review practice to fulfil new resuscitation guidance, which will have training and resource implications. PMID:22245743

  20. How normal is grammatical development in the right hemisphere following hemispherectomy? The root infinitive stage and beyond.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Curtiss, Susan; de Bode, Stella

    2003-08-01

    We examined the morphosyntax of eight left hemispherectomized children at two different stages and compared it to MLU-matched normals. We found that the language of the hemispherectomies paralleled that of their MLU matches with respect to the specific morphosyntactic characteristics of each stage. Our findings provide strong evidence for the presence of functional categories in all early grammars and demonstrate that grammatical development, regardless of its neural substrate, is highly constrained by UG and follows a narrowly determined course. We discuss our findings within a neurobiological framework in which etiology defines the integrity of the remaining hemisphere, which in turn, determines its potential for linguistic reorganization and/or acquisition.

  1. Grammatical categories in the brain: the role of morphological structure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Longe, O; Randall, B; Stamatakis, E A; Tyler, L K

    2007-08-01

    The current study addresses the controversial issue of how different grammatical categories are neurally processed. Several lesion-deficit studies suggest that distinct neural substrates underlie the representation of nouns and verbs, with verb deficits associated with damage to left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and noun deficits with damage to left temporal cortex. However, this view is not universally shared by neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies. We have suggested that these inconsistencies may reflect interactions between the morphological structure of nouns and verbs and the processing implications of this, rather than differences in their neural representations (Tyler et al. 2004). We tested this hypothesis using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, to scan subjects performing a valence judgment on unambiguous nouns and verbs, presented as stems ('snail, hear') and inflected forms ('snails, hears'). We predicted that activations for noun and verb stems would not differ, whereas inflected verbs would generate more activation in left frontotemporal areas than inflected nouns. Our findings supported this hypothesis, with greater activation of this network for inflected verbs compared with inflected nouns. These results support the claim that form class is not a first-order organizing principle underlying the representation of words but rather interacts with the processes that operate over lexical representations.

  2. Substitution as a Device of Grammatical Cohesion in English Contexts

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    Mohammad Reza Hasannejad

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available The present study set out to investigate the effect of teaching substitution as a kind of grammatical cohesion on the true identification of confusing substitution elements with cohesive or non-cohesive roles in different contexts and also the production of modal, reporting and conditional contexts through clausal substitution acquaintance. To this end, the following procedures were taken. First 120 male and female EFL students were selected from Iranshahr Azad University. Having administered the language proficiency test, researchers selected 80 students as intermediate subjects according to their TOEFL band scores. First, pretests of cohesion identification (substitution and production of modal, reporting and conditional environments were administered to both control and experimental groups. Then, the experimental group was exposed to the teaching of the above-said above-mentioned cohesive device. Finally, post-tests of substitution elements’ identification and modal, reporting and conditional contexts’ production through clausal substitution familiarity were administered. The results showed that cohesive device treatment helped students on the true identification of substitution elements. Another finding proved that EFL students might have no difficulty in learning certain rules or classification of rules and application of their clausal substitution knowledge in creating modal, reporting and conditional contexts. Our findings can have implications for the field of language learning and teaching.

  3. Input and Age-Dependent Variation in Second Language Learning: A Connectionist Account.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Janciauskas, Marius; Chang, Franklin

    2017-07-26

    Language learning requires linguistic input, but several studies have found that knowledge of second language (L2) rules does not seem to improve with more language exposure (e.g., Johnson & Newport, 1989). One reason for this is that previous studies did not factor out variation due to the different rules tested. To examine this issue, we reanalyzed grammaticality judgment scores in Flege, Yeni-Komshian, and Liu's (1999) study of L2 learners using rule-related predictors and found that, in addition to the overall drop in performance due to a sensitive period, L2 knowledge increased with years of input. Knowledge of different grammar rules was negatively associated with input frequency of those rules. To better understand these effects, we modeled the results using a connectionist model that was trained using Korean as a first language (L1) and then English as an L2. To explain the sensitive period in L2 learning, the model's learning rate was reduced in an age-related manner. By assigning different learning rates for syntax and lexical learning, we were able to model the difference between early and late L2 learners in input sensitivity. The model's learning mechanism allowed transfer between the L1 and L2, and this helped to explain the differences between different rules in the grammaticality judgment task. This work demonstrates that an L1 model of learning and processing can be adapted to provide an explicit account of how the input and the sensitive period interact in L2 learning. © 2017 The Authors. Cognitive Science - A Multidisciplinary Journal published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  4. The interaction of grammatical aspect and temporal distance in motion descriptions

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    Sarah eAnderson

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Grammatical aspect is known to shape event understanding. However, little is known about how it interacts with other important temporal information, such as recent and distant past. The current work uses computer-mouse tracking (Spivey, Grosjean, & Knoblich, 2005 to explore the interaction of aspect and temporal context. Participants in our experiment listened to past motion event descriptions that varied according to aspect (simple past, past progressive and temporal distance (recent past, distant past while viewing scenes with paths and implied destinations. Participants used a computer mouse to place characters into the scene to match event descriptions. Our results indicated that aspect and temporal context interact in interesting ways. When aspect placed emphasis on the ongoing details of the event and the temporal context was recent (thus, making fine details available in memory, this match between conditions elicited smoother and faster computer mouse movements than when conditions mismatched. Likewise, when aspect placed emphasis on the less-detailed end state of the event and temporal context was in the distant past (thus making fine details less available, this match between conditions also elicited smoother and faster computer mouse movements.

  5. The Main Anatomical Variations of the Pancreatic Duct System: Review of the Literature and Its Importance in Surgical Practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dimitriou, Ioannis; Katsourakis, Anastasios; Nikolaidou, Eirini; Noussios, George

    2018-05-01

    Anatomical variations or anomalies of the pancreatic ducts are important in the planning and performance of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) and surgical procedures of the pancreas. Normal pancreatic duct anatomy occurs in approximately 94.3% of cases, and multiple variations have been described for the remaining 5.7%. The purpose of this study was to review the literature on the pancreatic duct anatomy and to underline its importance in daily invasive endoscopic and surgical practice. Two main databases were searched for suitable articles published from 2000 to 2017, and results concerning more than 8,200 patients were included in the review. The most common anatomical variation was that of pancreas divisum, which appeared in approximately 4.5% of cases.

  6. Practice variation in the Dutch long-term care and the role of supply-sensitive care: Is access to the Dutch long-term care equitable?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duell, Daisy; Koolman, Xander; Portrait, France

    2017-12-01

    Universal access and generous coverage are important goals of the Dutch long-term care (LTC) system. It is a legal requirement that everyone eligible for LTC should be able to receive it. Institutional care (IC) made up for 90% of Dutch LTC spending. To investigate whether access to IC is as equitable as the Dutch government aspires, we explored practice variation in entitlements to IC across Dutch regions. We used a unique dataset that included all individual applications for Dutch LTC in January 2010-December 2013 (N = 3,373,358). This dataset enabled an accurate identification of the need for care. We examined the local variation in the probability of being granted long-term IC and in the intensity of the care granted given that individuals have applied for LTC. We also investigated whether the variation observed was related to differences in the local availability of care facilities. Although our analyses indicated the presence of some practice variation, its magnitude was very small by national and international standards (up to 3%). Only a minor part of the practice variation could be accounted for by local supply differences in care facilities. Overall, we conclude that, unlike many other developed countries, the Dutch system ensured equitable access to long-term IC. © 2017 The Authors. Health Economics Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  7. Factors influencing variation in dentist service rates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grembowski, D; Milgrom, P; Fiset, L

    1990-01-01

    In the previous article, we calculated dentist service rates for 200 general dentists based on a homogeneous, well-educated, upper-middle-class population of patients. Wide variations in the rates were detected. In this analysis, factors influencing variation in the rates were identified. Variation in rates for categories of dental services was explained by practice characteristics, patient exposure to fluoridated water supplies, and non-price competition in the dental market. Rates were greatest in large, busy practices in markets with high fees. Older practices consistently had lower rates across services. As a whole, these variables explained between 5 and 30 percent of the variation in the rates.

  8. Variation in Point-of-Care Testing of HbA1c in Diabetes Care in General Practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kristensen, Troels; Waldorff, Frans Boch; Nexøe, Jørgen; Skovsgaard, Christian Volmar; Olsen, Kim Rose

    2017-11-09

    Background: Point-of-care testing (POCT) of HbA1c may result in improved diabetic control, better patient outcomes, and enhanced clinical efficiency with fewer patient visits and subsequent reductions in costs. In 2008, the Danish regulators created a framework agreement regarding a new fee-for-service fee for the remuneration of POCT of HbA1c in general practice. According to secondary research, only the Capital Region of Denmark has allowed GPs to use this new incentive for POCT. The aim of this study is to use patient data to characterize patients with diabetes who have received POCT of HbA1c and analyze the variation in the use of POCT of HbA1c among patients with diabetes in Danish general practice. Methods: We use register data from the Danish Drug Register, the Danish Health Service Register and the National Patient Register from the year 2011 to define a population of 44,981 patients with diabetes (type 1 and type 2 but not patients with gestational diabetes) from the Capital Region. The POCT fee is used to measure the amount of POCT of HbA1c among patients with diabetes. Next, we apply descriptive statistics and multilevel logistic regression to analyze variation in the prevalence of POCT at the patient and clinic level. We include patient characteristics such as gender, age, socioeconomic markers, health care utilization, case mix markers, and municipality classifications. Results: The proportion of patients who received POCT was 14.1% and the proportion of clinics which were "POCT clinics" was 26.9%. There were variations in the use of POCT across clinics and patients. A part of the described variation can be explained by patient characteristics. Male gender, age differences (older age), short education, and other ethnicity imply significantly higher odds for POCT. High patient costs in general practice and other parts of primary care also imply higher odds for POCT. In contrast, high patient costs for drugs and/or morbidity in terms of the Charlson

  9. International variations in clinical practice guidelines for palliative sedation: a systematic review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abarshi, Ebun; Rietjens, Judith; Robijn, Lenzo; Caraceni, Augusto; Payne, Sheila; Deliens, Luc; Van den Block, Lieve

    2017-09-01

    Palliative sedation is a highly debated medical practice, particularly regarding its proper use in end-of-life care. Worldwide, guidelines are used to standardise care and regulate this practice. In this review, we identify and compare national/regional clinical practice guidelines on palliative sedation against the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) palliative sedation Framework and assess the developmental quality of these guidelines using the Appraisal Guideline Research and Evaluation (AGREE II) instrument. Using the PRISMA criteria, we searched multiple databases (PubMed, CancerLit, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, NHS Evidence and Google Scholar) for relevant guidelines, and selected those written in English, Dutch and Italian; published between January 2000 and March 2016. Of 264 hits, 13 guidelines-Belgium, Canada (3), Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Europe, and USA (2) were selected. 8 contained at least 9/10 recommendations published in the EAPC Framework; 9 recommended 'pre-emptive discussion of the potential role of sedation in end-of-life care'; 9 recommended 'nutrition/hydration while performing sedation' and 8 acknowledged the need to 'care for the medical team'. There were striking differences in terminologies used and in life expectancy preceding the practice. Selected guidelines were conceptually similar, comparing closely to the EAPC Framework recommendations, albeit with notable variations. Based on AGREE II, 3 guidelines achieved top scores and could therefore be recommended for use in this context. Also, domains 'scope and purpose' and 'editorial independence' ranked highest and lowest, respectively-underscoring the importance of good reportage at the developmental stage. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

  10. 27 Transformational Relations as Elegant Variation in Writing

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    User

    2010-10-17

    Oct 17, 2010 ... Transformational relations or relations of grammatical paraphrase describe .... Present: Okafor slaughters goats. Okafor writes letters. Goats are slaughtered by ... addition of the auxiliary verb BE and the 'ed' form of the past participle of ..... admixture of the patterns of simple, complex, compound, compound-.

  11. Analisis Kohesi Gramatikal dan Leksikal pada Teks Eksposisi Siswa Kelas 10 Sekolah Menengah Atas

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    Yustina Dwinuryati

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to describe the use of grammatical and lexical cohesion markers, the variation of the grammatical and lexical cohesion markers use, and the misuse of cohesion markers on the exposition of the students. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative method. Data sources came from a collection of students expository text, with purposive sampling as data analysis technique. The results of this study indicates that: (1 the most used grammatical cohesion marker by class X IPS 2 students is the reference form with the highest appearance of 42 data, while the lexical cohesion marker most used is form repetition with the highest appearance of 13 data; (2 the use of the grammatical and lexical cohesion marker in writing the exposition has been shown to be varied, although the use is still uneven; (3 the most common misuse of grammatical cohesion marker in the student exposition is the use of the conjunction with the percentage of 73.08%.

  12. Development of clinical process measures for pediatric burn care: Understanding variation in practice patterns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kazis, Lewis E; Sheridan, Robert L; Shapiro, Gabriel D; Lee, Austin F; Liang, Matthew H; Ryan, Colleen M; Schneider, Jeffrey C; Lydon, Martha; Soley-Bori, Marina; Sonis, Lily A; Dore, Emily C; Palmieri, Tina; Herndon, David; Meyer, Walter; Warner, Petra; Kagan, Richard; Stoddard, Frederick J; Murphy, Michael; Tompkins, Ronald G

    2018-04-01

    There has been little systematic examination of variation in pediatric burn care clinical practices and its effect on outcomes. As a first step, current clinical care processes need to be operationally defined. The highly specialized burn care units of the Shriners Hospitals for Children system present an opportunity to describe the processes of care. The aim of this study was to develop a set of process-based measures for pediatric burn care and examine adherence to them by providers in a cohort of pediatric burn patients. We conducted a systematic literature review to compile a set of process-based indicators. These measures were refined by an expert panel of burn care providers, yielding 36 process-based indicators in four clinical areas: initial evaluation and resuscitation, acute excisional surgery and critical care, psychosocial and pain control, and reconstruction and aftercare. We assessed variability in adherence to the indicators in a cohort of 1,076 children with burns at four regional pediatric burn programs in the Shriners Hospital system. The percentages of the cohort at each of the four sites were as follows: Boston, 20.8%; Cincinnati, 21.1%; Galveston, 36.0%; and Sacramento, 22.1%. The cohort included children who received care between 2006 and 2010. Adherence to the process indicators varied both across sites and by clinical area. Adherence was lowest for the clinical areas of acute excisional surgery and critical care, with a range of 35% to 48% across sites, followed by initial evaluation and resuscitation (range, 34%-60%). In contrast, the clinical areas of psychosocial and pain control and reconstruction and aftercare had relatively high adherence across sites, with ranges of 62% to 93% and 71% to 87%, respectively. Of the 36 process indicators, 89% differed significantly in adherence between clinical sites (p measures represents an important step in the assessment of clinical practice in pediatric burn care. Substantial variation was observed

  13. Endogenous sources of variation in language acquisition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Chung-Hye; Musolino, Julien; Lidz, Jeffrey

    2016-01-26

    A fundamental question in the study of human language acquisition centers around apportioning explanatory force between the experience of the learner and the core knowledge that allows learners to represent that experience. We provide a previously unidentified kind of data identifying children's contribution to language acquisition. We identify one aspect of grammar that varies unpredictably across a population of speakers of what is ostensibly a single language. We further demonstrate that the grammatical knowledge of parents and their children is independent. The combination of unpredictable variation and parent-child independence suggests that the relevant structural feature is supplied by each learner independent of experience with the language. This structural feature is abstract because it controls variation in more than one construction. The particular case we examine is the position of the verb in the clause structure of Korean. Because Korean is a head-final language, evidence for the syntactic position of the verb is both rare and indirect. We show that (i) Korean speakers exhibit substantial variability regarding this aspect of the grammar, (ii) this variability is attested between speakers but not within a speaker, (iii) this variability controls interpretation in two surface constructions, and (iv) it is independent in parents and children. According to our findings, when the exposure language is compatible with multiple grammars, learners acquire a single systematic grammar. Our observation that children and their parents vary independently suggests that the choice of grammar is driven in part by a process operating internal to individual learners.

  14. Impact de la littérature dans l’apprentissage grammatical en français langue seconde? À l’écoute des commentaires des étudiants.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laura Ambrosio

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available RésuméLes recherches semblent confirmer un lien important entre l'apprentissage d'une langue et l'exposition à la littérature dans cette langue en salle de classe, surtout en ce qui touche une subséquente amélioration de la compétence communicative des apprenants. La recherche présentée dans cet article s'inscrit dans un projet qui avait pour objectif de vérifier, auprès d'une population d'étudiants universitaires de niveau intermédiaire, s'il y avait amélioration de l'acquisition et de la compétence grammaticale par l'intégration d'extraits littéraires. Cette étude en apprentissage des langues secondes a été structurée dans l'optique d'une approche axée sur le contenu. Cet article présente les résultats des groupes de discussion et les commentaires exprimés par les étudiants face à l'intégration de textes littéraires ainsi que les liens qu'ils établissent entre l'utilisation de la littérature et leur perception de la compétence grammaticale.Mots-clefs : Français langue seconde - littérature - grammaireAbstractResearch seems to confirm an important link existing between the learning of a second language and the fact that a systematic introduction of excerpts of literature can facilitate language learning, particularly with grammatical components of the second language. This paper relates part of a research project aimed at verifying, with a population of university students of intermediate level in French as a second language if there was an improvement in the acquisition and grammatical competence through the use excerpts of literature. This study has been structured in the framework of the content-based approach. This article summarizes the results of group discussions and the comments of the students on the use of literary excerpts and their perception of grammatical competence.

  15. Practice Variation in Spontaneous Breathing Trial Performance and Reporting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stephanie Godard

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Background. Spontaneous breathing trials (SBTs are standard of care in assessing extubation readiness; however, there are no universally accepted guidelines regarding their precise performance and reporting. Objective. To investigate variability in SBT practice across centres. Methods. Data from 680 patients undergoing 931 SBTs from eight North American centres from the Weaning and Variability Evaluation (WAVE observational study were examined. SBT performance was analyzed with respect to ventilatory support, oxygen requirements, and sedation level using the Richmond Agitation Scale Score (RASS. The incidence of use of clinical extubation criteria and changes in physiologic parameters during an SBT were assessed. Results. The majority (80% and 78% of SBTs used 5 cmH2O of ventilator support, although there was variability. A significant range in oxygenation was observed. RASS scores were variable, with RASS 0 ranging from 29% to 86% and 22% of SBTs performed in sedated patients (RASS < −2. Clinical extubation criteria were heterogeneous among centres. On average, there was no change in physiological variables during SBTs. Conclusion. The present study highlights variation in SBT performance and documentation across and within sites. With their impact on the accuracy of outcome prediction, these results support efforts to further clarify and standardize optimal SBT technique.

  16. The Effect of Study Abroad on Grammatical Accuracy of Indonesian Students’ Oral and Written Performance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kristian Adi Putra

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This  correlational  study investigates the  effect  of  study  abroad  of two  exchange  students (SA from  Indonesia  in  public  schools  in the United  States  on  their  grammatical  accuracy as  compared  to the oral and written performance of two first year college students through  formal  instruction (FI in  Indonesia  never  experiencing living  in  L2  environment.  Speech  samples  were  elicited  through interview via-Skype, while writing samples were obtained through writing task. The result of this study shows that in oral and written performance, SA participants used more accurate grammar than FI participants.  However,  SA  participants  were  more  accurate  in using  the  three  tenses  in  writing (90% than  in  speaking  (87%, while FI participants showed different result, i.e. their grammatical accuracy of speaking (78% was higher than that of writing (76%.Studi  korelasional  ini  meneliti  efek  studi  di  luar negeri  untuk dua siswa  Indonesia  program  pertukaran (SA di  sekolah  negeri Amerika Serikat  dalam  hal  ketepatan  gramatikal  yang dibandingkan dengan ketrampilan lesan dan tulis mahasiswa tahun pertama  melalui  instruksi  formal  (FI di  Indonesia  yang  belum pernah  tinggal  di  lingkungan  bahasa  kedua. Sampel  ketrampilan lesan dikumpulkan lewat wawancara via Skype, sedangkan sampel ketrampilan tulis  diperoleh  melalui  tugas  mengarang.  Hasil penelitian  ini  menunjukkan  bahwa dalam  ketrampilan lesan  dan tulis,  akurasi  gramatikal  peserta  SA  lebih  tinggi  daripada  peserta FI. Namun demikian, peserta SA lebih akurat dalam menggunakan tiga kala dalam mengarang (90% daripada penggunaan kala dalam berbicara  (87%,  sementara  peserta  FI menunjukkan  hasil  yang berbeda,  yaitu  akurasi  gramatikal  berbicara  (78%  lebih  tinggi daripada akurasi gramatikal mengarang (76%.

  17. Cladistic analysis of Bantu languages: a new tree based on combined lexical and grammatical data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rexová, Kateřina; Bastin, Yvonne; Frynta, Daniel

    2006-04-01

    The phylogeny of the Bantu languages is reconstructed by application of the cladistic methodology to the combined lexical and grammatical data (87 languages, 144 characters). A maximum parsimony tree and Bayesian analysis supported some previously recognized clades, e.g., that of eastern and southern Bantu languages. Moreover, the results revealed that Bantu languages south and east of the equatorial forest are probably monophyletic. It suggests an unorthodox scenario of Bantu expansion including (after initial radiation in their homelands and neighboring territories) just a single passage through rainforest areas followed by a subsequent divergence into major clades. The likely localization of this divergence is in the area west of the Great Lakes. It conforms to the view that demographic expansion and dispersal throughout the dry-forests and savanna regions of subequatorial Africa was associated with the acquisition of new technologies (iron metallurgy and grain cultivation).

  18. MO-F-304-01: Applying PDSA to a Practical Clinical Problem: Variation in Procedural Doses Among Interventional Radiologists

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jones, A. [UT MD Anderson Cancer Center (United States)

    2015-06-15

    With the current Maintenance of Certification (MOC) requirement for a practice quality improvement (PQI) project every 3 years, we all (well, most of us) find ourselves searching for projects that are both manageable and likely to have a positive impact on our clinical practice. In this session we will walk through the use of the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycle to address a common finding in practices where fluoroscopically guided interventions (FGI) are performed: variation in procedural doses among physicians. We will also examine strategies to secure physician support using carrots, not sticks. Learning Objectives: Review the PDSA cycle and its application to PQI. Discuss strategies for action in the example presented. Examine strategies for successful group PQI projects. A. Kyle Jones: Owner, FluoroSafety Joseph R. Steele: Consultant, FluoroSafety.

  19. MO-F-304-01: Applying PDSA to a Practical Clinical Problem: Variation in Procedural Doses Among Interventional Radiologists

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jones, A.

    2015-01-01

    With the current Maintenance of Certification (MOC) requirement for a practice quality improvement (PQI) project every 3 years, we all (well, most of us) find ourselves searching for projects that are both manageable and likely to have a positive impact on our clinical practice. In this session we will walk through the use of the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycle to address a common finding in practices where fluoroscopically guided interventions (FGI) are performed: variation in procedural doses among physicians. We will also examine strategies to secure physician support using carrots, not sticks. Learning Objectives: Review the PDSA cycle and its application to PQI. Discuss strategies for action in the example presented. Examine strategies for successful group PQI projects. A. Kyle Jones: Owner, FluoroSafety Joseph R. Steele: Consultant, FluoroSafety

  20. From Regular to Context Free to Mildly Context Sensitive Tree Rewriting Systems: The Path of Child Language Acquisition

    OpenAIRE

    Frank, Robert

    1994-01-01

    Current syntactic theory limits the range of grammatical variation so severely that the logical problem of grammar learning is trivial. Yet, children exhibit characteristic stages in syntactic development at least through their sixth year. Rather than positing maturational delays, I suggest that acquisition difficulties are the result of limitations in manipulating grammatical representations. I argue that the genesis of complex sentences reflects increasing generative capacity in the systems...

  1. Genomic variation landscape of the human gut microbiome

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schloissnig, Siegfried; Arumugam, Manimozhiyan; Sunagawa, Shinichi

    2013-01-01

    Whereas large-scale efforts have rapidly advanced the understanding and practical impact of human genomic variation, the practical impact of variation is largely unexplored in the human microbiome. We therefore developed a framework for metagenomic variation analysis and applied it to 252 faecal...... polymorphism rates of 0.11 was more variable between gut microbial species than across human hosts. Subjects sampled at varying time intervals exhibited individuality and temporal stability of SNP variation patterns, despite considerable composition changes of their gut microbiota. This indicates...

  2. From grammatical number to exact numbers: early meanings of 'one', 'two', and 'three' in English, Russian, and Japanese.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sarnecka, Barbara W; Kamenskaya, Valentina G; Yamana, Yuko; Ogura, Tamiko; Yudovina, Yulia B

    2007-09-01

    This study examined whether singular/plural marking in a language helps children learn the meanings of the words 'one,' 'two,' and 'three.' First, CHILDES data in English, Russian (which marks singular/plural), and Japanese (which does not) were compared for frequency, variability, and contexts of number-word use. Then young children in the USA, Russia, and Japan were tested on Counting and Give-N tasks. More English and Russian learners knew the meaning of each number word than Japanese learners, regardless of whether singular/plural cues appeared in the task itself (e.g., "Give two apples" vs. "Give two"). These results suggest that the learning of "one," "two" and "three" is supported by the conceptual framework of grammatical number, rather than that of integers.

  3. A quasi-experimental design based on regional variations: discussion of a method for evaluating outcomes of medical practice

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Loft, A; Andersen, T F; Madsen, Mette

    1989-01-01

    A large proportion of common medical practices are subject to substantial regional variation resulting in numerous natural experiments. Opportunities are thereby provided for outcome evaluation through quasi-experimental design. If patients treated in different regions were comparable a natural...... experiment involving alternative treatments could be regarded as 'pseudo randomised', but empirical investigations are needed to verify this prerequisite. This paper discusses the role of quasi-experimental designs in assessment of medical care with evaluation of outcomes after hysterectomy in Denmark...... groups are elicited from administrative data. We conclude that it is possible to establish a quasi-experimental design based on regional variations and that the comparability of the groups included may be assessed through registry data. The importance of technology diffusion for the prospects...

  4. Improving the Bin Packing Heuristic through Grammatical Evolution Based on Swarm Intelligence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marco Aurelio Sotelo-Figueroa

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available In recent years Grammatical Evolution (GE has been used as a representation of Genetic Programming (GP which has been applied to many optimization problems such as symbolic regression, classification, Boolean functions, constructed problems, and algorithmic problems. GE can use a diversity of searching strategies including Swarm Intelligence (SI. Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO is an algorithm of SI that has two main problems: premature convergence and poor diversity. Particle Evolutionary Swarm Optimization (PESO is a recent and novel algorithm which is also part of SI. PESO uses two perturbations to avoid PSO’s problems. In this paper we propose using PESO and PSO in the frame of GE as strategies to generate heuristics that solve the Bin Packing Problem (BPP; it is possible however to apply this methodology to other kinds of problems using another Grammar designed for that problem. A comparison between PESO, PSO, and BPP’s heuristics is performed through the nonparametric Friedman test. The main contribution of this paper is proposing a Grammar to generate online and offline heuristics depending on the test instance trying to improve the heuristics generated by other grammars and humans; it also proposes a way to implement different algorithms as search strategies in GE like PESO to obtain better results than those obtained by PSO.

  5. Legal Lexicography in Theory and Practice

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Sandro

    2015-01-01

    Danish into English should contain data that match the factual and linguistic user competences, user needs and usage situations and should therefore include data about Danish, UK English, US English and international legal terms, their grammatical properties, and their potential for being combined...

  6. Variation in Red Blood Cell Transfusion Practices During Cardiac Operations Among Centers in Maryland: Results From a State Quality-Improvement Collaborative.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Magruder, J Trent; Blasco-Colmenares, Elena; Crawford, Todd; Alejo, Diane; Conte, John V; Salenger, Rawn; Fonner, Clifford E; Kwon, Christopher C; Bobbitt, Jennifer; Brown, James M; Nelson, Mark G; Horvath, Keith A; Whitman, Glenn R

    2017-01-01

    Variation in red blood cell (RBC) transfusion practices exists at cardiac surgery centers across the nation. We tested the hypothesis that significant variation in RBC transfusion practices between centers in our state's cardiac surgery quality collaborative remains even after risk adjustment. Using a multiinstitutional statewide database created by the Maryland Cardiac Surgery Quality Initiative (MCSQI), we included patient-level data from 8,141 patients undergoing isolated coronary artery bypass (CAB) or aortic valve replacement at 1 of 10 centers. Risk-adjusted multivariable logistic regression models were constructed to predict the need for any intraoperative RBC transfusion, as well as for any postoperative RBC transfusion, with anonymized center number included as a factor variable. Unadjusted intraoperative RBC transfusion probabilities at the 10 centers ranged from 13% to 60%; postoperative RBC transfusion probabilities ranged from 16% to 41%. After risk adjustment with demographic, comorbidity, and operative data, significant intercenter variability was documented (intraoperative probability range, 4% -59%; postoperative probability range, 13%-39%). When stratifying patients by preoperative hematocrit quartiles, significant variability in intraoperative transfusion probability was seen among all quartiles (lowest quartile: mean hematocrit value, 30.5% ± 4.1%, probability range, 17%-89%; highest quartile: mean hematocrit value, 44.8% ± 2.5%; probability range, 1%-35%). Significant variation in intercenter RBC transfusion practices exists for both intraoperative and postoperative transfusions, even after risk adjustment, among our state's centers. Variability in intraoperative RBC transfusion persisted across quartiles of preoperative hematocrit values. Copyright © 2017 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Variation in clinical coding lists in UK general practice: a barrier to consistent data entry?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tai, Tracy Waize; Anandarajah, Sobanna; Dhoul, Neil; de Lusignan, Simon

    2007-01-01

    Routinely collected general practice computer data are used for quality improvement; poor data quality including inconsistent coding can reduce their usefulness. To document the diversity of data entry systems currently in use in UK general practice and highlight possible implications for data quality. General practice volunteers provided screen shots of the clinical coding screen they would use to code a diagnosis or problem title in the clinical consultation. The six clinical conditions examined were: depression, cystitis, type 2 diabetes mellitus, sore throat, tired all the time, and myocardial infarction. We looked at the picking lists generated for these problem titles in EMIS, IPS, GPASS and iSOFT general practice clinical computer systems, using the Triset browser as a gold standard for comparison. A mean of 19.3 codes is offered in the picking list after entering a diagnosis or problem title. EMIS produced the longest picking lists and GPASS the shortest, with a mean number of choices of 35.2 and 12.7, respectively. Approximately three-quarters (73.5%) of codes are diagnoses, one-eighth (12.5%) symptom codes, and the remainder come from a range of Read chapters. There was no readily detectable consistent order in which codes were displayed. Velocity coding, whereby commonly-used codes are placed higher in the picking list, results in variation between practices even where they have the same brand of computer system. Current systems for clinical coding promote diversity rather than consistency of clinical coding. As the UK moves towards an integrated health IT system consistency of coding will become more important. A standardised, limited list of codes for primary care might help address this need.

  8. Charles Darwin and the evolution of human grammatical systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buckingham, Hugh W; Christman, Sarah S

    2010-04-08

    Charles Darwin's evolutionary theories of animal communication were deeply embedded in a centuries-old model of association psychology, whose prodromes have most often been traced to the writings of Aristotle. His notions of frequency of occurrence of pairings have been passed down through the centuries and were a major ontological feature in the formation of associative connectivity. He focused on the associations of cause and effect, contiguity of sequential occurrence, and similarity among items. Cause and effect were often reduced to another type of contiguity relation, so that Aristotle is most often evoked as the originator of the associative bondings through similarity and contiguity, contiguity being the most powerful and frequent means of association. Contiguity eventually became the overriding mechanism for serial ordering of mental events in both perception and action. The notions of concatenation throughout the association psychology took the form of "trains" of events, both sensory and motor, in such a way that serial ordering came to be viewed as an item-by-item string of locally contiguous events. Modern developments in the mathematics of serial ordering have advanced in sophistication since the early and middle twentieth century, and new computational methods have allowed us to reevaluate the serial concatenative theories of Darwin and the associationists. These new models of serial order permit a closer comparative scrutiny between human and nonhuman. The present study considers Darwin's insistence on a "degree" continuity between human and nonhuman animal serial ordering. We will consider a study of starling birdsongs and whether the serial ordering of those songs provides evidence that they have a syntax that at best differs only in degree and not in kind with the computations of human grammatical structures. We will argue that they, in fact, show no such thing.

  9. When is rational to order a diagnostic test, or prescribe treatment: the threshold model as an explanation of practice variation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Djulbegovic, Benjamin; van den Ende, Jef; Hamm, Robert M; Mayrhofer, Thomas; Hozo, Iztok; Pauker, Stephen G

    2015-05-01

    The threshold model represents an important advance in the field of medical decision-making. It is a linchpin between evidence (which exists on the continuum of credibility) and decision-making (which is a categorical exercise - we decide to act or not act). The threshold concept is closely related to the question of rational decision-making. When should the physician act, that is order a diagnostic test, or prescribe treatment? The threshold model embodies the decision theoretic rationality that says the most rational decision is to prescribe treatment when the expected treatment benefit outweighs its expected harms. However, the well-documented large variation in the way physicians order diagnostic tests or decide to administer treatments is consistent with a notion that physicians' individual action thresholds vary. We present a narrative review summarizing the existing literature on physicians' use of a threshold strategy for decision-making. We found that the observed variation in decision action thresholds is partially due to the way people integrate benefits and harms. That is, explanation of variation in clinical practice can be reduced to a consideration of thresholds. Limited evidence suggests that non-expected utility threshold (non-EUT) models, such as regret-based and dual-processing models, may explain current medical practice better. However, inclusion of costs and recognition of risk attitudes towards uncertain treatment effects and comorbidities may improve the explanatory and predictive value of the EUT-based threshold models. The decision when to act is closely related to the question of rational choice. We conclude that the medical community has not yet fully defined criteria for rational clinical decision-making. The traditional notion of rationality rooted in EUT may need to be supplemented by reflective rationality, which strives to integrate all aspects of medical practice - medical, humanistic and socio-economic - within a coherent

  10. Consequences for established design practice from geographical variation of historical rainfall data

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mikkelsen, P.S.; Arnbjerg-Nielsen, K.; Harremoës, P.

    1997-01-01

    variation and variation due to (correlated) sampling errors. Further analyses indicate that the observed variation can be explained only partially by correlation with regional climatological variables and that a significant residual variation remains, especially for large return periods. The new perceptions...

  11. Theory of mind and emotion recognition skills in children with specific language impairment, autism spectrum disorder and typical development: group differences and connection to knowledge of grammatical morphology, word-finding abilities and verbal working memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Loukusa, Soile; Mäkinen, Leena; Kuusikko-Gauffin, Sanna; Ebeling, Hanna; Moilanen, Irma

    2014-01-01

    Social perception skills, such as understanding the mind and emotions of others, affect children's communication abilities in real-life situations. In addition to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there is increasing knowledge that children with specific language impairment (SLI) also demonstrate difficulties in their social perception abilities. To compare the performance of children with SLI, ASD and typical development (TD) in social perception tasks measuring Theory of Mind (ToM) and emotion recognition. In addition, to evaluate the association between social perception tasks and language tests measuring word-finding abilities, knowledge of grammatical morphology and verbal working memory. Children with SLI (n = 18), ASD (n = 14) and TD (n = 25) completed two NEPSY-II subtests measuring social perception abilities: (1) Affect Recognition and (2) ToM (includes Verbal and non-verbal Contextual tasks). In addition, children's word-finding abilities were measured with the TWF-2, grammatical morphology by using the Grammatical Closure subtest of ITPA, and verbal working memory by using subtests of Sentence Repetition or Word List Interference (chosen according the child's age) of the NEPSY-II. Children with ASD scored significantly lower than children with SLI or TD on the NEPSY-II Affect Recognition subtest. Both SLI and ASD groups scored significantly lower than TD children on Verbal tasks of the ToM subtest of NEPSY-II. However, there were no significant group differences on non-verbal Contextual tasks of the ToM subtest of the NEPSY-II. Verbal tasks of the ToM subtest were correlated with the Grammatical Closure subtest and TWF-2 in children with SLI. In children with ASD correlation between TWF-2 and ToM: Verbal tasks was moderate, almost achieving statistical significance, but no other correlations were found. Both SLI and ASD groups showed difficulties in tasks measuring verbal ToM but differences were not found in tasks measuring non-verbal Contextual ToM. The

  12. Wide variations in blood product transfusion practices among providers who care for patients with acute leukemia in the United States.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pine, Alexander B; Lee, Eun-Ju; Sekeres, Mikkael; Steensma, David P; Zelterman, Daniel; Prebet, Thomas; DeZern, Amy; Komrokji, Rami; Litzow, Mark; Luger, Selina; Stone, Richard; Erba, Harry P; Garcia-Manero, Guillermo; Lee, Alfred I; Podoltsev, Nikolai A; Barbarotta, Lisa; Kasberg, Stephanie; Hendrickson, Jeanne E; Gore, Steven D; Zeidan, Amer M

    2017-02-01

    Transfusion of blood products is a key component of the supportive management in patients with acute leukemia (AL). However high-quality trial evidence and clinical outcome data to support specific transfusion goals for blood products for patients with AL remain limited leading to diverse transfusion practices. The primary objective of this study was to determine the spectrum of transfusion patterns in a variety of care settings among providers who treat AL patients. A 31-question survey queried providers caring for AL patients about the existence of institutional guidelines for transfusion of blood products, transfusion triggers for hemoglobin (Hb), platelets (PLTs), and fibrinogen in various settings including inpatient and outpatient and before procedures. We analyzed 130 responses and identified divergent transfusion Hb goals in hospitalized and ambulatory patients, fibrinogen goals for cryoprecipitate transfusions, and variation in practice for use of certain PLTs and red blood cell products. The least variable transfusion patterns were reported for PLT goals in thrombocytopenia and in the setting of invasive procedures such as bone marrow biopsy and lumbar punctures. This survey confirmed wide variations in blood product transfusion practices across several clinical scenarios in patients with AL. The findings emphasized the need for large prospective randomized trials to develop standardized evidence-based guidelines for blood product transfusions in patients with AL with the goal of limiting unnecessary transfusions without compromising outcomes. © 2016 AABB.

  13. Variational transition state theory

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Truhlar, D.G.

    1986-01-01

    This project is concerned with the development and applications of generalized transition state theory and multidimensional tunneling approximations to chemical reaction rates. They have developed and implemented several practical versions of variational transition state theory (VTST), namely canonical variational theory (CVT), improved canonical variational theory (ICVT), and microcanonical variational theory (μVT). They have also developed and implemented several accurate multidimensional semiclassical tunneling approximations, the most accurate of which are the small-curvature semiclassical adiabatic (SCSA), large-curvature version-3 (LC3), and least-action (LA) approximations. They have applied the methods to thermal rate constants, using transmission coefficients based on ground-state tunneling, and they have also presented and applied adiabatic and diabatic extensions to calculated rate constants for vibrationally excited reactants. Their general goal is to develop accurate methods for calculating chemical reaction rate constants that remain practical even for reasonably complicated molecules. The approximations mentioned above yield rate constants for systems whose potential energy surface is known or assumed. Thus a second, equally important aspect of their work is the determination or modeling, semi-empirically and/or from electronic structure calculations, of potential energy surfaces

  14. Variation in transfusion rates within a single institution: exploring the effect of differing practice patterns on the likelihood of blood product transfusion in patients undergoing cardiac surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cote, Claudia; MacLeod, Jeffrey B; Yip, Alexandra M; Ouzounian, Maral; Brown, Craig D; Forgie, Rand; Pelletier, Marc P; Hassan, Ansar

    2015-01-01

    Rates of perioperative transfusion vary widely among patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Few studies have examined factors beyond the clinical characteristics of the patients that may be responsible for such variation. The purpose of this study was to determine whether differing practice patterns had an impact on variation in perioperative transfusion at a single center. Patients who underwent cardiac surgery at a single center between 2004 and 2011 were considered. Comparisons were made between patients who had received a perioperative transfusion and those who had not from the clinical factors at baseline, intraoperative variables, and differing practice patterns, as defined by the surgeon, anesthesiologist, perfusionist, and the year in which the procedure was performed. The risk-adjusted effect of these factors on perioperative transfusion rates was determined using multivariable regression modeling techniques. The study population comprised 4823 patients, of whom 1929 (40.0%) received a perioperative transfusion. Significant variation in perioperative transfusion rates was noted between surgeons (from 32.4% to 51.5%, P patterns contribute to significant variation in rates of perioperative transfusion within a single center. Strategies aimed at reducing overall transfusion rates must take into account such variability in practice patterns and account for nonclinical factors as well as known clinical predictors of blood transfusions. Copyright © 2015 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Regional variation in the practice of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the Netherlands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koopman, J J E; Putter, H

    2016-11-01

    The practice of euthanasia and physicianassisted suicide has been compared between countries, but it has not been compared between regions within the Netherlands. This study assesses differences in the frequencies, characteristics, and trends of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide between five regions in the Netherlands and tries to explain the differences by demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related differences between these regions. Data on the frequencies, characteristics, and trends of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide for each region and each year from 2002 through 2014 were derived from the annual reports of the Regional Review Committees. Averages and trends were determined using a regression model with the regions and years as independent variables. Demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related variables for each region and each year were derived from the Central Bureau for Statistics and added to the model as covariates. The frequencies, characteristics, and trends of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide differed between the regions, whereas the frequencies of non-assisted suicide did not differ. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide were most frequent and were performed most often by general practitioners, in patients with cancer, in the patient's home, in North Holland. The regional differences remained after adjustment for demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related differences between the regions. More detailed research is needed to specify how and why the practice of euthanasia and physicianassisted suicide differs between regions in the Netherlands and to what extent these differences reflect a deficiency in the quality of care, such as other forms of regional variation in health care practice.

  16. 78 FR 36434 - Revisions to Rules of Practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-06-18

    ... federal holidays, make grammatical corrections, and remove the reference to part-day holidays. Rule 3001... section, the following categories of persons are designated ``decision-making personnel'': (i) The.... The following categories of person are designated ``non-decision-making personnel'': (i) All...

  17. Practice variation amongst preventive child healthcare professionals in the prevention of child maltreatment in the Netherlands: Qualitative and quantitative data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Visscher, Simeon J A; van Stel, Henk F

    2017-12-01

    This article provides both qualitative and quantitative data on practice variation amongst preventive child healthcare professionals in the prevention of child maltreatment in the Netherlands. Qualitative data consist of topics identified during interviews with 11 experts (with quotes), resulting in an online survey. The quantitative data are survey responses from 1104 doctors and nurses working in 29 preventive child healthcare organizations. Additionally, the interview topic list, the qualitative data analysis methodology, the survey (in English and Dutch) and anonymized raw survey data (http://hdl.handle.net/10411/5LJOGH) are provided as well. This data-in-brief article accompanies the paper "Variation in prevention of child maltreatment by Dutch child healthcare professionals" by Simeon Visscher and Henk van Stel [1].

  18. Use of cumulative mortality data in patients with acute myocardial infarction for early detection of variation in clinical practice: observational study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lawrance, R A; Dorsch, M F; Sapsford, R J; Mackintosh, A F; Greenwood, D C; Jackson, B M; Morrell, C; Robinson, M B; Hall, A S

    2001-08-11

    Use of cumulative mortality adjusted for case mix in patients with acute myocardial infarction for early detection of variation in clinical practice. Observational study. 20 hospitals across the former Yorkshire region. All 2153 consecutive patients with confirmed acute myocardial infarction identified during three months. Variable life-adjusted displays showing cumulative differences between observed and expected mortality of patients; expected mortality calculated from risk model based on admission characteristics of age, heart rate, and systolic blood pressure. The performance of two individual hospitals over three months was examined as an example. One, the smallest district hospital in the region, had a series of 30 consecutive patients but had five more deaths than predicted. The variable life-adjusted display showed minimal variation from that predicted for the first 15 patients followed by a run of unexpectedly high mortality. The second example was the main tertiary referral centre for the region, which admitted 188 consecutive patients. The display showed a period of apparently poor performance followed by substantial improvement, where the plot rose steadily from a cumulative net lives saved of -4 to 7. These variations in patient outcome are unlikely to have been revealed during conventional audit practice. Variable life-adjusted display has been integrated into surgical care as a graphical display of risk-adjusted survival for individual surgeons or centres. In combination with a simple risk model, it may have a role in monitoring performance and outcome in patients with acute myocardial infarction.

  19. Analisando representações sociais através de elementos gramaticais: compondo representações sobre música Analyzing social representations with grammatical elements: composing representations about music

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anderson Scardua

    2010-08-01

    Full Text Available O objetivo deste trabalho foi o de apresentar uma forma de análise de representações sociais (RS baseada em elementos gramaticais. Descrevemos este método através de uma pesquisa feita sobre as RS da música entre músicos (N=57 e ouvintes (N=234 da cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Foram feitas perguntas sobre a definição de música e sobre a descrição dos gostos e desgostos para ouvir e produzir música. Foi feita uma análise de conteúdo gramatical/temática em que várias categorias foram descritas e agrupadas em três grupos de acordo com a prevalência dos elementos gramaticais: Descritivas/objetivas - baseadas em substantivos; Efeitos/usos - prevalência de verbos e expressões (e.g., "é para", "me faz"; e Retóricas - baseadas em advérbios e adjetivos. Essas categorias nos permitiram observar de forma mais específica os processos de objetivação (Descritivas, a ancoragem (Efeitos/usos e o elemento atitudinal (Retóricas. Foi feita também uma discussão sobre o processo de análise, suas implicações e limites.The aim of this study was to present a method of analysis for social representations (SR based on grammatical elements. This method was described through a research about SR of music among musicians (N=57 and listeners (N=234 from the city Rio de Janeiro. Questions were asked about the definition of music and the description of likes and dislikes regarding music production and consumption. Drawing on grammatical/thematic content analysis many categories were described and clustered in three groups according to the prevalence of grammatical elements: descriptive/objective - based on nouns; Effects/uses - prevalence of verbs and expressions (e.g. "it is to", "it makes me"; and Rhetorical - based on adverbs and adjectives. These categories allowed us to observe more specifically the processes of objectivation (Descriptive, and anchoring (Effects/uses, as well as attitudinal elements (Rhetorical. Further, the process of analysis

  20. Variation in assessment and standard setting practices across UK undergraduate medicine and the need for a benchmark.

    Science.gov (United States)

    MacDougall, Margaret

    2015-10-31

    The principal aim of this study is to provide an account of variation in UK undergraduate medical assessment styles and corresponding standard setting approaches with a view to highlighting the importance of a UK national licensing exam in recognizing a common standard. Using a secure online survey system, response data were collected during the period 13 - 30 January 2014 from selected specialists in medical education assessment, who served as representatives for their respective medical schools. Assessment styles and corresponding choices of standard setting methods vary markedly across UK medical schools. While there is considerable consensus on the application of compensatory approaches, individual schools display their own nuances through use of hybrid assessment and standard setting styles, uptake of less popular standard setting techniques and divided views on norm referencing. The extent of variation in assessment and standard setting practices across UK medical schools validates the concern that there is a lack of evidence that UK medical students achieve a common standard on graduation. A national licensing exam is therefore a viable option for benchmarking the performance of all UK undergraduate medical students.

  1. Variation in primary site resection practices for advanced colon cancer: a study using the National Cancer Data Base.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Healy, Mark A; Pradarelli, Jason C; Krell, Robert W; Regenbogen, Scott E; Suwanabol, Pasithorn A

    2016-10-01

    Treatment of metastatic colon cancer may be driven as much by practice patterns as by features of disease. To optimize management, there is a need to better understand what is determining primary site resection use. We evaluated all patients with stage IV cancers in the National Cancer Data Base from 2002 to 2012 (50,791 patients, 1,230 hospitals). We first identified patient characteristics associated with primary tumor resection. Then, we assessed nationwide variation in hospital resection rates. Overall, 27,387 (53.9%) patients underwent primary site resection. Factors associated with resection included younger age, having less than 2 major comorbidities, and white race (P primary tumor resection rates ranged from 26.0% to 87.8% with broad differences across geographical areas and hospital accreditation types. There is statistically significant variation in hospital rates of primary site resection. This demonstrates inconsistent adherence to guidelines in the presence of conflicting evidence regarding resection benefit. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. Practice variation amongst preventive child healthcare professionals in the prevention of child maltreatment in the Netherlands: Qualitative and quantitative data

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    Simeon J.A. Visscher

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available This article provides both qualitative and quantitative data on practice variation amongst preventive child healthcare professionals in the prevention of child maltreatment in the Netherlands. Qualitative data consist of topics identified during interviews with 11 experts (with quotes, resulting in an online survey. The quantitative data are survey responses from 1104 doctors and nurses working in 29 preventive child healthcare organizations. Additionally, the interview topic list, the qualitative data analysis methodology, the survey (in English and Dutch and anonymized raw survey data (http://hdl.handle.net/10411/5LJOGH are provided as well. This data-in-brief article accompanies the paper “Variation in prevention of child maltreatment by Dutch child healthcare professionals” by Simeon Visscher and Henk van Stel [1].

  3. General practice variation in spirometry testing among patients receiving first-time prescriptions for medication targeting obstructive lung disease in Denmark: a population-based observational study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koefoed, Mette M; Søndergaard, Jens; Christensen, René dePont; Jarbøl, Dorte E

    2013-08-07

    Spirometry testing is essential to confirm an obstructive lung disease, but studies have reported that a large proportion of patients diagnosed with COPD or asthma have no history of spirometry testing. Also, it has been shown that many patients are prescribed medication for obstructive lung disease without a relevant diagnosis or spirometry test registered. General practice characteristics have been reported to influence diagnosis and management of several chronic diseases. However, these findings are inconsistent, and it is uncertain whether practice characteristics influence spirometry testing among patients receiving medication for obstructive lung disease. The aim of this study was therefore to examine if practice characteristics are associated with spirometry testing among patients receiving first-time prescriptions for medication targeting obstructive lung disease. A national register-based cohort study was performed. All patients over 18 years receiving first-time prescriptions for medication targeting obstructive lung disease in 2008 were identified and detailed patient-specific data on sociodemographic status and spirometry tests were extracted. Information on practice characteristics like number of doctors, number of patients per doctor, training practice status, as well as age and gender of the general practitioners was linked to each medication user. Partnership practices had a higher odds ratio (OR) of performing spirometry compared with single-handed practices (OR 1.24, CI 1.09-1.40). We found a significant association between increasing general practitioner age and decreasing spirometry testing. This tendency was most pronounced among partnership practices, where doctors over 65 years had the lowest odds of spirometry testing (OR 0.25, CI 0.10-0.61). Training practice status was significantly associated with spirometry testing among single-handed practices (OR 1.40, CI 1.10-1.79). Some of the variation in spirometry testing among patients receiving

  4. Key issues in Fuertes-Olivera and Tarp's Theory and Practice of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    user

    the new information technologies available, would allow users to satisfy their information ... grammatical rules which they are unconsciously automatically able to use" .... Ford" dictionaries, a label named after the revolutionary car produced by.

  5. Practice Variation in Big-4 Transparency Reports

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Girdhar, Sakshi; Klarskov Jeppesen, Kim

    2018-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the transparency reports published by the Big-4 public accounting firms in the UK, Germany and Denmark to understand the determinants of their content within the networks of big accounting firms. Design/methodology/approach: The study draws...... on a qualitative research approach, in which the content of transparency reports is analyzed and semi-structured interviews are conducted with key people from the Big-4 firms who are responsible for developing the transparency reports. Findings: The findings show that the content of transparency reports...... is inconsistent and the transparency reporting practice is not uniform within the Big-4 networks. Differences were found in the way in which the transparency reporting practices are coordinated globally by the respective central governing bodies of the Big-4. The content of the transparency reports...

  6. Some Effects of Explicit Grammar Instruction and Syntactic Priming on Students’ Written Language Production

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    Rahman Muhammad Asfah

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Structural or syntactic priming is a phenomenon in which prior exposure to specific language structures either facilitates or interferes with a learner’s subsequent language production [1]. Exposure to English structures through explicit instruction is reported to have inconclusive results. [2] reported that explicit and implicit grammar instruction ends up with automatization. This study reexamines the effect of syntactic priming and explicit grammar instruction on students’ writing. Specific grammatical features frequently appeared on TOEFL (Written Expression Section test were intensively practiced and then the students took a test whose items were specifically collected from TOEFL practice tests. Finally, the students were assigned to write a short essay. Sentences with similar structures which the students had been exposed to were extracted from the students’ essays. Out of 40 test items, only 59.86% in average could be answered correctly, and all of the grammatical features to which the students were previously exposed were contained in their essays. However, in average only eight out of 18 sentences were grammatically constructed. It can be concluded that although priming method with explicit instruction leads the students to use similar syntactic features in their writing, it seems to have little impact on students’ grammatical knowledge for immediate use in written language production.

  7. Le resume de texte: une activite de production en langue etrangere assistee par ordinateur (Abstracting: A Computer-Assisted Foreign Language Production Activity).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Janitza, Jean

    1985-01-01

    A productive language exercise that uses the computer and a variation on the cloze procedure by deleting every third word and requiring the student to insert a grammatically and thematically acceptable term is described. (MSE)

  8. Types of Grammatical Metaphors in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

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    Nesa Nabifar

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Grammatical Metaphor (GM is one of the fresh language phenomena introduced by Halliday (1985 in the framework of functional grammar. Thompson (2004 states that the salient source of GM would be ‘Nominalization’ where a noun form attempts to represent a verb form or in other words, a verb form with its different process is represented in a noun form. He continues that any wording is ought to be either metaphorical or congruent wording. In this study the story of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was explored in search of GMs deployed throughout the first two chapters.  This study tended to identify the instances of nominalization types of GM in the first two chapters of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and offer the congruent wording.  As the next step, the congruent wordings were compared with metaphorical wording in order to find out the lexical density of each wording. The lexical density was obtained by Concordance software. The result of study illustrated , in a very crystal-clear way, the advantage of GM in adult writing which is stated to be one of the noticeable points regarding GM by Halliday (1985.The result obtained statistically revealed that  the deployment of GM increases the lexical density, which again was claimed by Halliday (2004 as one of the other salient points about GM. Based on the findings of this study, some implications can be drawn for academic writing and reading as well as for teachers involved in writing and reading pedagogy.

  9. Functional discourse grammar: pragmatic aspects

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hannay, M.; Hengeveld, K.; Brisard, F.; Östman, J.O.; Verschueren, J.

    2009-01-01

    This chapter introduces Functional Discourse Grammar, focusing on the way in which this model is capable of accounting for the grammatical encoding of pragmatic distinctions and for the typological variation found in this area of grammar.

  10. Practice Variation in Single-Ventricle Patients Undergoing Elective Cardiac Catheterization: A Report from the Congenital Cardiac Catheterization Project on Outcomes (C3PO).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goldstein, Bryan H; Holzer, Ralf J; Trucco, Sara M; Porras, Diego; Murphy, Joshua; Foerster, Susan R; El-Said, Howaida G; Beekman, Robert H; Bergersen, Lisa

    2016-01-01

    The objective of this study was to investigate variation in practice surrounding elective cardiac catheterization in patients with single-ventricle (SV) congenital heart disease. Patient and procedural characteristics and outcomes during SV catheterization were collected prospectively from eight centers using a web-based registry (Congenital Cardiac Catheterization Project on Outcomes). We attempted to identify a population of elective procedures by limiting the cohort in case type and timing. Cases were then stratified by stage of SV palliation (pre-bidirectional cavopulmonary anastomosis [pre-BCPA], pre-Fontan and post-Fontan) and limited by age. Subcohort analysis was performed by mode of airway management (assisted vs. spontaneous ventilation). Institutional variation was assessed. Between 2/2007 and 6/2010, 1459 (10.1%) of 14 467 cases in the registry met the inclusion and exclusion criteria, including 326 pre-BCPA, 571 pre-Fontan and 562 post-Fontan procedures. Median patient age was 0.4 (interquartile range 0.3, 0.5), 2.6 (1.0, 3.4) and 9.6 (5.2, 15.4) years and weight was 5.6 (4.8, 6.4), 12.2 (10.5, 14), and 26.3 (16.6, 51.8) kg in the pre-BCPA, pre-Fontan and post-Fontan cohorts, respectively. Cases were more commonly diagnostic in the pre-BCPA cohort (57%) whereas they were more commonly interventional in the pre-Fontan (69%) and post-Fontan (77%) cohorts. At least one adverse event (AE) occurred in 210 cases (14.4%) overall, including 20% of pre-BCPA, 11% of pre-Fontan and 14% of post-Fontan catheterizations. Mode of airway management was associated with statistically significant, but clinically small differences in hemodynamic measures in the pre- and post-Fontan cohorts, but not in the pre-BCPA group. Considerable practice variation exists across centers with variability in airway management, AE rate, case type, interventions performed and fluoroscopy time, in all SV cohorts. Elective catheterization in SV patients, frequently performed with

  11. COGNITIVE-COMMUNICATIVE PERSONALITY CATEGORY IN THE KAZAKH LANGUAGE

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    Orynay Sagingalievna Zhubaeva

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of the research is to reveal the character of anthropocentricity of grammatical categories in their meaning and functioning. Materials and methods. According to the research objectives and goals, the methods used were as follows: the descriptive method, general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, cognitive analysis, method of experiment, contextual analysis, structural-semantic analysis, transformation technique, comparative analysis. Results. For the first time in the Kazakh linguistics the substantial aspect of grammatical categories is characterized being a result of both conceptualization and categorization processes. Based on generalization and the comparative analysis of nature and forms of the human factor reflection in the Kazakh grammatical categories there has been revealed the national-cultural specific character of grammatical categories. Practical implications. The research materials can be used in theoretical courses onf grammar and linguistics, as well as in the development of special courses on cognitive linguistics, cognitive grammar, etc.

  12. Variation in National ACGME Case Log Data for Pediatric Orthopaedic Fellowships: Are Fellow Coding Practices Responsible?

    Science.gov (United States)

    McClure, Philip K; Woiczik, Marcella; Karol, Lori; Sankar, Wudbhav N

    The introduction of the 80-hour work week for Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited fellowship programs initiated many efforts to optimize surgical training. One particular area of interest is on recording and tracking surgical experiences. The current standard is logging cases based on Current Procedural Terminology codes, which are primarily designed for billing. Proposed guidelines from the ACGME regarding logging exist, but their implementation is unknown, as is the variation in case volume across fellowship programs. The purpose of this study was to investigate variability in the national case log data, and explore potential sources of variation using fellow surveys. National ACGME case log data for pediatric orthopaedic fellowships from 2012 to 2015 were reviewed, with particular attention to the domains of spine, pelvis/hip, arthroscopy, trauma, and other (which includes clubfoot casting). To explore potential sources of case log variability, a survey on case logging behavior was distributed to all pediatric orthopaedic fellows for the academic year 2015 to 2016. Reported experiences based on ACGME case logs varied widely between fellows with percentage difference of up to 100% in all areas. Similarly, wide variability is present in coding practices of pediatric orthopaedic fellows, who often lack formal education on the topic of appropriate coding/logging. In the survey, hypothetical case scenarios had an absolute difference in recorded codes of up to 13 and a percentage difference of up to 100%. ACGME case log data for pediatric orthopaedic fellowships demonstrates wide variability in reported surgical experiences. This variability may be due, in part, to differences in logging practices by individual fellows. This observation makes meaningful interpretation of national data on surgical volume challenging. Proposed surgical experience minimums should be interpreted in light of these data, and may not be advisable unless

  13. Striking variations in consultation rates with general practice reveal family influence

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    Spreeuwenberg Peter

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The reasons why patients decide to consult a general practitioner vary enormously. While there may be individual reasons for this variation, the family context has a significant and unique influence upon the frequency of individuals' visits. The objective of this study was to explore which family factors can explain the differences between strikingly high, and correspondingly low, family consultation rates in families with children aged up to 21. Methods Data were used from the second Dutch national survey of general practice. This survey extracted from the medical records of 96 practices in the Netherlands, information on all consultations with patients during 2001. We defined, through multilevel analysis, two groups of families. These had respectively, predominantly high, and low, contact frequencies due to a significant family influence upon the frequency of the individual's first contacts. Binomial logistic regression analyses were used to analyse which of the family factors, related to shared circumstances and socialisation conditions, can explain the differences in consultation rates between the two groups of families. Results In almost 3% of all families, individual consultation rates decrease significantly due to family influence. In 11% of the families, individual consultation rates significantly increase due to family influence. While taking into account the health status of family members, family factors can explain family consultation rates. These factors include circumstances such as their economic status and number of children, as well as socialisation conditions such as specific health knowledge and family beliefs. The chance of significant low frequencies of contact due to family influences increases significantly with factors such as, paid employment of parents in the health care sector, low expectations of general practitioners' care for minor ailments and a western cultural background. Conclusion Family

  14. TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR ACTIVE USE: A FRAMEWORK FOR COMPARISON OF THREE INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUES

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    Sasan Baleghizadeh

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Teaching grammar in a way that enables students to use grammatical structures correctly in their active use has always been one of the intricate tasks for most practitioners. This study compared the ef­fectiveness of three instructional methods: games, dialogues practiced through role-play, and unfocused tasks for teaching grammar. Forty eight pre-intermediate female students participated in this study. The structures chosen were Conditional Sentence Type 2 and Wish structures for expressing present desires. A posttest was administered to assess the subjects' productive knowledge of the grammatical patterns. The results showed that there were no significant differences in the performance of groups. In other words, all three methods were equally effective to boost students' grammatical knowledge of the two structures.

  15. The Effect of Zipfian Frequency Variations on Category Formation in Adult Artificial Language Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schuler, Kathryn D.; Reeder, Patricia A.; Newport, Elissa L.; Aslin, Richard N.

    2017-01-01

    Successful language acquisition hinges on organizing individual words into grammatical categories and learning the relationships between them, but the method by which children accomplish this task has been debated in the literature. One proposal is that learners use the shared distributional contexts in which words appear as a cue to their…

  16. Regular extra curricular sports practice does not prevent moderate or severe variations in self-esteem or trait anxiety in early adolescents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Binsinger, Caroline; Laure, Patrick; Ambard, Marie-France

    2006-01-01

    trait anxiety among young adolescent.This activity seems to protect girls from severe variations of self-esteem.Boys do not seem to be protected from moderate or severe variations, neither of self-esteem, nor of trait anxiety, by a regular extracurricular sport practice.

  17. Variations in Practice Patterns among Neurosurgeons and Orthopaedic Surgeons in the Management of Spinal Disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hussain, Manzar; Nasir, Sadaf; Moed, Amber; Murtaza, Ghulam

    2011-12-01

    This is a case series. We wanted to identify variations in the practice patterns among neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons for the management of spinal disorders. Spinal disorders are common in the clinical practice of both neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons. It has been observed that despite the availability of various guidelines, there is lack of consensus among surgeons about the management of various disorders. A questionnaire was distributed, either directly or via e-mail, to the both the neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons who worked at 5 tertiary care centers within a single region of Korea. The surgeons were working either in private practice or in academic institutions. The details of the questionnaire included demographic details and the specialty (orthopedic/neurosurgeon). The surgeons were classified according to the level of experience as up to 5 years, 6-10 years and > 10 years. Questions were asked about the approach to lumbar discectomy (fragmentectomy or aggressive disc removal), using steroids for treating discitis, the fusion preference for spondylolisthesis, the role of an orthosis after fusion, the preferred surgical approach for spinal stenosis, the operative approach for spinal trauma (early within 72 hours or late > 72 hours) and the role of surgery in complete spinal cord injury. The data was analyzed using SPSS ver 16. p-values neurosurgeons and 10 were orthopedic surgeons. Statistically significant differences were observed for the management of spinal stenosis, spondylolisthesis, using an orthosis after fusion, the type of lumbar discectomy and the value of surgical intervention after complete spinal cord injury. Our results suggest that there continues to exist a statistically significant lack of consensus among neurosurgeons and orthopedic spine surgeons when considering using an orthosis after fusion, the type of discectomy and the value of intervention after complete spinal injury.

  18. Diural TSH variations in hypothyroidism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weeke, J; Laurberg, P

    1976-07-01

    There is a circadian variation in serum TSH in euthyroid subjects. A similar diurnal variation has been demonstrated in patients with hypothyroidism. In the present study the 24-hour pattern of serum TSH was investigated in eight patients with hypothyroidism of varying severity and in five hypothyroid patients treated with thyroxine (T4). There was a circadian variation in serum TSH in patients with hypothyroidism of moderate degree, and in patients treated for severe hypothyrodism with thyroxine. The pattern was similar to that found in normal subjects, i.e., low TSH levels in the daytime and higher levels at night. In severely hypothyroid patients, no diurnal variation in serum TSH was observed. A practical consequence is that blood samples for TSH measurements in patients with moderately elevated TSH levels are best taken after 1100 h, when the low day levels are reached.

  19. The Effect of Using Translation on Learning Grammatical Structures: A Case Study of Iranian Junior High School Students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hossein Ghaiyoomian

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract The role of L1 in second/foreign language learning has been the subject of much debate and controversy. This article reports on a piece of research carried out in a junior high school in Isfahan, Iran. This study was conducted to examine the effect of using translation from L1 to L2 on the improvement of EFL learners' language accuracy. To fulfill the purpose of the study, 62 students in grade three of junior high school were chosen by means of administering an experimental made pre-test. The participants were divided into a control group and an experimental group. The experimental group received grammar exercises in translating some phrases and sentences from Persian into English related to the intended grammatical structures during the study period while the control group just did their textbook exercises. At the end, a post-test was given to the students and the mean scores of the two groups were identified. T-test revealed that the treatment had a considerable effect on students' language accuracy.

  20. Innovative practice: Conversational use of English in bilingual adults with dementia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kokorelias, Kristina M; Ryan, Ellen B; Elliot, Gail

    2017-02-01

    Regression to mother tongue is common in those with dementia. In two long-term care facilities, we explored the use of bilinguals' two languages for five older adults with mild-moderate dementia who have begun to regress to Greek. We also examined the role of Montessori DementiAbility Methods: The Montessori Way-based English language activities in fostering conversational use of English. Over 10 sessions, participants' vocabulary or grammatical structure in English did not improve. However, four of the five participants were able to maintain a conversation in English for longer periods of time. This study contributes to strategies for optimizing meaningful conversation for bilingual long-term care residents with dementia. Moreover, the data suggest a change in the policy and practice for dementia care so that there are more opportunities for residents to speak English in non-English mother-tongue facilities. Greater attention to the specific language needs of bilinguals in English-dominant settings would also be advisable.

  1. The problem of diagnostic variability in general practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crombie, D L; Cross, K W; Fleming, D M

    1992-08-01

    The aim was to examine the scale, source, and relevance of variation between general practices in respect of the rates with which patients consulted with illnesses falling in each of several diagnostic groups. This study involved a general practice morbidity survey conducted over two years, 1970-72. All patients who consulted their general practitioners were identified and the number of these who consulted with diagnoses attributable to each of the 18 main chapters of the International classification of diseases were counted. Patients who consulted for more than one diagnosis within a chapter were counted once only; those who consulted for one or more diagnoses in each of several chapters were counted once for each chapter. This was a national survey involving general practitioners in England and Wales. The study involved 214,524 patients from 53 selected general practices (115 doctors) who were registered with their general practitioners for the whole of the year 1970-71 and for whom their morbidity data had been linked with their social data from the 1971 census. Using the numbers of patients on the practice lists as denominators, practice patient consulting rates (PPCR) were calculated for each practice and for each ICD chapter. Variability in chapter PPCR was examined by calculating coefficients of variation and, after allowance for random variation, coefficients of residual variation. There were large interpractice (doctor) variations in all chapter rates. These variations were only marginally attributable to: chance; different age, sex and social class mixes of practice populations; geographical locations; and practice organisation. The rates were, however, consistent from one year to the next for any one practice. Approximately half of the interpractice (doctor) diagnostic variability was associated with overall patient consulting behaviour. When the effects of this behaviour were discounted, any major residual diagnostic variability was confined largely to

  2. Lexical and grammatical development in trilingual speakers of isiXhosa, English and Afrikaans

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    Anneke P. Potgieter

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Background: There is a dearth of normative data on linguistic development among child speakers of Southern African languages, especially in the case of the multilingual children who constitute the largest part of this population. This inevitably impacts on the accuracy of developmental assessments of such speakers. Already negative lay opinion on the effect of early multilingualism on language development rates could be exacerbated by the lack of developmental data, ultimately affecting choices regarding home and school language policies. Objectives: To establish whether trilinguals necessarily exhibit developmental delay when compared to monolinguals and, if so, whether this delay (1 occurs in terms of both lexical and grammatical development; and (2 in all three the trilinguals’ languages, regardless of input quantity. Method: Focusing on isiXhosa, South African English and Afrikaans, the study involved a comparison of 11 four-year-old developing trilinguals’ acquisition of vocabulary and passive constructions with that of 10 age-matched monolingual speakers of each language. Results: The trilinguals proved to be monolingual-like in their lexical development in the language to which, on average, they had been exposed most over time, that is, isiXhosa. No developmental delay was found in the trilinguals’ acquisition of passive constructions, regardless of the language of testing. Conclusion: As previously found for bilingual development, necessarily reduced quantity of exposure does not hinder lexical development in the trilinguals’ input dominant language. The overall lack of delay in their acquisition of the passive is interpreted as possible evidence of cross-linguistic bootstrapping and support for early multilingual exposure.

  3. Lexical and grammatical development in trilingual speakers of isiXhosa, English and Afrikaans

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-01-01

    Background There is a dearth of normative data on linguistic development among child speakers of Southern African languages, especially in the case of the multilingual children who constitute the largest part of this population. This inevitably impacts on the accuracy of developmental assessments of such speakers. Already negative lay opinion on the effect of early multilingualism on language development rates could be exacerbated by the lack of developmental data, ultimately affecting choices regarding home and school language policies. Objectives To establish whether trilinguals necessarily exhibit developmental delay when compared to monolinguals and, if so, whether this delay (1) occurs in terms of both lexical and grammatical development; and (2) in all three the trilinguals’ languages, regardless of input quantity. Method Focusing on isiXhosa, South African English and Afrikaans, the study involved a comparison of 11 four-year-old developing trilinguals’ acquisition of vocabulary and passive constructions with that of 10 age-matched monolingual speakers of each language. Results The trilinguals proved to be monolingual-like in their lexical development in the language to which, on average, they had been exposed most over time, that is, isiXhosa. No developmental delay was found in the trilinguals’ acquisition of passive constructions, regardless of the language of testing. Conclusion As previously found for bilingual development, necessarily reduced quantity of exposure does not hinder lexical development in the trilinguals’ input dominant language. The overall lack of delay in their acquisition of the passive is interpreted as possible evidence of cross-linguistic bootstrapping and support for early multilingual exposure. PMID:27245133

  4. Lexical and grammatical development in trilingual speakers of isiXhosa, English and Afrikaans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Potgieter, Anneke P

    2016-05-20

    There is a dearth of normative data on linguistic development among child speakers of Southern African languages, especially in the case of the multilingual children who constitute the largest part of this population. This inevitably impacts on the accuracy of developmental assessments of such speakers. Already negative lay opinion on the effect of early multilingualism on language development rates could be exacerbated by the lack of developmental data, ultimately affecting choices regarding home and school language policies. To establish whether trilinguals necessarily exhibit developmental delay when compared to monolinguals and, if so, whether this delay (1) occurs in terms of both lexical and grammatical development; and (2) in all three the trilinguals' languages, regardless of input quantity. Focusing on isiXhosa, South African English and Afrikaans, the study involved a comparison of 11 four-year-old developing trilinguals' acquisition of vocabulary and passive constructions with that of 10 age-matched monolingual speakers of each language. The trilinguals proved to be monolingual-like in their lexical development in the language to which, on average, they had been exposed most over time, that is, isiXhosa. No developmental delay was found in the trilinguals' acquisition of passive constructions, regardless of the language of testing. As previously found for bilingual development, necessarily reduced quantity of exposure does not hinder lexical development in the trilinguals' input dominant language. The overall lack of delay in their acquisition of the passive is interpreted as possible evidence of cross-linguistic bootstrapping and support for early multilingual exposure.

  5. Variation, structure and norms

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Harder, Peter

    2014-01-01

    in linguistics: those that see linguistic norms as antithetical to a descriptive and variational linguistics. Once such a re-evaluation has taken place, however, the social recontextualization of cognition will enable linguistics (including sociolinguistics as an integral part), to eliminate the cracks...... that an evolutionary account can reintegrate the opposed fragments into a whole picture that puts each of them in their ‘ecological position’ with respect to each other. Empirical usage facts should be seen in the context of operational norms in relation to which actual linguistic choices represent adaptations....... Variational patterns should be seen in the context of structural categories without which there would be only ‘differences’ rather than variation. And emergence, individual choice, and flux should be seen in the context of the individual’s dependence on lineages of community practice sustained by collective...

  6. VARIASI KELUASAN MAKNA INTERPERSONAL TEKS “LASKAR PELANGI” BERBAHASA INDONESIA, INGGRIS, DAN MELAYU

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Apriliana Hapsari

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan variasi keluasan makna interpersonal pada teks “Laskar Pelangi” berbahasa Indonesia, Inggris, dan Melayu serta faktor-faktor yang mendorong terjadinya tingkat variasi keluasan makna tersebut. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian deskriptif kualitatif dengan objek penelitian adalah variasi keluasan makna interpersonal yang terealisasi dalam sistem gramatika MOOD pada tiap klusa dari ketiga teks multitranslasi. Data dianalisis dengan teknik hubung banding dengan membandingkan masing-masing klausa dari ketiga teks tersebut. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan tingginya tingkat variasi keluasan makna interpersonal pada T1:T2, sebesar 23,89, dan rendahnya tingkat variasi tersebut pada T1:T3, sebesar 2,82. Tingginya tingkat variasi disebabkan penambahan klausa pada T2, pengaruh skrip cerita film, faktor tujuan, serta faktor pembaca T2. Rendahnya tingkat variasi disebabkan persamaan akar bahasa dan budaya antara T1 dan T3 serta faktor tujuan penerjemahan. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ THE INTERPERSONAL MEANING BREADTH VARIATIONS ON MULTILINGUAL TRANSLATION TEKS “LASKAR PELANGI” IN BAHASA INDONESIA, ENGLISH, AND MALAY Abstract This study is aimed to describe the interpersonal meaning breadth variations on multilingual translation teks “Laskar Pelangi” in bahasa Indonesia, English, and Malay also to explore the motivating factors that occur inside those variations. This study was a descriptive qualitative research study. The object was interpersonal meaning breadth variations that were showed by the MOOD grammatical system in the clauses of the multilingual translation texts. The data were analyzed by comparing the realization of functional elements of the MOOD grammatical system in each clause of the text. The results of this study show that variations in interpersonal meaning breadth of T1:T2 are high, 23.89 whereas the

  7. Lexical preferences in Dutch verbal cluster ordering

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bloem, J.; Bellamy, K.; Karvovskaya, E.; Kohlberger, M.; Saad, G.

    2016-01-01

    This study discusses lexical preferences as a factor affecting the word order variation in Dutch verbal clusters. There are two grammatical word orders for Dutch two-verb clusters, with no clear meaning difference. Using the method of collostructional analysis, I find significant associations

  8. Pitch peak alignment in an outside focus realization : Frisian-Dutch bilingual speakers’ declarative and imperative intonation patterns

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nota, Amber; Hilton, Nanna; Coler, Matthew

    2016-01-01

    This paper investigates intonational pitch variations and pitch peak alignment in declarative sentences and is part of a larger study of declarative, interrogative and imperative grammatical constructions in the Frisian-Dutch contact situation. Frisian is a minority language spoken in the province

  9. French grammar for dummies

    CERN Document Server

    Mazet, Veronique

    2013-01-01

    The easy way to master French grammar French Grammar For Dummies is a logical extension and complement to the successful language learning book, French For Dummies. In plain English, it teaches you the grammatical rules of the French language, including parts of speech, sentence construction, pronouns, adjectives, punctuation, stress and verb tenses, and moods. Throughout the book, you get plenty of practice opportunities to help you on your goal of mastering basic French grammar and usage. Grasp the grammatical rules of French including parts of speech, sentenc

  10. 16 CFR 500.25 - Net quantity, average quantity, permitted variations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... good distribution practice and which unavoidably result in change of weight or mass or measure. (c... good packaging practice: Provided, that such variations shall not be permitted to such extent that the... 16 Commercial Practices 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Net quantity, average quantity, permitted...

  11. Lumbar spinal stenosis: comparison of surgical practice variation and clinical outcome in three national spine registries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lønne, Greger; Fritzell, Peter; Hägg, Olle; Nordvall, Dennis; Gerdhem, Paul; Lagerbäck, Tobias; Andersen, Mikkel; Eiskjaer, Søren; Gehrchen, Martin; Jacobs, Wilco; van Hooff, Miranda L; Solberg, Tore K

    2018-05-21

    Decompression surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is the most common spinal procedure in the elderly. To avoid persisting low back pain, adding arthrodesis has been recommended, especially if there is a coexisting degenerative spondylolisthesis. However, this strategy remains controversial, resulting in practice-based variation. The present study aimed to evaluate in a pragmatic study if surgical selection criteria and variation in use of arthrodesis in three Scandinavian countries can be linked to variation in treatment effectiveness. This is an observational study based on a combined cohort from the national spine registries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Patients aged 50 and older operated during 2011-2013 for LSS were included. Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs): Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) (primary outcome), Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) for leg pain and back pain, and health-related quality of life (Euro-Qol-5D) were reported. Analysis included case-mix adjustment. In addition, we report differences in hospital stay. Analyses of baseline data were done by analysis of variance (ANOVA), chi-square, or logistic regression tests. The comparisons of the mean changes of PROMs at 1-year follow-up between the countries were done by ANOVA (crude) and analysis of covariance (case-mix adjustment). Out of 14,223 included patients, 10,890 (77%) responded at 1-year follow-up. Apart from fewer smokers in Sweden and higher comorbidity rate in Norway, baseline characteristics were similar. The rate of additional fusion surgery (patients without or with spondylolisthesis) was 11% (4%, 47%) in Norway, 21% (9%, 56%) in Sweden, and 28% (15%, 88%) in Denmark. At 1-year follow-up, the mean improvement for ODI (95% confidence interval) was 18 (17-18) in Norway, 17 (17-18) in Sweden, and 18 (17-19) in Denmark. Patients operated with arthrodesis had prolonged hospital stay. Real-life data from three national spine registers showed similar indications for decompression

  12. A Sociolinguistic Approach to Teaching Spanish Grammatical Structures

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shin, Naomi L.; Hudgens Henderson, Mary

    2017-01-01

    Advanced grammar courses often present standardized grammar rules to students without considering sociolinguistic variation. As a result, many native/heritage students feel that they speak "incorrectly," and many second language learners do not get an accurate picture of the target language's real-world grammar. This article describes…

  13. The Influence of a Policy Document in the Practice of Intersectorial Collaboration in Danish Health Care

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andersen, Anne Bendix; Beedholm, Kirsten; Kolbæk, Raymond

    . The linguistic analysis of grammatical features present in the document enabled us to demonstrate how the authors of Health Agreements apply governing technologies to control the delivery of intersectorial health care in Denmark. Furthermore, the findings showed how this policy document, through its use......Background Policy documents are powerful actors in health care, and they play a significant role because they produce certain discursive and non-discursive conditions for intersectorial collaboration. Central documents in Denmark are the Health Agreements. These policy documents set out...... assess a policy document. Method A critical discourse analysis based on a three-dimensional model. Findings Our analysis showed how wordings and grammatical features create and maintain certain perceptions or common-sense understandings of actors, responsibilities, and tasks in health care...

  14. Variational methods in molecular modeling

    CERN Document Server

    2017-01-01

    This book presents tutorial overviews for many applications of variational methods to molecular modeling. Topics discussed include the Gibbs-Bogoliubov-Feynman variational principle, square-gradient models, classical density functional theories, self-consistent-field theories, phase-field methods, Ginzburg-Landau and Helfrich-type phenomenological models, dynamical density functional theory, and variational Monte Carlo methods. Illustrative examples are given to facilitate understanding of the basic concepts and quantitative prediction of the properties and rich behavior of diverse many-body systems ranging from inhomogeneous fluids, electrolytes and ionic liquids in micropores, colloidal dispersions, liquid crystals, polymer blends, lipid membranes, microemulsions, magnetic materials and high-temperature superconductors. All chapters are written by leading experts in the field and illustrated with tutorial examples for their practical applications to specific subjects. With emphasis placed on physical unders...

  15. Actes des Journees de linguistique (Proceedings of the Linguistics Conference) (7th, March 1993).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drouin, Patrick, Ed.; And Others

    Papers from a 1993 conference on linguistics, all in French, include essays on the following: Yoruba morphophonology; literary Arabic morphophonology; grammatical cohesion in Burushaski; phonological and lexical variation in French Canadian dialects, including Acadian; insults in Madrid Spanish; discourse analysis; maintenance of meaning in…

  16. Benchmarking to Identify Practice Variation in Test Ordering: A Potential Tool for Utilization Management.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Signorelli, Heather; Straseski, Joely A; Genzen, Jonathan R; Walker, Brandon S; Jackson, Brian R; Schmidt, Robert L

    2015-01-01

    Appropriate test utilization is usually evaluated by adherence to published guidelines. In many cases, medical guidelines are not available. Benchmarking has been proposed as a method to identify practice variations that may represent inappropriate testing. This study investigated the use of benchmarking to identify sites with inappropriate utilization of testing for a particular analyte. We used a Web-based survey to compare 2 measures of vitamin D utilization: overall testing intensity (ratio of total vitamin D orders to blood-count orders) and relative testing intensity (ratio of 1,25(OH)2D to 25(OH)D test orders). A total of 81 facilities contributed data. The average overall testing intensity index was 0.165, or approximately 1 vitamin D test for every 6 blood-count tests. The average relative testing intensity index was 0.055, or one 1,25(OH)2D test for every 18 of the 25(OH)D tests. Both indexes varied considerably. Benchmarking can be used as a screening tool to identify outliers that may be associated with inappropriate test utilization. Copyright© by the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP).

  17. Variation in prescribing for anxiety and depression: a reflection of health inequalities, cultural differences or variations in access to care?

    OpenAIRE

    Peters Jean; Grimsley Michael; Dibben Chris; Goyder Elizabeth; Blank Lindsay; Ellis Elizabeth

    2006-01-01

    Abstract Background There are large variations in mental health prescribing in UK populations. However the underlying reasons for these differences, which may be related to differences in prevalence, cultural expectations or practical difficulties in access to treatment, remain uncertain. Methods Linear modelling was used to investigate whether population characteristics or access to primary care account for variations in mental health prescribing across 39 deprived neighbourhoods. Results Th...

  18. The Use of Some Terms in the Field of Construction: Discrepancy between Theory and Practice

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lina Rutkienė

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available In modern society technical skills and competence are highly valued. The process of technologisation affects changes in language because the development of language is closely related to changes in society. Language becomes technical since humans constantly expose themselves to technical realia and their denominations. Yet, not always the widespread terms denoting technical concepts are grammatically acceptable. The main objectives of this article are the following: to analyse certain ad hoc selected terms used in the field of construction by use of questionnaires; to discuss the causes of ungrammatical use of the terms; to estimate the predominant role of linguistic or extralinguistic factors; to test and compare the degree of grammatically correct use of the terms by IV year students and employees of the construction sector.

  19. Theory and Practice in Language Policy: The Case of Uganda ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The team that carried out the Survey of Language Use and Language Teaching in Eastern Africa (with specific reference to Uganda) was non-committal on stating the number of languages there are in Uganda. In the end, they mentioned 63 languages/dialects which fall into 5 groups based on broad lexical and grammatical ...

  20. A Description of Colloquial Guarani. Janua Linguarum. Series Practical, XXVII.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gregores, Emma; Suarez, Jorge A.

    The purpose of this book is to describe the phonological and grammatical structures of modern Guarani, as it is spoken today in Asuncion and neighboring regions of Paraguay. An introductory section considers the linguistic classification of Guarani, gives some background on its speakers, and discusses the sources used for this study. Part I,…

  1. Overcoming language barriers with foreign-language speaking patients: a survey to investigate intra-hospital variation in attitudes and practices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vilpert Sarah

    2009-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Use of available interpreter services by hospital clincial staff is often suboptimal, despite evidence that trained interpreters contribute to quality of care and patient safety. Examination of intra-hospital variations in attitudes and practices regarding interpreter use can contribute to identifying factors that facilitate good practice. The purpose of this study was to describe attitudes, practices and preferences regarding communication with limited French proficiency (LFP patients, examine how these vary across professions and departments within the hospital, and identify factors associated with good practices. Methods A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to random samples of 700 doctors, 700 nurses and 93 social workers at the Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland. Results Seventy percent of respondents encounter LFP patients at least once a month, but this varied by department. 66% of respondents said they preferred working with ad hoc interpreters (patient's family and bilingual staff, mainly because these were easier to access. During the 6 months preceding the study, ad hoc interpreters were used at least once by 71% of respondents, and professional interpreters were used at least once by 51%. Overall, only nine percent of respondents had received any training in how and why to work with a trained interpreter. Only 23.2% of respondents said the clinical service in which they currently worked encouraged them to use professional interpreters. Respondents working in services where use of professional interpreters was encouraged were more likely to be of the opinion that the hospital should systematically provide a professional interpreter to LFP patients (40.3% as compared with those working in a department that discouraged use of professional interpreters (15.5% and they used professional interpreters more often during the previous 6 months. Conclusion Attitudes and practices regarding communication with

  2. Overcoming language barriers with foreign-language speaking patients: a survey to investigate intra-hospital variation in attitudes and practices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hudelson, Patricia; Vilpert, Sarah

    2009-10-15

    Use of available interpreter services by hospital clinical staff is often suboptimal, despite evidence that trained interpreters contribute to quality of care and patient safety. Examination of intra-hospital variations in attitudes and practices regarding interpreter use can contribute to identifying factors that facilitate good practice. The purpose of this study was to describe attitudes, practices and preferences regarding communication with limited French proficiency (LFP) patients, examine how these vary across professions and departments within the hospital, and identify factors associated with good practices. A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to random samples of 700 doctors, 700 nurses and 93 social workers at the Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland. Seventy percent of respondents encounter LFP patients at least once a month, but this varied by department. 66% of respondents said they preferred working with ad hoc interpreters (patient's family and bilingual staff), mainly because these were easier to access. During the 6 months preceding the study, ad hoc interpreters were used at least once by 71% of respondents, and professional interpreters were used at least once by 51%. Overall, only nine percent of respondents had received any training in how and why to work with a trained interpreter. Only 23.2% of respondents said the clinical service in which they currently worked encouraged them to use professional interpreters. Respondents working in services where use of professional interpreters was encouraged were more likely to be of the opinion that the hospital should systematically provide a professional interpreter to LFP patients (40.3%) as compared with those working in a department that discouraged use of professional interpreters (15.5%) and they used professional interpreters more often during the previous 6 months. Attitudes and practices regarding communication with LFP patients vary across professions and hospital departments. In

  3. Improvement of remote monitoring on water quality in a subtropical reservoir by incorporating grammatical evolution with parallel genetic algorithms into satellite imagery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Li; Tan, Chih-Hung; Kao, Shuh-Ji; Wang, Tai-Sheng

    2008-01-01

    Parallel GEGA was constructed by incorporating grammatical evolution (GE) into the parallel genetic algorithm (GA) to improve reservoir water quality monitoring based on remote sensing images. A cruise was conducted to ground-truth chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration longitudinally along the Feitsui Reservoir, the primary water supply for Taipei City in Taiwan. Empirical functions with multiple spectral parameters from the Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) data were constructed. The GE, an evolutionary automatic programming type system, automatically discovers complex nonlinear mathematical relationships among observed Chl-a concentrations and remote-sensed imageries. A GA was used afterward with GE to optimize the appropriate function type. Various parallel subpopulations were processed to enhance search efficiency during the optimization procedure with GA. Compared with a traditional linear multiple regression (LMR), the performance of parallel GEGA was found to be better than that of the traditional LMR model with lower estimating errors.

  4. From Grammatical Number to Exact Numbers: Early Meanings of ‘One,’ ‘Two,’ and ‘Three’ in English, Russian, and Japanese

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sarnecka, Barbara W.; Kamenskaya, Valentina G.; Yamana, Yuko; Ogura, Tamiko; Yudovina, Yulia. B.

    2007-01-01

    This study examined whether singular/plural marking in a language helps children learn the meanings of the words ‘one,’ ‘two,’ and ‘three.’ First, CHILDES data in English, Russian (which marks singular/plural), and Japanese (which does not) were compared for frequency, variability, and contexts of number-word use. Then young children in the USA, Russia, and Japan were tested on Counting and Give-N tasks. More English and Russian learners knew the meaning of each number word than Japanese learners, regardless of whether singular/plural cues appeared in the task itself (e.g., “Give two apples” vs. “Give two”). These results suggest that the learning of “one,” “two” and “three” is supported by the conceptual framework of grammatical number, rather than that of integers. PMID:17070794

  5. Grammatical consciousness-raising: a problem-solving, process-focused approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wendy R. Kilfoil

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available How can we address the teaching of English as a second language in South African secondary schools given what we know about the nature of language acquisition, learners' lack of exposure to mother tongue English speakers and their widely divergent language experience at primary school/eve!? This paper argues that grammatical consciousness-raising should be the basis of the secondary school syllabus. Current syllabuses do not adequately consider language acquisition processes. Although their aims are defined as 'communicative: syllabuses continue to focus on what language should be taught, with the result that they remain essentially lists of structures and functions. Syllabuses should be completely redesigned to develop a coherent process-focused, problemsolving approach to second language teaching. At the moment there is a distinct reluctance to make any definitive pronouncements about the place of language instruction in the classroom. This has a detrimental effect on both teachers and learners. The only way to cope with the developing language needs of the learner in the secondary school is through a more conscious study of how language is used in natural discourse. A more deliberate language control on the part of the learner will enhance the efficacy of extensive listening, speaking, reading and writing activities designed to supply input which is a necessary but not sufficient criterion for acquisition at this leveL Hoe kan ons die onderrig van Engels as 'n tweede taal in Suid-Afrikaanse sekondere skole aanspreek, gegee ons kennis van die aard van taalverwerwing, die leerders se gebrek aan blootstelling aan Engels-moederlaalsprekers en hul uiteenlopende taalondervinding op laerskoolvlak? Hierdie arlikel voer aan dat grammatikale bewustheidsopskerping die basis van die sekondere skoolleerplan behoorl te wees. Huidige leerplanne neem nie taalverwerwingsprosesse voldoende in ag nie. Alhoewel hulle doelstellings as kommunikatief beskryf word

  6. The Impact of Explicit and Implicit Recasts on the Grammatical Accuracy of Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing Performance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Saeideh Ahangari

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available The present study aimed at investigating the effects of explicit and implicit recasts on Iranian EFL learners' acquisition of English relative clauses. For this purpose, 64 participants were selected out of 94 intermediate level EFL learners at Falagh language Institute, Rasht, Iran. To have homogenized groups, the researcher administered a language proficiency test (TOEFL. Then, the researchers assigned them randomly to the explicit recast group, implicit recast group, and control group. They carried out some information gap tasks within four sessions. One group received explicit recast, the other group received implicit recast and the control one got no corrective feedback, for the target linguistic errors during the task performance. A grammatical judgment test was applied as the pretest and immediate posttest. The results of a paired-samples t-test and analyses of variance (ANOVA showed that the scores of all three groups improved significantly overtime. However, the explicit recast group did significantly better than both the control group and the implicit recast group. The results of the study were elaborated in terms of counterbalance hypothesis and noticing hypothesis. The superiority of explicit recast implied a beneficial role for negative evidence in SLA and that explicit recast was a better choice than implicit recast in the L2 classroom.

  7. Overlapping constraint for variational surface reconstruction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Aanæs, Henrik; Solem, J.E.

    2005-01-01

    In this paper a counter example, illustrating a shortcoming in most variational formulations for 3D surface estimation, is presented. The nature of this shortcoming is a lack of an overlapping constraint. A remedy for this shortcoming is presented in the form of a penalty function with an analysi...... of the effects of this function on surface motion. For practical purposes, this will only have minor influence on current methods. However, the insight provided in the analysis is likely to influence future developments in the field of variational surface reconstruction....

  8. Deletion of /T, D/ and the Acquisition of Linguistic Variation by Second Language Learners of English

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edwards, Jette G. Hansen

    2011-01-01

    This study investigated second language (L2) learners' acquisition of English /t, d/ deletion patterns in word-final consonant clusters, (a) focusing on how constraints such as grammatical conditioning and phonological environment affect deletion of /t, d/ in L2 acquisition and (b) determining the extent to which these L2 learners had acquired…

  9. Distribution and geographical variation of the White-tailed Hawk (Buteo albicaudatus)

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Voous, K.H.

    1968-01-01

    The present knowledge on infraspecific variation, distribution, and migration of the White-tailed Hawk ( Buteo albicaudatus Vieillot) is critically reviewed. In practically every aspect knowledge is highly inadequate. Size variation (tables I—IV) is in accordance with Bergmann’s Phenomenon, but does

  10. Programmatic Variation in Home Hemodialysis in Canada: Results from a Nationwide Survey of Practice Patterns

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robert P Pauly

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Background: Over 40% of patients with end stage renal disease in the United States were treated with home hemodialysis (HHD in the early 1970's. However, this number declined rapidly over the ensuing decades so that the overwhelming majority of patients were treated in-centre 3 times per week on a 3–4 hour schedule. Poor outcomes for patients treated in this fashion led to a renewed interest in home hemodialysis, with more intensive dialysis schedules including short daily (SDHD and nocturnal (NHD. The relative infancy of these treatment schedules means that there is a paucity of data on ‘how to do it’. Objective: We undertook a systematic survey of home hemodialysis programs in Canada to describe current practice patterns. Design: Development and deployment of a qualitative survey instrument. Setting: Community and academic HHD programs in Canada. Participants: Physicians, nurses and technologists. Measurements: Programmatic approaches to patient selection, delivery of dialysis, human resources available, and follow up. Methods: We developed the survey instrument in three phases. A focus group of Canadian nephrologists with expertise in NHD or SDHD discussed the scope the study and wrote questions on 11 domains. Three nephrologists familiar with all aspects of HHD delivery reviewed this for content validity, followed by further feedback from the whole group. Multidisciplinary teams at three sites pretested the survey and further suggestions were incorporated. In July 2010 we distributed the survey electronically to all renal programs known to offer HHD according to the Canadian Organ Replacement Registry. We compiled the survey results using qualitative and quantitative methods, as appropriate. Results: Of the academic and community programs that were invited to participate, 80% and 63%, respectively, completed the survey. We observed wide variation in programmatic approaches to patient recruitment, human resources, equipment, water

  11. Causes for variation in pork quality

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wal, van der P.; Engel, B.; Hulsegge, B.

    1997-01-01

    Research was carried out on 260 pigs that were slaughtered in 12 batches in the slaughter facilities of ID-DLO at Zeist. The practical circumstances were highly standardized. The 'animals' meat quality was good with only little variation; 46 animals showed a 'slightly' aberrant quality and 6

  12. Social Issues in Applied Linguistics: Linguistic Diversity in the Classroom and Beyond. Is it Wrong or Just Different? Indigenous Spanish in Mexico

    OpenAIRE

    Pellicer, Dora

    2010-01-01

    Varieties of L2 language use are frequently rejected and criticized in the absence of linguistic criteria to sustain such attitudes. In Mexico, indigenous varieties of Spanish, the second language (L2) of diverse populations, has been stigmatized as uneducated Spanish. A majority of elementary school teachers interviewed, who are Spanish first language (L1) speakers, maintain that particular variations in accent and pronunciation as well as some grammatical variations are characteristic of in...

  13. Genetic Variation in Cardiomyopathy and Cardiovascular Disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McNally, Elizabeth M; Puckelwartz, Megan J

    2015-01-01

    With the wider deployment of massively-parallel, next-generation sequencing, it is now possible to survey human genome data for research and clinical purposes. The reduced cost of producing short-read sequencing has now shifted the burden to data analysis. Analysis of genome sequencing remains challenged by the complexity of the human genome, including redundancy and the repetitive nature of genome elements and the large amount of variation in individual genomes. Public databases of human genome sequences greatly facilitate interpretation of common and rare genetic variation, although linking database sequence information to detailed clinical information is limited by privacy and practical issues. Genetic variation is a rich source of knowledge for cardiovascular disease because many, if not all, cardiovascular disorders are highly heritable. The role of rare genetic variation in predicting risk and complications of cardiovascular diseases has been well established for hypertrophic and dilated cardiomyopathy, where the number of genes that are linked to these disorders is growing. Bolstered by family data, where genetic variants segregate with disease, rare variation can be linked to specific genetic variation that offers profound diagnostic information. Understanding genetic variation in cardiomyopathy is likely to help stratify forms of heart failure and guide therapy. Ultimately, genetic variation may be amenable to gene correction and gene editing strategies.

  14. Variation of topical application to skin under good clinical practice (GCP)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Vind-Kezunovic, Dina; Serup, Jørgen Vedelskov

    2016-01-01

    INTRODUCTION: Application of topical products by individuals is inherently variable and accurate dosing can be difficult to control. Variation of the dose used under optimal conditions in drug trials is unknown. METHODS: This trial was part of a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled good...

  15. Striking variations in consultation rates with general practice reveal family influence.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Cardol, M.; Dijk, L. van; Bosch, W.J.H.M. van den; Spreeuwenberg, P.; Bakker, D.H. de; Groenewegen, P.P.

    2007-01-01

    BACKGROUND: The reasons why patients decide to consult a general practitioner vary enormously. While there may be individual reasons for this variation, the family context has a significant and unique influence upon the frequency of individuals' visits. The objective of this study was to explore

  16. Striking variations in consultation rates with general practice reveal family influence

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Cardol, Mieke; Dijk, Liset van; Bosch, Wil J.H.M. van den; Spreeuwenberg, Peter; Bakker, Dinny H. de; Groenewegen, Peter P.

    2007-01-01

    Background: The reasons why patients decide to consult a general practitioner vary enormously. While there may be individual reasons for this variation, the family context has a significant and unique influence upon the frequency of individuals' visits. The objective of this study was to explore

  17. Gauging Variational Inference

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Chertkov, Michael [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Ahn, Sungsoo [Korea Advanced Inst. Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Shin, Jinwoo [Korea Advanced Inst. Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

    2017-05-25

    Computing partition function is the most important statistical inference task arising in applications of Graphical Models (GM). Since it is computationally intractable, approximate methods have been used to resolve the issue in practice, where meanfield (MF) and belief propagation (BP) are arguably the most popular and successful approaches of a variational type. In this paper, we propose two new variational schemes, coined Gauged-MF (G-MF) and Gauged-BP (G-BP), improving MF and BP, respectively. Both provide lower bounds for the partition function by utilizing the so-called gauge transformation which modifies factors of GM while keeping the partition function invariant. Moreover, we prove that both G-MF and G-BP are exact for GMs with a single loop of a special structure, even though the bare MF and BP perform badly in this case. Our extensive experiments, on complete GMs of relatively small size and on large GM (up-to 300 variables) confirm that the newly proposed algorithms outperform and generalize MF and BP.

  18. Practical Aspects of CMOS Layout

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Stassen, Flemming

    1996-01-01

    The topics covered in these notes are the practical aspects and limitations of layout, when random process variations result in electrical parameters, which are not constant but rather statistically distributed.The focus is on design methods for reducing or eliminating the effects. The notes cover...... three aspects:1) to introduce layout structures robust to process variations2) to present simplistic models for analog building blocks with the aim of analysing consequences of parameter variations3) to present the basic noise considerations which guide the layout of supply structures etc....

  19. Adaptation and innovation: a grounded theory study of procedural variation in the academic surgical workplace.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Apramian, Tavis; Watling, Christopher; Lingard, Lorelei; Cristancho, Sayra

    2015-10-01

    Surgical research struggles to describe the relationship between procedural variations in daily practice and traditional conceptualizations of evidence. The problem has resisted simple solutions, in part, because we lack a solid understanding of how surgeons conceptualize and interact around variation, adaptation, innovation, and evidence in daily practice. This grounded theory study aims to describe the social processes that influence how procedural variation is conceptualized in the surgical workplace. Using the constructivist grounded theory methodology, semi-structured interviews with surgeons (n = 19) from four North American academic centres were collected and analysed. Purposive sampling targeted surgeons with experiential knowledge of the role of variations in the workplace. Theoretical sampling was conducted until a theoretical framework representing key processes was conceptually saturated. Surgical procedural variation was influenced by three key processes. Seeking improvement was shaped by having unsolved procedural problems, adapting in the moment, and pursuing personal opportunities. Orienting self and others to variations consisted of sharing stories of variations with others, taking stock of how a variation promoted personal interests, and placing trust in peers. Acting under cultural and material conditions was characterized by being wary, positioning personal image, showing the logic of a variation, and making use of academic resources to do so. Our findings include social processes that influence how adaptations are incubated in surgical practice and mature into innovations. This study offers a language for conceptualizing the sociocultural influences on procedural variations in surgery. Interventions to change how surgeons interact with variations on a day-to-day basis should consider these social processes in their design. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  20. Regional variations in the use of home care services in Ontario, 1993/95

    OpenAIRE

    Coyte, P C; Young, W

    1999-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Although regional variations in the use of many health care services have been reported, little attention has been devoted to home care practices. Given the dramatic shift in care settings from hospitals to private homes, it is important to determine the extent to which home care practices vary by geographic region. METHODS: Data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information and the Ontario Home Care Administration System database were used to assess regional variations in ra...

  1. Functional Orientation and Practice of Inductive and Deductive Approaches to Grammar Teaching in EFL

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    邵阳

    2011-01-01

    To solve the ambiguous understanding of Grammar Teaching position,based on explicit grammatical knowledge,this paper discusses the grammar position in EFL,compares both its pros and cons between deductive and inductive approaches,and indicates that grammar teaching by either approach alone has disadvantages,should adopt a combination technique.

  2. The role of organizational context and individual nurse characteristics in explaining variation in use of information technologies in evidence based practice

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Doran Diane

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background There is growing awareness of the role of information technology in evidence-based practice. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of organizational context and nurse characteristics in explaining variation in nurses’ use of personal digital assistants (PDAs and mobile Tablet PCs for accessing evidence-based information. The Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (PARIHS model provided the framework for studying the impact of providing nurses with PDA-supported, evidence-based practice resources, and for studying the organizational, technological, and human resource variables that impact nurses’ use patterns. Methods A survey design was used, involving baseline and follow-up questionnaires. The setting included 24 organizations representing three sectors: hospitals, long-term care (LTC facilities, and community organizations (home care and public health. The sample consisted of 710 participants (response rate 58% at Time 1, and 469 for whom both Time 1 and Time 2 follow-up data were obtained (response rate 66%. A hierarchical regression model (HLM was used to evaluate the effect of predictors from all levels simultaneously. Results The Chi square result indicated PDA users reported using their device more frequently than Tablet PC users (p = 0.001. Frequency of device use was explained by ‘breadth of device functions’ and PDA versus Tablet PC. Frequency of Best Practice Guideline use was explained by ‘willingness to implement research,’ ‘structural and electronic resources,’ ‘organizational slack time,’ ‘breadth of device functions’ (positive effects, and ‘slack staff’ (negative effect. Frequency of Nursing Plus database use was explained by ‘culture,’ ‘structural and electronic resources,’ and ‘breadth of device functions’ (positive effects, and ‘slack staff’ (negative. ‘Organizational culture’ (positive, ‘breadth of device functions

  3. Intra-Cultural Variation in Child Care Practices in Japan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toyama, Noriko

    2016-01-01

    This study, comprising three sub-studies, aims to examine how child-rearing practices vary according to different social circumstances in Japan. By comparing teacher-child interaction at mealtimes in day care centres both on an isolated small island located in Okinawa prefecture, Tarama, and in a large industrialised city, Tokyo, the following was…

  4. Variational principles for dissipative waves

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dodin, I. Y.; Ruiz, D. E.

    2016-10-01

    Variational methods are a powerful tool in plasma theory. However, their applications are typically restricted to conservative systems or require doubling of variables, which often contradicts the purpose of the variational approach altogether. We show that these restrictions can be relaxed for some classes of dynamical systems that are of practical interest in plasma physics, particularly including dissipative plasma waves. Applications will be discussed to calculating dispersion relations and modulational dynamics of individual plasma waves and wave ensembles. The work was supported by the NNSA SSAA Program through DOE Research Grant No. DE-NA0002948, by the U.S. DOE through Contract No. DE-AC02-09CH11466, and by the U.S. DOD NDSEG Fellowship through Contract No. 32-CFR-168a.

  5. The Lexicographical Handling of Grammatical Equivalence: The ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    sensible to decide in favour of a descriptive approach (Toury 1980), which, in contrast to the pre- scriptive approach, does not ..... Cape Town: Tafelberg. Nida, E. and R. Ta~r. 1974. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: E.}. Brill. Toary, G. 1980. In Search of a Theory of Translation. Tel Aviv: Porter Institute. R ep rod.

  6. Progress in classical and quantum variational principles

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gray, C G; Karl, G; Novikov, V A

    2004-01-01

    We review the development and practical uses of a generalized Maupertuis least action principle in classical mechanics in which the action is varied under the constraint of fixed mean energy for the trial trajectory. The original Maupertuis (Euler-Lagrange) principle constrains the energy at every point along the trajectory. The generalized Maupertuis principle is equivalent to Hamilton's principle. Reciprocal principles are also derived for both the generalized Maupertuis and the Hamilton principles. The reciprocal Maupertuis principle is the classical limit of Schroedinger's variational principle of wave mechanics and is also very useful to solve practical problems in both classical and semiclassical mechanics, in complete analogy with the quantum Rayleigh-Ritz method. Classical, semiclassical and quantum variational calculations are carried out for a number of systems, and the results are compared. Pedagogical as well as research problems are used as examples, which include nonconservative as well as relativistic systems. '... the most beautiful and important discovery of Mechanics.' Lagrange to Maupertuis (November 1756)

  7. Process evaluation of the Data-driven Quality Improvement in Primary Care (DQIP) trial: quantitative examination of variation between practices in recruitment, implementation and effectiveness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dreischulte, Tobias; Grant, Aileen; Hapca, Adrian; Guthrie, Bruce

    2018-01-05

    The cluster randomised trial of the Data-driven Quality Improvement in Primary Care (DQIP) intervention showed that education, informatics and financial incentives for general medical practices to review patients with ongoing high-risk prescribing of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and antiplatelets reduced the primary end point of high-risk prescribing by 37%, where both ongoing and new high-risk prescribing were significantly reduced. This quantitative process evaluation examined practice factors associated with (1) participation in the DQIP trial, (2) review activity (extent and nature of documented reviews) and (3) practice level effectiveness (relative reductions in the primary end point). Invited practices recruited (n=33) and not recruited (n=32) to the DQIP trial in Scotland, UK. (1) Characteristics of recruited versus non-recruited practices. Associations of (2) practice characteristics and 'adoption' (self-reported implementation work done by practices) with documented review activity and (3) of practice characteristics, DQIP adoption and review activity with effectiveness. (1) Recruited practices had lower performance in the quality and outcomes framework than those declining participation. (2) Not being an approved general practitioner training practice and higher self-reported adoption were significantly associated with higher review activity. (3) Effectiveness ranged from a relative increase in high-risk prescribing of 24.1% to a relative reduction of 77.2%. High-risk prescribing and DQIP adoption (but not documented review activity) were significantly associated with greater effectiveness in the final multivariate model, explaining 64.0% of variation in effectiveness. Intervention implementation and effectiveness of the DQIP intervention varied substantially between practices. Although the DQIP intervention primarily targeted review of ongoing high-risk prescribing, the finding that self-reported DQIP adoption was a stronger predictor of

  8. PRAGMATICS OF GRAMMATICAL FORMS: MORPHOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC MEANS IN THE SERVICE OF EXPRESSING POLITENESS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mihaela Matešić

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Politeness can be expressed verbally, non-verbally or by merging the verbal and nonverbal means through various strategies in both written and oral (direct and indirect communication. The foundations of the theory of politeness in linguistic terms were laid in the works of Robin T. Lakoff in the 1970’s and those of Penelope Brown and Steven Levinson in the 1980’s. The phenomenon of verbal, or linguistic, politeness is related to the idea of pragmalinguistic competence as one of the basic elements of communicative competence concerning the choice of adequate means of expression in various linguistic situations. As a pragmalinguistic phenomenon, politeness is achieved through various functions and social meanings of linguistic structures. That is why the theory of (linguistic politeness is concerned, in addition to other issues, with the typology of linguistic means used for the expression of politeness in different languages and in various communicative situations. The paper analyses the means and methods used to express politeness in the Croatian language on the morphological and the syntactic level. Certain mechanisms for the implementation of politeness strategies are detected, such as the choice between different verb forms (i.e. for the purpose of statement de-imperativization, the choice of morphological means (i.e. the use of personal and reflexive pronouns, especially in pseudo paremiological units, or the use of diminutive, the choice between the syntactic transformations (i.e. the use of interrogatives, and syntactic structures in general, especially with respect to the difference between the syntax of a sentence and that of an utterance. In addition to contributing to the development of the politeness theory, the analysis of morphological and syntactic means also contributes to a more complete description of certain grammatical categories in language manuals.

  9. Pharmacogenetics in clinical practice

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Derijks, Luc J. J.; Derijks, H. Jeroen; Touw, Daan J.; Conemans, Jean M. H.; Egberts, Antoine C. G.

    2008-01-01

    The availability of data from pharmacogenetic studies is reflected in therapeutic practice, and pharmacogenetics is slowly entering the medical arena. Preconditions for the utilisation of pharmacogenetic knowledge are that: 1) genetic variation and prevalence are known 2) pharmacological

  10. Bronchiolitis in US emergency departments 1992 to 2000: epidemiology and practice variation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mansbach, Jonathan M; Emond, Jennifer A; Camargo, Carlos A

    2005-04-01

    To describe the epidemiology of US emergency department (ED) visits for bronchiolitis, including the characteristics of children presenting to the ED and the variability in bronchiolitis care in the ED. Data were obtained from the 1992 to 2000 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. Cases had International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification code 466 and were younger than 2 years. National estimates were obtained using assigned patient visit weights; 95% confidence intervals were calculated using the relative standard error of the estimate; analysis used chi2 and logistic regression. From 1992 to 2000, bronchiolitis accounted for approximately 1,868,000 ED visits for children younger than 2 years. Among this same age group, the overall rate was 26 (95% confidence interval 22-31) per 1000 US population and 31 (95% confidence interval 26-36) per 1000 ED visits. These rates were stable over the 9-year period. Comparing children with bronchiolitis to those presenting with other problems, children with bronchiolitis were more likely boys (61% vs. 53%; P = 0.01) and Hispanic (27% vs. 20%; P = 0.008). Therapeutic interventions varied and 19% were admitted to the hospital. The multivariate predictor for receiving systemic steroids was urgent/emergent status at triage (odds ratio 4.0, 1.9-8.4). Multivariate predictors for admission were Hispanic ethnicity (odds ratio 2.3, 1.1-5.0) and urgent/emergent status at triage (odds ratio 3.7, 2.0-6.9). ED visit rates for bronchiolitis among children younger than 2 years were stable between 1992 and 2000. The observed ED practice variation demonstrates that children are receiving medications for which there is little supporting evidence. Boys and Hispanics are at-risk groups for presentation to the ED, and Hispanics are more likely to be hospitalized.

  11. Biological variation in musculoskeletal injuries: current knowledge, future research and practical implications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Collins, Malcolm; September, Alison V; Posthumus, Michael

    2015-12-01

    Evidence from familial and genetic association studies have reported that DNA sequence variants play an important role, together with non-genetic factors, in the aetiology of both exercise-associated and occupational-associated acute and chronic musculoskeletal soft tissue injuries. The associated variants, which have been identified to date, may contribute to the interindividual variation in the structure and, by implication, mechanical properties of the collagen fibril and surrounding matrix within musculoskeletal soft tissues, as well as their response to mechanical loading and other stimuli. Future work should focus on the establishment of multidisciplinary international consortia for the identification of biologically relevant variants involved in modulating injury risk. These consortia will improve the limitations of the published hypothesis-driven genetic association studies, since they will allow resources to be pooled in recruiting large well-characterised cohorts required for whole-genome screening. Finally, clinicians and coaches need to be aware that many direct-to-consumer companies are currently marketing genetic tests directly to athletes without it being requested by an appropriately qualified healthcare professional, and without interpretation alongside other clinical indicators or lifestyle factors. These specific genetic tests are premature and are not necessarily required to evaluate susceptibility to musculoskeletal soft tissue injury. Current practice should rather consider susceptibility through known risk factors such as a positive family history of a specific injury, a history of other tendon and/or ligament injuries and participation in activities associated with the specific musculoskeletal injuries. Potential susceptible athletes may then be individually managed to reduce their risk profile. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

  12. Adjunction, Labeling, and Bare Phrase Structure

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Norbert Hornstein

    2008-03-01

    Full Text Available The primary aim in this paper is to propose a phrase structure for adjunction that is compatible with the precepts of Bare Phrase Structure (BPS. Current accounts are at odds with the central vision of BPS and current practice leans more to descriptive eclecticism than to theoretical insight. A diagnosis for this conceptual disarray is suggested here: It stems from a deeply held though seldom formulated intuition; the tacit view that adjuncts are the abnormal case while arguments describe the grammatical norm. In actuality, it is argued, adjuncts are so well behaved that they require virtually no grammatical support to function properly. Arguments, in contrast, are refractory and require grammatical aid to allow them to make any propositional contribution. This last remark should come as no surprise to those with neo-Davidsonian semantic sympathies. Connoisseurs of this art form are well versed in the important role that grammatical (aka, thematic roles play in turning arguments into modifiers of events. Such fulcra are not required for meaningfully integrating adjuncts. into sentences. In what follows, we take this difference to be of the greatest significance and we ask ourselves what this might imply for the phrase structure of adjunction.

  13. Variation in prevention of child maltreatment by Dutch child healthcare professionals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Visscher, Simeon J A; van Stel, Henk F

    2017-08-01

    Child maltreatment (CM) is a common condition with a large impact on the victim and society. In the Netherlands, the preventive child healthcare (CHC) aims to protect children against such threats. However, several studies indicate that the efficacy in this area may be suboptimal for many CHC professionals. Therefore, this study aims to map the practice variation in the primary and secondary prevention of CM, by CHC physicians and nurses. This mixed-methods study used interviews to identify relevant topics and develop an online questionnaire. All CHC organizations in the Netherlands (n=45) were asked to forward this questionnaire to their professionals. Practice variation was described with domain scores and item response distributions. Multi-level analysis was used to assess case mix-corrected variance between organizations. Interview participants (n=11) expected suboptimal care in 35 topics which they considered important for prevention of CM, resulting in a 15min questionnaire. Nearly two-thirds of the organizations (n=29) agreed to forward the questionnaire to their employees. The response rate was 42% (n=1104). Suboptimal care and practice variation was found in all domains (i.e. communication, medical expertise, collaboration, involvement in prevention of CM, and improvement opportunities), mostly caused by intra-organization variance. Significant inter-organization variance was found for collaboration (variance partition coefficient 6-7%) and involvement (2-3%). Furthermore, the majority of the respondents (96%) reported fear in acting upon suspicions of CM. Substantial suboptimal care and practice variation in prevention of CM warrant action from authorities, CHC training institutes, CHC organizations, and professionals. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. Financial ratios in diagnostic radiology practices: variability and trends.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hogan, Christopher; Sunshine, Jonathan H

    2004-03-01

    To evaluate variation in financial ratios for radiology practices nationwide and trends in these ratios and in payments. In 1999, the American College of Radiology surveyed radiology practices by mail. The final response rate was 66%. Weighting was used to make responses representative of all radiology practices in the United States. Self-reported financial ratios (payments, charges, accounts receivable turnover) were analyzed; 449 responses had usable data on these ratios. Comparison with results of a similar 1992 survey and combined analysis with Medicare data on billed charges provided information on trends. All measures of payment collections declined sharply from 1992 to 1999, with the gross collections rate (revenues as percentage of billed charges) decreasing from 71% to 55%. Average payment for a typical radiology service decreased approximately 4% in dollar terms or approximately 19% in inflation-adjusted terms. In 1999, nonmetropolitan practices appeared to fare better than others. Among insurers, Medicaid stood out as a low and slow payer, but neither managed care nor Medicare had a consistent effect on financial ratios. The gross collections rate varied substantially across geographic areas, as did, in an inverse pattern, the level of billed charges. One-quarter of practices had accounts receivable equal to 90 or more days of billings. The opposing geographic pattern of billed charges and gross collection rate suggests that geographic variation in the latter is driven more by variation in billed charges than by variation in payment levels. Radiologists saw a substantial decrease in the real (inflation-adjusted) value of payment per service during the 1990s. The large fraction of practices with accounts receivable of 90 or more days of billings-a level considered potentially imprudent by financial management advisors-suggests that many practices should improve financial management and that state prompt-payment laws have not had a substantial positive

  15. Storm surge model based on variational data assimilation method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shi-li Huang

    2010-06-01

    Full Text Available By combining computation and observation information, the variational data assimilation method has the ability to eliminate errors caused by the uncertainty of parameters in practical forecasting. It was applied to a storm surge model based on unstructured grids with high spatial resolution meant for improving the forecasting accuracy of the storm surge. By controlling the wind stress drag coefficient, the variation-based model was developed and validated through data assimilation tests in an actual storm surge induced by a typhoon. In the data assimilation tests, the model accurately identified the wind stress drag coefficient and obtained results close to the true state. Then, the actual storm surge induced by Typhoon 0515 was forecast by the developed model, and the results demonstrate its efficiency in practical application.

  16. Empathy Variation in General Practice: A Survey among General Practitioners in Denmark

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Charles, Justin; Ahnfeldt-Mollerup, Peder; Søndergaard, Jens

    2018-01-01

    Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that high levels of physician empathy may be correlated with improved patient health outcomes and high physician job satisfaction. Knowledge about variation in empathy and related general practitioner (GP) characteristics may allow for a more informe...

  17. Regional variations in home canning practices and the risk of foodborne botulism in the Republic of Georgia, 2003.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tarkhashvili, N; Chokheli, M; Chubinidze, M; Abazashvili, N; Chakvetadze, N; Imnadze, P; Kretsinger, K; Varma, J; Sobel, J

    2015-04-01

    Foodborne botulism is a severe, paralytic illness caused by ingestion of preformed neurotoxins produced by Clostridium botulinum. In 2003, we conducted a population-based household survey of home canning practices to explore marked regional variations in botulism incidence in the Republic of Georgia (ROG). We designed a cluster sampling scheme and subdivided each of the 10 regions of the ROG into a variable number of strata. Households were selected from each stratum using a two-step cluster sampling methodology. We administered a questionnaire about home canning practices to household members responsible for food preparation. Using multivariate logistic regression analysis, we modeled high (eastern ROG) against low (western ROG) incidence areas. Overall, we surveyed 2,742 households nationwide. Home canning with a capping device hermetically sealing the lid covering the jar was practiced by 1,909 households (65.9%; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 59.8 to 72.1%). Canning was more prevalent in regions of low botulism incidence (34 versus 32%; P canning vegetables and consuming them (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 2.1; 95% CI: 1.3 to 3.5) and adding any of the following ingredients to the jar at time of preparation: >1 tablespoon of salt per liter (aOR = 5.1; 95% CI: 1.2 to 22.6); vinegar (aOR = 2.2; 95% CI: 1.3 to 3.7), and greens (aOR = 5.6; 95% CI: 1.7 to 18.2). The following practices were associated with a decreased risk in high-botulism areas: >57 jars canned per household annually (aOR = 0.5; 95% CI: 0.3 to 0.9), covering or immersing vegetables in boiling water before placing them into the jar (aOR = 0.3 95% CI: 0.2 to 0.6), covering or immersing vegetables in boiling water after placing them into the jar (aOR = 0.4; 95% CI: 0.2 to 0.9), or adding garlic (aOR = 0.2; 95% CI: 0.1 to 0.5) or aspirin (aOR = 0.1; 95% CI: 0.1 to 0.2) to the jar at the time of preparation.

  18. Variation and Commonality in Phenomenographic Research Methods

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akerlind, Gerlese S.

    2012-01-01

    This paper focuses on the data analysis stage of phenomenographic research, elucidating what is involved in terms of both commonality and variation in accepted practice. The analysis stage of phenomenographic research is often not well understood. This paper helps to clarify the process, initially by collecting together in one location the more…

  19. Adherence to best practice consensus guidelines for implant-based breast reconstruction: Results from the iBRA national practice questionnaire survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mylvaganam, Senthurun; Conroy, Elizabeth J; Williamson, Paula R; Barnes, Nicola L P; Cutress, Ramsey I; Gardiner, Matthew D; Jain, Abhilash; Skillman, Joanna M; Thrush, Steven; Whisker, Lisa J; Blazeby, Jane M; Potter, Shelley; Holcombe, Christopher

    2018-05-01

    The 2008 National Mastectomy and Breast Reconstruction Audit demonstrated marked variation in the practice and outcomes of breast reconstruction in the UK. To standardise practice and improve outcomes for patients, the British professional associations developed best-practice guidelines with specific guidance for newer mesh-assisted implant-based techniques. We explored the degree of uptake of best-practice guidelines within units performing implant-based reconstruction (IBBR) as the first phase of the implant Breast Reconstruction Evaluation (iBRA) study. A questionnaire developed by the iBRA Steering Group was completed by trainee and consultant leads at breast and plastic surgical units across the UK. Simple summary statistics were calculated for each survey item to assess compliance with current best-practice guidelines. 81 units from 79 NHS Trusts completed the questionnaire. Marked variation was observed in adherence to guidelines, especially those relating to clinical governance and infection prevention strategies. Less than half (n = 28, 47%) of units obtained local clinical governance board approval prior to offering new mesh-based techniques and prospective audit of the clinical, cosmetic and patient-reported outcomes of surgery was infrequent. Most units screened for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus prior to surgery but fewer than 1 in 3 screened for methicillin-sensitive strains. Laminar-flow theatres (recommended for IBBR) were not widely-available with less than 1 in 5 units having regular access. Peri-operative antibiotics were widely-used, but the type and duration were highly-variable. The iBRA national practice questionnaire has demonstrated variation in reported practice and adherence to IBBR guidelines. High-quality evidence is urgently required to inform best practice. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  20. Exploring subdomain variation in biomedical language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Séaghdha Diarmuid Ó

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Applications of Natural Language Processing (NLP technology to biomedical texts have generated significant interest in recent years. In this paper we identify and investigate the phenomenon of linguistic subdomain variation within the biomedical domain, i.e., the extent to which different subject areas of biomedicine are characterised by different linguistic behaviour. While variation at a coarser domain level such as between newswire and biomedical text is well-studied and known to affect the portability of NLP systems, we are the first to conduct an extensive investigation into more fine-grained levels of variation. Results Using the large OpenPMC text corpus, which spans the many subdomains of biomedicine, we investigate variation across a number of lexical, syntactic, semantic and discourse-related dimensions. These dimensions are chosen for their relevance to the performance of NLP systems. We use clustering techniques to analyse commonalities and distinctions among the subdomains. Conclusions We find that while patterns of inter-subdomain variation differ somewhat from one feature set to another, robust clusters can be identified that correspond to intuitive distinctions such as that between clinical and laboratory subjects. In particular, subdomains relating to genetics and molecular biology, which are the most common sources of material for training and evaluating biomedical NLP tools, are not representative of all biomedical subdomains. We conclude that an awareness of subdomain variation is important when considering the practical use of language processing applications by biomedical researchers.

  1. Heterogeneous treatment in the variational nodal method

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fanning, T.H.

    1995-01-01

    The variational nodal transport method is reduced to its diffusion form and generalized for the treatment of heterogeneous nodes while maintaining nodal balances. Adapting variational methods to heterogeneous nodes requires the ability to integrate over a node with discontinuous cross sections. In this work, integrals are evaluated using composite gaussian quadrature rules, which permit accurate integration while minimizing computing time. Allowing structure within a nodal solution scheme avoids some of the necessity of cross section homogenization, and more accurately defines the intra-nodal flux shape. Ideally, any desired heterogeneity can be constructed within the node; but in reality, the finite set of basis functions limits the practical resolution to which fine detail can be defined within the node. Preliminary comparison tests show that the heterogeneous variational nodal method provides satisfactory results even if some improvements are needed for very difficult, configurations

  2. A practical guide and power analysis for GLMMs: detecting among treatment variation in random effects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Morgan P. Kain

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available In ecology and evolution generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs are becoming increasingly used to test for differences in variation by treatment at multiple hierarchical levels. Yet, the specific sampling schemes that optimize the power of an experiment to detect differences in random effects by treatment/group remain unknown. In this paper we develop a blueprint for conducting power analyses for GLMMs focusing on detecting differences in variance by treatment. We present parameterization and power analyses for random-intercepts and random-slopes GLMMs because of their generality as focal parameters for most applications and because of their immediate applicability to emerging questions in the field of behavioral ecology. We focus on the extreme case of hierarchically structured binomial data, though the framework presented here generalizes easily to any error distribution model. First, we determine the optimal ratio of individuals to repeated measures within individuals that maximizes power to detect differences by treatment in among-individual variation in intercept, among-individual variation in slope, and within-individual variation in intercept. Second, we explore how power to detect differences in target variance parameters is affected by total variation. Our results indicate heterogeneity in power across ratios of individuals to repeated measures with an optimal ratio determined by both the target variance parameter and total sample size. Additionally, power to detect each variance parameter was low overall (in most cases >1,000 total observations per treatment needed to achieve 80% power and decreased with increasing variance in non-target random effects. With growing interest in variance as the parameter of inquiry, these power analyses provide a crucial component for designing experiments focused on detecting differences in variance. We hope to inspire novel experimental designs in ecology and evolution investigating the causes and

  3. Variation in provider vaccine purchase prices and payer reimbursement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Freed, Gary L; Cowan, Anne E; Gregory, Sashi; Clark, Sarah J

    2009-12-01

    The purpose of this work was to collect data regarding vaccine prices and reimbursements in private practices. Amid reports of physicians losing money on vaccines, there are limited supporting data to show how much private practices are paying for vaccines and how much they are being reimbursed by third-party payers. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of a convenience sample of private practices in 5 states (California, Georgia, Michigan, New York, and Texas) that purchase vaccines for administration to privately insured children/adolescents. Main outcome measures included prices paid to purchase vaccines recommended for children and adolescents and reimbursement from the 3 most common, non-Medicaid payers for vaccine purchase and administration. Detailed price and reimbursement data were provided by 76 practices. There was a considerable difference between the maximum and minimum prices paid by practices, ranging from $4 to more than $30 for specific vaccines. There was also significant variation in insurance reimbursement for vaccine purchase, with maximum and minimum reimbursements for a single vaccine differing from $8 to more than $80. Mean net yield per dose (reimbursement for vaccine purchase minus price paid per dose) varied across vaccines from a low of approximately $3 to more than $24. Reimbursement for the first dose of vaccine administered ranged from $0 to more than $26, with a mean of $16.62. There is a wide range of prices paid by practices for the same vaccine product and in the reimbursement for vaccines and administration fees by payers. This variation highlights the need for individual practices to understand their own costs and reimbursements and to seek opportunities to reduce costs and increase reimbursements.

  4. Managing Cultural Variation in Software Process Improvement

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kræmmergaard, Pernille; Müller, Sune Dueholm; Mathiassen, Lars

    The scale and complexity of change in software process improvement (SPI) are considerable and managerial attention to organizational culture during SPI can therefore potentially contribute to successful outcomes. However, we know little about the impact of variations in organizational subculture ...... organizations can have important implications for SPI outcomes. Furthermore, it provides insights into how software managers can practically assess subcultures to inform decisions about and help prepare plans for SPI initiatives.......The scale and complexity of change in software process improvement (SPI) are considerable and managerial attention to organizational culture during SPI can therefore potentially contribute to successful outcomes. However, we know little about the impact of variations in organizational subculture...

  5. Variation in Approaches to European Works Councils in Multinational Companies

    OpenAIRE

    Paul Marginson; Jonathan Lavelle; Javier Quintanilla; Duncan Adam; Roc'o S?nchez-Mangas

    2013-01-01

    Drawing on a unique international data set of multinational companies' employment practices, the authors use logistic regression analysis to address variation in the existence of and management practice toward transnational social dialogue through European Works Councils (EWCs). Adopting a contingency perspective, they find that the degree of internationalization of companies' operations and management organization, international HR structure, and the presence of workforce organization exerci...

  6. European Educational Systems and Assessment Practice

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Evans, Robert Harry; Cross, David; Grangeat, Michel

    2018-01-01

    Abstract This chapter surveys the status of educational systems and assessment practices across eight European countries that are part of the ASSIST-ME project. First, variations in country educational systems are examined to identify possible connections between systems and educational practices....... Such associations are useful both for understanding different existing assessment conditions as well as for providing possible pathways for change. Next, the chapter takes a closer look at teacher practices in these educational systems in order to identify the actual assessment practices of teachers in each country....... With these understandings of the systems and current uses of assessment, it is possible to identify affordances and challenges for improving assessment practices....

  7. Predicting Patterns of Grammatical Complexity across Language Exam Task Types and Proficiency Levels

    Science.gov (United States)

    Biber, Douglas; Gray, Bethany; Staples, Shelley

    2016-01-01

    In the present article, we explore the extent to which previous research on register variation can be used to predict spoken/written task-type variation as well as differences across score levels in the context of a major standardized language exam (TOEFL iBT). Specifically, we carry out two sets of linguistic analyses based on a large corpus of…

  8. Simulation of Cycle-to-Cycle Variation in Dual-Fuel Engines

    KAUST Repository

    Jaasim, Mohammed; Pasunurthi, Shyamsundar; Jupudi, Ravichandra S.; Gubba, Sreenivasa Rao; Primus, Roy; Klingbeil, Adam; Wijeyakulasuriya, Sameera; Im, Hong G.

    2017-01-01

    Standard practices of internal combustion (IC) engine experiments are to conduct the measurements of quantities averaged over a large number of cycles. Depending on the operating conditions, the cycle-to-cycle variation (CCV) of quantities

  9. Variations in breast tangent radiotherapy: a survey of practice in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Veness, M.J.; Delaney, G.; Berry, M.

    1999-01-01

    The breast is a complex anatomical structure where achieving a homogeneous dose distribution with radiation treatment is difficult. Despite obvious similarities in the approach to such treatment (using tangents) there is variation in the process of simulation, planning and treatment between radiation oncologists. Previous Australasian studies in the treatment of lung cancer, prostate cancer and Hodgkin's disease highlighted considerable variation in many areas of treatment. As part of a multicentre breast phantom study involving 10 radiation oncology departments throughout New South Wales (NSW) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), a 22-question survey was distributed. The aim of the survey was to assess the extent of variation in the approach to the simulation, planning and treatment of early breast cancer using tangents. Responses from 10 different radiation oncology departments revealed variation in most areas of the survey. There is no reason to assume similar variations do not occur Australasia wide. Studies involving overseas radiation oncologists also reveal a wide variation in treating early breast cancer. The consequences of such variations remain unclear. Copyright (1999) Blackwell Science Pty Ltd

  10. DATA VISUALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH AT HIGHER EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bogdana Saliuk

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The article discusses the use of data visualization technologies such as infographics and mind map in teaching foreign languages, particularly English, to students of non-special faculties of the higher educational establishments (programmers, psychologists, engineers, musicians etc. The expediency of introduction of these technologies that will help to relief students’ perception of grammatical or lexical material as well as to optimize the educational process and interest in further study of English is noted. Infographics is used for the activation of lexical units, the assimilation of grammatical phenomena, the simulation of real-life situations to develop skills of monologue and dialogue speech, as well as for training in the use of lexical and grammatical material. The practice of English language teaching to students of non-special faculties illustrates the fact that they better perceive English phrasal verbs, thematic vocabulary, grammar, idioms through visualization. At the same time it helps to save time on the explanation of linguistic material in favor of speech activity. Mind map is also useful in the study of lexical and grammatical material in different stages – from the introduction of new themes to its repetition and generalization. Implementing mind map into the educational process the teacher can build the system of communicative exercises, the analysis of professional texts, group, individual and independent work of students.

  11. THE COGNITIVE FUNCTION OF THE LANGUAGE AS A NEUTRALIZER OF INTERLINGUAL ASYMMETRY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liudmila Tazretovna Kalabekova

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with an attempt to show that the comparative-typological researches, conducted in the framework of closely related languages and at the level of unrelated langua-ges, reveal the irrefutable fact that, first of all, the system features of a single natural language lie in the basis of all the differences (lexical, semantic and syntactic. The neutralizer of the interlingual asymmetry that inevitably appears between the compared linguistic systems becomes a cognitive approach to language learning. It may be illustrated by some discrepancies between the French and the Russian language systems that appear on the grammatical and lexical levels transferring some grammatical categories and interlingual lexical homonyms. The cognitive approach to language learning that lies in the basis of the formation of some interlingual lexical homonyms, shows that their values are rarely the same, and the situation where the amount of the value of this kind of vocabulary has significant differences, is quite stereotyped and neutral.In the practice of translation, based on the various manifestations of the relations between the different linguistic cultures, a situation becomes enough frequency where the choice of meanings of different level – not grammatical, lexical or syntactic – is simply inevitable to transfer of any grammatical category, which has no formal counterpart in another language system.

  12. Variation among heritage speakers: Sequential vs. simultaneous bilinguals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Teresa Lee

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available This study examines the differences in the grammatical knowledge of two types of heritage speakers of Korean. Early simultaneous bilinguals are exposed to both English and the heritage language from birth, whereas early sequential bilinguals are exposed to the heritage language first and then to English upon schooling. A listening comprehension task involving relative clauses was conducted with 51 beginning-level Korean heritage speakers. The results showed that the early sequential bilinguals exhibited much more accurate knowledge than the early simultaneous bilinguals, who lacked rudimentary knowledge of Korean relative clauses. Drawing on the findings of adult and child Korean L1 data on the acquisition of relative clauses, the performance of each group is discussed with respect to attrition and incomplete acquisition of the heritage language.

  13. Practice variation in defining sentinel lymph nodes on lymphoscintigrams in oral cancer patients

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Flach, Geke B.; Bree, Remco de [VU University Medical Center, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, De Boelelaan 1117, 1081 HV Amsterdam, PO Box 7057, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Schie, Annelies van; Hoekstra, Otto S. [VU University Medical Center, Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Witte, Birgit I. [VU University Medical Center, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Olmos, Renato A.V. [VU University Medical Center, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Klop, W.M.C. [Netherlands Cancer Institute/Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Department of Head and Neck Surgery and Oncology, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

    2014-12-15

    Lymphoscintigraphic imaging and adequate interpretation of the lymphatic drainage pattern is an essential step in the sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) procedure. In oral cancer, identification of the sentinel lymph node (SLN) can be challenging. In this study, interobserver variability in defining SLNs on lymphoscintigrams was evaluated in patients with T1-T2 stage N0 oral cancer. Sixteen observers (head and neck surgeons, nuclear medicine physicians or teams of both) from various institutes were asked which criteria they use to consider a hot focus on the lymphoscintigram as SLN. Lymphoscintigrams of 9 patients with 47 hot foci (3-9 per patient) were assessed, using a scale of 'yes/equivocal/no'. Bilateral drainage was seen in four of nine cases. In three cases additional late single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)/CT scanning was performed. Interobserver variability was evaluated by kappa (κ) analysis, using linear weighted pairwise comparison of the observers. Conservative (equivocal analysed as no) and sensitive (equivocal analysed as yes) assessment strategies were investigated using pairwise kappa analysis. Various definitions of SLN on lymphoscintigrams were given. Interobserver variability of all cases using a 3-point scale showed fair agreement (71 %, κ{sub w} = 0.29). The conservative and sensitive analyses both showed moderate agreement: conservative approach κ = 0.44 (in 80 % of the hot foci the observers agreed) and sensitive approach κ = 0.42 (81 %) respectively. Multidisciplinary involvement in image interpretation and higher levels of observer experience appeared to increase agreement. Among 16 observers, there is practice variation in defining SLNs on lymphoscintigrams in oral cancer patients. Interobserver variability of lymphoscintigraphic interpretation shows moderate agreement. In order to achieve better agreement in defining SLNs on lymphoscintigrams specific guidelines are warranted. (orig.)

  14. Practice variation in defining sentinel lymph nodes on lymphoscintigrams in oral cancer patients

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Flach, Geke B.; Bree, Remco de; Schie, Annelies van; Hoekstra, Otto S.; Witte, Birgit I.; Olmos, Renato A.V.; Klop, W.M.C.

    2014-01-01

    Lymphoscintigraphic imaging and adequate interpretation of the lymphatic drainage pattern is an essential step in the sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) procedure. In oral cancer, identification of the sentinel lymph node (SLN) can be challenging. In this study, interobserver variability in defining SLNs on lymphoscintigrams was evaluated in patients with T1-T2 stage N0 oral cancer. Sixteen observers (head and neck surgeons, nuclear medicine physicians or teams of both) from various institutes were asked which criteria they use to consider a hot focus on the lymphoscintigram as SLN. Lymphoscintigrams of 9 patients with 47 hot foci (3-9 per patient) were assessed, using a scale of 'yes/equivocal/no'. Bilateral drainage was seen in four of nine cases. In three cases additional late single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)/CT scanning was performed. Interobserver variability was evaluated by kappa (κ) analysis, using linear weighted pairwise comparison of the observers. Conservative (equivocal analysed as no) and sensitive (equivocal analysed as yes) assessment strategies were investigated using pairwise kappa analysis. Various definitions of SLN on lymphoscintigrams were given. Interobserver variability of all cases using a 3-point scale showed fair agreement (71 %, κ w = 0.29). The conservative and sensitive analyses both showed moderate agreement: conservative approach κ = 0.44 (in 80 % of the hot foci the observers agreed) and sensitive approach κ = 0.42 (81 %) respectively. Multidisciplinary involvement in image interpretation and higher levels of observer experience appeared to increase agreement. Among 16 observers, there is practice variation in defining SLNs on lymphoscintigrams in oral cancer patients. Interobserver variability of lymphoscintigraphic interpretation shows moderate agreement. In order to achieve better agreement in defining SLNs on lymphoscintigrams specific guidelines are warranted. (orig.)

  15. The development of professional practice standards for Australian general practice nurses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Halcomb, Elizabeth; Stephens, Moira; Bryce, Julianne; Foley, Elizabeth; Ashley, Christine

    2017-08-01

    The aim of this study was to explore the current role of general practice nurses and the scope of nursing practice to inform the development of national professional practice standards for Australian general practice nurses. Increasing numbers of nurses have been employed in Australian general practice to meet the growing demand for primary care services. This has brought significant changes to the nursing role. Competency standards for nurses working in general practice were first developed in Australia in 2005, but limited attention has been placed on articulating the contemporary scope of practice for nurses in this setting. Concurrent mixed methods design. Data collection was conducted during 2013-2014 and involved two online surveys of Registered and Enrolled Nurses currently working in general practice, a series of 14 focus groups across Australia and a series of consultations with key experts. Data collection enabled the development of 22 Practice Standards separated into four domains: (i) Professional Practice; (ii) Nursing Care; (iii) General Practice Environment and (iv) Collaborative Practice. To differentiate the variations in enacting these Standards, performance indicators for the Enrolled Nurse, Registered Nurse and Registered Nurse Advanced Practice are provided under each Standard. The development of national professional practice standards for nurses working in Australian general practice will support ongoing workforce development. These Standards are also an important means of articulating the role and scope of the nurses' practice for both consumers and other health professionals, as well as being a guide for curriculum development and measurement of performance. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  16. A Systemic-Functional Analysis of English Language Learners' Writing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luciana C. DE OLIVEIRA

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available This article presents a systemic-functional linguistic analysis of two writing samples of the University of California Analytical Writing Placement (AWP Examination written by English language learners (ELLs. The analysis shows the linguistic features utilized in the two writing samples, one that received a passing score and one that received a failing score. The article describes some of the grammatical resources which are functional for expository writing, which are divided under three main categories: textual, interpersonal, and ideational resources. Following this brief description is the analysis of both essays in terms of these resources.. The configuration of grammatical features used in the essays make up the detached style of essay 1 and the more personal style of essay 2. These grammatical features include the textual resources of thematic choices and development, clause-combining strategies (connectors, and lexical cohesion; interpersonal resources of interpersonal metaphors of modality; and ideational resources of nominalization and abstractions as ideational metaphors. Implications for educational practice and recommendations for educators based on the analysis are provided.

  17. Test of inscribed description in the Alzheimer`s disease: correlation of neuro-psychology and of cerebral sanguinary rates; Test de description ecrite dans la maladie d`Alzheimer: correlation de la neuro-psychologie et des debits sanguins cerebraux

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Houzard, C.; Croisile, B.; Philippon, B.; Hibert, O.; Gogoleva, S.M.; Itti, R.; Cinotti, L.; Wertheimer, H.P. [CERMEP, Lyon (France)

    1997-12-31

    The alteration of the written description of an image scene constitutes an early and sensible indicator in diagnosing the Alzheimer`s disease (AD). Measurements of cerebral blood rates (CBR) by SPECT show characteristic regional anomalies. We have studied correlations between the neuro-psychological tests (NT), parameters of description (description of the image of a thief of crackers) and CBR in patients afflicted by AD. Ten patients afflicted by AD of slow onset (MMSE 20.2{+-} 5.1) were subject to the following NTs: MMSE, Wounded A, Battery of Aphasia, BNT, verbal fluence, gesticulative practice, direct and inversion span, copy of a figure, immediate recall of a figure, immediate recall of a story. The description variables were the length of texts (words, phrases), the items of information, the grammatical, semantic and orthographic errors. The relative variations of CBR were obtained after injection by HMPAO - {sup 99m}Tc. The indices of asymmetry were calculated by the method of the regions of interest and the correlations were calculated between the NTs, description variables and L/R asymmetry by SPECT. For the temporal lobes the correlations are significant with: Battery of Aphasia and BNT (p < 0.01), and recall of a story (p < 0.05); in the anterior frontal lobes with: MMSE and direct span (p < 0.05); in the posterior frontal lobes with: Battery of Aphasia (p < 0.05), BNT and recall of a story (p < 0.01). For writing, the grammatical errors are correlated with the anterior frontal asymmetries (p < 0.03); the semantic errors with the anterior and posterior frontal lobes (p < 0.02) and with the temporal lobes (p < 0.05). Our results show a correlations of the frontal and temporal asymmetries with the early degradation of the scores of written semantic errors and the oral tests of language. The grammatical errors appearing later and in severe forms of AD as the attention abilities are connected only to anterior frontal asymmetries. Different functional

  18. Test of inscribed description in the Alzheimer's disease: correlation of neuro-psychology and of cerebral sanguinary rates

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Houzard, C.; Croisile, B.; Philippon, B.; Hibert, O.; Gogoleva, S.M.; Itti, R.; Cinotti, L.; Wertheimer, H.P.

    1997-01-01

    The alteration of the written description of an image scene constitutes an early and sensible indicator in diagnosing the Alzheimer's disease (AD). Measurements of cerebral blood rates (CBR) by SPECT show characteristic regional anomalies. We have studied correlations between the neuro-psychological tests (NT), parameters of description (description of the image of a thief of crackers) and CBR in patients afflicted by AD. Ten patients afflicted by AD of slow onset (MMSE 20.2± 5.1) were subject to the following NTs: MMSE, Wounded A, Battery of Aphasia, BNT, verbal fluence, gesticulative practice, direct and inversion span, copy of a figure, immediate recall of a figure, immediate recall of a story. The description variables were the length of texts (words, phrases), the items of information, the grammatical, semantic and orthographic errors. The relative variations of CBR were obtained after injection by HMPAO - 99m Tc. The indices of asymmetry were calculated by the method of the regions of interest and the correlations were calculated between the NTs, description variables and L/R asymmetry by SPECT. For the temporal lobes the correlations are significant with: Battery of Aphasia and BNT (p < 0.01), and recall of a story (p < 0.05); in the anterior frontal lobes with: MMSE and direct span (p < 0.05); in the posterior frontal lobes with: Battery of Aphasia (p < 0.05), BNT and recall of a story (p < 0.01). For writing, the grammatical errors are correlated with the anterior frontal asymmetries (p < 0.03); the semantic errors with the anterior and posterior frontal lobes (p < 0.02) and with the temporal lobes (p < 0.05). Our results show a correlations of the frontal and temporal asymmetries with the early degradation of the scores of written semantic errors and the oral tests of language. The grammatical errors appearing later and in severe forms of AD as the attention abilities are connected only to anterior frontal asymmetries. Different functional networks could

  19. Health insurance in practice: international variations in financing, benefits, and problems

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Glaser, William G

    1991-01-01

    In "Health Insurance in practice", the author pinpoints the strengths and weaknesses of health insurance programs in developing countries and uses a lessons-from-abroad approach to offer suggestions...

  20. Accents phenomena in the joint Zmkhcri book (D: 538 AH the study of sound and grammatical المَـظاهِرُ اللَّهَجيّةُ في كتاب المفصَّل للزمخشريّ (ت: 538 هـ دراسةٌ صوتيّةٌ ونحويّةٌ

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dr.hasan Obed Mohasen Al Mamore م.د. حسن عبيد محيسن المعموريّ

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The book (detailed in Arabic flag Zmkhcri of grammar books, which included old male fraught for many Allahjah appearances in the language of the Arabs in the audio and grammar fields. The importance of this book over and being a book grammatically valuable versatility author and altitude of, it is a big world has many categories in multiple areas, the most important of his interpretation labeled Kashaf, and detailed the subject of this research and superior in modern weird, investigator in parables, and Lexicon the basis of rhetoric, and the model and others. This comes to study the Allahjah appearances in the (joint and survey topics the book, and the statement of its impact on the study of language phonetically and grammatically. And Osmth (b Allahjah appearances in the joint Zmkhcri book (Tel: 538 e SOUND study and grammatical, has mounted the two sections, the first titled: Acoustic Allahjah appearances, and studied it: Ananh ruffles and substitution, and it was the second topic Musoma b: appearances Allahjah grammatical, and studied where: (what is not Almhbhettin b (not between the business and neglect, and the news is not precluding the genus, and the question of knowledge to (from, and (yesterday between construction and expression, and (so between being really, or did the name, then come Conclusion included key findings of the research results, and proven sources and references. It should be noted that I am limited in this research on Allahjah manifestations attributable to the tribes, leaving what did not glorify them, a little trace, and I ask God that I have been able to study the research topics, and help him draw and repayment.

  1. Geographical and organisational variation in the structure of primary care services: implications for study design.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adams, Geoffrey; Gulliford, Martin; Ukoumunne, Obioha; Chinn, Susan; Campbell, Michael

    2003-04-01

    To evaluate the extent to which structural variation between English general practices is accounted for at higher organisational levels in the National Health Service (NHS). We analysed data for 11 structural characteristics of all general practices in England. These included characteristics of general practitioners (GPs), the practice list and the services provided by practices. A four-level random effects model was used for analysis and components of variance were estimated at the levels of practice, primary care group (PCG), health authority and region. The proportion of single-handed practices ranged from 0% to 74% at PCG level and from 14% to 43% in different regions. The proportion of practices providing diabetes services ranged from 0% to 100% at PCG level and from 71% to 96% in different regions. The list size per GP ranged from 1314 to 2704 patients per GP at PCG level and from 1721 to 2225 at regional level. Across the 11 variables analysed, components of variance at general practice level accounted for between 43% and 95% of the total variance. The PCG level accounted for between 1% and 29%, the health authority level for between 2% and 15% and the regional level for between 0% and 13% of the total variance. Adjusting for an index of deprivation and the supply of GPs gave a median 8% decrease in the sum of variance components. Geographical and organisational variation in the structure of primary care services should be considered in designing studies in health systems such as the English NHS. Stratified designs may be used to increase study efficiency, but variation between areas may sometimes compromise generalisability.

  2. Variation in practice patterns in device closure of atrial septal defects and patent ductus arteriosus: An analysis of data from the IMproving Pediatric and Adult Congenital Treatment (IMPACT) registry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Byrne, Michael L; Kennedy, Kevin F; Rome, Jonathan J; Glatz, Andrew C

    2018-02-01

    Practice variation is a potentially important measure of healthcare quality. The IMPACT registry provides a representative national sample with which to study practice variation in trans-catheter interventions for congenital heart disease. We studied cases for closure of atrial septal defect (ASD) and patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in IMPACT between January 1, 2011, and September 30, 2015, using hierarchical multivariate models studying (1) the distribution of indications for closure and (2) in patients whose indication for closure was left (LVVO) or right ventricular volume overload (RVVO), the factors influencing probability of closure of a small defect (either in size or in terms of the magnitude of shunt). Over the study period, 5233 PDA and 4459 ASD cases were performed at 77 hospitals. The indications for ASD closure were RVVO in 84% and stroke prevention in 13%. Indications for PDA closure were LVVO in 57%, endocarditis prevention in 36%, and pulmonary hypertension in 7%. There was statistically significant variability in indications between hospitals for PDA and ASD procedures (median rate ratio (MRR): 1.3 and 1.1; both Pclosure of PDA and ASD. Further research is necessary to study whether this affects outcomes or resource utilization. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Variational principles for locally variational forms

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brajercik, J.; Krupka, D.

    2005-01-01

    We present the theory of higher order local variational principles in fibered manifolds, in which the fundamental global concept is a locally variational dynamical form. Any two Lepage forms, defining a local variational principle for this form, differ on intersection of their domains, by a variationally trivial form. In this sense, but in a different geometric setting, the local variational principles satisfy analogous properties as the variational functionals of the Chern-Simons type. The resulting theory of extremals and symmetries extends the first order theories of the Lagrange-Souriau form, presented by Grigore and Popp, and closed equivalents of the first order Euler-Lagrange forms of Hakova and Krupkova. Conceptually, our approach differs from Prieto, who uses the Poincare-Cartan forms, which do not have higher order global analogues

  4. Language categories in Russian morphology

    OpenAIRE

    زهرایی زهرایی

    2009-01-01

    When studying Russian morphology, one can distinguish two categories. These categories are “grammatical” and “lexico-grammatical”. Grammatical categories can be specified through a series of grammatical features of words. Considering different criteria, Russian grammarians and linguists divide grammatical categories of their language into different types. In determining lexico-grammatical types, in addition to a series of grammatical features, they also consider a series of lexico-semantic fe...

  5. Cross-domain variation in the X itself as a grammatical construction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Kim Ebensgaard

    2016-01-01

    The X itself is a nominal construction that has not received much attention within cognitive linguistics despite it having a quite interesting function, as it serves to select a core part in a partonomy and thus specify lexical relations within a text. Apart from being mentioned in passing in Croft...... are divided into. Applying quantitative techniques, including lexical diversity measures and multidimensional scaling, this article explores aspects of the discursive behavior of the X itself across these domains and addresses the extent to which the construction interacts with the registers associated...

  6. Prostate Contouring Variation: Can It Be Fixed?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Khoo, Eric L.H.; Schick, Karlissa; Plank, Ashley W.; Poulsen, Michael; Wong, Winnie W.G.; Middleton, Mark; Martin, Jarad M.

    2012-01-01

    Purpose: To assess whether an education program on CT and MRI prostate anatomy would reduce inter- and intraobserver prostate contouring variation among experienced radiation oncologists. Methods and Materials: Three patient CT and MRI datasets were selected. Five radiation oncologists contoured the prostate for each patient on CT first, then MRI, and again between 2 and 4 weeks later. Three education sessions were then conducted. The same contouring process was then repeated with the same datasets and oncologists. The observer variation was assessed according to changes in the ratio of the encompassing volume to intersecting volume (volume ratio [VR]), across sets of target volumes. Results: For interobserver variation, there was a 15% reduction in mean VR with CT, from 2.74 to 2.33, and a 40% reduction in mean VR with MRI, from 2.38 to 1.41 after education. A similar trend was found for intraobserver variation, with a mean VR reduction for CT and MRI of 9% (from 1.51 to 1.38) and 16% (from 1.37 to 1.15), respectively. Conclusion: A well-structured education program has reduced both inter- and intraobserver prostate contouring variations. The impact was greater on MRI than on CT. With the ongoing incorporation of new technologies into routine practice, education programs for target contouring should be incorporated as part of the continuing medical education of radiation oncologists.

  7. The Value of Understanding Students' Prior Writing Experience in ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    How should undergraduate science students' writing be understood when it does not meet the conventions of scientific writing? Studies have shown that the writing that students produce in their course work on tasks that imitate authentic scientific writing practices often do not match the tone, vocabulary and grammatical ...

  8. General practice performance in referral for suspected cancer: influence of number of cases and case-mix on publicly reported data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murchie, P; Chowdhury, A; Smith, S; Campbell, N C; Lee, A J; Linden, D; Burton, C D

    2015-05-26

    Publicly available data show variation in GPs' use of urgent suspected cancer (USC) referral pathways. We investigated whether this could be due to small numbers of cancer cases and random case-mix, rather than due to true variation in performance. We analysed individual GP practice USC referral detection rates (proportion of the practice's cancer cases that are detected via USC) and conversion rates (proportion of the practice's USC referrals that prove to be cancer) in routinely collected data from GP practices in all of England (over 4 years) and northeast Scotland (over 7 years). We explored the effect of pooling data. We then modelled the effects of adding random case-mix to practice variation. Correlations between practice detection rate and conversion rate became less positive when data were aggregated over several years. Adding random case-mix to between-practice variation indicated that the median proportion of poorly performing practices correctly identified after 25 cancer cases were examined was 20% (IQR 17 to 24) and after 100 cases was 44% (IQR 40 to 47). Much apparent variation in GPs' use of suspected cancer referral pathways can be attributed to random case-mix. The methods currently used to assess the quality of GP-suspected cancer referral performance, and to compare individual practices, are misleading. These should no longer be used, and more appropriate and robust methods should be developed.

  9. Scaling laws for trace impurity confinement: a variational approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Thyagaraja, A.; Haas, F.A.

    1990-01-01

    A variational approach is outlined for the deduction of impurity confinement scaling laws. Given the forms of the diffusive and convective components to the impurity particle flux, we present a variational principle for the impurity confinement time in terms of the diffusion time scale and the convection parameter, which is a non-dimensional measure of the size of the convective flux relative to the diffusive flux. These results are very general and apply irrespective of whether the transport fluxes are of theoretical or empirical origin. The impurity confinement time scales exponentially with the convection parameter in cases of practical interest. (orig.)

  10. Quadratic Variation by Markov Chains

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Peter Reinhard; Horel, Guillaume

    We introduce a novel estimator of the quadratic variation that is based on the the- ory of Markov chains. The estimator is motivated by some general results concerning filtering contaminated semimartingales. Specifically, we show that filtering can in prin- ciple remove the effects of market...... microstructure noise in a general framework where little is assumed about the noise. For the practical implementation, we adopt the dis- crete Markov chain model that is well suited for the analysis of financial high-frequency prices. The Markov chain framework facilitates simple expressions and elegant analyti...

  11. Genomic Sequence Variation Markup Language (GSVML).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nakaya, Jun; Kimura, Michio; Hiroi, Kaei; Ido, Keisuke; Yang, Woosung; Tanaka, Hiroshi

    2010-02-01

    With the aim of making good use of internationally accumulated genomic sequence variation data, which is increasing rapidly due to the explosive amount of genomic research at present, the development of an interoperable data exchange format and its international standardization are necessary. Genomic Sequence Variation Markup Language (GSVML) will focus on genomic sequence variation data and human health applications, such as gene based medicine or pharmacogenomics. We developed GSVML through eight steps, based on case analysis and domain investigations. By focusing on the design scope to human health applications and genomic sequence variation, we attempted to eliminate ambiguity and to ensure practicability. We intended to satisfy the requirements derived from the use case analysis of human-based clinical genomic applications. Based on database investigations, we attempted to minimize the redundancy of the data format, while maximizing the data covering range. We also attempted to ensure communication and interface ability with other Markup Languages, for exchange of omics data among various omics researchers or facilities. The interface ability with developing clinical standards, such as the Health Level Seven Genotype Information model, was analyzed. We developed the human health-oriented GSVML comprising variation data, direct annotation, and indirect annotation categories; the variation data category is required, while the direct and indirect annotation categories are optional. The annotation categories contain omics and clinical information, and have internal relationships. For designing, we examined 6 cases for three criteria as human health application and 15 data elements for three criteria as data formats for genomic sequence variation data exchange. The data format of five international SNP databases and six Markup Languages and the interface ability to the Health Level Seven Genotype Model in terms of 317 items were investigated. GSVML was developed as

  12. Development of Variational Guiding Center Algorithms for Parallel Calculations in Experimental Magnetic Equilibria

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ellison, C. Leland [PPPL; Finn, J. M. [LANL; Qin, H. [PPPL; Tang, William M. [PPPL

    2014-10-01

    Structure-preserving algorithms obtained via discrete variational principles exhibit strong promise for the calculation of guiding center test particle trajectories. The non-canonical Hamiltonian structure of the guiding center equations forms a novel and challenging context for geometric integration. To demonstrate the practical relevance of these methods, a prototypical variational midpoint algorithm is applied to an experimental magnetic equilibrium. The stability characteristics, conservation properties, and implementation requirements associated with the variational algorithms are addressed. Furthermore, computational run time is reduced for large numbers of particles by parallelizing the calculation on GPU hardware.

  13. Variations in Latino Parenting Practices and Their Effects on Child Cognitive Developmental Outcomes

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Von Figueroa-Moseley, Colmar; Ramey, Craig T.; Keltner, Bette; Lanzi, Robin G.

    2006-01-01

    This research examines variations in parenting and its effects on child cognitive outcomes across Latino subgroups from a national sampling that utilized a subset of 995 former Head Start Latino parents and children. Comparisons of the Parenting Dimension Inventory scaled scores revealed Latino subgroup differences on nurturance and consistency.…

  14. Die Indirekte Rede als Diskursstrategie: Innovative Lehrmethoden zum Konjunktiv I (Indirect Speech as a Discourse Strategy: Innovative Teaching Methods for the Subjunctive).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gramberg, Anne-Kathrin; Heinze, Karin U.

    1993-01-01

    This article talks about the subjunctive of indirect speech, in which its important functions and meanings are depicted. An analysis of the instructional materials used in the first and second years of language study, followed by practical curriculum recommendations, demonstrates how this grammatical phenomenon can be established in an advanced…

  15. THE ENGLISH POSTPOSITIONS AS WORD-FORMATION AND GRAMMATICAL COMPONENTS-CONCEPTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Valeriy Veorgievich Shabaev

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Using cognitive-conceptual analysis, the variant of contensive correlation in verb formation of the English phrasal verbs and Russian synthetic perfective verbs with prefixes are considered. Notional (conceptual synonymity of the role of the corresponding English postpositions and Russian prefixes in this process of perfective verb formation is analyzed.Purpose. Studying verb formation typology of the English postpositions and Russian prefixes of the perfective verbs.Methodology. Cognitive-conceptual description of the functions of the postpositions and prefixes in analytical and synthrtical verb formation.Practical implications. Teaching and science researching practices of the English and Russian languages.

  16. Landscape and variation of RNA secondary structure across the human transcriptome.

    OpenAIRE

    Wan, Y; Qu, K; Zhang, QC; Flynn, RA; Manor, O; Ouyang, Z; Zhang, J; Spitale, RC; Snyder, MP; Segal, E; Chang, HY

    2014-01-01

    In parallel to the genetic code for protein synthesis, a second layer of information is embedded in all RNA transcripts in the form of RNA structure. RNA structure influences practically every step in the gene expression program. However, the nature of most RNA structures or effects of sequence variation on structure are not known. Here we report the initial landscape and variation of RNA secondary structures (RSSs) in a human family trio (mother, father and their child). This provides a comp...

  17. Variation in spirometry utilization between trained general practitioners in practices equipped with a spirometer.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Poels, P.J.E.; Schermer, T.R.J.; Jacobs, A.; Akkermans, R.P.; Hartman, J.; Bottema, B.J.A.M.; Weel, C. van

    2006-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: To explore spirometry utilization among general practitioners and identify practitioner and practice-related factors associated with spirometry utilization. DESIGN: Multivariate multilevel cross-sectional analysis of a questionnaire survey. SETTING: Some 61 general practices involved in a

  18. Translation of Nutritional Genomics into Nutrition Practice: The Next Step

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chiara Murgia

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Genetics is an important piece of every individual health puzzle. The completion of the Human Genome Project sequence has deeply changed the research of life sciences including nutrition. The analysis of the genome is already part of clinical care in oncology, pharmacology, infectious disease and, rare and undiagnosed diseases. The implications of genetic variations in shaping individual nutritional requirements have been recognised and conclusively proven, yet routine use of genetic information in nutrition and dietetics practice is still far from being implemented. This article sets out the path that needs to be taken to build a framework to translate gene–nutrient interaction studies into best-practice guidelines, providing tools that health professionals can use to understand whether genetic variation affects nutritional requirements in their daily clinical practice.

  19. Emerging Technologies Focusing on Form: Tools and Strategies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Godwin-Jones, Robert

    2009-01-01

    Using computers to help students practice and learn grammatical constructions goes back to the earliest days of computer-assisted language learning (CALL). With the coming of the Internet age, CALL began to focus more heavily on the new capabilities of group connectivity and computer-mediated communication. More recently, a gathering consensus has…

  20. General practice training and virtual communities of practice - a review of the literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barnett, Stephen; Jones, Sandra C; Bennett, Sue; Iverson, Don; Bonney, Andrew

    2012-08-21

    Good General Practice is essential for an effective health system. Good General Practice training is essential to sustain the workforce, however training for General Practice can be hampered by a number of pressures, including professional, structural and social isolation. General Practice trainees may be under more pressure than fully registered General Practitioners, and yet isolation can lead doctors to reduce hours and move away from rural practice. Virtual communities of practice (VCoPs) in business have been shown to be effective in improving knowledge sharing, thus reducing professional and structural isolation. This literature review will critically examine the current evidence relevant to virtual communities of practice in General Practice training, identify evidence-based principles that might guide their construction and suggest further avenues for research. Major online databases Scopus, Psychlit and Pubmed were searched for the terms "Community of Practice" (CoP) AND (Online OR Virtual OR Electronic) AND (health OR healthcare OR medicine OR "Allied Health"). Only peer-reviewed journal articles in English were selected. A total of 76 articles were identified, with 23 meeting the inclusion criteria. There were no studies on CoP or VCoP in General Practice training. The review was structured using a framework of six themes for establishing communities of practice, derived from a key study from the business literature. This framework has been used to analyse the literature to determine whether similar themes are present in the health literature and to identify evidence in support of virtual communities of practice for General Practice training. The framework developed by Probst is mirrored in the health literature, albeit with some variations. In particular the roles of facilitator or moderator and leader whilst overlapping, are different. VCoPs are usually collaborations between stakeholders rather than single company VCoPs. Specific goals are important

  1. Linguistic Feature Development Across Grades and Genre in Elementary Writing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall-Mills, Shannon; Apel, Kenn

    2015-07-01

    As children develop skills in writing across academic contexts, clinicians and educators need to have a fundamental understanding of typical writing development as well as valid and reliable assessment methods. The purpose of this study was to examine the progression of linguistic elements in school-age children's narrative and expository writing development. Narrative and expository writing samples produced by 89 children in Grades 2 through 4 were analyzed at the microstructure and macrostructure levels. Measures of receptive vocabulary, word-level reading, and reading comprehension were obtained. Exploratory factor analyses revealed 4 microstructure factors (e.g., productivity, grammatical complexity, grammatical accuracy, and lexical density) and 1 macrostructure factor (e.g., a combination of organization, text structure, and cohesion). Multivariate analyses of covariance with reading comprehension as a covariate showed that productivity and macrostructure were sensitive to grade-level and genre differences and that expository grammatical complexity was sensitive to grade-level differences. Findings are discussed in light of grade-level standards for narrative and expository writing and current practices in writing assessment. Multiple suggestions are offered for clinical and educational implications, and specific directions are provided for future research.

  2. Identifying risk for language impairment in children from linguistically diverse low-income schools.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jacobson, Peggy F; Thompson Miller, Suzanne

    2017-12-07

    To improve screening procedures for children in a linguistically diverse context, we combined tasks known to reveal grammatical deficits in children with language impairment (LI) with training to facilitate performance on a verb elicitation task. Sixty-four first grade children participated. The objective grammatical measures included elicitation of 12 past tense regular verbs preceded by a teaching phase (teach-test), the sentence recall (SR) subtest of the Clinical evaluation of language fundamentals (CELF-4), and a tally of all conjugated verbs from a narrative retell task. Given the widespread reliance on teacher observation for the referral of children suspected of having LI, we compared our results to the spoken language portion of the CELF-4 teacher observational rating scale (ORS). Using teacher observation as a reference for comparison, the past tense elicitation task and the SR task yielded strong discriminating power, but the verb tally was relatively weak. However, combining the three tasks yielded the highest levels of sensitivity (75%) and specificity (92%) than any single measure on its own. This study contributes to alternative assessment practices by highlighting the potential utility of adding a teaching component prior to administering informal grammatical probes.

  3. Anatomical variations of paranasal sinuses: what to inform the otolaryngologist?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Villela, Caroline Laurita Batista Couto; Gomes, Natalia Delage; Gaiotti, Juliana Oggioni; Costa, Ana Maria Doffemond; Ribeiro, Marcelo Almeida; Motta, Emilia Guerra Pinto Coelho; Moreira, Wanderval; Ramos, Laura Filgueiras Mourao; Diniz, Renata Lopes Furletti Caldeira

    2012-01-01

    Anatomic variations of paranasal sinuses are common findings in daily practice. For a radiologist, to know these variations is necessary because of the pathological conditions related to them, and also because they are import for planning a functional endoscopic endonasal surgery, the procedure of choice for diagnosis, biopsy and treatment of various sinonasal diseases. To assure that this surgery is done safely, preventing iatrogenic injuries, it is essential that the surgeon has the mapping of these structures. Thus, a CT is indispensable for preoperative evaluation of paranasal sinuses. Since a general radiologist is expected to know these changes and their relationship to pathological conditions, a literature review and a iconographic essay were conducted with the aim of discussing the importance of major anatomic variations of paranasal sinuses. (author)

  4. Age-related variations of visuo-motor adaptation beyond explicit knowledge

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Herbert eHeuer

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Visuo-motor adaptation suffers at older working age. The age-related decline of behavioural adjustments is accompanied by reduced explicit knowledge of the visuo-motor transformation. It disappears when explicit knowledge is kept constant across the age range, except for particularly high levels of explicit knowledge. According to these findings, at older adult age both the acquisition of explicit knowledge and its application for strategic corrections become poorer. Recently it has been posited that visuo-motor adaptation can involve model-free reinforcement mechanisms of learning in addition to model-based mechanisms. We tested whether age-related declines of reinforcement learning can also contribute to the age-related changes of visuo-motor adaptation. Therefore we enhanced the contribution of reinforcement learning to visuo-motor adaptation by way of introducing salient markers of success and failure during practice. With such modified practice conditions, there were residual age-related variations of behavioural adjustments at all levels of explicit knowledge, even when explicit knowledge was absent. The residual age-related variations were observed for practiced target directions only, but not for new target directions. These findings are consistent with an age-related decline of model-free reinforcement learning as a third factor in the age-related decline of visuo-motor adaptation. Under practice conditions, which spur model-free reward-based learning, this factor adds to the decrements of the acquisition of explicit knowledge and its use for strategic corrections.

  5. Variation in the costs of delivering routine immunization services in Peru.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, D; Mosqueira, N R; Penny, M E; Lanata, C F; Clark, A D; Sanderson, C F B; Fox-Rushby, J A

    2004-09-01

    Estimates of vaccination costs usually provide only point estimates at national level with no information on cost variation. In practice, however, such information is necessary for programme managers. This paper presents information on the variations in costs of delivering routine immunization services in three diverse districts of Peru: Ayacucho (a mountainous area), San Martin (a jungle area) and Lima (a coastal area). We consider the impact of variability on predictions of cost and reflect on the likely impact on expected cost-effectiveness ratios, policy decisions and future research practice. All costs are in 2002 prices in US dollars and include the costs of providing vaccination services incurred by 19 government health facilities during the January-December 2002 financial year. Vaccine wastage rates have been estimated using stock records. The cost per fully vaccinated child ranged from 16.63-24.52 U.S. Dollars in Ayacucho, 21.79-36.69 U.S. Dollars in San Martin and 9.58-20.31 U.S. Dollars in Lima. The volume of vaccines administered and wastage rates are determinants of the variation in costs of delivering routine immunization services. This study shows there is considerable variation in the costs of providing vaccines across geographical regions and different types of facilities. Information on how costs vary can be used as a basis from which to generalize to other settings and provide more accurate estimates for decision-makers who do not have disaggregated data on local costs. Future studies should include sufficiently large sample sizes and ensure that regions are carefully selected in order to maximize the interpretation of cost variation.

  6. Clinical Nurse Leader Integration Into Practice: Developing Theory To Guide Best Practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bender, Miriam

    2016-01-01

    Numerous policy bodies have identified the clinical nurse leader (CNL) as an innovative new role for meeting higher health care quality standards. Although there is growing evidence of improved care environment and patient safety and quality outcomes after redesigning care delivery microsystems to integrate CNL practice, significant variation in CNL implementation has been noted across reports, making it difficult to causally link CNL practice to reported outcomes. This variability reflects the overall absence in the literature of a well-defined CNL theoretical framework to help guide standardized application in practice. To address this knowledge gap, an interpretive synthesis with a grounded theory analysis of CNL narratives was conducted to develop a theoretical model for CNL practice. The model clarifies CNL practice domains and proposes mechanisms by which CNL-integrated care delivery microsystems improve health care quality. The model highlights the need for a systematic approach to CNL implementation including a well-thought out strategy for care delivery redesign; a consistent, competency-based CNL workflow; and sustained macro-to-micro system leadership support. CNL practice can be considered an effective approach to organizing nursing care that maximizes the scope of nursing to influence the ways care is delivered by all professions within a clinical microsystem. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. General practice training and virtual communities of practice - a review of the literature

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Barnett Stephen

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Good General Practice is essential for an effective health system. Good General Practice training is essential to sustain the workforce, however training for General Practice can be hampered by a number of pressures, including professional, structural and social isolation. General Practice trainees may be under more pressure than fully registered General Practitioners, and yet isolation can lead doctors to reduce hours and move away from rural practice. Virtual communities of practice (VCoPs in business have been shown to be effective in improving knowledge sharing, thus reducing professional and structural isolation. This literature review will critically examine the current evidence relevant to virtual communities of practice in General Practice training, identify evidence-based principles that might guide their construction and suggest further avenues for research. Methods Major online databases Scopus, Psychlit and Pubmed were searched for the terms “Community of Practice” (CoP AND (Online OR Virtual OR Electronic AND (health OR healthcare OR medicine OR “Allied Health”. Only peer-reviewed journal articles in English were selected. A total of 76 articles were identified, with 23 meeting the inclusion criteria. There were no studies on CoP or VCoP in General Practice training. The review was structured using a framework of six themes for establishing communities of practice, derived from a key study from the business literature. This framework has been used to analyse the literature to determine whether similar themes are present in the health literature and to identify evidence in support of virtual communities of practice for General Practice training. Results The framework developed by Probst is mirrored in the health literature, albeit with some variations. In particular the roles of facilitator or moderator and leader whilst overlapping, are different. VCoPs are usually collaborations between stakeholders

  8. Constructivism: Its Theoretical Underpinnings, Variations, and Implications for Classroom Instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yilmaz, Kaya

    2008-01-01

    This article provides an overview of constructivism and its implications for classroom practices. To that end, it first describes the basic features of constructivism along with its major forms or variations. It then elucidates the constructivist view of knowledge, learning, teaching, and the relationship among these constructs. More specifically,…

  9. Variation in diagnosis and management of common foot problems by GPs

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gorter, K; de Melker, R; Kuyvenhoven, M; de Poel, S.

    2001-01-01

    Background. There are indications that the diagnosis and management of common foot problems vary widely in general practice. Objectives. Our aim was to explore the variation of GPs' diagnosis and management of common foot problems and the possible correlation between GPs' characteristics and their

  10. An examination of practice during radiography of the clavicle

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    McEntee, Mark F.; Kinsella, Catherine

    2010-01-01

    Background: Variation in techniques is a well reported phenomenon in Radiography that can lead to dose discrepancies. Radiography of the clavicle is an examination which can result in a scattered extra-focal radiation dose to the radiosensitive organs of the thyroid, breast and eyes. Techniques for imaging the clavicle are examined and causal factors of repeats examined. Given the recent increase of the tissue weighting factor of breast tissue, an increased importance is placed upon dose reduction techniques to this area. Aims: This study aims to investigate the variation in techniques used in imaging of the clavicle and to investigate whether AP or PA position resulted in a higher level of repeat imaging. Method: To investigate current practice amongst hospitals a sample of large teaching hospitals was chosen (n = 5). An interview with radiographers was carried out along with an examination of the stated protocols in each of these hospital plus retrospective analysis of the images produced in each of these hospitals. Results: Variations in practice were established, significant differences in collimation and vertical centring were found. AP coned view of the clavicle was performed by 80% of radiographers interviewed with 20% of radiographers performing an AP shoulder. This variation being 100% correlated with country of training. 60% of radiographers were found to perform AP15 o cranial angulation clavicle as a second projection with 28%, 8% and 4% of those interview performing AP25 o , AP20 o , and AP30 o cranial angulation, respectively. The comparison of error and repeat rates study demonstrated a lack of confidence, reduced employment of collimation and reduced accuracy while centring in the PA position and it was deemed necessary to repeat in 30% of cases compared to 40% repeats were necessary. Conclusion: Wide variation exists in technique and PA imaging is not being implemented. The author recommends training and information on PA technique be disseminated

  11. New pricing approaches for bundled payments: Leveraging clinical standards and regional variations to target avoidable utilization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hellsten, Erik; Chu, Scally; Crump, R Trafford; Yu, Kevin; Sutherland, Jason M

    2016-03-01

    Develop pricing models for bundled payments that draw inputs from clinician-defined best practice standards and benchmarks set from regional variations in utilization. Health care utilization and claims data for a cohort of incident Ontario ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke episodes. Episodes of care are created by linking incident stroke hospitalizations with subsequent health service utilization across multiple datasets. Costs are estimated for episodes of care and constituent service components using setting-specific case mix methodologies and provincial fee schedules. Costs are estimated for five areas of potentially avoidable utilization, derived from best practice standards set by an expert panel of stroke clinicians. Alternative approaches for setting normative prices for stroke episodes are developed using measures of potentially avoidable utilization and benchmarks established by the best performing regions. There are wide regional variations in the utilization of different health services within episodes of stroke care. Reconciling the best practice standards with regional utilization identifies significant amounts of potentially avoidable utilization. Normative pricing models for stroke episodes result in increasingly aggressive redistributions of funding. Bundled payment pilots to date have been based on the costs of historical service patterns, which effectively 'bake in' unwarranted and inefficient variations in utilization. This study demonstrates the feasibility of novel clinically informed episode pricing approaches that leverage these variations to target reductions in potentially avoidable utilization. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Reassembling Formal Features in Articles by L1 Persian Learners of L2 English

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marjansadat Momenzadeh

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available There has been considerable debate over what the sources of morphological variation in second language acquisition are. From among various hypotheses put forth on the topic, the feature reassembly hypothesis (Lardiere, 2005 assumes that it is the reconfiguration of features in the L2 which causes variation between the performance of natives and non-natives. Acknowledged as one of the most difficult elements of English grammar to be acquired by learners, the article system was the focus of the present study which aimed at attending to the acquisition of that system by Persian learners. This descriptive piece of research focused on how the article system functions in English and Persian, the similarities found across the two languages and the possible sources of difficulty for Persian learners in using English articles as related to their L1. The participants included Persian learners at three levels of grammatical knowledge. A group of English native speakers also took part in the study. A grammaticality judgment test and a translation test were conducted to collect data. Comparisons were made among the four groups, using ANOVAs. Based on the results, it is argued that the observed pattern of article use among Persian speaking learners can be best accounted for by the feature reassembly hypothesis.

  13. Variation in radiographic protocols in paediatric interventional cardiology

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    McFadden, S L; Hughes, C M; Winder, R J

    2013-01-01

    The aim of this work is to determine current radiographic protocols in paediatric interventional cardiology (IC) in the UK and Ireland. To do this we investigated which imaging parameters/protocols are commonly used in IC in different hospitals, to identify if a standard technique is used and illustrate any variation in practice. A questionnaire was sent to all hospitals in the UK and Ireland which perform paediatric IC to obtain information on techniques used in each clinical department and on the range of clinical examinations performed. Ethical and research governance approval was sought from the Office for Research Ethics Committees Northern Ireland and the individual trusts. A response rate of 79% was achieved, and a wide variation in technique was found between hospitals. The main differences in technique involved variations in the use of an anti-scatter grid and the use of additional filtration to the radiation beam, frame rates for digital acquisition and pre-programmed projections/paediatric specific programming in the equipment. We conclude that there is no standard protocol for carrying out paediatric IC in the UK or Ireland. Each hospital carries out the IC procedure according to its own local protocols resulting in a wide variation in radiation dose. (paper)

  14. Variation in radiographic protocols in paediatric interventional cardiology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McFadden, S L; Hughes, C M; Winder, R J

    2013-06-01

    The aim of this work is to determine current radiographic protocols in paediatric interventional cardiology (IC) in the UK and Ireland. To do this we investigated which imaging parameters/protocols are commonly used in IC in different hospitals, to identify if a standard technique is used and illustrate any variation in practice. A questionnaire was sent to all hospitals in the UK and Ireland which perform paediatric IC to obtain information on techniques used in each clinical department and on the range of clinical examinations performed. Ethical and research governance approval was sought from the Office for Research Ethics Committees Northern Ireland and the individual trusts. A response rate of 79% was achieved, and a wide variation in technique was found between hospitals. The main differences in technique involved variations in the use of an anti-scatter grid and the use of additional filtration to the radiation beam, frame rates for digital acquisition and pre-programmed projections/paediatric specific programming in the equipment. We conclude that there is no standard protocol for carrying out paediatric IC in the UK or Ireland. Each hospital carries out the IC procedure according to its own local protocols resulting in a wide variation in radiation dose.

  15. Variational Approach to Enhanced Sampling and Free Energy Calculations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valsson, Omar; Parrinello, Michele

    2014-08-01

    The ability of widely used sampling methods, such as molecular dynamics or Monte Carlo simulations, to explore complex free energy landscapes is severely hampered by the presence of kinetic bottlenecks. A large number of solutions have been proposed to alleviate this problem. Many are based on the introduction of a bias potential which is a function of a small number of collective variables. However constructing such a bias is not simple. Here we introduce a functional of the bias potential and an associated variational principle. The bias that minimizes the functional relates in a simple way to the free energy surface. This variational principle can be turned into a practical, efficient, and flexible sampling method. A number of numerical examples are presented which include the determination of a three-dimensional free energy surface. We argue that, beside being numerically advantageous, our variational approach provides a convenient and novel standpoint for looking at the sampling problem.

  16. Variations in cardiovascular disease under-diagnosis in England: national cross-sectional spatial analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Walford Hannah

    2011-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background There is under-diagnosis of cardiovascular disease (CVD in the English population, despite financial incentives to encourage general practices to register new cases. We compared the modelled (expected and diagnosed (observed prevalence of three cardiovascular conditions- coronary heart disease (CHD, hypertension and stroke- at local level, their geographical variation, and population and healthcare predictors which might influence diagnosis. Methods Cross-sectional observational study in all English local authorities (351 and general practices (8,372 comparing model-based expected prevalence with diagnosed prevalence on practice disease registers. Spatial analyses were used to identify geographic clusters and variation in regression relationships. Results A total of 9,682,176 patients were on practice CHD, stroke and transient ischaemic attack, and hypertension registers. There was wide spatial variation in observed: expected prevalence ratios for all three diseases, with less than five per cent of expected cases diagnosed in some areas. London and the surrounding area showed statistically significant discrepancies in observed: expected prevalence ratios, with observed prevalence much lower than the epidemiological models predicted. The addition of general practitioner supply as a variable yielded stronger regression results for all three conditions. Conclusions Despite almost universal access to free primary healthcare, there may be significant and highly variable under-diagnosis of CVD across England, which can be partially explained by persistent inequity in GP supply. Disease management studies should consider the possible impact of under-diagnosis on population health outcomes. Compared to classical regression modelling, spatial analytic techniques can provide additional information on risk factors for under-diagnosis, and can suggest where healthcare resources may be most needed.

  17. Effect of mass variation on dynamics of tethered system in orbital maneuvering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Liang; Zhao, Guowei; Huang, Hai

    2018-05-01

    In orbital maneuvering, the mass variation due to fuel consumption has an obvious impact on the dynamics of tethered system, which cannot be neglected. The contributions of the work are mainly shown in two aspects: 1) the improvement of the model; 2) the analysis of dynamics characteristics. As the mass is variable, and the derivative of the mass is directly considered in the traditional Lagrange equation, the expression of generalized force is complicated. To solve this problem, the coagulated derivative is adopted in the paper; besides, the attitude dynamics equations derived in this paper take into account the effect of mass variation and the drift of orbital trajectory at the same time. The bifurcation phenomenon, the pendular motion angular frequency, and amplitudes of tether vibration revealed in this paper can provide a reference for the parameters and controller design in practical engineering. In the article, a dumbbell model is adopted to analyze the dynamics of tethered system, in which the mass variation of base satellite is fully considered. Considering the practical application, the case of orbital transfer under a transversal thrust is mainly studied. Besides, compared with the analytical solutions of librational angles, the effects of mass variation on stability and librational characteristic are studied. Finally, in order to make an analysis of the effect on vibrational characteristic, a lumped model is introduced, which reveals a strong coupling of librational and vibrational characteristics.

  18. Dynamics of nonholonomic systems from variational principles embedded variation identity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Guo Yongxin; Liu Shixing; Liu Chang; Chang Peng

    2009-01-01

    Nondeterminacy of dynamics, i.e., the nonholonomic or the vakonomic, fundamental variational principles, e.g., the Lagrange-d'Alembert or Hamiltonian, and variational operators, etc., of nonholonomic mechanical systems can be attributed to the non-uniqueness of ways how to realize nonholonomic constraints. Making use of a variation identity of nonholonomic constraints embedded into the Hamilton's principle with the method of Lagrange undetermined multipliers, three kinds of dynamics for the nonholonomic systems including the vakonomic and nonholonomic ones and a new one are obtained if the variation is respectively reduced to three conditional variations: vakonomic variation, Hoelder's variation and Suslov's variation, defined by the identity. Therefore, different dynamics of nonholonomic systems can be derived from an integral variational principle, utilizing one way of embedding constraints into the principle, with different variations. It is verified that the similar embedding of the identity into the Lagrange-d'Alembert principle gives rise to the nonholonomic dynamics but fails to give the vakonomic one unless the constraints are integrable.

  19. An Introduction of Three-dimensional Grammar

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fan Xiao

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper introduces some key points of Three-dimensional Grammar. As for the structure, it can be distinguished into syntactic structure, semantic structure and pragmatic structure from the perspectives of syntax, semantics and pragmatics. And the same is true with the followings, such as grammatical constituents, grammatical functions, grammatical meanings, grammatical focuses. Sentence types which is called sentence pattern, sentence model and sentence types respectively, and analysis methods. This paper proposes that grammatical researches should be done in accordance with the four principles, that is form and meaning co-verified, static and dynamic co-referenced, structure and function co-testified and description and interpretation co-promoted.

  20. Specific infant feeding practices do not consistently explain variation in anthropometry at age 1 year in urban United States, Mexico, and China cohorts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woo, Jessica G; Guerrero, M Lourdes; Ruiz-Palacios, Guillermo M; Peng, Yong-mei; Herbers, Patricia M; Yao, Wen; Ortega, Hilda; Davidson, Barbara S; McMahon, Robert J; Morrow, Ardythe L

    2013-02-01

    Infant feeding practices generally influence infant growth, but it is unclear how introduction of specific foods affects growth across global populations. We studied 3 urban populations in the Global Exploration of Human Milk study to determine the association between infant feeding and anthropometry at 1 y of age. Three hundred sixty-five breastfeeding mother-infant pairs (120 US, 120 China, and 125 Mexico) were recruited soon after the infant's birth. Enrollment required agreement to breastfeed ≥75% for at least 3 mo. Weekly, 24-h, food frequency data were conducted on infants for 1 y and exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) duration and timing of specific complementary food introduction were calculated. Weight and length were measured at age 1 y and anthropometry Z-scores calculated using WHO standards. Cohorts in the 3 urban populations (Shanghai, China; Cincinnati, USA; and Mexico City, Mexico) differed by median EBF duration (5, 14, and 7 wk, respectively; P Mexico City infants (P < 0.001). Adjusting for nonfeeding covariates, the only feeding variable associated with anthropometry was EBF duration, which was modestly inversely associated with weight-for-age but not length-for-age or BMI Z-scores at 1 y. Although feeding variables differed by cohort, their impact on anthropometry differences was not consistent among cohorts. Overall, across these urban, international, breast-fed cohorts, differences in specific feeding practices did not explain the significant variation in anthropometry.

  1. Variational Homotopy Perturbation Method for Solving Higher Dimensional Initial Boundary Value Problems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Muhammad Aslam Noor

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available We suggest and analyze a technique by combining the variational iteration method and the homotopy perturbation method. This method is called the variational homotopy perturbation method (VHPM. We use this method for solving higher dimensional initial boundary value problems with variable coefficients. The developed algorithm is quite efficient and is practically well suited for use in these problems. The proposed scheme finds the solution without any discritization, transformation, or restrictive assumptions and avoids the round-off errors. Several examples are given to check the reliability and efficiency of the proposed technique.

  2. Clinical Practice in Portuguese Sexology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alarcão, Violeta; Ribeiro, Sofia; Almeida, Joana; Giami, Alain

    2017-11-17

    Few studies explore the clinicians' knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding sexuality, despite their role in the sexual-health socialization process. This study focuses on Portuguese sexologists engaged in clinical practice. It aims to characterize sexologists' sex education and training and their clinical practices, including diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. This research followed the methodology of an European survey on sexology as a profession (Euro-Sexo). From the 91 respondents who completed questionnaires, 51 (56%) were active in clinical practice. Results indicate that the Portuguese clinical sexologist is significantly older, predominantly male, has had training in sexology, performs more scientific research, and is more engaged in teaching activities when compared to nonclinical working sexologists. This article describes the main sexual problems presented by patients to Portuguese clinical sexologists and highlights differences in the professional groups and approaches toward treating these problems by medical doctors and nonmedical professionals. Results reinforce the idea that there are intra-European differences in the educational background of sexologists and reveal important variations in Portuguese sexologists' education, training, and clinical practice. The representations and practices of the sexologists in Portugal, as in other European countries, are embedded in cultural scenarios and sexual cultures, with implications for the clinical practice.

  3. Teachers' professional development: Awareness of literacy practices

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Hennie

    professional development and deepen teachers' understanding of literacy practices and teaching. Interviews and ... these disadvantages, linked to both material and human resources, have continued, and in fact become .... given access to literacy usage and variation, but ... English as their LoLT, though it may be their.

  4. Dynamics of nonholonomic systems from variational principles embedded variation identity

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Guo Yongxin, E-mail: yxguo@lnu.edu.c [College of Physics, Liaoning University, Shenyang 110036 (China); Liu Shixing [College of Physics, Liaoning University, Shenyang 110036 (China); Liu Chang; Chang Peng [Department of Applied Mechanics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081 (China)

    2009-10-19

    Nondeterminacy of dynamics, i.e., the nonholonomic or the vakonomic, fundamental variational principles, e.g., the Lagrange-d'Alembert or Hamiltonian, and variational operators, etc., of nonholonomic mechanical systems can be attributed to the non-uniqueness of ways how to realize nonholonomic constraints. Making use of a variation identity of nonholonomic constraints embedded into the Hamilton's principle with the method of Lagrange undetermined multipliers, three kinds of dynamics for the nonholonomic systems including the vakonomic and nonholonomic ones and a new one are obtained if the variation is respectively reduced to three conditional variations: vakonomic variation, Hoelder's variation and Suslov's variation, defined by the identity. Therefore, different dynamics of nonholonomic systems can be derived from an integral variational principle, utilizing one way of embedding constraints into the principle, with different variations. It is verified that the similar embedding of the identity into the Lagrange-d'Alembert principle gives rise to the nonholonomic dynamics but fails to give the vakonomic one unless the constraints are integrable.

  5. A national survey of current practices of preparation and management of radical prostate radiotherapy patients during treatment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nightingale, H.; Conroy, R.; Elliott, T.; Coyle, C.; Wylie, J.P.; Choudhury, A.

    2017-01-01

    Aims: Radiotherapy is an important radical treatment for prostate cancer patients with services continually evolving. This survey aims to gain an insight in to the variation of radiotherapy practices in the UK, focussing on pre-treatment preparations, on-treatment review and management of radical prostate cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy. To our knowledge this is the first survey reported focussing on prostate radiotherapy practices with responses from a mix of health professionals. Materials and methods: A national survey was designed based on current known practices in supportive care and management of prostate cancer patients. The survey was distributed to lead radiotherapy personnel in radiotherapy services across the UK with a 77% response rate (n = 54). Results: Pre-treatment protocols were mandated in the majority of departments. Use of bladder filling (98%) and bowel emptying (66%) were frequently deployed. Bowel preparation varied between use of laxatives (13%) or enemas (41%) to achieve consistency. On-treatment reviews were carried out by a mix of health professionals; most commonly shared between oncologists and radiographers (20%). Radiographers reviewing patients were independent prescribers in 22% of departments. Toxicity grading tools were not used by almost half of departments (47%) either at baseline and/or on-treatment reviews. Written information about follow-up was given to patients towards the end of their radiotherapy; however, fewer departments included the length of hormone duration (13%). Conclusion: This survey has demonstrated variations in practice exist across the UK. These variations suggest that important questions about the best methods for treatment accuracy and patient management need to be established through further research. - Highlights: • Results of a national survey demonstrate wide variations in UK practice. • Lack of a clear evidence base could be a contributing factor to such variation. • Practices are

  6. Hospital Variation in Early Tracheostomy in the United States: A Population-Based Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mehta, Anuj B; Cooke, Colin R; Wiener, Renda Soylemez; Walkey, Allan J

    2016-08-01

    Controversy exists regarding perceived benefits of early tracheostomy to facilitate weaning among mechanically ventilated patients, potentially leading to significant practice-pattern variation with implications for outcomes and resource utilization. We sought to determine practice-pattern variation and outcomes associated with tracheostomy timing in the United States. In a retrospective cohort study, we identified mechanically ventilated patients with the most common causes of respiratory failure leading to tracheostomy: pneumonia/sepsis and trauma. "Early tracheostomy" was performed within the first week of mechanical ventilation. We determined between-hospital variation in early tracheostomy utilization and the association of early tracheostomy with patient outcomes using hierarchical regression. 2012 National Inpatient Sample. A total of 6,075 pneumonia/sepsis patients and 12,030 trauma patients with tracheostomy. None. Trauma patients were twice as likely as pneumonia/sepsis patients to receive early tracheostomy (44.5% vs 21.7%; p tracheostomy-to-total-tracheostomy ratios was associated with increased risk for tracheostomy among mechanically ventilated trauma patients (adjusted odds ratio = 1.04; 95% CI, 1.01-1.07) but not pneumonia/sepsis (adjusted odds ratio =1.00; 95% CI, 0.98-1.02). We observed greater between-hospital variation in early tracheostomy rates among trauma patients (21.9-81.9%) compared with pneumonia/sepsis (14.9-38.3%; p tracheostomy had fewer feeding tube procedures and higher odds of discharge home. Early tracheostomy is potentially overused among mechanically ventilated trauma patients, with nearly half of tracheostomies performed within the first week of mechanical ventilation and large unexplained hospital variation, without clear benefits. Future studies are needed to characterize potentially differential benefits for early tracheostomy between disease subgroups and to investigate factors driving hospital variation in tracheostomy

  7. Introductory Biology Students’ Conceptual Models and Explanations of the Origin of Variation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shaw, Neil; Momsen, Jennifer; Reinagel, Adam; Le, Paul; Taqieddin, Ranya; Long, Tammy

    2014-01-01

    Mutation is the key molecular mechanism generating phenotypic variation, which is the basis for evolution. In an introductory biology course, we used a model-based pedagogy that enabled students to integrate their understanding of genetics and evolution within multiple case studies. We used student-generated conceptual models to assess understanding of the origin of variation. By midterm, only a small percentage of students articulated complete and accurate representations of the origin of variation in their models. Targeted feedback was offered through activities requiring students to critically evaluate peers’ models. At semester's end, a substantial proportion of students significantly improved their representation of how variation arises (though one-third still did not include mutation in their models). Students’ written explanations of the origin of variation were mostly consistent with their models, although less effective than models in conveying mechanistic reasoning. This study contributes evidence that articulating the genetic origin of variation is particularly challenging for learners and may require multiple cycles of instruction, assessment, and feedback. To support meaningful learning of the origin of variation, we advocate instruction that explicitly integrates multiple scales of biological organization, assessment that promotes and reveals mechanistic and causal reasoning, and practice with explanatory models with formative feedback. PMID:25185235

  8. Understanding implementation processes of clinical pathways and clinical practice guidelines in pediatric contexts: a study protocol

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Scott Shannon D

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Canada is among the most prosperous nations in the world, yet the health and wellness outcomes of Canadian children are surprisingly poor. There is some evidence to suggest that these poor health outcomes are partly due to clinical practice variation, which can stem from failure to apply the best available research evidence in clinical practice, otherwise known as knowledge translation (KT. Surprisingly, clinical practice variation, even for common acute paediatric conditions, is pervasive. Clinical practice variation results in unnecessary medical treatments, increased suffering, and increased healthcare costs. This study focuses on improving health outcomes for common paediatric acute health concerns by evaluating strategies that improve KT and reduce clinical practice variation. Design/Methods Using a multiple case study design, qualitative and quantitative data will be collected from four emergency departments in western Canada. Data sources will include: pre- and post-implementation focus group data from multidisciplinary healthcare professionals; individual interviews with the local champions, KT intervention providers, and unit/site leaders/managers; Alberta Context Tool (ACT survey data; and aggregated patient outcome data. Qualitative and quantitative data will be systematically triangulated, and matrices will be built to do cross-case comparison. Explanations will be built about the success or lack of success of the clinical practice guidelines (CPG and clinical pathways (CPs uptake based upon the cross-case comparisons. Significance This study will generate new knowledge about the potential causal mechanisms and factors which shape implementation. Future studies will track the impact of the CPG/CPs implementation on children's health outcome, and healthcare costs.

  9. Variation in performance measure criteria significantly affects cardiology practice rankings: Insights from the National Cardiovascular Data Registry's Practice Innovation and Clinical Excellence Registry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eapen, Zubin J; Tang, Fengming; Jones, Phil G; Maddox, Thomas M; Oetgen, William J; Spertus, John A; Rumsfeld, John S; Heidenreich, Paul A; Peterson, Eric D; Drozda, Joseph P

    2015-06-01

    Million Hearts is a national initiative to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes over 5 years by improving cardiovascular prevention. An important tool in the success of programs like Million Hearts is public ranking on the quality of practices, yet different measures may provide different rankings, so the true quality of practices is difficult to discern. We evaluated the quality of ambulatory cardiology care using performance measure metrics. We compared rankings of practices participating in the National Cardiovascular Data Registry's Practice Innovation and Clinical Excellence Registry using measures from (1) the physician quality reporting system and (2) the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association/Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement. We compared achievement rates for measures between the 2 frameworks and determined correlations in rankings using Spearman correlation coefficients. From January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2012, there were 1,711,326 patients enrolled from 111 US practices. Among eligible patients, the physician quality reporting system and American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association/Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement measures were achieved in 76.1% versus 77.4% for antiplatelet prescription (P performance and failing to achieve public health goals. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. Variational principles and Heisenberg matrix mechanics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Klein, A.; Li, C.-T.

    1979-01-01

    If in Heisenberg's equations of motion for a problem in quantum mechanics (or quantum field theory) one studies matrix elements in the energy representation and by use of completeness conditions expresses the equations solely in terms of matrix elements of the canonical variables, and if one does likewise with the associated kinematical constraints (commutation relations), one arrives at a formulation - largely unexplored hitherto - which can be exploited for both practical and theoretical development. In this contribution, the above theme is developed within the framework of one-dimensional problems. It is shown how this formulation, both dynamics and kinematics, can be derived from a new variational principle, indeed from an entire class of such principles. A powerful method of diagonalizing the Hamiltonians by means of computations utilizing these equations is described. The variational method is shown to be particularly useful for the study of the regime of large quantum numbers. The usual WKB approximation is seen to be contained as well as a basis for the study of systematic corrections to it. Further applications in progress are mentioned. (Auth.)

  11. The effects of two EFL (English as a foreign language) teaching approaches studied by the cotwin control method: a comparative study of the communicative and the grammatical approaches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ando, J

    1992-01-01

    The present study compared two different types of English-language teaching approaches, the grammatical approach (GA) and the communicative approach (CA), by the cotwin control method. This study has two purposes: to study the effects of teaching approaches and to estimate genetic influences upon learning aptitudes. Seven pairs of identical twins (MZ) and 4 pairs of fraternal twins (DZ) participated in the experiment along with 68 other nontwin fifth graders. Each cotwin was assigned to the GA and CA respectively and received 20 hours of lessons over a 10-day period. The behavioral similarities between MZ cotwins were statistically and descriptively depicted. No major effect of either teaching approach was noted, but the genetic influence upon individual differences of learning achievement was obvious. Furthermore, an interesting interaction between the teaching approaches and intelligence was found, that is, that the GA capitalises on and CA compensates for intelligence. This interactional pattern could be interpreted as an example of genotype-environment interaction. The relationship between genetic factors and learning aptitudes is discussed.

  12. Fiche pratique: La vie en rose; Scenes de menage; Comptines en memoire; Premier emploi (Practical Ideas: Life through Rose-Colored Glasses; Home Life; Singsongs from the Past; First Job).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lenoble, Martine; And Others

    1991-01-01

    Four ideas for French language classroom activities include creation of a parody horoscope, reenactment of household scenes from a comic strip, an exercise in memorizing grammatical rules through children's chants, and analysis of a videotape's content, aural, and visual components. (MSE)

  13. Variation in examination and treatment offers to patients with allergic diseases in general practice

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Dorte Gilså; Jarbøl, Dorte Ejg; Munck, Anders Peter

    2010-01-01

    in general practice to patients with allergic diseases, and to evaluate guideline compliance with respect to anaphylaxis emergency treatment kits. DESIGN: A questionnaire-based survey among general practitioners (GPs) about examination and treatment procedures offered in the surgery to patients with allergic...... recommendations for preparedness for anaphylactic shock in connection with allergy vaccine therapy were not fully implemented. CONCLUSION: General practice is substantially involved in the examination and treatment of patients with allergic diseases. There is room for further involvement of staff members...

  14. Calculus of variations

    CERN Document Server

    Elsgolc, L E; Stark, M

    1961-01-01

    Calculus of Variations aims to provide an understanding of the basic notions and standard methods of the calculus of variations, including the direct methods of solution of the variational problems. The wide variety of applications of variational methods to different fields of mechanics and technology has made it essential for engineers to learn the fundamentals of the calculus of variations. The book begins with a discussion of the method of variation in problems with fixed boundaries. Subsequent chapters cover variational problems with movable boundaries and some other problems; sufficiency

  15. Variational transition-state theory

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Truhlar, D.G.; Garrett, B.C.

    1980-01-01

    A general introduction to and some results from studies of a procedure called variational transition-state theory are presented. A fundamental assumption of this theory is that the net rate of forward reaction at equilibrium equals the equilibrium flux in the product direction through the transition state where the transition state is a surface in phase space dividing reactants from products. Classical generalized-transition-state-theory calculations for nine collinear systems are compared to classical trajectory calculations. This new technique should provide useful insight into the successes and failures of the conventional theory and useful quantitative estimates of possible errors on the predictions of conventional transition-state theory. This should also contribute to a more accurate theory now available for the practical calculations of chemical reaction rates and thermochemical and structural interpretations of rate processes

  16. The role of age of onset and input in early child bilingualism in Greek and Dutch

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Unsworth, S.; Argyri, F.; Cornips, L.; Hulk, A.; Sorace, A.; Tsimpli, I.

    2014-01-01

    The focus of this study is the acquisition of grammatical gender in Greek and Dutch by bilingual children whose other language is English. Although grammatical gender languages share the property of noun classification in terms of grammatical gender, there are important differences between the

  17. Autopsy practice in forensic pathology - Evidence-based or experience-based?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Colville-Ebeling, Bonnie; Freeman, Michael; Banner, Jytte

    2014-01-01

    Current autopsy practice in forensic pathology is to a large extent based on experience and individual customary practices as opposed to evidence and consensus based practices. As a result there is the potential for substantial variation in how knowledge is applied in each case. In the present case......-gathering and the use of check lists specific to certain injury causes are likely to result in less deviation from evidence-based practices in forensic pathology. Pre-autopsy data-gathering and check lists will help ensure a higher degree of standardization in autopsy reports thus enhancing the quality and accuracy...

  18. Temporal variations of Cu in Jiaozhou Bay 1982-1986

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Dongfang; Zhu, Sixi; Wang, Zhikang; Su, Chunhua; Wang, Qiang

    2017-12-01

    This paper analyzed the temporal variations of Cu in Jiaozhou Bay during 1982-1986. Results showed that Cu contents in study years were 0.15-5.31 μg L-1, 0.77-20.60 μg L-1, 0.11-4.00 μg L-1, 0.10-0.43 μg L-1 and 0.18-0.77 μg L-1, respectively. The Cu pollution level in this bay was moderate during 1982-1983, yet for temporal variations Cu contents in surface waters were showing decreasing trend. Cu contents in spring, summer and autumn were 0.11-20.60 μg L-1, 0.10-4.86 μg L-1 and 0.11-3.56 μg L-1, respectively. This bay was moderate pollution in spring in 1982-1983, while in other seasons in study years was still slight. These indicated that the temporal variations of Cu pollution in this bay should be taken in to account in decision-making of pollution control practice.

  19. The Question of the Superstrate and Substrate in Nigerian Pidgin ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    very extensively the grammatical systems of Nigerian languages. Based on the conviction that mainly grammatical operations describe the structure of a language, the paper concludes by proposing that either 1) the local languages be classified as the grammatical superstrate and lexifier substrate (that is, if degree

  20. Variational and quasi-variational inequalities in mechanics

    CERN Document Server

    Kravchuk, Alexander S

    2007-01-01

    The essential aim of the present book is to consider a wide set of problems arising in the mathematical modelling of mechanical systems under unilateral constraints. In these investigations elastic and non-elastic deformations, friction and adhesion phenomena are taken into account. All the necessary mathematical tools are given: local boundary value problem formulations, construction of variational equations and inequalities, and the transition to minimization problems, existence and uniqueness theorems, and variational transformations (Friedrichs and Young-Fenchel-Moreau) to dual and saddle-point search problems. Important new results concern contact problems with friction. The Coulomb friction law and some others are considered, in which relative sliding velocities appear. The corresponding quasi-variational inequality is constructed, as well as the appropriate iterative method for its solution. Outlines of the variational approach to non-stationary and dissipative systems and to the construction of the go...

  1. Influence of population and general practice characteristics on prescribing of minor tranquilisers in primary care

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wagner AC

    2010-09-01

    Full Text Available Prevalence of generalised anxiety disorders is widespread in Great Britain. Previous small-scale research has shown variations in minor tranquiliser prescribing, identifying several potential predictors of prescribing volume. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between general practice minor tranquiliser prescribing rates and practice population and general practice characteristics for all general practices in England.Methods: Multiple regression analysis of minor tranquiliser prescribing volumes during 2004/2005 for 8,291 English general practices with general practice and population variables obtained from the General Medical Services (GMS statistics, Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF, 2001 Census and 2004 Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD. Results: The highest rates of minor tranquiliser prescribing were in areas with the greatest local deprivation while general practices situated in areas with larger proportions of residents of black ethnic origin had lower rates of prescribing. Other predictors of increased prescribing were general practices with older general practitioners and general practices with older registered practice populations.Conclusion: Our findings show that there is wide variation of minor tranquilisers prescribing across England which has implications regarding access to treatment and inequity of service provision. Future research should determine the barriers to equitable prescribing amongst general practices serving larger populations of black ethnic origin.

  2. Possible causes of variation in acrylamide concentration in French fries prepared in food service establishments: an observational study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sanny, M; Jinap, S; Bakker, E J; van Boekel, M A J S; Luning, P A

    2012-05-01

    Acrylamide is a probable human carcinogen, and its presence in a range of fried and oven-cooked foods has raised considerable health concern world-wide. Dietary intake studies observed significant variations in acrylamide concentrations, which complicate risk assessment and the establishment of effective control measures. The objective of this study was to obtain an insight into the actual variation in acrylamide concentrations in French fries prepared under typical conditions in a food service establishment (FSE). Besides acrylamide, frying time, frying temperature, and reducing sugars were measured and the actual practices at receiving, thawing and frying during French fries preparation were observed and recorded. The variation in the actual frying temperature contributed most to the variation in acrylamide concentrations, followed by the variation in actual frying time; no obvious effect of reducing sugars was found. The lack of standardised control of frying temperature and frying time (due to inadequate frying equipment) and the variable practices of food handlers seem to contribute most to the large variation and high acrylamide concentrations in French fries prepared in a restaurant type of FSE as compared to chain fast-food services, and institutional caterers. The obtained insights in this study can be used to develop dedicated control measures in FSE, which may contribute to a sustainable reduction in the acrylamide intake. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Amikacin Dosing and Monitoring in Spinal Cord Injury Patients: Variation in Clinical Practice Between Spinal Injury Units and Differences in Experts' Recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Subramanian Vaidyanathan

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this article was to determine the current practice on amikacin dosing and monitoring in spinal cord injury patients from spinal cord physicians and experts. Physicians from spinal units and clinical pharmacologists were asked to provide protocol for dosing and monitoring of amikacin therapy in spinal cord injury patients. In a spinal unit in Poland, amikacin is administered usually 0.5 g twice daily. A once-daily regimen of amikacin is never used and amikacin concentrations are not determined. In Belgium, Southport (U.K., Spain, and the VA McGuire Medical Center (Richmond, Virginia, amikacin is given once daily. Whereas peak and trough concentrations are determined in Belgium, only trough concentration is measured in Southport. In both these spinal units, modification of the dose is not routinely done with a nomogram. In Spain and the VA McGuire Medical Center, monitoring of serum amikacin concentration is not done unless a patient has renal impairment. In contrast, the dose/interval of amikacin is adjusted according to pharmacokinetic parameters at the Edward Hines VA Hospital (Hines, Illinois, where amikacin is administered q24h or q48h, depending on creatinine clearance. Spinal cord physicians from Denmark, Germany, and the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation (West Orange, New Jersey state that they do not use amikacin in spinal injury patients. An expert from Canada does not recommend determining serum concentrations of amikacin, but emphasizes the value of monitoring ototoxicity and nephrotoxicity. Experts from New Zealand recommend amikacin in conventional twice- or thrice-daily dosing because of the theoretical increased risk of neuromuscular blockade and apnea with larger daily doses in spinal cord injury patients. On the contrary, experts from Greece, Israel, and the U.S. recommend once-daily dosing and determining amikacin pharmacokinetic parameters for each patient. As there is considerable variation in clinical

  4. Retrospectively reported month-to-month variation in sleeping problems of people naturally exposed to high-amplitude annual variation in daylength and/or temperature

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arcady A. Putilov

    Full Text Available Compared to literature on seasonal variation in mood and well-being, reports on seasonality of trouble sleeping are scarce and contradictive. To extend geography of such reports on example of people naturally exposed to high-amplitude annual variation in daylength and/or temperature. Participants were the residents of Turkmenia, West Siberia, South and North Yakutia, Chukotka, and Alaska. Health and sleep-wake adaptabilities, month-to-month variation in sleeping problems, well-being and behaviors were self-assessed. More than a half of 2398 respondents acknowledged seasonality of sleeping problems. Four of the assessed sleeping problems demonstrated three different patterns of seasonal variation. Rate of the problems significantly increased in winter months with long nights and cold days (daytime sleepiness and difficulties falling and staying asleep as well as in summer months with either long days (premature awakening and difficulties falling and staying asleep or hot nights and days (all 4 sleeping problems. Individual differences between respondents in pattern and level of seasonality of sleeping problems were significantly associated with differences in several other domains of individual variation, such as gender, age, ethnicity, physical health, morning-evening preference, sleep quality, and adaptability of the sleep-wake cycle. These results have practical relevance to understanding of the roles playing by natural environmental factors in seasonality of sleeping problems as well as to research on prevalence of sleep disorders and methods of their prevention and treatment in regions with large seasonal differences in temperature and daylength.

  5. Anatomic variation of cranial parasympathetic ganglia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Selma Siéssere

    2008-06-01

    Full Text Available Having broad knowledge of anatomy is essential for practicing dentistry. Certain anatomical structures call for detailed studies due to their anatomical and functional importance. Nevertheless, some structures are difficult to visualize and identify due to their small volume and complicated access. Such is the case of the parasympathetic ganglia located in the cranial part of the autonomic nervous system, which include: the ciliary ganglion (located deeply in the orbit, laterally to the optic nerve, the pterygopalatine ganglion (located in the pterygopalatine fossa, the submandibular ganglion (located laterally to the hyoglossus muscle, below the lingual nerve, and the otic ganglion (located medially to the mandibular nerve, right beneath the oval foramen. The aim of this study was to present these structures in dissected anatomic specimens and perform a comparative analysis regarding location and morphology. The proximity of the ganglia and associated nerves were also analyzed, as well as the number and volume of fibers connected to them. Human heads were dissected by planes, partially removing the adjacent structures to the point we could reach the parasympathetic ganglia. With this study, we concluded that there was no significant variation regarding the location of the studied ganglia. Morphologically, our observations concur with previous classical descriptions of the parasympathetic ganglia, but we observed variations regarding the proximity of the otic ganglion to the mandibular nerve. We also observed that there were variations regarding the number and volume of fiber bundles connected to the submandibular, otic, and pterygopalatine ganglia.

  6. Gendered nursing education and practice in Iran.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fooladi, Marjaneh M

    2003-01-01

    Through qualitative ethnographic methods, the researcher gendered nursing education and practice among human nursing students and faculty. Interaction with nursing students and faculty occurred in a familiar turf using the native language in interviews and on field observations. Settings included classrooms, skills laboratory, faculty offices, clinical areas, and informants' homes. Formal and informal interviews, observations, and printed materials provided useful data to reach consistent common patterns. Thematic analysis and triangulation of data identified gender variations in care and compassion, spirituality, economic motives, and practice preference. Integrated experiences of pre-Islamic period were used to describe the current developments of gendered nursing education and practice in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Study of gendered nursing education and practice brings attention to the cultural significance of gender issues. This body of knowledge will benefit American nurses and educators by increasing their cultural understanding of gender.

  7. Therapy-Induced Neuroplasticity of Language in Chronic Post Stroke Aphasia: A Mismatch Negativity Study of (A)Grammatical and Meaningful/less Mini-Constructions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lucchese, Guglielmo; Pulvermüller, Friedemann; Stahl, Benjamin; Dreyer, Felix R.; Mohr, Bettina

    2017-01-01

    Clinical language performance and neurophysiological correlates of language processing were measured before and after intensive language therapy in patients with chronic (time post stroke >1 year) post stroke aphasia (PSA). As event-related potential (ERP) measure, the mismatch negativity (MMN) was recorded in a distracted oddball paradigm to short spoken sentences. Critical ‘deviant’ sentence stimuli where either well-formed and meaningful, or syntactically, or lexico-semantically incorrect. After 4 weeks of speech-language therapy (SLT) delivered with high intensity (10.5 h per week), clinical language assessment with the Aachen Aphasia Test battery demonstrated significant linguistic improvements, which were accompanied by enhanced MMN responses. More specifically, MMN amplitudes to grammatically correct and meaningful mini-constructions and to ‘jabberwocky’ sentences containing a pseudoword significantly increased after therapy. However, no therapy-related changes in MMN responses to syntactically incorrect strings including agreement violations were observed. While MMN increases to well-formed meaningful strings can be explained both at the word and construction levels, the neuroplastic change seen for ‘jabberwocky’ sentences suggests an explanation in terms of constructions. The results confirm previous reports that intensive SLT leads to improvements of linguistic skills in chronic aphasia patients and now demonstrate that this clinical improvement is associated with enhanced automatic brain indexes of construction processing, although no comparable change is present for ungrammatical strings. Furthermore, the data confirm that the language-induced MMN is a useful tool to map functional language recovery in PSA. PMID:28111545

  8. Radiographer involvement in mammography image interpretation: A survey of United Kingdom practice

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Culpan, A.M.

    2016-01-01

    Breast cancer is most often diagnosed using x-ray mammography. Traditionally mammography images have been interpreted and reported by medically qualified practitioners – radiologists. Due to radiologist workforce shortages in recent years some non-medical practitioners, radiographers, now interpret and report mammography images. The aims of this survey were to describe the characteristics and practices of radiographers who interpret and report mammography images in NHS hospitals in the UK, and in particular to establish the extent of their practice beyond low-risk asymptomatic screening cases. This service evaluation demonstrated that UK radiographers are interpreting and reporting images across the full spectrum of clinical indications for mammography including: low-risk population screening, symptomatic, annual surveillance, family history and biopsy/surgical cases. The survey revealed that radiographers are involved in a diverse range of single and double reading practices where responsibility for diagnostic decision making is shared or transferred between radiologists and/or other radiographers. Comparative analysis of sub-group data suggested that there might be differences in the characteristics and practices of radiographers who interpret only low-risk screening mammograms and those who interpret and report a wider range of cases. The findings of this survey provide a platform for further research to investigate how and why the roles and responsibilities of radiographers who interpret and report mammograms vary between organisations, between practitioners and across different examinations. Further research is also needed to explore the implications of variation in practice for patients, practitioners and service providers. - Highlights: • UK radiographers interpret mammograms across the full spectrum of clinical indications. • UK radiographers are involved in a wide range of single/double mammography reading practices. • Characteristics required for

  9. Quality Control Practices for Chemistry and Immunochemistry in a Cohort of 21 Large Academic Medical Centers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosenbaum, Matthew W; Flood, James G; Melanson, Stacy E F; Baumann, Nikola A; Marzinke, Mark A; Rai, Alex J; Hayden, Joshua; Wu, Alan H B; Ladror, Megan; Lifshitz, Mark S; Scott, Mitchell G; Peck-Palmer, Octavia M; Bowen, Raffick; Babic, Nikolina; Sobhani, Kimia; Giacherio, Donald; Bocsi, Gregary T; Herman, Daniel S; Wang, Ping; Toffaletti, John; Handel, Elizabeth; Kelly, Kathleen A; Albeiroti, Sami; Wang, Sihe; Zimmer, Melissa; Driver, Brandon; Yi, Xin; Wilburn, Clayton; Lewandrowski, Kent B

    2018-05-29

    In the United States, minimum standards for quality control (QC) are specified in federal law under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment and its revisions. Beyond meeting this required standard, laboratories have flexibility to determine their overall QC program. We surveyed chemistry and immunochemistry QC procedures at 21 clinical laboratories within leading academic medical centers to assess if standardized QC practices exist for chemistry and immunochemistry testing. We observed significant variation and unexpected similarities in practice across laboratories, including QC frequency, cutoffs, number of levels analyzed, and other features. This variation in practice indicates an opportunity exists to establish an evidence-based approach to QC that can be generalized across institutions.

  10. Probabilistic measure of factors contributing to social media practices among Facebook users

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jandryle U. Trondillo

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Social media is the most popular tool to communicate and interact with people nowadays and offers easy access to connect with people anywhere in the globe. This study was conducted to develop a construct about social media practice and explore the probabilistic measure of the factors contributing to social media practices among selected Facebook users. Data was gathered utilizing a structured online survey form from selected 162 online Facebook users who consented to participate in this study. Most of the respondents are male, from 21 to 30 age group, employed and with average social media use of 1 to 4 hours in a day. Out of 30 items in the structured questionnaire, 19 items where retained with eight new factors that served as construct for social media practice (KMO= Bartlett's test of Sphericity= 2109.530, p=0.000,<0.01. Proposed model was significant 99% (p=0.002,<0.01, chi-square of 19.25 which can explain 6.4% to 13.3% of the variation in social media practice. Eight new components were found to simulate respondent’s social media practices. Social media practice varies between males and females while characteristics of age, occupational status and average number of hours spent in social media in a day have no variation.

  11. Examining Water Quality Variations of Tidal Pond System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chui, T. F. M.; Cui, W.

    2014-12-01

    Brackish tidal shrimp ponds, traditionally referred to as gei wais, have been constructed along coastal areas in many parts of the world. The regular exchange of pond water with the surrounding coastal environment is important as it brings shrimp larvae and nutrients, etc. into and out of the pond. Such a water exchange can reduce the quality of the receiving waters; though there are opposing views recently because farming practices are becoming more sustainable while other sources of pollutions in the surroundings are increasing. This project monitors the water quality of a tidal shrimp pond and its receiving water at high temporal resolution. The pond is located within the wetland complex of Mai Po Nature Reserve in Hong Kong, China. Water quality parameters (i.e., dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity, pH, water depth and chlorophyll) were recorded at 15-minute interval from December 2013 to March 2014 within the pond and also at its receiving water which is a water channel within a mangrove forest. Data reveals both daily and fortnightly fluctuations. Daily variations in mangrove correspond to both tidal flushing and insolation, whereas those within the pond correspond mainly to insolation. For example, dissolved oxygen in mangrove shows two peaks daily which correlate with tidal elevation, and that within the pond shows only one peak which correlates with sunlight. Dissolved oxygen within the pond also shows a fortnightly pattern that corresponds to the schedule of water exchange. Such high temporal resolution of monitoring reveals the two-way water quality influences between the pond and the mangrove. It sheds insights that can possibly lead to refinement of water exchange practice and water sampling schedule given the temporal variations of the water quality both inside and outside the pond. It thus enables us to take a step closer in adopting more sustainable farming practices despite increasing pollution in the surrounding areas.

  12. Utilizing Professional Vision in Supporting Preservice Teachers' Learning About Contextualized Scientific Practices. Collaborative Discourse Practices Between Teachers and Scientists

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sezen-Barrie, Asli

    2018-03-01

    Drawn from the cultural-historical theories of knowing and doing science, this article uses the concept of professional vision to explore what scientists and experienced teachers see and articulate as important aspects of climate science practices. The study takes an abductive reasoning approach to analyze scientists' videotaped lectures to recognize what scientists pay attention to in their explanations of climate science practices. It then analyzes how ideas scientists attended align with experienced teachers' sense-making of scientific practices to teach climate change. The findings show that experienced teachers' and scientists' explanations showed alignment in the focus on scientific practices, but indicated variations in the temporal and spatial reasoning of climate data. Furthermore, the interdisciplinarity of climate science was emphasized in climate scientists' lectures, but was not apparent once scientists and teachers shared the same culture in meetings to provide feedback to preservice teachers. Given the importance of teaching through scientific practices in classrooms, this study provides suggestions to capture the epistemic diversity of scientific disciplines.

  13. Utilizing Professional Vision in Supporting Preservice Teachers' Learning About Contextualized Scientific Practices - Collaborative Discourse Practices Between Teachers and Scientists

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sezen-Barrie, Asli

    2018-03-01

    Drawn from the cultural-historical theories of knowing and doing science, this article uses the concept of professional vision to explore what scientists and experienced teachers see and articulate as important aspects of climate science practices. The study takes an abductive reasoning approach to analyze scientists' videotaped lectures to recognize what scientists pay attention to in their explanations of climate science practices. It then analyzes how ideas scientists attended align with experienced teachers' sense-making of scientific practices to teach climate change. The findings show that experienced teachers' and scientists' explanations showed alignment in the focus on scientific practices, but indicated variations in the temporal and spatial reasoning of climate data. Furthermore, the interdisciplinarity of climate science was emphasized in climate scientists' lectures, but was not apparent once scientists and teachers shared the same culture in meetings to provide feedback to preservice teachers. Given the importance of teaching through scientific practices in classrooms, this study provides suggestions to capture the epistemic diversity of scientific disciplines.

  14. Practice Pattern Variation in Pediatric Eosinophilic Esophagitis in the Carolinas EoE Collaborative: A Research Model in Community and Academic Practices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Kevin Z; Jensen, Elizabeth T; Chen, Hannah X; Landes, Lisa E; McConnell, Kristen A; Almond, M Angie; Johnston, Douglas T; Durban, Raquel; Jobe, Laura; Frost, Carrie; Donnelly, Sarah; Antonio, Brady; Safta, Anca M; Quiros, J Antonio; Markowitz, Jonathan E; Dellon, Evan S

    2018-06-01

    Differences in the initial management of pediatric eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) by practice setting have not been well characterized. We aimed to characterize these differences for sites in the Carolinas EoE Collaborative (CEoEC), a multicenter network of academic and community practices. We performed a retrospective cohort study of pediatric EoE patients at five CEoEC sites: University of North Carolina (UNC) Hospital, Charlotte Asthma and Allergy Specialists, Greenville Health Systems, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, and the Medical University of South Carolina Hospital. Cases of EoE were defined by consensus guidelines. Data were extracted from electronic medical records. We tested for differences among sites and used a multinomial model (polytomous regression) to assess associations between treatment and site, adjusting on patient factors. We identified 464 children with EoE across the CEoEC sites. The median age was highest at Wake Forest (11.4 years), the median eosinophil count was highest at UNC (69 eos/hpf), and UNC had the most male patients (82%). UNC used topical steroids for initial treatment in 86% of cases, compared with <1% in Greenville ( P < 0.01). Greenville used dietary elimination more frequently than UNC (81% vs 2%, P < 0.01). Differences in treatment approach held after adjusting for potential baseline confounders. There was no significant association between patient factors and initial treatment approach. Significant differences in EoE patient factors and treatment approaches were identified across CEoEC sites and were not explained by patient or practice factors. This suggests that institutional or provider preferences drive initial treatment approaches, and that more data are needed to drive best practice decisions.

  15. Comprehension in grammatical sentences at the level of specificity and schematicity in Alzheimer’s disease: an analysis psycholinguistics and cognitive

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Berla Moreira de Moraes

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available The present research aimed at identifying if there is any compromisse regarding the comprehension in grammatical sentences at the level of specificity, through the self-paced reading technique, produced by people suffering from Alzheimer. With the objective of reaching our goals and finding answers to our hypotheses, one experiment was carried out to analyse: the time of reaction while reading the sentence, the time of reaction for reading the comprehension questions and choosing the best answer, and the score of right answers given by Young adults (YA and healthy old (HO taken as groups of control and the old with likely Alzheimer (OLA as case group, considering sentences: at the level of schematicity and specificity. 10 YA, 10 HO and 10 OLA took part in the experiments, totalling thirty participants. Results show that, when compared to the old without cognitive decline, people suffering from Alzheimer presente inferior performance in comprehending conventional imagery when it comes to the rate of right answers and the time of response. As the result of the experiment, in relation to the level of specificity, people with Alzheimer need more time to read and give answers before schematic sentences, in which is also noticed the highest rate of wrong anwers. The hypothesis that the comprehension of conventional imagery in gramatical sentences at the level of specificity, is affected since the early stages of the Alzheimer disease was confirmed. We believe that this is influenced by the progressive cognitive decline of the working memory, by the speed of processing, by the decision making and also by the spacial and temporal orientation.

  16. Practical approach to ultrasonic imaging using diffraction tomography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Witten, A.; Tuggle, J.; Waag, R.C.

    1988-01-01

    A technique for ultrasonic imaging based on the theory of diffraction tomography is presented. The method utilizes a fixed, circular configuration of transmitters and detectors. This configuration was selected because it avoids many practical limitations associated with the design of a medical imaging device. Practical considerations also motivated the inclusion of effects associated with the transmitter beam pattern rather than pursuing the more conventional approach in which plane-wave illumination is required. In addition, the problem of separately imaging both density and compressibility variations is considered

  17. Practical approach to ultrasonic imaging using diffraction tomography

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Witten, A.; Tuggle, J.; Waag, R.C.

    1988-04-01

    A technique for ultrasonic imaging based on the theory of diffraction tomography is presented. The method utilizes a fixed, circular configuration of transmitters and detectors. This configuration was selected because it avoids many practical limitations associated with the design of a medical imaging device. Practical considerations also motivated the inclusion of effects associated with the transmitter beam pattern rather than pursuing the more conventional approach in which plane-wave illumination is required. In addition, the problem of separately imaging both density and compressibility variations is considered.

  18. Grammatical typology and frequency analysis: number availability and number use

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dunstan Brown

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available The Smith-Stark hierarchy, a version of the Animacy Hierarchy, offers a typology of the cross-linguistic availability of number. The hierarchy predicts that the availability of number is not arbitrary. For any language, if the expression of plural is available to a noun, it is available to any noun of a semantic category further to the left of the hierarchy. In this article we move one step further by showing that the structure of the hierarchy can be observed in a statistical model of number use in Russian. We also investigate three co-variates: plural preference, pluralia tantum and irregularity effects; these account for an item's behaviour being different than that solely expected from its animacy position.

  19. Knit as bespoke material practice for architecture

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ramsgaard Thomsen, Mette; Tamke, Martin; Karmon, Ayelet

    2016-01-01

    This paper presents an inquiry into how to inform material systems that allow for a high degree of variation and gradation of their material composition. Presenting knit as a particular system of material fabrication, we discuss how new practices that integrate material design into the architectu......This paper presents an inquiry into how to inform material systems that allow for a high degree of variation and gradation of their material composition. Presenting knit as a particular system of material fabrication, we discuss how new practices that integrate material design...... into the architectural design chain present new opportunities and challenges for how we understand and create cycles of design, analysis, specification and fabrication. By tracing current interdisciplinary efforts to establish simulation methods for knitted textiles, our aim is to question how these efforts can...... be understood and extended in the context of knitted architectural textiles. The paper draws on a number of projects that prototype methods for using simulation and sensing as grounds for informing the design of complex, heterogeneous and performative materials. It asks how these methods can allow feedback...

  20. Intertextuality and Narrative Practices of Young Deaf Students in Classroom Contexts: A Microethnographic Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Minjeong

    2012-01-01

    This study explores how intertextuality influences the narrative practices of young deaf children in two classrooms. Specifically, the study examines how variations in what texts are made available to juxtapose and variations in how texts are juxtaposed influence the narratives young deaf children produce. A major premise underlying these two…