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Sample records for letter number sequencing

  1. ERP Indices of Stimulus Prediction in Letter Sequences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Edith Kaan

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Given the current focus on anticipation in perception, action and cognition, including language processing, there is a need for a method to tap into predictive processing in situations in which cue and feedback stimuli are not explicitly marked as such. To this aim, event related potentials (ERPs were obtained while participants viewed alphabetic letter sequences (“A”, “B”, “C”, “D”, “E”, …, in which the letters were highly predictable, and random sequences (“S”, “B”, “A”, “I”, “F”, “M”, …, without feedback. Occasionally, the presentation of a letter in a sequence was delayed by 300 ms. During this delay period, an increased negativity was observed for predictive versus random sequences. In addition, the early positivity following the delay was larger for predictive compared with random sequences. These results suggest that expectation-sensitive ERP modulations can be elicited in anticipation of stimuli that are not explicit targets, rewards, feedback or instructions, and that a delay can strengthen the prediction for a particular stimulus. Applications to language processing will be discussed.

  2. Measuring Working Memory With Digit Span and the Letter-Number Sequencing Subtests From the WAIS-IV: Too Low Manipulation Load and Risk for Underestimating Modality Effects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Egeland, Jens

    2015-01-01

    The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) is one of the most frequently used tests among psychologists. In the fourth edition of the test (WAIS-IV), the subtests Digit Span and Letter-Number Sequencing are expanded for better measurement of working memory (WM). However, it is not clear whether the new extended tasks contribute sufficient complexity to be sensitive measures of manipulation WM, nor do we know to what degree WM capacity differs between the visual and the auditory modality because the WAIS-IV only tests the auditory modality. Performance by a mixed sample of 226 patients referred for neuropsychological examination on the Digit Span and Letter-Number Sequencing subtests from the WAIS-IV and on Spatial Span from the Wechsler Memory Scale-Third Edition was analyzed in two confirmatory factor analyses to investigate whether a unitary WM model or divisions based on modality or level/complexity best fit the data. The modality model showed the best fit when analyzing summed scores for each task as well as scores for the longest span. The clinician is advised to apply tests with higher manipulation load and to consider testing visual span as well before drawing conclusions about impaired WM from the WAIS-IV.

  3. [Spanish normative studies in a young adult population (NEURONORMA young adults Project): norms for the verbal span, visuospatial span, Letter-Number Sequencing, Trail Making Test and Symbol Digit Modalities Test].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tamayo, F; Casals-Coll, M; Sánchez-Benavides, G; Quintana, M; Manero, R M; Rognoni, T; Calvo, L; Palomo, R; Aranciva, F; Peña-Casanova, J

    2012-01-01

    Verbal and visuospatial span, Letter-Number Sequencing, Trail Making Test, and Symbol Digit Modalities Test are frequently used in clinical practice to assess attention, executive functions and memory. In the present study, as part of the Spanish normative studies of NEURONORMA young adults Project, normative data adjusted by age and education are provided for digits, Corsi Block-Tapping Task, Letter-Number Sequencing, Trail Making Test, and Symbol Digit Modalities Test. The sample consisted of 179 participants from 18 to 49 years old, who were cognitively normal. Tables to convert raw scores to scaled scores are provided. Age and education adjusted scores are provided by applying linear regressions. Education affected scores in most of the attention tests; age was found to be related to the visuospatial span and to speed of visuomotor tracking, and there was no relationship as regards sex. The data obtained will be useful in the clinical evaluation of young Spanish adults. Copyright © 2011 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

  4. The effect of letter string length and report condition on letter recognition accuracy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raghunandan, Avesh; Karmazinaite, Berta; Rossow, Andrea S

    Letter sequence recognition accuracy has been postulated to be limited primarily by low-level visual factors. The influence of high level factors such as visual memory (load and decay) has been largely overlooked. This study provides insight into the role of these factors by investigating the interaction between letter sequence recognition accuracy, letter string length and report condition. Letter sequence recognition accuracy for trigrams and pentagrams were measured in 10 adult subjects for two report conditions. In the complete report condition subjects reported all 3 or all 5 letters comprising trigrams and pentagrams, respectively. In the partial report condition, subjects reported only a single letter in the trigram or pentagram. Letters were presented for 100ms and rendered in high contrast, using black lowercase Courier font that subtended 0.4° at the fixation distance of 0.57m. Letter sequence recognition accuracy was consistently higher for trigrams compared to pentagrams especially for letter positions away from fixation. While partial report increased recognition accuracy in both string length conditions, the effect was larger for pentagrams, and most evident for the final letter positions within trigrams and pentagrams. The effect of partial report on recognition accuracy for the final letter positions increased as eccentricity increased away from fixation, and was independent of the inner/outer position of a letter. Higher-level visual memory functions (memory load and decay) play a role in letter sequence recognition accuracy. There is also suggestion of additional delays imposed on memory encoding by crowded letter elements. Copyright © 2016 Spanish General Council of Optometry. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  5. Neural Dissociation of Number from Letter Recognition and Its Relationship to Parietal Numerical Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Joonkoo; Hebrank, Andrew; Polk, Thad A.; Park, Denise C.

    2012-01-01

    The visual recognition of letters dissociates from the recognition of numbers at both the behavioral and neural level. In this article, using fMRI, we investigate whether the visual recognition of numbers dissociates from letters, thereby establishing a double dissociation. In Experiment 1, participants viewed strings of consonants and Arabic…

  6. Letter Knowledge in Parent–Child Conversations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robins, Sarah; Treiman, Rebecca; Rosales, Nicole

    2014-01-01

    Learning about letters is an important component of emergent literacy. We explored the possibility that parent speech provides information about letters, and also that children’s speech reflects their own letter knowledge. By studying conversations transcribed in CHILDES (MacWhinney, 2000) between parents and children aged one to five, we found that alphabetic order influenced use of individual letters and letter sequences. The frequency of letters in children’s books influenced parent utterances throughout the age range studied, but children’s utterances only after age two. Conversations emphasized some literacy-relevant features of letters, such as their shapes and association with words, but not letters’ sounds. Describing these patterns and how they change over the preschool years offers important insight into the home literacy environment. PMID:25598577

  7. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 4, July-August 2010

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2010-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Learning Progressions in Science: A New Approach Emphasizes Sustained Instruction in Big Ideas (Patti Hartigan); (2) Putting the "Boy Crisis" in…

  8. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 1, January-February 2007

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2007-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Response to Intervention: A New Approach to Reading Instruction Aims to Catch Struggling Readers Early (Nancy Walser); (2) Getting Advisory Right: Focus and…

  9. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 2, March-April 2010

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2010-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Online Testing, Version 1.0: Oregon's Adaptive Computer-Based Accountability Test Offers a Peek at a Brave New Future (Robert Rothman); (2) Beyond…

  10. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 5, September-October 2010

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    Walser, Nancy, Ed.

    2010-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Scenes from the School Turnaround Movement: Passion, Frustration, Mid-Course Corrections Mark Rapid Reforms (Laura Pappano); (2) The Media Savvy Educator:…

  11. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 28, Number 2, March-April 2012

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2012-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Course Credits on the Quick: Controversial Online Recovery Programs Speed the Path to Graduation (Andrew Brownstein); (2) Collaborating to Make Schools More Inclusive…

  12. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 4, July-August 2011

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2011-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Integrated Data Systems Link Schools and Communities: Researchers Combine School and Non-School Data to Inform Interventions and Policy (Patti Hartigan);…

  13. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 3, May-June 2009

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2009-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Improving Teaching and Learning through Instructional Rounds (Lee Teitel); (2) Developmentally Appropriate Practice in the Age of Testing: New Reports Outline Key Principles…

  14. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 6, November-December 2009

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2009-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) "Platooning" Instruction: Districts Weigh Pros and Cons of Departmentalizing Elementary Schools (Lucy Hood); (2) Behind the Classroom Door: A Rare Glimpse Indicates the…

  15. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 4, July-August 2008

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2008-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Taking the Measure of New Teachers: California Shifts from Standardized Tests to Performance-Based Assessment as a Condition of Licensure (Robert Rothman);…

  16. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 1, January-February 2011

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    Walser, Caroline T., Ed.

    2011-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) The Greening of Environmental Ed: Teachers Focus on Complexity, Evidence, and Letting Students Draw Their Own Conclusions (Lucy Hood); (2) Like Teacher,…

  17. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 3, May-June 2011

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2011-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Bringing Art into School, Byte by Byte: Innovative Programs Use Technology to Expand Access to the Arts (Patti Hartigan); (2) Differentiated Instruction…

  18. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 4, July-August 2009

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2009-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Putting the Brakes on "Summer Slide": Modified School Calendars Build in Time to Enrich Learning and Sustain Gains (Brigid Schulte); (2) Closing…

  19. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 1, January-February 2009

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2009-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Learning Across Distance: Virtual-Instruction Programs Are Growing Rapidly, but the Impact on "Brick-and-Mortar" Classrooms Is Still up in the Air…

  20. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 22, Number 6, November-December 2006

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2006-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) (In)formative Assessments: New Tests and Activities Can Help Teachers Guide Student Learning (Robert Rothman); (2) Recent Research on the Achievement Gap: How Lifestyle…

  1. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 5, September-October 2009

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2009-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) The Invisible Hand in Education Policy: Behind the Scenes, Economists Wield Unprecedented Influence (David McKay Wilson); (2) Bonding and Bridging: Schools Open Doors for…

  2. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 1, January-February 2010

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2010-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Charters and Unions: What's the Future for This Unorthodox Relationship? (Alexander Russo); (2) From Special Ed to Higher Ed: Transition Planning for Disabled Students Focuses…

  3. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 3, May-June 2008

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2008-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) "Equity, Access, and Opportunity": Despite Challenges, More Districts Adopt One-to-One Laptop Programs (Colleen Gillard); (2) Small Kids, Big Words: Research-Based Strategies…

  4. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 6, November-December 2010

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    Walser, Nancy, Ed.

    2010-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Video Games Take Testing to the Next Level: Researchers See Promise in Game-Like Assessments That Measure Complex Skills (Robert Rothman); (2) An Academic…

  5. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 28, Number 1, January-February 2012

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    Walser, Nancy, Ed.

    2012-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Using Theater to Teach Social Skills: Researchers Document Improvements for Children with Autism (Patti Hartigan); (2) The Family Model of Schooling Revisited: Few Teachers,…

  6. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 5, September-October 2007

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2007-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Confronting the Autism Epidemic: New Expectations for Children with Autism Means a New Role for Public Schools (Kate McKenna); (2) Internet Research 101:…

  7. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 21, Number 6, November-December 2005

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2005-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Is History... History?: Standards, Accountability, and the Future of Our Nation's Past (Robert Rothman); (2) Curriculum Access for All: How Teachers Can Use Universal Design…

  8. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 2, March-April 2011

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    Walser, Nancy, Ed.

    2011-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Hybrid Schools for the iGeneration: New Schools Combine "Bricks" and "Clicks" (Brigid Schulte); (2) Dual Language Programs on the Rise: "Enrichment" Model Puts Content Learning…

  9. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 26, Number 3, May-June 2010

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2010-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Unleashing the "Brain Power" of Groups in the Classroom: The Neuroscience behind Collaborative Work (Nancy Walser); (2) Putting AP to the Test: New Research Assesses the…

  10. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 25, Number 2, March-April 2009

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2009-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Money and Motivation: New Initiatives Rekindle Debate over the Link between Rewards and Student Achievement (David McKay Wilson); (2) An Inexact Science: What Are the Technical…

  11. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 6, November-December 2008

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2008-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) When Worlds Collide: Universal PreK Brings New Challenges for Public Elementary Schools (David McKay Wilson); (2) Answers and Questions: Schools Survey Their Students--and…

  12. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 6, November-December 2007

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2007-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Charting a New Course toward Racial Integration: Districts Seek Legal Routes to Capture the Benefits of Diversity (Brigid Schulte); (2) Voluntary Integration: Two Views--(a)…

  13. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 6, November-December 2011

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    Walser, Nancy, Ed.

    2011-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) With Cheating on the Rise, Schools Respond (David McKay Wilson); (2) Waldorf Education in Public Schools: Educators Adopt--and Adapt--This Developmental, Arts-Rich Approach…

  14. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 2, March-April 2008

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2008-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Educating Teenage Immigrants: High Schools Experiment with Ways to Group New English-Language Learners (Lucy Hood); (2) Hot Topics and Key Words: Pilot Project Brings Teachers…

  15. Quantitative Single-letter Sequencing: a method for simultaneously monitoring numerous known allelic variants in single DNA samples

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Duborjal Hervé

    2008-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Pathogens such as fungi, bacteria and especially viruses, are highly variable even within an individual host, intensifying the difficulty of distinguishing and accurately quantifying numerous allelic variants co-existing in a single nucleic acid sample. The majority of currently available techniques are based on real-time PCR or primer extension and often require multiplexing adjustments that impose a practical limitation of the number of alleles that can be monitored simultaneously at a single locus. Results Here, we describe a novel method that allows the simultaneous quantification of numerous allelic variants in a single reaction tube and without multiplexing. Quantitative Single-letter Sequencing (QSS begins with a single PCR amplification step using a pair of primers flanking the polymorphic region of interest. Next, PCR products are submitted to single-letter sequencing with a fluorescently-labelled primer located upstream of the polymorphic region. The resulting monochromatic electropherogram shows numerous specific diagnostic peaks, attributable to specific variants, signifying their presence/absence in the DNA sample. Moreover, peak fluorescence can be quantified and used to estimate the frequency of the corresponding variant in the DNA population. Using engineered allelic markers in the genome of Cauliflower mosaic virus, we reliably monitored six different viral genotypes in DNA extracted from infected plants. Evaluation of the intrinsic variance of this method, as applied to both artificial plasmid DNA mixes and viral genome populations, demonstrates that QSS is a robust and reliable method of detection and quantification for variants with a relative frequency of between 0.05 and 1. Conclusion This simple method is easily transferable to many other biological systems and questions, including those involving high throughput analysis, and can be performed in any laboratory since it does not require specialized

  16. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 1, January-February 2008

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2008-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Leadership Lessons From Schools Becoming "Data Wise" (Jennifer L. Steele and Kathryn Parker Boudett); (2) A Guide on the Side: Mentors Help New Leaders Prepare for Life in the…

  17. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 27, Number 5, September-October 2011

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    Chauncey, Caroline T., Ed.

    2011-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions: One Small Change Can Yield Big Results (Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana); (2) Voice of Experience: Jerry Weast--Leading a System…

  18. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 2, March-April 2007

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2007-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) More Than "Making Nice": Getting Teachers to (Truly) Collaborate (Laura Pappano); (2) "Doing the Critical Things First": An Aligned Approach to PreK and Early Elementary Math;…

  19. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 24, Number 5, September-October 2008

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    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2008-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Teaching 21st Century Skills: What Does It Look Like in Practice? (Nancy Walser); (2) Getting and Spending: Schools and Districts Share Lessons on the Effective Uses of…

  20. Spreading Sequences Generated Using Asymmetrical Integer-Number Maps

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. Sebesta

    2007-09-01

    Full Text Available Chaotic sequences produced by piecewise linear maps can be transformed to binary sequences. The binary sequences are optimal for the asynchronous DS/CDMA systems in case of certain shapes of the maps. This paper is devoted to the one-to-one integer-number maps derived from the suitable asymmetrical piecewise linear maps. Such maps give periodic integer-number sequences, which can be transformed to the binary sequences. The binary sequences produced via proposed modified integer-number maps are perfectly balanced and embody good autocorrelation and crosscorrelation properties. The number of different binary sequences is sizable. The sequences are suitable as spreading sequences in DS/CDMA systems.

  1. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 3, May-June 2007

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2007-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) The Road to School Improvement: It's Hard, It's Bumpy, and It Takes as Long as It Takes (Richard F. Elmore and Elizabeth A. City); (2) Better Teaching with Web Tools: How…

  2. Harvard Education Letter. Volume 23, Number 4, July-August 2007

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chauncey, Caroline, Ed.

    2007-01-01

    "Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Meeting of the Minds: The Parent-Teacher Conference Is the Cornerstone of School-Home Relations. How Can It Work for All Families? (Laura Pappano); (2) In Search of That "Third…

  3. Sequences, groups, and number theory

    CERN Document Server

    Rigo, Michel

    2018-01-01

    This collaborative book presents recent trends on the study of sequences, including combinatorics on words and symbolic dynamics, and new interdisciplinary links to group theory and number theory. Other chapters branch out from those areas into subfields of theoretical computer science, such as complexity theory and theory of automata. The book is built around four general themes: number theory and sequences, word combinatorics, normal numbers, and group theory. Those topics are rounded out by investigations into automatic and regular sequences, tilings and theory of computation, discrete dynamical systems, ergodic theory, numeration systems, automaton semigroups, and amenable groups.  This volume is intended for use by graduate students or research mathematicians, as well as computer scientists who are working in automata theory and formal language theory. With its organization around unified themes, it would also be appropriate as a supplemental text for graduate level courses.

  4. On Coding Non-Contiguous Letter Combinations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Frédéric eDandurand

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available Starting from the hypothesis that printed word identification initially involves the parallel mapping of visual features onto location-specific letter identities, we analyze the type of information that would be involved in optimally mapping this location-specific orthographic code onto a location-invariant lexical code. We assume that some intermediate level of coding exists between individual letters and whole words, and that this involves the representation of letter combinations. We then investigate the nature of this intermediate level of coding given the constraints of optimality. This intermediate level of coding is expected to compress data while retaining as much information as possible about word identity. Information conveyed by letters is a function of how much they constrain word identity and how visible they are. Optimization of this coding is a combination of minimizing resources (using the most compact representations and maximizing information. We show that in a large proportion of cases, non-contiguous letter sequences contain more information than contiguous sequences, while at the same time requiring less precise coding. Moreover, we found that the best predictor of human performance in orthographic priming experiments was within-word ranking of conditional probabilities, rather than average conditional probabilities. We conclude that from an optimality perspective, readers learn to select certain contiguous and non-contiguous letter combinations as information that provides the best cue to word identity.

  5. Origins of the specialization for letters and numbers in ventral occipitotemporal cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hannagan, Thomas; Amedi, Amir; Cohen, Laurent; Dehaene-Lambertz, Ghislaine; Dehaene, Stanislas

    2015-07-01

    Deep in the occipitotemporal cortex lie two functional regions, the visual word form area (VWFA) and the number form area (NFA), which are thought to play a special role in letter and number recognition, respectively. We review recent progress made in characterizing the origins of these symbol form areas in children or adults, sighted or blind subjects, and humans or monkeys. We propose two non-mutually-exclusive hypotheses on the origins of the VWFA and NFA: the presence of a connectivity bias, and a sensitivity to shape features. We assess the explanatory power of these hypotheses, describe their consequences, and offer several experimental tests. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Coloured Letters and Numbers (CLaN): A reliable factor-analysis based synaesthesia questionnaire

    OpenAIRE

    Rothen Nicolas; Tsakanikos Elias; Meier Beat; Ward Jamie

    2013-01-01

    Synaesthesia is a heterogeneous phenomenon even when considering one particular sub type. The purpose of this study was to design a reliable and valid questionnaire for grapheme colour synaesthesia that captures this heterogeneity. By the means of a large sample of 628 synaesthetes and a factor analysis we created the Coloured Letters and Numbers (CLaN) questionnaire with 16 items loading on 4 different factors (i.e. localisation automaticity/attention deliberate use and longitudinal changes)...

  7. An email-based intervention to improve the number and timeliness of letters sent from the hospital outpatient clinic to the general practitioner : A pair-randomized controlled trial

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Medlock, Stephanie; Parlevliet, Juliette L.; Sent, Danielle; Eslami, Saeid; Askari, Marjan; Arts, Derk L.; Hoekstra, Joost B.; de Rooij, Sophia E.; Abu-Hanna, Ameen

    2017-01-01

    Objective: Letters from the hospital to the general practitioner are important for maintaining continuity of care. Although doctors feel letters are important, they are often not written on time. To improve the number and timeliness of letters sent from the hospital outpatient department to the

  8. An email-based intervention to improve the number and timeliness of letters sent from the hospital outpatient clinic to the general practitioner: A pair-randomized controlled trial

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Medlock, Stephanie; Parlevliet, Juliette L.; Sent, Danielle; Eslami, Saeid; Askari, Marjan; Arts, Derk L.; Hoekstra, Joost B.; de Rooij, Sophia E.; Abu-Hanna, Ameen

    2017-01-01

    Letters from the hospital to the general practitioner are important for maintaining continuity of care. Although doctors feel letters are important, they are often not written on time. To improve the number and timeliness of letters sent from the hospital outpatient department to the general

  9. Written Communications Simulation: Write Me a Letter.

    Science.gov (United States)

    North Carolina State Dept. of Public Instruction, Raleigh. Div. of Vocational Education.

    This simulation is intended for use as a culminating activity after students have been exposed to personal and/or business letter writing, use of reference manuals, typing of letters, mailing procedures, typing of numbers, punctuation practice, and filing procedures. Stated objectives are to enable students to type a mailable letter; to inspect,…

  10. The legibility of letters and words

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Beier, Sofie

    2016-01-01

    The saying made famous by Mathew Carter that "type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters”, highlights the fact that although a typeface consists of a number of letters it is when the letters are assembled in a word that they become type. However, research indicates...... that what makes letters legible in isolation is not necessarily the same as what makes them legible in words. Is it possible to create a typeface where both letters and words have a high level of legibility or are those factors so different that they cannot be combined? Through a literature review...... on relevant experimental investigations, I will in this talk present examples of when the legibility findings on letters and words correlate and when they differ....

  11. Writing more informative letters of reference.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wright, Scott M; Ziegelstein, Roy C

    2004-05-01

    Writing a meaningful and valuable letter of reference is not an easy task. Several factors influence the quality of any letter of reference. First, the accuracy and reliability of the writer's impressions and judgment depend on how well he knows the individual being described. Second, the writer's frame of reference, which is determined by the number of persons at the same level that he has worked with, will impact the context and significance of his beliefs and estimations. Third, the letter-writing skills of the person composing the letter will naturally affect the letter. To support the other components of a candidate's application, a letter of reference should provide specific examples of how an individual's behavior or attitude compares to a reference group and should assess "intangibles" that are hard to glean from a curriculum vitae or from test scores. This report offers suggestions that should help physicians write more informative letters of reference.

  12. Weak disorder in Fibonacci sequences

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ben-Naim, E [Theoretical Division and Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 (United States); Krapivsky, P L [Department of Physics and Center for Molecular Cybernetics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215 (United States)

    2006-05-19

    We study how weak disorder affects the growth of the Fibonacci series. We introduce a family of stochastic sequences that grow by the normal Fibonacci recursion with probability 1 - {epsilon}, but follow a different recursion rule with a small probability {epsilon}. We focus on the weak disorder limit and obtain the Lyapunov exponent that characterizes the typical growth of the sequence elements, using perturbation theory. The limiting distribution for the ratio of consecutive sequence elements is obtained as well. A number of variations to the basic Fibonacci recursion including shift, doubling and copying are considered. (letter to the editor)

  13. Letter Names, Letter Sounds and Phonological Awareness: An Examination of Kindergarten Children across Letters and of Letters across Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Evans, Mary Ann; Bell, Michelle; Shaw, Deborah; Moretti, Shelley; Page, Jodi

    2006-01-01

    In this study 149 kindergarten children were assessed for knowledge of letter names and letter sounds, phonological awareness, and cognitive abilities. Through this it examined child and letter characteristics influencing the acquisition of alphabetic knowledge in a naturalistic context, the relationship between letter-sound knowledge and…

  14. Writing More Informative Letters of Reference

    OpenAIRE

    Wright, Scott M; Ziegelstein, Roy C

    2004-01-01

    Writing a meaningful and valuable letter of reference is not an easy task. Several factors influence the quality of any letter of reference. First, the accuracy and reliability of the writer's impressions and judgment depend on how well he knows the individual being described. Second, the writer's frame of reference, which is determined by the number of persons at the same level that he has worked with, will impact the context and significance of his beliefs and estimations. Third, the letter...

  15. Letter knowledge in parent-child conversations: differences between families differing in socio-economic status.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robins, Sarah; Ghosh, Dina; Rosales, Nicole; Treiman, Rebecca

    2014-01-01

    When formal literacy instruction begins, around the age of 5 or 6, children from families low in socioeconomic status (SES) tend to be less prepared than children from families of higher SES. The goal of our study is to explore one route through which SES may influence children's early literacy skills: informal conversations about letters. The study builds on previous studies (Robins and Treiman, 2009; Robins et al., 2012, 2014) of parent-child conversations that show how U. S. parents and their young children talk about writing and provide preliminary evidence about similarities and differences in parent-child conversations as a function of SES. Focusing on parents and children aged three to five, we conducted five separate analyses of these conversations, asking whether and how family SES influences the previously established patterns. Although we found talk about letters in both upper and lower SES families, there were differences in the nature of these conversations. The proportion of letter talk utterances that were questions was lower in lower SES families and, of all the letter names that lower SES families talked about, more of them were uttered in isolation rather than in sequences. Lower SES families were especially likely to associate letters with the child's name, and they placed more emphasis on sequences in alphabetic order. We found no SES differences in the factors that influenced use of particular letter names (monograms), but there were SES differences in two-letter sequences (digrams). Focusing on the alphabet and on associations between the child's name and the letters within it may help to interest the child in literacy activities, but they many not be very informative about the relationship between letters and words in general. Understanding the patterns in parent-child conversations about letters is an important first step for exploring their contribution to children's early literacy skills and school readiness.

  16. Letter-Sound Knowledge: Exploring Gender Differences in Children When They Start School Regarding Knowledge of Large Letters, Small Letters, Sound Large Letters, and Sound Small Letters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hermundur Sigmundsson

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available This study explored whether there is a gender difference in letter-sound knowledge when children start at school. 485 children aged 5–6 years completed assessment of letter-sound knowledge, i.e., large letters; sound of large letters; small letters; sound of small letters. The findings indicate a significant difference between girls and boys in all four factors tested in this study in favor of the girls. There are still no clear explanations to the basis of a presumed gender difference in letter-sound knowledge. That the findings have origin in neuro-biological factors cannot be excluded, however, the fact that girls probably have been exposed to more language experience/stimulation compared to boys, lends support to explanations derived from environmental aspects.

  17. Digit and letter alexia in carbon monoxide poisoning

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Qingyu Shen; Xiaoming Rong; Rui Pan; Ying Peng; Wei Peng; Yamei Tang

    2012-01-01

    This study examined a 24-year-old patient with delayed encephalopathy, who was admitted to hospital with complaints of headache and visual impairment 1 week after acute carbon monoxide poisoning. The results of a visual field assessment, electroencephalography and head magnetic resonance imaging indicated damage to the cerebral cortex. After a 2-week treatment period, the patient had recovered from the visual impairment, but exhibited digit- and letter-reading difficulty. The Chinese aphasia battery and the number and letter battery supplement were conducted. The results revealed that the patient exhibited digit and letter alexia, while the ability to read Chinese characters was preserved. In contrast, the patient exhibited a deficit in Chinese character writing, while number and letter writing remained intact. Following treatment, reading and writing ability was improved and electroencephalographic abnormalities were ameliorated. Overall, our experimental findings demonstrated that delayed encephalopathy following acute carbon monoxide poisoning was characterized by digit and letter alexia.

  18. The elaboration of motor programs for the automation of letter production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thibon, Laurence Séraphin; Gerber, Silvain; Kandel, Sonia

    2018-01-01

    We investigated how children learn to write letters. Letter writing evolves from stroke-by-stroke to whole-letter programming. Children of ages 6 to 9 (N=98) wrote letters of varying complexity on a digitizer. At ages 6 and 7 movement duration, dysfluency and trajectory increased with stroke number. This indicates that the motor program they activated mainly coded information on stroke production. Stroke number affected the older children's production much less, suggesting that they programmed stroke chunks or the whole letter. The fact that movement duration and dysfluency decreased from ages 6 to 8, and remained stable at ages 8 and 9 suggests that automation of letter writing begins at age 8. Automation seems to require the elaboration of stroke chunks and/or letter-sized motor programs. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  19. Letter Knowledge in Parent–Child Conversations: Differences between Families Differing in Socio-Economic Status

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sarah eRobins

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available When formal literacy instruction begins, around the age of 5 or 6, children from families low in socioeconomic status (SES tend to be less prepared than children from families of higher SES. The goal of our study is to explore one route through which SES may influence children’s early literacy skills: informal conversations about letters. The study builds on previous studies (Robins, Treiman, & Rosales, 2014; Robins, Treiman, Rosales, & Otake, 2012; Robins & Treiman, 2009 that show how U. S. parents and their young children talk about writing and provides preliminary evidence about similarities and differences in parent–child conversations as a function of SES. Focusing on parents and children aged three to five, we conducted five separate analyses of these conversations, asking whether and how family SES influences the previously established patterns. Although we found talk about letters in both upper and lower SES families, there were differences in the nature of these conversations. The proportion of letter talk utterances that were questions was lower in lower SES families and, of all the letter names that lower SES families talked about, more of them were uttered in isolation rather than in sequences. Lower SES families were especially likely to associate letters with the child’s name, and they placed more emphasis on sequences in alphabetic order. We found no SES differences in the factors that influenced use of particular letter names (monograms, but there were SES differences in two-letter sequences (digrams. Focusing on the alphabet and on associations between the child’s name and the letters within it may help to interest the child in literacy activities, but they many not be very informative about the relationship between letters and words in general. Understanding the patterns in parent–child conversations about letters is an important first step for exploring their contribution to children’s early literacy skills and

  20. [Changes in CIRUGIA ESPANOLA Letters to the Editor between 2000 and 2007].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosell-Pradas, Jorge; Sánchez-Cantalejo, Emilio

    2008-09-01

    To describe the frequency and bibliographic characteristics of letters to the editor in the journal, Cirugía Española published between 2000 and 2007 and to compare the differences in the periods between 2000-2003 and 2004-2007. A descriptive and cross-sectional study, using the letters to the editor published in Spanish surgery between 2000 and 2007, as observation units. The variables considered were: the number of letters according to the volume and year of publication, substantive content of the paper, text length, graphics resources use, number of signatories and their professional profile, institutions of the authors, by origin and number of Autonomous Communities and number of bibliographical references. To meet the second objective, we compared letters from the period 2000-2003 with the period 2004-2007 against the rest of variables considered as a result. We used descriptive statistics and statistical analysis for comparison of distributions (chi2), with a level of significance of p < 0.05, using the SPSS software (Version 15.0). We identified 312 documents classified as letters. Between 2002 and 2005 their number was small. Often referring to clinical cases 187 (59.9%) and related letters, 98 (31.4%). Of those, 81.1% met the standard length of the text and only 6 letters (1.9%) was the use of graphics exceeded. In 122 letters (39.1%) the permitted number of authors was exceeded. They were mostly contributed by surgeons, 238 cases (76.3%), usually a single hospital, with 294 letters (94.2%) mainly from, Catalonia, Andalusia, Madrid and Valencia. Only 58.1% of the letters complied with the permitted number of references. More related letters were published in the last period (59 letters; 42.1%) than during the years 2000-2003 (39 letters; 22.7%) (chi2 = 14.79; p < 0.001). The correct length of the text improved in the second period, 136 (97.1%), compared to the first 117 (68%) (chi2 = 42.67; p < 0.001. The graphics resources were used properly in both

  1. Tauberian theorems for Abel summability of sequences of fuzzy numbers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yavuz, Enes; ćoşkun, Hüsamettin

    2015-09-01

    We give some conditions under which Abel summable sequences of fuzzy numbers are convergent. As corollaries we obtain the results given in [E. Yavuz, Ö. Talo, Abel summability of sequences of fuzzy numbers, Soft computing 2014, doi: 10.1007/s00500-014-1563-7].

  2. Letter to Carl Niigeli

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    We reproduce an english translation of one of these letters below, in which ... contemporary scientific knowledge, and that under the circumstances ... generation it became necessary to limit the numbers because of lack of space, so that, in.

  3. Letters in the Forest: Global precedence effect disappears for letters but not for non-letters under reading-like conditions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thomas eLachmann

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Normally-skilled reading involves special processing strategies for letters, which are habitually funneled into an abstract letter code. On the basis of previous studies we argue that this habit leads to the preferred usage of an analytic strategy for the processing of letters, while non-letters are preferably processed via a holistic strategy. The well-known Global Precedence Effect (GPE seems to contradict to this assumption, since, with compound, hierarchical figures, including letter items, faster responses are observed to the global than to the local level of the figure, as well as an asymmetric interference effect from global to local level. We argue that with letters these effects depend on presentation conditions; only when they elicit the processing strategies automatized for reading, an analytic strategy for letters in contrast to non-letters is to be expected. We compared the GPE for letters and non-letters in central viewing, with the global stimulus size close to the functional visual field in whole word reading (6.5o of visual angle and local stimuli close to the critical size for fluent reading of individual letters (.5o of visual angle. Under these conditions, the GPE remained robust for non-letters. For letters, however, it disappeared: letters showed no overall response time advantage for the global level and symmetric congruence effects (local-to-global as well as global-to local interference. We interpret these results as according to the view that reading is based on resident analytic visual processing strategies for letters.

  4. A working memory account of the interaction between numbers and spatial attention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Dijck, Jean-Philippe; Abrahamse, Elger L; Acar, Freya; Ketels, Boris; Fias, Wim

    2014-01-01

    Rather than reflecting the long-term memory construct of a mental number line, it has been proposed that the relation between numbers and space is of a more temporary nature and constructed in working memory during task execution. In three experiments we further explored the viability of this working memory account. Participants performed a speeded dot detection task with dots appearing left or right, while maintaining digits or letters in working memory. Just before presentation of the dot, these digits or letters were used as central cues. These experiments show that the "attentional SNARC-effect" (where SNARC is the spatial-numerical association of response codes) is not observed when only the lastly perceived number cue--and no serially ordered sequence of cues--is maintained in working memory (Experiment 1). It is only when multiple items (numbers in Experiment 2; letters in Experiment 3) are stored in working memory in a serially organized way that the attentional cueing effect is observed as a function of serial working memory position. These observations suggest that the "attentional SNARC-effect" is strongly working memory based. Implications for theories on the mental representation of numbers are discussed.

  5. Trace maps of general substitutional sequences

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kolar, M.; Nori, F.

    1990-01-01

    It is shown that for arbitrary n, there exists a trace map for any n-letter substitutional sequence. Trace maps are explicitly obtained for the well-known circle and Rudin-Shapiro sequences which can be defined by means of substitution rules on three and four letters, respectively. The properties of the two trace maps and their consequences for various spectral properties are briefly discussed

  6. Characterizing the D2 statistic: word matches in biological sequences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forêt, Sylvain; Wilson, Susan R; Burden, Conrad J

    2009-01-01

    Word matches are often used in sequence comparison methods, either as a measure of sequence similarity or in the first search steps of algorithms such as BLAST or BLAT. The D2 statistic is the number of matches of words of k letters between two sequences. Recent advances have been made in the characterization of this statistic and in the approximation of its distribution. Here, these results are extended to the case of approximate word matches. We compute the exact value of the variance of the D2 statistic for the case of a uniform letter distribution, and introduce a method to provide accurate approximations of the variance in the remaining cases. This enables the distribution of D2 to be approximated for typical situations arising in biological research. We apply these results to the identification of cis-regulatory modules, and show that this method detects such sequences with a high accuracy. The ability to approximate the distribution of D2 for both exact and approximate word matches will enable the use of this statistic in a more precise manner for sequence comparison, database searches, and identification of transcription factor binding sites.

  7. Samuel Hartlib on the death of Descartes: a rediscovered letter to Henry More

    Science.gov (United States)

    Penman, Leigh T. I.

    2015-01-01

    This paper discloses the content of a previously overlooked epistle by the Anglo-Prussian intelligencer Samuel Hartlib to Henry More concerning the death of René Descartes. After a discussion situating the letter within the sequence of the More–Hartlib correspondence, an analysis of the rhetorical structure of the epistle is offered, followed by a brief assessment of Hartlib's attitude towards Descartes, and the identification of his source concerning the news of the philosopher's death. An account of the transmission of the letter via a nineteenth-century periodical is also provided. The text of Hartlib's letter and an overlooked passage of Hartlib's diary concerning Descartes's death, which draws on the content of the More letter, are presented as appendixes.

  8. Correlations of pseudo-random numbers of multiplicative sequence

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bukin, A.D.

    1989-01-01

    An algorithm is suggested for searching with a computer in unit n-dimensional cube the sets of planes where all the points fall whose coordinates are composed of n successive pseudo-random numbers of multiplicative sequence. This effect should be taken into account in Monte-Carlo calculations with definite constructive dimension. The parameters of these planes are obtained for three random number generators. 2 refs.; 2 tabs

  9. 37 CFR 1.822 - Symbols and format to be used for nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... mature protein, with the number 1. When presented, the amino acids preceding the mature protein, e.g... acids. (1) The amino acids in a protein or peptide sequence shall be listed using the three-letter... data. (a) The symbols and format to be used for nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence data shall...

  10. Generalized statistical convergence of order β for sequences of fuzzy numbers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Altınok, Hıfsı; Karakaş, Abdulkadir; Altın, Yavuz

    2018-01-01

    In the present paper, we introduce the concepts of Δm-statistical convergence of order β for sequences of fuzzy numbers and strongly Δm-summable of order β for sequences of fuzzy numbers by using a modulus function f and taking supremum on metric d for 0 < β ≤ 1 and give some inclusion relations between them.

  11. Structured printed referral letter (form letter; saves time and improves communication

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R.P.J.C. Ramanayake

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Referral of patients to hospitals, specialists and other institutions is an essential part of primary health care. Patients are referred to specialists when investigation or therapeutic options are exhausted in primary care or when opinion or advice is needed from them. Referral has considerable implications for patients, health care system and health care costs. Good communication between primary and secondary care is essential for the smooth running of any health care system. Referral and reply letters are the sole means of communication between doctors most of the time and breakdown in communication could lead to poor continuity of care, delayed diagnoses, polypharmacy, increased litigation risk and unnecessary testing. A referral letter also helps to avoid patient dissatisfaction and loss of confidence in family physician. Studies of referral letters have reported that specialists are dissatisfied with their quality and content. Inclusion of letter writing skills in the medical curriculum, peer assessment and feedback have shown to improve the quality of referral letters. . Form letters have shown to enhance information content and communication in referral process. In Sri Lanka referral letters are usually hand written and frequent complaints are that these letters do not contain adequate information and retrieval of information is a problem due to poor legibility and clarity. Sometimes Primary care doctors refer patients to hospitals and specialists with only verbal instructions. To address these short comings this form letter was introduced. Based on the guidelines and systematic review of published articles, items of information to be included were decided. Printed forms of the letter are kept in the practice and the doctor has to just fill up relevant information under each heading. The objectives of introducing this structured referral letter was to improve the quality and standard of referral letters and save time for both general

  12. DNA copy number, including telomeres and mitochondria, assayed using next-generation sequencing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jackson Stuart

    2010-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background DNA copy number variations occur within populations and aberrations can cause disease. We sought to develop an improved lab-automatable, cost-efficient, accurate platform to profile DNA copy number. Results We developed a sequencing-based assay of nuclear, mitochondrial, and telomeric DNA copy number that draws on the unbiased nature of next-generation sequencing and incorporates techniques developed for RNA expression profiling. To demonstrate this platform, we assayed UMC-11 cells using 5 million 33 nt reads and found tremendous copy number variation, including regions of single and homogeneous deletions and amplifications to 29 copies; 5 times more mitochondria and 4 times less telomeric sequence than a pool of non-diseased, blood-derived DNA; and that UMC-11 was derived from a male individual. Conclusion The described assay outputs absolute copy number, outputs an error estimate (p-value, and is more accurate than array-based platforms at high copy number. The platform enables profiling of mitochondrial levels and telomeric length. The assay is lab-automatable and has a genomic resolution and cost that are tunable based on the number of sequence reads.

  13. Fuel number identification method and device therefor

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Doi, Takami; Seno, Makoto; Tanaka, Keiji

    1998-01-01

    The present invention provides a method of and a device for automatically identifying the number on the upper surface of a fuel of a fuel assembly in a PWR type reactor. Namely, the number on the upper surface of the fuel assembly of the PWR is not arranged in a row, but indent letters are dispersed to predetermined positions of the surface to be indented. Accordingly, the identification of letters is difficult. In the present invention, the letters are identified by the following procedures. Procedure (1): the letters are detected while having a corner portion of the upper surface of a fuel assembly where the number is indented as characteristic points. A procedure (2): a letter region is determined to a relative position based on the characteristic points while determining indent letters having the same direction as one group. A procedure (3): a letter identification treatment is applied to the letter images in the above-mentioned letter region to identify them. A neural network is used for the letter identification treatment. (N.H.)

  14. Letter position coding across modalities: the case of Braille readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perea, Manuel; García-Chamorro, Cristina; Martín-Suesta, Miguel; Gómez, Pablo

    2012-01-01

    The question of how the brain encodes letter position in written words has attracted increasing attention in recent years. A number of models have recently been proposed to accommodate the fact that transposed-letter stimuli like jugde or caniso are perceptually very close to their base words. Here we examined how letter position coding is attained in the tactile modality via Braille reading. The idea is that Braille word recognition may provide more serial processing than the visual modality, and this may produce differences in the input coding schemes employed to encode letters in written words. To that end, we conducted a lexical decision experiment with adult Braille readers in which the pseudowords were created by transposing/replacing two letters. We found a word-frequency effect for words. In addition, unlike parallel experiments in the visual modality, we failed to find any clear signs of transposed-letter confusability effects. This dissociation highlights the differences between modalities. The present data argue against models of letter position coding that assume that transposed-letter effects (in the visual modality) occur at a relatively late, abstract locus.

  15. Letter and symbol identification: No evidence for letter-specific crowding mechanisms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Castet, Eric; Descamps, Marine; Denis-Noël, Ambre; Colé, Pascale

    2017-09-01

    It has been proposed that letters, as opposed to symbols, trigger specialized crowding processes, boosting identification of the first and last letters of words. This hypothesis is based on evidence that single-letter accuracy as a function of within-string position has a W shape (the classic serial position function [SPF] in psycholinguistics) whereas an inverted V shape is obtained when measured with symbols. Our main goal was to test the robustness of the latter result. Our hypothesis was that any letter/symbol difference might result from short-term visual memory processes (due to the partial report [PR] procedures used in SPF studies) rather than from crowding. We therefore removed the involvement of short-term memory by precueing target-item position and compared SPFs with precueing and postcueing. Perimetric complexity was stringently matched between letters and symbols. In postcueing conditions similar to previous studies, we did not reproduce the inverted V shape for symbols: Clear-cut W shapes were observed with an overall smaller accuracy for symbols compared to letters. This letter/symbol difference was dramatically reduced in precueing conditions in keeping with our prediction. Our results are not consistent with the claim that letter strings trigger specialized crowding processes. We argue that PR procedures are not fit to isolate crowding processes.

  16. Letters and Letter Writing in Early Modern Culture: An Introduction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available The recently renewed scholarly interest in historical letters and letter writing has given rise to several studies which explore the culture of epistolarity from different perspectives. The article offers an introduction to recent scholarship on epistolary discourse and practices in early modern culture. Given the importance of letters as data for several types of diachronic investigation, the article focuses on three points that are crucial for an understanding of the relevance of epistolary discourse itself in early modern European culture. Firstly, letters are invaluable data for historical linguistics, to which they provide information for the history of languages, and sociohistorical and sociolinguistic research. A second recent field of investigation considers letters as documents and material items; the results of research in this area have contributed to the reconstruction of official relationships and information exchanges in past cultures and shed light on social interaction. A third, more traditional area of study, deals with the letter as a form that has given rise to many different genres across the centuries, both practical and literary.

  17. Effect of orthographic processes on letter-identity and letter-position encoding in dyslexic children

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Caroline eReilhac

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available The ability to identify letters and encode their position is a crucial step of the word recognition process. However and despite their word identification problem, the ability of dyslexic children to encode letter-identity and letter-position within strings was not systematically investigated. This study aimed at filling this gap and further explored how letter identity and letter position encoding is modulated by letter context in developmental dyslexia. For this purpose, a letter-string comparison task was administered to French dyslexic children and two chronological-age (CA and reading-age (RA-matched control groups. Children had to judge whether two successively and briefly presented 4-letter-strings were identical or different. Letter-position and letter-identity were manipulated through the transposition (e.g., RTGM vs. RMGT or substitution of two letters (e.g., TSHF vs. TGHD. Non-words, pseudo-words and words were used as stimuli to investigate sub-lexical and lexical effects on letter encoding. Dyslexic children showed both substitution and transposition detection problems relative to CA controls. A substitution advantage over transpositions was only found for words in dyslexic children whereas it extended to pseudo-words in RA controls and to all type of items in CA controls. Letters were better identified in the dyslexic group when belonging to orthographically familiar strings. Letter position encoding was very impaired in dyslexic children who did not show any word context effect in contrast to CA controls. Overall, the current findings point to a strong letter identity and letter position encoding disorder in developmental dyslexia.

  18. Some Double Sequence Spaces of Fuzzy Real Numbers of Paranormed Type

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bipul Sarma

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available We study different properties of convergent, null, and bounded double sequence spaces of fuzzy real numbers like completeness, solidness, sequence algebra, symmetricity, convergence-free, and so forth. We prove some inclusion results too.

  19. Letter position coding across modalities: the case of Braille readers.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manuel Perea

    Full Text Available The question of how the brain encodes letter position in written words has attracted increasing attention in recent years. A number of models have recently been proposed to accommodate the fact that transposed-letter stimuli like jugde or caniso are perceptually very close to their base words.Here we examined how letter position coding is attained in the tactile modality via Braille reading. The idea is that Braille word recognition may provide more serial processing than the visual modality, and this may produce differences in the input coding schemes employed to encode letters in written words. To that end, we conducted a lexical decision experiment with adult Braille readers in which the pseudowords were created by transposing/replacing two letters.We found a word-frequency effect for words. In addition, unlike parallel experiments in the visual modality, we failed to find any clear signs of transposed-letter confusability effects. This dissociation highlights the differences between modalities.The present data argue against models of letter position coding that assume that transposed-letter effects (in the visual modality occur at a relatively late, abstract locus.

  20. Some double sequence spaces of interval numbers defined by Orlicz function

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ayhan Esi

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we introduce some interval valued double sequence spaces defined by Orlicz function and study different properties of these spaces like inclusion relations, solidity, etc. We establish some inclusion relations among them. Also we introduce the concept of double statistical convergence for interval number sequences and give an inclusion relation between interval valued double sequence spaces.

  1. Effective Normalization for Copy Number Variation Detection from Whole Genome Sequencing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Janevski, A.; Varadan, V.; Kamalakaran, S.; Banerjee, N.; Dimitrova, D.

    2012-01-01

    Background Whole genome sequencing enables a high resolution view ofthe human genome and provides unique insights into genome structureat an unprecedented scale. There have been a number of tools to infer copy number variation in the genome. These tools while validatedalso include a number of

  2. DOCUMENTARY LETTER OF CREDIT IN THE REGULATION OF 600-PARIS PUBLICATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    VASILE NEMES

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available In the year 2007 was adopted the Publication no. 600 of Paris regarding the Rules and the Uniform Practices for documentary letters of credit which replaced the Publication no. 500. Publication no. 600 (UCP 600 is applied to all the irrevocable documentary letters of credit when the parties make express reference to these Rules. The Publication no. 600 includes uniform rules, international practices and standards of irrevocable documentary letters of credit. The new Publication has brought a number of changes on the issues regarding the performance of the letters of credit, both in the relationship with the nonbanking institutions participants and in the relationship between the credit institutions participating in the performance of the letter of credit. This study, without being exhaustive, aims to capture the main aspects of novelty brought by the publication no. 600 and their legal approach to the new perspective of the international trade relations. It has in view, in particular, the irrevocable character of the letter of credit, the elaboration method and procedure of the letter of credit, the participants to the unfolding of the specific relationship of the letter of credit and the main duties of the involved credit institutions.

  3. Letters of Marcus Antonius Kappus from colonial America IV

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Janez Stanonik

    1989-12-01

    Full Text Available The letter of Marcus Antonius Kappus which we publish in our present the fourth - continuation of his letters from Colonial America, is not preserved - as the first three letters are - in a manuscript. Instead we find it published in the famous contemporary collection of Jesuitic letters which appeared from 1728 till 1758 under the editorship of Joseph Stöcklein and his successors in Augsburg and Graz under the title Der neue Welt-Bott mit Allerhand Nachrichten derer Missionariorum Soc. Jesu. Kappus' letter can be found in vol. I, part II, p. 86-88 under the number 56. It has never since 1728 been reprinted in German, neither has it ever been published in an English translation. Our reprint of the German text is justified because Stöcklein's collection is generally not available even in the largest libraries, especially in America. An English translation can be useful because of the difficulties the old form of its German with its localisms can cause to its readers.

  4. What Do Letter Migration Errors Reveal About Letter Position Coding in Visual Word Recognition?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Colin J.; Bowers, Jeffrey S.

    2004-01-01

    Dividing attention across multiple words occasionally results in misidentifications whereby letters apparently migrate between words. Previous studies have found that letter migrations preserve within-word letter position, which has been interpreted as support for position-specific letter coding. To investigate this issue, the authors used word…

  5. Analysis of reliability of professor recommendation letters based on concordance with self-introduction letter.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Sang Hyun

    2013-12-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the concordance between a checklist's categories of professor recommendation letters and characteristics of the self-introduction letter. Checklists of professor recommendation letters were analyzed and classified into cognitive, social, and affective domains. Simple correlation was performed to determine whether the characteristics of the checklists were concordant with those of the self-introduction letter. The difference in ratings of the checklists by pass or fail grades was analyzed by independent sample t-test. Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine whether a pass or fail grade was influenced by ratings on the checklists. The Cronbach alpha value of the checklists was 0.854. Initiative, as an affective domain, in the professor's recommendation letter was highly ranked among the six checklist categories. Self-directed learning in the self-introduction letter was influenced by a pass or fail grade by logistic regression analysis (pprofessor recommendation letters and the sum of all characteristics in the self-introduction letter.

  6. A STUDY ON LEGIBILITY OF LETTERING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Merve ERSAN,

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available In the most general sense, lettering is the art of drawing letters, in which the letter forms carry illustrtive features. In this research which is titled "An Analysis on Legibility in Letterings Used in Print Advertisements", letterings used in and specially designed for print ads are analysed and their contribution to the ads are examined. Legibility, which is the fundamental function of writing and typography is examined in the field of lettering that has an illustrative approach. Also, the article puts emphasis on the technique and form’s contribution on content in letterings. Keywords: Lettering, print advertisements, letter design, illustration, legibility.

  7. Humans can consciously generate random number sequences: a possible test for artificial intelligence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Persaud, Navindra

    2005-01-01

    Computer algorithms can only produce seemingly random or pseudorandom numbers whereas certain natural phenomena, such as the decay of radioactive particles, can be utilized to produce truly random numbers. In this study, the ability of humans to generate random numbers was tested in healthy adults. Subjects were simply asked to generate and dictate random numbers. Generated numbers were tested for uniformity, independence and information density. The results suggest that humans can generate random numbers that are uniformly distributed, independent of one another and unpredictable. If humans can generate sequences of random numbers then neural networks or forms of artificial intelligence, which are purported to function in ways essentially the same as the human brain, should also be able to generate sequences of random numbers. Elucidating the precise mechanism by which humans generate random number sequences and the underlying neural substrates may have implications in the cognitive science of decision-making. It is possible that humans use their random-generating neural machinery to make difficult decisions in which all expected outcomes are similar. It is also possible that certain people, perhaps those with neurological or psychiatric impairments, are less able or unable to generate random numbers. If the random-generating neural machinery is employed in decision making its impairment would have profound implications in matters of agency and free will.

  8. Sequence diversity and copy number variation of Mutator-like transposases in wheat

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nobuaki Asakura

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available Partial transposase-coding sequences of Mutator-like elements (MULEs were isolated from a wild einkorn wheat, Triticum urartu, by degenerate PCR. The isolated sequences were classified into a MuDR or Class I clade and divided into two distinct subclasses (subclass I and subclass II. The average pair-wise identity between members of both subclasses was 58.8% at the nucleotide sequence level. Sequence diversity of subclass I was larger than that of subclass II. DNA gel blot analysis showed that subclass I was present as low copy number elements in the genomes of all Triticum and Aegilops accessions surveyed, while subclass II was present as high copy number elements. These two subclasses seemed uncapable of recognizing each other for transposition. The number of copies of subclass II elements was much higher in Aegilops with the S, Sl and D genomes and polyploid Triticum species than in diploid Triticum with the A genome, indicating that active transposition occurred in S, Sl and D genomes before polyploidization. DNA gel blot analysis of six species selected from three subfamilies of Poaceae demonstrated that only the tribe Triticeae possessed both subclasses. These results suggest that the differentiation of these two subclasses occurred before or immediately after the establishment of the tribe Triticeae.

  9. Composing chaotic music from the letter m

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sotiropoulos, Anastasios D.

    Chaotic music is composed from a proposed iterative map depicting the letter m, relating the pitch, duration and loudness of successive steps. Each of the two curves of the letter m is based on the classical logistic map. Thus, the generating map is xn+1 = r xn(1/2 - xn) for xn between 0 and 1/2 defining the first curve, and xn+1 = r (xn - 1/2)(1 - xn) for xn between 1/2 and 1 representing the second curve. The parameter r which determines the height(s) of the letter m varies from 2 to 16, the latter value ensuring fully developed chaotic solutions for the whole letter m; r = 8 yielding full chaotic solutions only for its first curve. The m-model yields fixed points, bifurcation points and chaotic regions for each separate curve, as well as values of the parameter r greater than 8 which produce inter-fixed points, inter-bifurcation points and inter-chaotic regions from the interplay of the two curves. Based on this, music is composed from mapping the m- recurrence model solutions onto actual notes. The resulting musical score strongly depends on the sequence of notes chosen by the composer to define the musical range corresponding to the range of the chaotic mathematical solutions x from 0 to 1. Here, two musical ranges are used; one is the middle chromatic scale and the other is the seven- octaves range. At the composer's will and, for aesthetics, within the same composition, notes can be the outcome of different values of r and/or shifted in any octave. Compositions with endings of non-repeating note patterns result from values of r in the m-model that do not produce bifurcations. Scores of chaotic music composed from the m-model and the classical logistic model are presented.

  10. Changes in FDA enforcement activities following changes in federal administration: the case of regulatory letters released to pharmaceutical companies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nguyen, Diane; Seoane-Vazquez, Enrique; Rodriguez-Monguio, Rosa; Montagne, Michael

    2013-01-22

    The United States (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for the protection of the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness and security of human drugs and biological products through the enforcement of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) and related regulations. These enforcement activities include regulatory letters (i.e. warning letters and notice of violation) to pharmaceutical companies. A regulatory letter represents the FDA's first official notification to a pharmaceutical company that the FDA has discovered a product or activity in violation of the FDCA.This study analyzed trends in the pharmaceutical-related regulatory letters released by the FDA during the period 1997-2011 and assessed differences in the average number and type of regulatory letters released during the last four federal administrations. Data derived from the FDA webpage. Information about the FDA office releasing the letter, date, company, and drug-related violation was collected. Regulatory letters were classified by federal administration. Descriptive statistics were performed for the analysis. Between 1997 and 2011 the FDA released 2,467 regulatory letters related to pharmaceuticals. FDA headquarters offices released 50.6% and district offices 49.4% of the regulatory letters. The Office of Prescription Drug Promotion released the largest number of regulatory letters (850; 34.5% of the total), followed by the Office of Scientific Investigations (131; 5.3%), and the Office of Compliance (105; 4.3%). During the 2nd Clinton Administration (1997-2000) the average number of regulatory letters per year was 242.8 ± 45.6, during the Bush Administration (2001-2008) it was 120.4 ± 33.7, and during the first three years of the Obama administration (2009-2011) it was 177.7.0 ± 17.0. The average number of regulatory letters released by the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion also varied by administration: Clinton (122.3 ± 36.4), Bush (29.5

  11. Credit Card Debt Hardship Letter Samples

    OpenAIRE

    lissa coffey

    2016-01-01

    Having trouble with your credit card debt? Below you will find examples of hardship letters. There are several things to consider when writing a credit card hardship letter. A hardship letter is the first step to letting the credit card company know that things are bad. This free credit card hardship letter sample is only a guide in order to start the negotiation. Credit card debt hardship letter example, hardship letter to credit card. If you are having trouble paying off your debt and need ...

  12. Critical contrastive rhetoric: The influence of L2 letter writing instruction on L1letter writing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mehrnoosh Fakharzadeh

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available The present study employed critical contrastive rhetoric to investigate the L2 to L1 transfer of organizational pattern and directness level of speech acts in business complaint letters. By examining the L1 complaint letters of 30 tourism university students in two phases of study, pre and post instruction of English complaint letter, the study revealed that the rhetorical organization of Persian letters are in a state of hybridity. The post instruction comparison of letters, however, showed a tendency towards applying English conventions both in organization and directness level of complaint speech act in the L1 complaint letters. The results also revealed that after instruction the expert in the field of tourism viewed some letters as inappropriate in terms of politeness which is reflected through some lexical items.

  13. The Pagoda Sequence: a Ramble through Linear Complexity, Number Walls, D0L Sequences, Finite State Automata, and Aperiodic Tilings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fred Lunnon

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available We review the concept of the number wall as an alternative to the traditional linear complexity profile (LCP, and sketch the relationship to other topics such as linear feedback shift-register (LFSR and context-free Lindenmayer (D0L sequences. A remarkable ternary analogue of the Thue-Morse sequence is introduced having deficiency 2 modulo 3, and this property verified via the re-interpretation of the number wall as an aperiodic plane tiling.

  14. A Letter to Ahmad Khan

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I.M. Mirgaleev

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available We bring to attention of specialists an undated letter of Ottoman ruler Mehmed II Fatih to the Great Horde khan Ahmad from the collection of famous collector of Ottoman charters Feridun-bey [1, S. 289]. The addressee is the famous ruler of the Great Horde, khan Ahmad. Daulat Khan mentioned in the letter is Nur-Davlet. He was connected with khan Ahmad, and, as indicated by the letter, he had also set in close contact with the Ottomans whose ruler openly declares in a letter that “our sight of benevolence and patronage is directed toward him”. Thereby the Sultan made it clear to the “principal” Tatar khan Akhmad that Nur-Davlet was under the patronage of the Ottoman Empire. Considering the period of activity of Nur-Davlet in Crimea, presumably the letter was written in 1477. Famous researcher of the Crimean Khanate V.D. Smirnov had already examined the letter and the question of why Ahmad Khan was named the Crimean khan in the title of the letter [2, p. 221–222].

  15. An Investigation of the Sequence of Catalan Numbers with Activities for Prospective Teachers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koker, John; Kuenzi, Norbert J.; Oktac, Asuman; Carmony, Lowell; Leibowitz, Rochelle

    1998-01-01

    Investigates several problems with the sequences of numbers known as the Catalan numbers and the Bell numbers. Finds that the problems are appropriate for both pre- and in-service teachers, as well as students studying discrete mathematics. (Author/CCM)

  16. Long period pseudo random number sequence generator

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Charles C. (Inventor)

    1989-01-01

    A circuit for generating a sequence of pseudo random numbers, (A sub K). There is an exponentiator in GF(2 sup m) for the normal basis representation of elements in a finite field GF(2 sup m) each represented by m binary digits and having two inputs and an output from which the sequence (A sub K). Of pseudo random numbers is taken. One of the two inputs is connected to receive the outputs (E sub K) of maximal length shift register of n stages. There is a switch having a pair of inputs and an output. The switch outputs is connected to the other of the two inputs of the exponentiator. One of the switch inputs is connected for initially receiving a primitive element (A sub O) in GF(2 sup m). Finally, there is a delay circuit having an input and an output. The delay circuit output is connected to the other of the switch inputs and the delay circuit input is connected to the output of the exponentiator. Whereby after the exponentiator initially receives the primitive element (A sub O) in GF(2 sup m) through the switch, the switch can be switched to cause the exponentiator to receive as its input a delayed output A(K-1) from the exponentiator thereby generating (A sub K) continuously at the output of the exponentiator. The exponentiator in GF(2 sup m) is novel and comprises a cyclic-shift circuit; a Massey-Omura multiplier; and, a control logic circuit all operably connected together to perform the function U(sub i) = 92(sup i) (for n(sub i) = 1 or 1 (for n(subi) = 0).

  17. Letter-transposition effects are not universal: The impact of transposing letters in Hebrew.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Velan, Hadas; Frost, Ram

    2009-10-01

    We examined the effects of letter transposition in Hebrew in three masked-priming experiments. Hebrew, like English has an alphabetic orthography where sequential and contiguous letter strings represent phonemes. However, being a Semitic language it has a non-concatenated morphology that is based on root derivations. Experiment 1 showed that transposed-letter (TL) root primes inhibited responses to targets derived from the non-transposed root letters, and that this inhibition was unrelated to relative root frequency. Experiment 2 replicated this result and showed that if the transposed letters of the root created a nonsense-root that had no lexical representation, then no inhibition and no facilitation were obtained. Finally, Experiment 3 demonstrated that in contrast to English, French, or Spanish, TL nonword primes did not facilitate recognition of targets, and when the root letters embedded in them consisted of a legal root morpheme, they produced inhibition. These results suggest that lexical space in alphabetic orthographies may be structured very differently in different languages if their morphological structure diverges qualitatively. In Hebrew, lexical space is organized according to root families rather than simple orthographic structure, so that all words derived from the same root are interconnected or clustered together, independent of overall orthographic similarity.

  18. Changes in FDA enforcement activities following changes in federal administration: the case of regulatory letters released to pharmaceutical companies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nguyen Diane

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The United States (US Food and Drug Administration (FDA is responsible for the protection of the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness and security of human drugs and biological products through the enforcement of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA and related regulations. These enforcement activities include regulatory letters (i.e. warning letters and notice of violation to pharmaceutical companies. A regulatory letter represents the FDA’s first official notification to a pharmaceutical company that the FDA has discovered a product or activity in violation of the FDCA. This study analyzed trends in the pharmaceutical-related regulatory letters released by the FDA during the period 1997–2011 and assessed differences in the average number and type of regulatory letters released during the last four federal administrations. Methods Data derived from the FDA webpage. Information about the FDA office releasing the letter, date, company, and drug-related violation was collected. Regulatory letters were classified by federal administration. Descriptive statistics were performed for the analysis. Results Between 1997 and 2011 the FDA released 2,467 regulatory letters related to pharmaceuticals. FDA headquarters offices released 50.6% and district offices 49.4% of the regulatory letters. The Office of Prescription Drug Promotion released the largest number of regulatory letters (850; 34.5% of the total, followed by the Office of Scientific Investigations (131; 5.3%, and the Office of Compliance (105; 4.3%. During the 2nd Clinton Administration (1997–2000 the average number of regulatory letters per year was 242.8 ± 45.6, during the Bush Administration (2001–2008 it was 120.4 ± 33.7, and during the first three years of the Obama administration (2009–2011 it was 177.7.0 ± 17.0. The average number of regulatory letters released by the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion also varied by

  19. On Sequences of Numbers and Polynomials Defined by Linear Recurrence Relations of Order 2

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tian-Xiao He

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Here we present a new method to construct the explicit formula of a sequence of numbers and polynomials generated by a linear recurrence relation of order 2. The applications of the method to the Fibonacci and Lucas numbers, Chebyshev polynomials, the generalized Gegenbauer-Humbert polynomials are also discussed. The derived idea provides a general method to construct identities of number or polynomial sequences defined by linear recurrence relations. The applications using the method to solve some algebraic and ordinary differential equations are presented.

  20. Overt use of a tactile-kinesthetic strategy shifts to covert processing in rehabilitation of letter-by-letter reading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lott, Susan Nitzberg; Carney, Aimee Syms; Glezer, Laurie S; Friedman, Rhonda B

    2010-11-01

    BACKGROUND: Letter-by-letter readers identify each letter of the word they are reading serially in left to right order before recognizing the word. When their letter naming is also impaired, letter-by-letter reading is inaccurate and can render even single word reading very poor. Tactile and/or kinesthetic strategies have been reported to improve reading in these patients, but only under certain conditions or for a limited set of stimuli. AIMS: The primary aim of the current study was to determine whether a tactile/kinesthetic treatment could significantly improve reading specifically under normal reading conditions, i.e. reading untrained words presented in free vision and read without overt use of the strategy. METHODS #ENTITYSTARTX00026; PROCEDURES: Three chronic letter-by-letter readers participated in a tactile/kinesthetic treatment aimed at first improving letter naming accuracy (phase 1) and then letter-by-letter reading speed (phase 2). In a multiple case series design, accuracy and speed of reading untrained words without overt use of the trained tactile/kinesthetic strategy was assessed before phase 1, after phase 1 and again after phase 2. OUTCOMES #ENTITYSTARTX00026; RESULTS: All three patients significantly improved both their speed and accuracy reading untrained words without overt use of the trained tactile/kinesthetic strategy. All three patients required the additional practice in phase 2 to achieve significant improvement. Treatment did not target sentence level reading, yet two of the three patients became so adept that they could read entire sentences. CONCLUSIONS: This study replicates previous findings on the efficacy of tactile/kinesthetic treatment for letter-by-letter readers with poor letter naming. It further demonstrates that this treatment can alter cognitive processing such that words never specifically trained can be read in free vision without overtly using the trained strategy. The data suggest that an important element in achieving

  1. Letters From Peplau.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peden, Ann R

    2018-03-01

    Dr. Hildegard Peplau, considered to be our first modern Nurse theorist and the Mother of Psychiatric Nursing, was a prolific writer, engaging in correspondence with colleagues and students who sought her professional and theoretical expertise. Through these letters, she influenced psychiatric nursing while maintaining a broad international network of professional colleagues. An analysis of letters, written between 1990 and 1998, provides insights into Peplau's last decade of professional life and a model of how to support the next generation of nurse scholars. Using content analysis, 24 letters received between 1990 and 1998 were read, reread, and coded. Recurring themes were identified. Three themes were identified. These include Peplau, the Person: Living a Life of Professional Balance; Lighting a Spark: Investing in the Next Generation; and Work in the Vineyards of Nursing: Maintaining a Life of Scholarship. The letters depict Peplau's keen intellect, her wide professional network, her leisure time spent with family and friends, and her own work to assure that her theoretical legacy continued. Peplau's insights continue to be relevant as psychiatric mental health nursing leaders engage in activities to support the next generation of scholars and leaders.

  2. [Influence of PCR cycle number on microbial diversity analysis through next generation sequencing].

    Science.gov (United States)

    An, Yunhe; Gao, Lijuan; Li, Junbo; Tian, Yanjie; Wang, Jinlong; Zheng, Xuejuan; Wu, Huijuan

    2016-08-25

    Using of high throughput sequencing technology to study the microbial diversity in complex samples has become one of the hottest issues in the field of microbial diversity research. In this study, the soil and sheep rumen chyme samples were used to extract DNA, respectively. Then the 25 ng total DNA was used to amplify the 16S rRNA V3 region with 20, 25, 30 PCR cycles, and the final sequencing library was constructed by mixing equal amounts of purified PCR products. Finally, the operational taxonomic unit (OUT) amount, rarefaction curve, microbial number and species were compared through data analysis. It was found that at the same amount of DNA template, the proportion of the community composition was not the best with more numbers of PCR cycle, although the species number was much more. In all, when the PCR cycle number is 25, the number of species and proportion of the community composition were the most optimal both in soil or chyme samples.

  3. Can "CANISO" Activate "CASINO"? Transposed-Letter Similarity Effects with Nonadjacent Letter Positions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perea, Manuel; Lupker, Stephen J.

    2004-01-01

    Nonwords created by transposing two "adjacent" letters (i.e., transposed-letter (TL) nonwords like "jugde") are very effective at activating the lexical representation of their base words. This fact poses problems for most computational models of word recognition (e.g., the interactive-activation model and its extensions), which assume that exact…

  4. Several Families of Sequences with Low Correlation and Large Linear Span

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, Fanxin; Zhang, Zhenyu

    In DS-CDMA systems and DS-UWB radios, low correlation of spreading sequences can greatly help to minimize multiple access interference (MAI) and large linear span of spreading sequences can reduce their predictability. In this letter, new sequence sets with low correlation and large linear span are proposed. Based on the construction Trm1[Trnm(αbt+γiαdt)]r for generating p-ary sequences of period pn-1, where n=2m, d=upm±v, b=u±v, γi∈GF(pn), and p is an arbitrary prime number, several methods to choose the parameter d are provided. The obtained sequences with family size pn are of four-valued, five-valued, six-valued or seven-valued correlation and the maximum nontrivial correlation value is (u+v-1)pm-1. The simulation by a computer shows that the linear span of the new sequences is larger than that of the sequences with Niho-type and Welch-type decimations, and similar to that of [10].

  5. Y2K affiliation, immediate pedestrian density, and helping responses to lost letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bridges, F S; Thompson, P C

    2001-06-01

    Of 75 letters "lost" in Florida, 41 were returned in the mail (the helpful response). Immediate pedestrian density was significantly related to nonhelping responses. The greater the number of subjects passing by a lost letter, the less likely any one of them would respond to it. The rates of return did vary with the addressees' affiliations. Returned responses for the affiliates, Y2K Arkbuilders and the Believers of God's Judgement Against Homosexuals: Y2K Millennium Bug, were substantially lower than for the affiliate, Y2K Computer Repair & Programming, Inc. Returns for the Believers of God's Judgement Against Homosexuals: Y2K Millennium Bug affiliate were significantly lower than for the Y2K Arkbuilders affiliate. Variables such as sex, race, and estimated age of subjects were not associated with helping to return a lost letter. The rate of return of lost letters is not the only important measure to be examined in studies using lost letters.

  6. A study to assess the quality of information in referral letters to the orthodontic department at Kingston Hospital, Surrey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Izadi, Maryam; Gill, Daljit S; Naini, Farhad B

    2010-04-01

    To assess the quality of information included in referral letters sent to the orthodontic department at Kingston Hospital, Surrey, UK. Referral letters sent by both general dental practitioners (GDPs) and specialist orthodontists were analysed retrospectively in order to ascertain the percentage meeting the inclusion criteria as suggested by Mossey (2006) and the British Orthodontic Society (2008) for the quality of information included in an ideal orthodontic referral letter. Thirty-five consecutive letters sent between May and September 2005 and 206 letters sent in the same period in 2008 were collected by hand and analysed against the inclusion criteria. The numbers of referral letters received from GDPs, specialist orthodontists, and others sources were also determined. Most of the referrals sent in 2005 and 2008 included 40-50% of the referral inclusion points. This was despite an almost twofold increase in the number of referral letters received from specialist orthodontic practitioners in 2008. The majority of the letters, from both GDPs and specialists, did not include details of the oral hygiene or caries status of the patient, or an indication of their motivation towards treatment. None of the referral letters included a plaque score. The main weaknesses in the quality of information provided in referral letters were that in more than 80% of the letters there was no mention of the patient's medical history and no comment on caries status, the standard of oral hygiene, patient motivation for treatment, or an Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need score. The quality of information included in referral letters sent to Kingston Hospital orthodontic department needs to be improved.

  7. ERP correlates of letter identity and letter position are modulated by lexical frequency

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vergara-Martínez, Marta; Perea, Manuel; Gómez, Pablo; Swaab, Tamara Y.

    2013-01-01

    The encoding of letter position is a key aspect in all recently proposed models of visual-word recognition. We analyzed the impact of lexical frequency on letter position assignment by examining the temporal dynamics of lexical activation induced by pseudowords extracted from words of different frequencies. For each word (e.g., BRIDGE), we created two pseudowords: A transposed-letter (TL: BRIGDE) and a replaced-letter pseudoword (RL: BRITGE). ERPs were recorded while participants read words and pseudowords in two tasks: Semantic categorization (Experiment 1) and lexical decision (Experiment 2). For high-frequency stimuli, similar ERPs were obtained for words and TL-pseudowords, but the N400 component to words was reduced relative to RL-pseudowords, indicating less lexical/semantic activation. In contrast, TL- and RL-pseudowords created from low-frequency stimuli elicited similar ERPs. Behavioral responses in the lexical decision task paralleled this asymmetry. The present findings impose constraints on computational and neural models of visual-word recognition. PMID:23454070

  8. The letter knowledge assessment tool.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pedro, Cassandra; Lousada, Marisa; Pereira, Rita; Hall, Andreia; Jesus, Luis M T

    2017-10-10

    There is a need to develop letter knowledge assessment tools to characterise the letter knowledge in Portuguese pre-schoolers and to compare it with pre-schoolers from other countries, but there are no tools for this purpose in Portugal. The aim of this paper is to describe the development and validation procedures of the Prova de Avaliação de Competências de Pré-Literacia (PACPL), which assesses letter knowledge. This study includes data that has been gathered in two phases: pilot and main study. In the pilot study, an expert panel of six speech and language pathologists analysed the instrument. Children (n = 216) aged 5;0-7;11 participated in the main study that reports data related to the psychometric characteristics of the PACPL. Content validity, internal consistency, reliability and contributing factors to performance were examined statistically. A modified Bland-Altman method revealed good agreement amongst evaluators. The main study showed that the PACPL has a very good internal consistency and high inter-rater (96.2% of agreement and a Cohen's k value of 0.92) and intra-rater (95.6% of agreement and a Cohen's k value of 0.91) agreement. Construct validity of the PCAPL was also assured (Cronbach's α of 0.982). Significant differences were found between age groups with children increasing their letter knowledge with age. In addition, they were better at identifying than at producing both letter names and letter sounds. The PACPL is a valid and reliable instrument to assess letter knowledge in Portuguese children.

  9. Selective retrieval of memory and concept sequences through neuro-windows

    OpenAIRE

    Kakeya, Hideki; Okabe, Yoichi

    1999-01-01

    This letter presents a crosscorrelational associative memory model which realizes selective retrieval of pattern sequences. When hierarchically correlated sequences are memorized, sequences of the correlational centers can be defined as the concept sequences. The authors propose a modified neuro-window method which enables selective retrieval of memory sequences and concept sequences. It is also shown that the proposed model realizes capacity expansion of the memory which stores random sequen...

  10. Inferring Variation in Copy Number Using High Throughput Sequencing Data in R.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knaus, Brian J; Grünwald, Niklaus J

    2018-01-01

    Inference of copy number variation presents a technical challenge because variant callers typically require the copy number of a genome or genomic region to be known a priori . Here we present a method to infer copy number that uses variant call format (VCF) data as input and is implemented in the R package vcfR . This method is based on the relative frequency of each allele (in both genic and non-genic regions) sequenced at heterozygous positions throughout a genome. These heterozygous positions are summarized by using arbitrarily sized windows of heterozygous positions, binning the allele frequencies, and selecting the bin with the greatest abundance of positions. This provides a non-parametric summary of the frequency that alleles were sequenced at. The method is applicable to organisms that have reference genomes that consist of full chromosomes or sub-chromosomal contigs. In contrast to other software designed to detect copy number variation, our method does not rely on an assumption of base ploidy, but instead infers it. We validated these approaches with the model system of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and applied it to the oomycete Phytophthora infestans , both known to vary in copy number. This functionality has been incorporated into the current release of the R package vcfR to provide modular and flexible methods to investigate copy number variation in genomic projects.

  11. Sequence walkers: a graphical method to display how binding proteins interact with DNA or RNA sequences | Center for Cancer Research

    Science.gov (United States)

    A graphical method is presented for displaying how binding proteins and other macromolecules interact with individual bases of nucleotide sequences. Characters representing the sequence are either oriented normally and placed above a line indicating favorable contact, or upside-down and placed below the line indicating unfavorable contact. The positive or negative height of each letter shows the contribution of that base to the average sequence conservation of the binding site, as represented by a sequence logo.

  12. Letter-Transposition Effects Are Not Universal: The Impact of Transposing Letters in Hebrew

    Science.gov (United States)

    Velan, Hadas; Frost, Ram

    2009-01-01

    We examined the effects of letter-transposition in Hebrew in three masked-priming experiments. Hebrew, like English has an alphabetic orthography where sequential and contiguous letter strings represent phonemes. However, being a Semitic language it has a non-concatenated morphology that is based on root derivations. Experiment 1 showed that…

  13. 7 CFR 3560.709 - Demand letter.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 7 Agriculture 15 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Demand letter. 3560.709 Section 3560.709 Agriculture... DIRECT MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING LOANS AND GRANTS Unauthorized Assistance § 3560.709 Demand letter. (a) If a... repayment schedule, the Agency will send the borrower a demand letter specifying: (1) The amount of...

  14. Letters of Map Change (LOMC)

    Data.gov (United States)

    Department of Homeland Security — Documents, including different types of Letters of MAP Revision (LOMR) and Letters of Map Amendment (LOMA), which are issued by FEMA to revise or amend the flood...

  15. Similarly shaped letters evoke similar colors in grapheme-color synesthesia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Brang, D.; Rouw, R.; Ramachandran, V.S.; Coulson, S.

    2011-01-01

    Grapheme-color synesthesia is a neurological condition in which viewing numbers or letters (graphemes) results in the concurrent sensation of color. While the anatomical substrates underlying this experience are well understood, little research to date has investigated factors influencing the

  16. ReadDepth: a parallel R package for detecting copy number alterations from short sequencing reads.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christopher A Miller

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Copy number alterations are important contributors to many genetic diseases, including cancer. We present the readDepth package for R, which can detect these aberrations by measuring the depth of coverage obtained by massively parallel sequencing of the genome. In addition to achieving higher accuracy than existing packages, our tool runs much faster by utilizing multi-core architectures to parallelize the processing of these large data sets. In contrast to other published methods, readDepth does not require the sequencing of a reference sample, and uses a robust statistical model that accounts for overdispersed data. It includes a method for effectively increasing the resolution obtained from low-coverage experiments by utilizing breakpoint information from paired end sequencing to do positional refinement. We also demonstrate a method for inferring copy number using reads generated by whole-genome bisulfite sequencing, thus enabling integrative study of epigenomic and copy number alterations. Finally, we apply this tool to two genomes, showing that it performs well on genomes sequenced to both low and high coverage. The readDepth package runs on Linux and MacOSX, is released under the Apache 2.0 license, and is available at http://code.google.com/p/readdepth/.

  17. Study on recognition algorithm for paper currency numbers based on neural network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Xiuyan; Liu, Tiegen; Li, Yuanyao; Zhang, Zhongchuan; Deng, Shichao

    2008-12-01

    Based on the unique characteristic, the paper currency numbers can be put into record and the automatic identification equipment for paper currency numbers is supplied to currency circulation market in order to provide convenience for financial sectors to trace the fiduciary circulation socially and provide effective supervision on paper currency. Simultaneously it is favorable for identifying forged notes, blacklisting the forged notes numbers and solving the major social problems, such as armor cash carrier robbery, money laundering. For the purpose of recognizing the paper currency numbers, a recognition algorithm based on neural network is presented in the paper. Number lines in original paper currency images can be draw out through image processing, such as image de-noising, skew correction, segmentation, and image normalization. According to the different characteristics between digits and letters in serial number, two kinds of classifiers are designed. With the characteristics of associative memory, optimization-compute and rapid convergence, the Discrete Hopfield Neural Network (DHNN) is utilized to recognize the letters; with the characteristics of simple structure, quick learning and global optimum, the Radial-Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) is adopted to identify the digits. Then the final recognition results are obtained by combining the two kinds of recognition results in regular sequence. Through the simulation tests, it is confirmed by simulation results that the recognition algorithm of combination of two kinds of recognition methods has such advantages as high recognition rate and faster recognition simultaneously, which is worthy of broad application prospect.

  18. RANDOMNUMBERS, Random Number Sequence Generated from Gas Ionisation Chamber Data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Frigerio, N.A.; Sanathanan, L.P.; Morley, M.; Tyler, S.A.; Clark, N.A.; Wang, J.

    1989-01-01

    1 - Description of problem or function: RANDOM NUMBERS is a data collection of almost 2.7 million 31-bit random numbers generated by using a high resolution gas ionization detector chamber in conjunction with a 4096-channel multichannel analyzer to record the radioactive decay of alpha particles from a U-235 source. The signals from the decaying alpha particles were fed to the 4096-channel analyzer, and for each channel the frequency of signals registered in a 20,000-microsecond interval was recorded. The parity bits of these frequency counts, 0 for an even count and 1 for and odd count, were then assembled in sequence to form 31-bit random numbers and transcribed onto magnetic tape. This cycle was repeated to obtain the random numbers. 2 - Method of solution: The frequency distribution of counts from the device conforms to the Brockwell-Moyal distribution which takes into account the dead time of the counter. The count data were analyzed and tests for randomness on a sample indicate that the device is a highly reliable source of truly random numbers. 3 - Restrictions on the complexity of the problem: The RANDOM NUMBERS tape contains 2,669,568 31-bit numbers

  19. Mapping copy number variation by population-scale genome sequencing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mills, Ryan E.; Walter, Klaudia; Stewart, Chip

    2011-01-01

    Genomic structural variants (SVs) are abundant in humans, differing from other forms of variation in extent, origin and functional impact. Despite progress in SV characterization, the nucleotide resolution architecture of most SVs remains unknown. We constructed a map of unbalanced SVs (that is......, copy number variants) based on whole genome DNA sequencing data from 185 human genomes, integrating evidence from complementary SV discovery approaches with extensive experimental validations. Our map encompassed 22,025 deletions and 6,000 additional SVs, including insertions and tandem duplications...

  20. 31 CFR 29.511 - Demand letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 31 Money and Finance: Treasury 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Demand letters. 29.511 Section 29.511... Overpayments § 29.511 Demand letters. Except as provided in § 29.516(e), before starting collection action to recover an overpayment, the Benefits Administrator must send a demand letter that informs the debtor in...

  1. Tumor transcriptome sequencing reveals allelic expression imbalances associated with copy number alterations.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brian B Tuch

    Full Text Available Due to growing throughput and shrinking cost, massively parallel sequencing is rapidly becoming an attractive alternative to microarrays for the genome-wide study of gene expression and copy number alterations in primary tumors. The sequencing of transcripts (RNA-Seq should offer several advantages over microarray-based methods, including the ability to detect somatic mutations and accurately measure allele-specific expression. To investigate these advantages we have applied a novel, strand-specific RNA-Seq method to tumors and matched normal tissue from three patients with oral squamous cell carcinomas. Additionally, to better understand the genomic determinants of the gene expression changes observed, we have sequenced the tumor and normal genomes of one of these patients. We demonstrate here that our RNA-Seq method accurately measures allelic imbalance and that measurement on the genome-wide scale yields novel insights into cancer etiology. As expected, the set of genes differentially expressed in the tumors is enriched for cell adhesion and differentiation functions, but, unexpectedly, the set of allelically imbalanced genes is also enriched for these same cancer-related functions. By comparing the transcriptomic perturbations observed in one patient to his underlying normal and tumor genomes, we find that allelic imbalance in the tumor is associated with copy number mutations and that copy number mutations are, in turn, strongly associated with changes in transcript abundance. These results support a model in which allele-specific deletions and duplications drive allele-specific changes in gene expression in the developing tumor.

  2. Distribution of genotype network sizes in sequence-to-structure genotype-phenotype maps.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manrubia, Susanna; Cuesta, José A

    2017-04-01

    An essential quantity to ensure evolvability of populations is the navigability of the genotype space. Navigability, understood as the ease with which alternative phenotypes are reached, relies on the existence of sufficiently large and mutually attainable genotype networks. The size of genotype networks (e.g. the number of RNA sequences folding into a particular secondary structure or the number of DNA sequences coding for the same protein structure) is astronomically large in all functional molecules investigated: an exhaustive experimental or computational study of all RNA folds or all protein structures becomes impossible even for moderately long sequences. Here, we analytically derive the distribution of genotype network sizes for a hierarchy of models which successively incorporate features of increasingly realistic sequence-to-structure genotype-phenotype maps. The main feature of these models relies on the characterization of each phenotype through a prototypical sequence whose sites admit a variable fraction of letters of the alphabet. Our models interpolate between two limit distributions: a power-law distribution, when the ordering of sites in the prototypical sequence is strongly constrained, and a lognormal distribution, as suggested for RNA, when different orderings of the same set of sites yield different phenotypes. Our main result is the qualitative and quantitative identification of those features of sequence-to-structure maps that lead to different distributions of genotype network sizes. © 2017 The Author(s).

  3. Letter Dice. Technical Note No. 6.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gunter, Jock

    Letter and syllable dice devised for a project in rural Ecuador provide inexpensive, easily reproducible learning materials for practice in basic literary skills. Eleven wooden cubes with six letters on each cube are cast onto a surface and the player constructs words from the letters on the top side of the dice. After a word is formed and…

  4. TMS Over the Cerebellum Interferes with Short-term Memory of Visual Sequences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferrari, C; Cattaneo, Z; Oldrati, V; Casiraghi, L; Castelli, F; D'Angelo, E; Vecchi, T

    2018-04-30

    Growing evidence suggests that the cerebellum is not only involved in motor functions, but it significantly contributes to sensory and cognitive processing as well. In particular, it has been hypothesized that the cerebellum identifies recurrent serial events and recognizes their violations. Here we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to shed light on the role of the cerebellum in short-term memory of visual sequences. In two experiments, we found that TMS over the right cerebellar hemisphere impaired participants' ability to recognize the correct order of appearance of geometrical stimuli varying in shape and/or size. In turn, cerebellar TMS did not affect recognition of highly familiar short sequences of letters or numbers. Overall, our data suggest that the cerebellum is involved in memorizing the order in which (concatenated) stimuli appear, this process being important for sequence learning.

  5. Letter to the parliament:

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2017-01-01

    This piece was a letter directed towards various ministers in the parliament, targeted at raising a discussion on the values in the education of architects in Denmark and various related topics.......This piece was a letter directed towards various ministers in the parliament, targeted at raising a discussion on the values in the education of architects in Denmark and various related topics....

  6. Resource Letter: GW-1: Global warming

    Science.gov (United States)

    Firor, John W.

    1994-06-01

    This Resource Letter provides a guide to the literature on the possibility of a human-induced climate change—a global warming. Journal articles and books are cited for the following topics: the Greenhouse Effect, sources of infrared-trapping gases, climate models and their uncertainties, verification of climate models, past climate changes, and economics, ethics, and politics of policy responses to climate change. [The letter E after an item indicates elementary level or material of general interest to persons becoming informed in the field. The letter I, for intermediate level, indicates material of somewhat more specialized nature, and the letter A indicates rather specialized or advanced material.

  7. Implied reading direction and prioritization of letter encoding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holcombe, Alex O; Nguyen, Elizabeth H L; Goodbourn, Patrick T

    2017-10-01

    Capacity limits hinder processing of multiple stimuli, contributing to poorer performance for identifying two briefly presented letters than for identifying a single letter. Higher accuracy is typically found for identifying the letter on the left, which has been attributed to a right-hemisphere dominance for selective attention. Here, we use rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of letters in two locations at once. The letters to be identified are simultaneous and cued by rings. In the first experiment, we manipulated implied reading direction by rotating or mirror-reversing the letters to face to the left rather than to the right. The left-side performance advantage was eliminated. In the second experiment, letters were positioned above and below fixation, oriented such that they appeared to face downward (90° clockwise rotation) or upward (90° counterclockwise rotation). Again consistent with an effect of implied reading direction, performance was better for the top position in the downward condition, but not in the upward condition. In both experiments, mixture modeling of participants' report errors revealed that attentional sampling from the two locations was approximately simultaneous, ruling out the theory that the letter on one side was processed first, followed by a shift of attention to sample the other letter. Thus, the orientation of the letters apparently controls not when the letters are sampled from the scene, but rather the dynamics of a subsequent process, such as tokenization or memory consolidation. Implied reading direction appears to determine the letter prioritized at a high-level processing bottleneck. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  8. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Exhaustive search for low-autocorrelation binary sequences

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mertens, S.

    1996-09-01

    Binary sequences with low autocorrelations are important in communication engineering and in statistical mechanics as ground states of the Bernasconi model. Computer searches are the main tool in the construction of such sequences. Owing to the exponential size 0305-4470/29/18/005/img1 of the configuration space, exhaustive searches are limited to short sequences. We discuss an exhaustive search algorithm with run-time characteristic 0305-4470/29/18/005/img2 and apply it to compile a table of exact ground states of the Bernasconi model up to N = 48. The data suggest F > 9 for the optimal merit factor in the limit 0305-4470/29/18/005/img3.

  9. Episodic Short-Term Recognition Requires Encoding into Visual Working Memory: Evidence from Probe Recognition after Letter Report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poth, Christian H; Schneider, Werner X

    2016-01-01

    Human vision is organized in discrete processing episodes (e.g., eye fixations or task-steps). Object information must be transmitted across episodes to enable episodic short-term recognition: recognizing whether a current object has been seen in a previous episode. We ask whether episodic short-term recognition presupposes that objects have been encoded into capacity-limited visual working memory (VWM), which retains visual information for report. Alternatively, it could rely on the activation of visual features or categories that occurs before encoding into VWM. We assessed the dependence of episodic short-term recognition on VWM by a new paradigm combining letter report and probe recognition. Participants viewed displays of 10 letters and reported as many as possible after a retention interval (whole report). Next, participants viewed a probe letter and indicated whether it had been one of the 10 letters (probe recognition). In Experiment 1, probe recognition was more accurate for letters that had been encoded into VWM (reported letters) compared with non-encoded letters (non-reported letters). Interestingly, those letters that participants reported in their whole report had been near to one another within the letter displays. This suggests that the encoding into VWM proceeded in a spatially clustered manner. In Experiment 2, participants reported only one of 10 letters (partial report) and probes either referred to this letter, to letters that had been near to it, or far from it. Probe recognition was more accurate for near than for far letters, although none of these letters had to be reported. These findings indicate that episodic short-term recognition is constrained to a small number of simultaneously presented objects that have been encoded into VWM.

  10. Episodic Short-Term Recognition Requires Encoding into Visual Working Memory: Evidence from Probe Recognition after Letter Report

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian H. Poth

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Human vision is organized in discrete processing episodes (e.g. eye fixations or task-steps. Object information must be transmitted across episodes to enable episodic short-term recognition: recognizing whether a current object has been seen in a previous episode. We ask whether episodic short-term recognition presupposes that objects have been encoded into capacity-limited visual working memory (VWM, which retains visual information for report. Alternatively, it could rely on the activation of visual features or categories that occurs before encoding into VWM. We assessed the dependence of episodic short-term recognition on VWM by a new paradigm combining letter report and probe recognition. Participants viewed displays of ten letters and reported as many as possible after a retention interval (whole report. Next, participants viewed a probe letter and indicated whether it had been one of the ten letters (probe recognition. In Experiment 1, probe recognition was more accurate for letters that had been encoded into VWM (reported letters compared with non-encoded letters (non-reported letters. Interestingly, those letters that participants reported in their whole report had been near to one another within the letter displays. This suggests that the encoding into VWM proceeded in a spatially clustered manner. In Experiment 2 participants reported only one of ten letters (partial report and probes either referred to this letter, to letters that had been near to it, or far from it. Probe recognition was more accurate for near than for far letters, although none of these letters had to be reported. These findings indicate that episodic short-term recognition is constrained to a small number of simultaneously presented objects that have been encoded into VWM.

  11. Four Versions of the Christus by the Massys: Deciphering the Meaning of the Letters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vicente Jara Vera

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available The Flemish painters Quentin Massys and his son Jan Massys appear to be the authors of four works with a very similar motif, the bust of Jesus Christ. These canvasses can be found in different locations today: the Prado Museum in Madrid (Spain, the RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History of The Hague (Netherlands, the Kunstmuseum Winterthur (Switzerland, and another one in a private collection. Written on the edge of the robe around the neck, these canvasses display a series of Hebrew or pseudo-Hebrew letters. We offer the complete solution deciphered, until today incomplete, for three of them, with a very similar letter sequence. Finally, we resolve completely one of the canvasses, which, until today, had no known solution.

  12. Cluster growing process and a sequence of magic numbers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Solov'yov, Ilia; Solov'yov, Andrey V.; Greiner, Walter

    2003-01-01

    demonstrate that in this way all known global minimum structures of the Lennard-Jones (LJ) clusters can be found. Our method provides an efficient tool for the calculation and analysis of atomic cluster structure. With its use we justify the magic number sequence for the clusters of noble gas atoms......We present a new theoretical framework for modeling the cluster growing process. Starting from the initial tetrahedral cluster configuration, adding new atoms to the system, and absorbing its energy at each step, we find cluster growing paths up to the cluster sizes of more than 100 atoms. We...

  13. 48 CFR 42.504 - Postaward letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION AND AUDIT SERVICES Postaward Orientation 42.504 Postaward letters. In some circumstances, a letter or other written form of communication to the contractor may be adequate postaward...

  14. Algoritmi matematici nelle lettere di Gerbert

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rossi, P.

    The content of Gerbert's "scientific" letters is analyzed in detail, with special emphasis on arithmetical and geometrical issues, such as multiplication and division rules related to the use of abacus, superparticular numbers and evaluation of the area of an equilateral triangle. It is shown that Gerbert's area formula, albeit based on rational fractions, could hardly be conceived without knowledge of Pythagoras' theorem. This fact casts a light also on the astronomical tools created by Gerbert, where the didactical aspect cannot be separated from the accuracy of the demonstrations and of the measurements.

  15. A Stimulus Sampling Theory of Letter Identity and Order

    Science.gov (United States)

    Norris, Dennis; Kinoshita, Sachiko; van Casteren, Maarten

    2010-01-01

    Early on during word recognition, letter positions are not accurately coded. Evidence for this comes from transposed-letter (TL) priming effects, in which letter strings generated by transposing two adjacent letters (e.g., "jugde") produce large priming effects, more than primes with the letters replaced in the corresponding position (e.g.,…

  16. Launch of Zoological Letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fukatsu, Takema; Kuratani, Shigeru

    2016-02-01

    A new open-access journal, Zoological Letters, was launched as a sister journal to Zoological Science, in January 2015. The new journal aims at publishing topical papers of high quality from a wide range of basic zoological research fields. This review highlights the notable reviews and research articles that have been published in the first year of Zoological Letters, providing an overview on the current achievements and future directions of the journal.

  17. Importance of Viral Sequence Length and Number of Variable and Informative Sites in Analysis of HIV Clustering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Novitsky, Vlad; Moyo, Sikhulile; Lei, Quanhong; DeGruttola, Victor; Essex, M

    2015-05-01

    To improve the methodology of HIV cluster analysis, we addressed how analysis of HIV clustering is associated with parameters that can affect the outcome of viral clustering. The extent of HIV clustering and tree certainty was compared between 401 HIV-1C near full-length genome sequences and subgenomic regions retrieved from the LANL HIV Database. Sliding window analysis was based on 99 windows of 1,000 bp and 45 windows of 2,000 bp. Potential associations between the extent of HIV clustering and sequence length and the number of variable and informative sites were evaluated. The near full-length genome HIV sequences showed the highest extent of HIV clustering and the highest tree certainty. At the bootstrap threshold of 0.80 in maximum likelihood (ML) analysis, 58.9% of near full-length HIV-1C sequences but only 15.5% of partial pol sequences (ViroSeq) were found in clusters. Among HIV-1 structural genes, pol showed the highest extent of clustering (38.9% at a bootstrap threshold of 0.80), although it was significantly lower than in the near full-length genome sequences. The extent of HIV clustering was significantly higher for sliding windows of 2,000 bp than 1,000 bp. We found a strong association between the sequence length and proportion of HIV sequences in clusters, and a moderate association between the number of variable and informative sites and the proportion of HIV sequences in clusters. In HIV cluster analysis, the extent of detectable HIV clustering is directly associated with the length of viral sequences used, as well as the number of variable and informative sites. Near full-length genome sequences could provide the most informative HIV cluster analysis. Selected subgenomic regions with a high extent of HIV clustering and high tree certainty could also be considered as a second choice.

  18. Does consolidation of visuospatial sequence knowledge depend on eye movements?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daphné Coomans

    Full Text Available In the current study, we assessed whether visuospatial sequence knowledge is retained over 24 hours and whether this retention is dependent on the occurrence of eye movements. Participants performed two sessions of a serial reaction time (SRT task in which they had to manually react to the identity of a target letter pair presented in one of four locations around a fixation cross. When the letter pair 'XO' was presented, a left response had to be given, when the letter pair 'OX' was presented, a right response was required. In the Eye Movements (EM condition, eye movements were necessary to perform the task since the fixation cross and the target were separated by at least 9° visual angle. In the No Eye Movements (NEM condition, on the other hand, eye movements were minimized by keeping the distance from the fixation cross to the target below 1° visual angle and by limiting the stimulus presentation to 100 ms. Since the target identity changed randomly in both conditions, no manual response sequence was present in the task. However, target location was structured according to a deterministic sequence in both the EM and NEM condition. Learning of the target location sequence was determined at the end of the first session and 24 hours after initial learning. Results indicated that the sequence learning effect in the SRT task diminished, yet remained significant, over the 24 hour interval in both conditions. Importantly, the difference in eye movements had no impact on the transfer of sequence knowledge. These results suggest that the retention of visuospatial sequence knowledge occurs alike, irrespective of whether this knowledge is supported by eye movements or not.

  19. Letters to those who Dare Feel: Using Reflective Letter-Writing to Explore the Emotionality of Research

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan

    2012-02-01

    Full Text Available Using reflective letter-writing as a method of generating data, a group of four researchers embarked on a collaborative autoethnographic inquiry into the emotional dimensions of researching social aspects of HIV & AIDS. In this article, we use the medium of a narrative dialogue to represent and re-examine our reflective letter-writing method. The dialogue draws attention to key features of reflective letter-writing as a collaborative autoethnographic research method and, in so doing, highlights and explores the nature, potential significance, and challenges of this method. Our discussion points to the value of a collaborative process of reflective letter-writing as a way for researchers to access and portray emotional aspects of their research experience, to deepen their engagement with these emotional dimensions, and to gain insight into their own and others' lived research experiences.

  20. Use of Standard Guidelines for Department of Medicine Summary Letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fitz, Matthew; La Rochelle, Jeffrey; Lang, Valerie; DeWaay, Deborah; Adams, William; Nasraty, Farah

    2018-04-12

    Phenomenon: Fourth-year medical students obtain Department of Medicine (DOM) letters ("Chair" letters) to support their residency applications. Writing and interpreting DOM letters are challenging. There is heterogeneity in the letters that makes it difficult to both write and read these letters. The purpose of this study is to determine the value of new guidelines developed by a task force of clerkship directors and program directors in internal medicine and assess the implementation of these guidelines. The Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine performed a cross-sectional survey of internal medicine clerkship directors at U.S. and Canadian medical schools in 2014. In addition, the primary author's institution reviewed 1,347 DOM letters between 2012 and 2014 to assess the implementation of these guidelines. The survey response rate was 78%. DOM letter writers reported the guidelines were better, easier to implement, and more compatible with the purpose of DOM letters than previously. Most letter readers reported that letters using the guidelines were more credible. Writers of DOM letters in lower academic ranks rated the letters with guidelines higher in several domains than those in higher academic ranks. Readers of DOM letters in higher academic ranks rated the letters with guidelines higher in several domains than those in lower academic ranks. In the DOM letters examined, the odds of meeting each guideline increased with each additional year. However, for 3 guidelines there was an initial decline in adherence from 2012 to 2013 before increasing again in 2014-the recommended length, clerkship description, and detailed narrative guidelines. Letters solely written by a chair were less likely to incorporate the guidelines. Insights: Clerkship directors often write the DOM letters and identify with the purpose of the guidelines. As writers, lower ranking academic faculty value the guidelines more than higher ranking academic faculty. As readers of DOM letters

  1. Numbers, sequences and series

    CERN Document Server

    Hirst, Keith

    1994-01-01

    Number and geometry are the foundations upon which mathematics has been built over some 3000 years. This book is concerned with the logical foundations of number systems from integers to complex numbers. The author has chosen to develop the ideas by illustrating the techniques used throughout mathematics rather than using a self-contained logical treatise. The idea of proof has been emphasised, as has the illustration of concepts from a graphical, numerical and algebraic point of view. Having laid the foundations of the number system, the author has then turned to the analysis of infinite proc

  2. A Poisson hierarchical modelling approach to detecting copy number variation in sequence coverage data

    OpenAIRE

    Sep?lveda, Nuno; Campino, Susana G; Assefa, Samuel A; Sutherland, Colin J; Pain5, Arnab; Clark, Taane G

    2013-01-01

    BACKGROUND: The advent of next generation sequencing technology has accelerated efforts to map and catalogue copy number variation (CNV) in genomes of important micro-organisms for public health. A typical analysis of the sequence data involves mapping reads onto a reference genome, calculating the respective coverage, and detecting regions with too-low or too-high coverage (deletions and amplifications, respectively). Current CNV detection methods rely on statistical assumptions (e.g., a Poi...

  3. Assessing Mitochondrial DNA Variation and Copy Number in Lymphocytes of ~2,000 Sardinians Using Tailored Sequencing Analysis Tools.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jun Ding

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available DNA sequencing identifies common and rare genetic variants for association studies, but studies typically focus on variants in nuclear DNA and ignore the mitochondrial genome. In fact, analyzing variants in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA sequences presents special problems, which we resolve here with a general solution for the analysis of mtDNA in next-generation sequencing studies. The new program package comprises 1 an algorithm designed to identify mtDNA variants (i.e., homoplasmies and heteroplasmies, incorporating sequencing error rates at each base in a likelihood calculation and allowing allele fractions at a variant site to differ across individuals; and 2 an estimation of mtDNA copy number in a cell directly from whole-genome sequencing data. We also apply the methods to DNA sequence from lymphocytes of ~2,000 SardiNIA Project participants. As expected, mothers and offspring share all homoplasmies but a lesser proportion of heteroplasmies. Both homoplasmies and heteroplasmies show 5-fold higher transition/transversion ratios than variants in nuclear DNA. Also, heteroplasmy increases with age, though on average only ~1 heteroplasmy reaches the 4% level between ages 20 and 90. In addition, we find that mtDNA copy number averages ~110 copies/lymphocyte and is ~54% heritable, implying substantial genetic regulation of the level of mtDNA. Copy numbers also decrease modestly but significantly with age, and females on average have significantly more copies than males. The mtDNA copy numbers are significantly associated with waist circumference (p-value = 0.0031 and waist-hip ratio (p-value = 2.4×10-5, but not with body mass index, indicating an association with central fat distribution. To our knowledge, this is the largest population analysis to date of mtDNA dynamics, revealing the age-imposed increase in heteroplasmy, the relatively high heritability of copy number, and the association of copy number with metabolic traits.

  4. Continuous Online Sequence Learning with an Unsupervised Neural Network Model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cui, Yuwei; Ahmad, Subutar; Hawkins, Jeff

    2016-09-14

    The ability to recognize and predict temporal sequences of sensory inputs is vital for survival in natural environments. Based on many known properties of cortical neurons, hierarchical temporal memory (HTM) sequence memory recently has been proposed as a theoretical framework for sequence learning in the cortex. In this letter, we analyze properties of HTM sequence memory and apply it to sequence learning and prediction problems with streaming data. We show the model is able to continuously learn a large number of variableorder temporal sequences using an unsupervised Hebbian-like learning rule. The sparse temporal codes formed by the model can robustly handle branching temporal sequences by maintaining multiple predictions until there is sufficient disambiguating evidence. We compare the HTM sequence memory with other sequence learning algorithms, including statistical methods: autoregressive integrated moving average; feedforward neural networks-time delay neural network and online sequential extreme learning machine; and recurrent neural networks-long short-term memory and echo-state networks on sequence prediction problems with both artificial and real-world data. The HTM model achieves comparable accuracy to other state-of-the-art algorithms. The model also exhibits properties that are critical for sequence learning, including continuous online learning, the ability to handle multiple predictions and branching sequences with high-order statistics, robustness to sensor noise and fault tolerance, and good performance without task-specific hyperparameter tuning. Therefore, the HTM sequence memory not only advances our understanding of how the brain may solve the sequence learning problem but is also applicable to real-world sequence learning problems from continuous data streams.

  5. Faces in the Mist: Illusory Face and Letter Detection

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cory A. Rieth

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available We report three behavioral experiments on the spatial characteristics evoking illusory face and letter detection. False detections made to pure noise images were analyzed using a modified reverse correlation method in which hundreds of observers rated a modest number of noise images (480 during a single session. This method was originally developed for brain imaging research, and has been used in a number of fMRI publications, but this is the first report of the behavioral classification images. In Experiment 1 illusory face detection occurred in response to scattered dark patches throughout the images, with a bias to the left visual field. This occurred despite the use of a fixation cross and expectations that faces would be centered. In contrast, illusory letter detection (Experiment 2 occurred in response to centrally positioned dark patches. Experiment 3 included an oval in all displays to spatially constrain illusory face detection. With the addition of this oval the classification image revealed an eyes/nose/mouth pattern. These results suggest that face detection is triggered by a minimal face-like pattern even when these features are not centered in visual focus.

  6. Association between sequence variants in panicle development genes and the number of spikelets per panicle in rice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jang, Su; Lee, Yunjoo; Lee, Gileung; Seo, Jeonghwan; Lee, Dongryung; Yu, Yoye; Chin, Joong Hyoun; Koh, Hee-Jong

    2018-01-15

    Balancing panicle-related traits such as panicle length and the numbers of primary and secondary branches per panicle, is key to improving the number of spikelets per panicle in rice. Identifying genetic information contributes to a broader understanding of the roles of gene and provides candidate alleles for use as DNA markers. Discovering relations between panicle-related traits and sequence variants allows opportunity for molecular application in rice breeding to improve the number of spikelets per panicle. In total, 142 polymorphic sites, which constructed 58 haplotypes, were detected in coding regions of ten panicle development gene and 35 sequence variants in six genes were significantly associated with panicle-related traits. Rice cultivars were clustered according to their sequence variant profiles. One of the four resultant clusters, which contained only indica and tong-il varieties, exhibited the largest average number of favorable alleles and highest average number of spikelets per panicle, suggesting that the favorable allele combination found in this cluster was beneficial in increasing the number of spikelets per panicle. Favorable alleles identified in this study can be used to develop functional markers for rice breeding programs. Furthermore, stacking several favorable alleles has the potential to substantially improve the number of spikelets per panicle in rice.

  7. Maritime Geo-Fence Letter Report

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-07-01

    1 Classification | CG-926 RDC | author | audience | month year Maritime Geo-Fence Letter Report Authors: Irene Gonin and Gregory...Johnson   Distribution Statement A: Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. July 2016 Report No. CG-D-10-16 Maritime Geo-Fence...United States Coast Guard Research & Development Center 1 Chelsea Street New London, CT 06320 Maritime Geo-Fence Letter Report 1

  8. The role of sensorimotor learning in the perception of letter-like forms: tracking the causes of neural specialization for letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    James, Karin H; Atwood, Thea P

    2009-02-01

    Functional specialization in the brain is considered a hallmark of efficient processing. It is therefore not surprising that there are brain areas specialized for processing letters. To better understand the causes of functional specialization for letters, we explore the emergence of this pattern of response in the ventral processing stream through a training paradigm. Previously, we hypothesized that the specialized response pattern seen during letter perception may be due in part to our experience in writing letters. The work presented here investigates whether or not this aspect of letter processing-the integration of sensorimotor systems through writing-leads to functional specialization in the visual system. To test this idea, we investigated whether or not different types of experiences with letter-like stimuli ("pseudoletters") led to functional specialization similar to that which exists for letters. Neural activation patterns were measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after three different types of training sessions. Participants were trained to recognize pseudoletters by writing, typing, or purely visual practice. Results suggested that only after writing practice did neural activation patterns to pseudoletters resemble patterns seen for letters. That is, neural activation in the left fusiform and dorsal precentral gyrus was greater when participants viewed pseudoletters than other, similar stimuli but only after writing experience. Neural activation also increased after typing practice in the right fusiform and left precentral gyrus, suggesting that in some areas, any motor experience may change visual processing. The results of this experiment suggest an intimate interaction among perceptual and motor systems during pseudoletter perception that may be extended to everyday letter perception.

  9. Teaching Complaint and Adjustment Letters--And Tact (My Favorite Assignment).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deimling, Paula

    1992-01-01

    Describes a three-part assignment in which each student writes a complaint letter and an adjustment letter responding to another student's complaint letter. Discusses how the third part of the assignment--journal entries--allows students to formulate their own criteria for excellent letters based upon their reactions to the letters they receive.…

  10. Exploring Corporate Rhetoric: Metadiscourse in the CEO's Letter.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hyland, Ken

    1998-01-01

    Examines how metadiscourse is used to create a positive corporate image in 137 CEOs' letters, showing how CEOs use nonpropositional material to realize rational, credible, and affective appeals. Reveals the essentially rhetorical nature of CEOs' letters by comparing the frequency and distribution of metadiscourse in their letters and directors'…

  11. Angles of Refraction: The Letters of Mary Delany

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eleonora Chiavetta

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Mary Delany (1700-1788 is particularly famous for her paper-cuttings or ‘mosaicks’ based on botanical subjects. A very lively woman of fashion, she was close to Queen Charlotte and one of the Bluestocking Ladies. She left a vivid portrait of life and society in eighteenth century England and Ireland in the six volumes of her Autobiography and Letters, edited in 1861 by her descendant Lady Llanover. Her autobiography is made up of 18 letters sent to her most intimate friend, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Portland. The first letter is dated 1740, but in this, as in the following ones, Mrs. Delany narrates her past life to her friend, starting from the early years of her life, describing her unhappy marriage, financial difficulties as a widow, and family relationships. Along with these ‘autobiographical’ letters, other letters written by her to her sister Ann are introduced, which date to the periods of life Mrs. Delany is dealing with. The aim of this paper is to focus on the textual, linguistic and content differences between the two letter types, and analyse how the identity of Mary Delany is differently constructed and perceived in the explicit autobiographical letters addressed to the Duchess of Portland, and the ones written to her sister. 

  12. Student Teacher Letters of Reference: A Critical Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mason, Richard W.; Schroeder, Mark P.

    2012-01-01

    Letters of reference are commonly used in acquiring a job in education. Despite serious issues of validity and reliability in writing and evaluating letters, there is a dearth of research that systematically examines the evaluation process and defines the constructs that define high quality letters. The current study used NVivo to examine 160…

  13. Time and Number Discrimination in a Bisection Task with a Sequence of Stimuli: A Developmental Approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Droit-Volet, Sylvie; Clement, Angelique; Fayol, Michel

    2003-01-01

    This study tested 5- and 8-year-olds and adults in a bisection task with a sequence of stimuli in which time and number co-varied. Findings indicated that the number of stimuli interfered with 5-year-olds' performance on the temporal bisection task. Number interference decreased both with age and counting strategy. In the numerical bisection task,…

  14. Sixty-Minute Review of Letter Writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cunningham, Donald H.; Graham, Louise

    1974-01-01

    The article describes a one-hour presentation which provides a basic stereotyped pattern of letter organization for the four types of letters (order, request, claim, and reply) the business of secretarial student is most likely to have to write. The four paragraphs of the pattern are: purpose, explanation, optional, and closing. (AG)

  15. An investigation of application of the golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence in fashion design and pattern making

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kazlacheva, Z. I.

    2017-10-01

    The Golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence are used as proportions in design as symbols of beauty and harmony. That symbolism is a result of the strong connections in their mathematical nature. The Golden section is a number, introduced with Greek letter φ, which is found by dividing a line into two parts as the longer part divided by the smaller part is equal as the whole length of longer and smaller parts divided by the longer part. Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers where every number is equal to the two numbers before it. An investigation of application of proportions based on the Golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence in the fashion design and pattern making of ladies’ clothing is the main aim of the paper. Based on the study it may be concluded that in fashion design and pattern making the Golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence can be used in creation of beautiful and harmonic forms directly or with the help of geometrical figures as: In directly use the Golden and Fibonacci numbers proportions can be in one and the same or different directions. In the application with the help of geometrical shapes the Golden and Fibonacci figures combine proportioning and form creation. The Golden and Fibonacci shapes can be used directly as forms or as frames of forms creation of elements and pieces. Its application can be in different directions and location according the bodice. The Golden section and Fibonacci sequence can combine proportions with other principles of design as symmetry, rhythm, etc.

  16. Improved communication in post-ICU care by improving writing of ICU discharge letters: a longitudinal before-after study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Medlock, Stephanie; Eslami, Saeid; Askari, Marjan; van Lieshout, Erik Jan; Dongelmans, Dave A; Abu-Hanna, Ameen

    2011-11-01

    The discharge letter is the primary means of communication at patient discharge, yet discharge letters are often not completed on time. A multifaceted intervention was performed to improve communication in patient hand-off from the intensive care unit (ICU) to the wards by improving the timeliness of discharge letters. A management directive was operationalised by a working group of ICU staff in a longitudinal before-after study. The intervention consisted of (a) changing policy to require a letter for use as a transfer note at the time of ICU discharge, (b) changing the assignment of responsibility to an automatic process, (c) leveraging positive peer pressure by making the list of patients in need of letters visible to colleagues and (d) provision of decision support, through automatic copying of important content from the patient record to the letter and email reminders if letters were not written on time. Statistical process control charts were used to monitor the longitudinal effect of the intervention. The intervention resulted in a 77.9% absolute improvement in the proportion of patients with a complete transfer note at the time of discharge, and an 85.2% absolute improvement in the number of discharge letters written. Statistical process control shows that the effect was sustained over time. A multifaceted intervention can be highly effective for improving discharge communication from the ICU.

  17. Parent-administered computer-assisted tutoring targeting letter-sound knowledge: Evaluation via multiple-baseline across three preschool students.

    Science.gov (United States)

    DuBois, Matthew R; Volpe, Robert J; Burns, Matthew K; Hoffman, Jessica A

    2016-12-01

    Knowledge of letters sounds has been identified as a primary objective of preschool instruction and intervention. Despite this designation, large disparities exist in the number of letter sounds children know at school entry. Enhancing caregivers' ability to teach their preschool-aged children letter sounds may represent an effective practice for reducing this variability and ensuring that more children are prepared to experience early school success. This study used a non-concurrent multiple-baseline-across-participants design to evaluate the effectiveness of caregivers (N=3) delivering a computer-assisted tutoring program (Tutoring Buddy) targeting letter sound knowledge to their preschool-aged children. Visual analyses and effect size estimates derived from Percentage of All Non-Overlapping Data (PAND) statistics indicated consistent results for letter sound acquisition, as 6weeks of intervention yielded large effects for letter sound knowledge (LSK) across all three children. Large effect sizes were also found for letter sound fluency (LSF) and nonsense word fluency (NWF) for two children. All three caregivers rated the intervention as highly usable and were able to administer it with high levels of fidelity. Taken together, the results of the present study found Tutoring Buddy to be an effective, simple, and usable way for the caregivers to support their children's literacy development. Copyright © 2016 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Initial and noninitial name-letter preferences as obtained through repeated letter rating tasks continue to reflect (different aspects of) self-esteem.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoorens, Vera; Takano, Keisuke; Franck, Erik; Roberts, John E; Raes, Filip

    2015-09-01

    We tested the usefulness of name-letter preference scores as indirect indicators of self-esteem by exploring whether multiple unsupervised self-administrations of letter rating tasks within a short period of time yield useful data. We also examined whether preferences for initials and noninitial name-letters tap different aspects of self-esteem. Participants from a community sample (N = 164; 58 men and 106 women, 17-67 years, Mage = 34.57, SD = 13.28) completed daily letter rating tasks and state self-esteem questionnaires for 7 consecutive days. They also completed a trait self-esteem questionnaire on the first measurement day as well as 6 months later. Preference scores for first-name initials were stronger but more unstable than preference scores for other name-letters. Preferences for first-name initials were primarily associated with directly measured state self-esteem whereas preferences for noninitials were primarily associated with directly measured trait self-esteem even if the latter was measured 6 months later. Thus, we showed that preferences for initials and noninitials are not simply interchangeable. Previous letter rating studies, which almost exclusively used initial preferences, should be interpreted in terms of state rather than trait self-esteem. In future studies, researchers should focus on the name-letter preference that reflects the aspect of self-esteem they wish to address. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

  19. Advice letter on policy instruments renewable electricity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2011-01-01

    In a letter of July 2010 the Energy Council made recommendations for a policy framework with more obligations and fewer subsidies. This included the Energy Council's advice to investigate whether the introduction of a supplier obligation could play a major role in the realisation of the CO2 emission target of the Netherlands and increase the share of renewable energy in line with European agreements. This advice letter deals with one aspect of the broader considerations: the share of renewable electricity and the kind of incentive framework that is needed to achieve the target concerned. In this letter we will examine the possibilities of the SDE+ support (financial incentive for renewable energy) scheme and the supplier obligation, the effects on the market and the consequences for achieving the target. This letter closes with conclusions and recommendations. [nl

  20. Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story

    OpenAIRE

    Rosen, Michael

    2013-01-01

    From minding your Ps and Qs to wondering why X should mark the spot, Alphabetical is a book for everyone who loves words and language. Whether it's how letters are arranged on keyboards or Viking runes, textspeak or zip codes, this book will change the way you think about letters for ever. How on Earth did we fix upon our twenty-six letters, what do they really mean, and how did we come to write them down in the first place? Michael Rosen takes you on an unforgettable adventure through the hi...

  1. Visual and Artistic Functions of Letters in Khaghani’s Poetry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohsen Zolfaghari

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract The intensity of emotion and fluctuation of meaning in the poet's mind causes him to go beyond the ordinary language and convey intellectual and emotional meanings through metaphors, similes and linguistic preparations. He has sharp eyes and a sensitive spirit and creative temperament and attempts strengthening his own literary language and creating personal style by inventing novel images, showing the creativity and imagination and entering in various arenas of imagination. This point more than anything else could be done by presenting images and new figures. Perhaps in the sixth century, and especially in Azerbaijani school, more than other periods, poets have been looking for creating innovative style in eloquence. Their major attempts were mainly in imaging, a wide field that they have competed. It is obvious that in this illustration the alphabet letters would be very helpful. Khaghani's Divan of poetry, as one of the greatest poets of this school, is the perfect poetical book of paintings in which meaning has been hidden under a delicate pattern and new different scientific, cultural and religious images. Letters are a broad range of elements that put a new field in front of the poet and he is aware of the potential features of the letters, new images, and artistic creativity techniques as well. This paper shows descriptive - analytical study of various aspects of Khaghani’s poetry and frequency of letters in the alphabet letters, alphabetic-based authenticity of images, different similarity reasons, semantic and literal multi-relevance of letters in the context of poetry, producing figures of speech based on letters, sensational relationship exists between images and letters which have been shown in his poetry. Letter have a double and even multiple application in Khaghani's poetic works (divan and moreover the construction of words and conveying meaning which is the real and common usage, they were used as artistic instruments

  2. Referral letter with an attached structured reply form: Is it a solution for not getting replies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R. P. J. C. Ramanayake

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Communication between primary care doctors and specialists/hospital doctors is vital for smooth functioning of a health care system. In many instances referral and reply letters are the sole means of communication between general practitioners and hospital doctors/specialists. Despite the obvious benefits to patient care, answers to referral letters are the exception worldwide. In Sri Lanka hand written conventional letters are used to refer patients and replies are scarce. Materials and Methods: This interventional study was designed to assess if attaching a structured reply form with the referral letter would increase the rate of replies/back-referrals. It was conducted at the Family Medicine Clinic of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya. A structured referral letter (form was designed based on guide lines and literature and it was used for referral of patients for a period of six months. Similarly a structured reply form was also designed and both the referral letter and the reply letter were printed on A4 papers side by side and these were used for the next six months for referrals. Both letters had headings and space underneath to write details pertaining to the patient. A register was maintained to document the number of referrals and replies received during both phases. Patents were asked to return the reply letters if specialists/hospital doctors obliged to reply. Results: Total of 90 patients were referred using the structured referral form during 1st phase. 80 letters (with reply form attached were issued during the next six months. Patients were referred to eight different specialties. Not a single reply during the 1 st phase and there were six 6 (7.5% replies during the 2 nd phase. Discussion: This was an attempt to improve communication between specialists/hospital doctors and primary care doctors. Even though there was some improvement it was not satisfactory. A multicenter island wide study should be

  3. The Indirect Empathic Approach to Claim Letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bell, James D.

    1985-01-01

    In discussing letter-writing methods for business communication classes, the article explains that claim letter formats other than the direct approach are not only legitimate, but also effective, and suggests that the approach selected should depend upon the circumstances surrounding the claim. (CT)

  4. Culture and subculture in transactional letter writing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Shaw, Philip; Okamura, Akiko

    2000-01-01

    This study examines the relative contributions of subculture membership and mother-tongue status/target culture membership in writing transactional letters. We examined the letters accompanying articles initially submitted for publication by 26 NSE and 23 NNSE academics, and compared them with ef...

  5. ABI Base Recall: Automatic Correction and Ends Trimming of DNA Sequences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elyazghi, Zakaria; Yazouli, Loubna El; Sadki, Khalid; Radouani, Fouzia

    2017-12-01

    Automated DNA sequencers produce chromatogram files in ABI format. When viewing chromatograms, some ambiguities are shown at various sites along the DNA sequences, because the program implemented in the sequencing machine and used to call bases cannot always precisely determine the right nucleotide, especially when it is represented by either a broad peak or a set of overlaying peaks. In such cases, a letter other than A, C, G, or T is recorded, most commonly N. Thus, DNA sequencing chromatograms need manual examination: checking for mis-calls and truncating the sequence when errors become too frequent. The purpose of this paper is to develop a program allowing the automatic correction of these ambiguities. This application is a Web-based program powered by Shiny and runs under R platform for an easy exploitation. As a part of the interface, we added the automatic ends clipping option, alignment against reference sequences, and BLAST. To develop and test our tool, we collected several bacterial DNA sequences from different laboratories within Institut Pasteur du Maroc and performed both manual and automatic correction. The comparison between the two methods was carried out. As a result, we note that our program, ABI base recall, accomplishes good correction with a high accuracy. Indeed, it increases the rate of identity and coverage and minimizes the number of mismatches and gaps, hence it provides solution to sequencing ambiguities and saves biologists' time and labor.

  6. Effects of Temporal Sequencing and Auditory Discrimination on Children's Memory Patterns for Tones, Numbers, and Nonsense Words

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gromko, Joyce Eastlund; Hansen, Dee; Tortora, Anne Halloran; Higgins, Daniel; Boccia, Eric

    2009-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine whether children's recall of tones, numbers, and words was supported by a common temporal sequencing mechanism; whether children's patterns of memory for tones, numbers, and nonsense words were the same despite differences in symbol systems; and whether children's recall of tones, numbers, and nonsense…

  7. Recurrence Relations and Generating Functions of the Sequence of Sums of Corresponding Factorials and Triangular Numbers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Romer C. Castillo

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available This study established some recurrence relations and exponential generating functions of the sequence of factoriangular numbers. A factoriangular number is defined as a sum of corresponding factorial and triangular number. The proofs utilize algebraic manipulations with some known results from calculus, particularly on power series and Maclaurin’s series. The recurrence relations were found by manipulating the formula defining a factoringular number while the ascertained exponential generating functions were in the closed form.

  8. Age-Related Declines in Early Sensory Memory: Identification of Rapid Auditory and Visual Stimulus Sequences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fogerty, Daniel; Humes, Larry E; Busey, Thomas A

    2016-01-01

    Age-related temporal-processing declines of rapidly presented sequences may involve contributions of sensory memory. This study investigated recall for rapidly presented auditory (vowel) and visual (letter) sequences presented at six different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) that spanned threshold SOAs for sequence identification. Younger, middle-aged, and older adults participated in all tasks. Results were investigated at both equivalent performance levels (i.e., SOA threshold) and at identical physical stimulus values (i.e., SOAs). For four-item sequences, results demonstrated best performance for the first and last items in the auditory sequences, but only the first item for visual sequences. For two-item sequences, adults identified the second vowel or letter significantly better than the first. Overall, when temporal-order performance was equated for each individual by testing at SOA thresholds, recall accuracy for each position across the age groups was highly similar. These results suggest that modality-specific processing declines of older adults primarily determine temporal-order performance for rapid sequences. However, there is some evidence for a second amodal processing decline in older adults related to early sensory memory for final items in a sequence. This selective deficit was observed particularly for longer sequence lengths and was not accounted for by temporal masking.

  9. The temporal dynamics of implicit processing of non-letter, letter, and word-forms in the human visual cortex

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lawrence Gregory Appelbaum

    2009-11-01

    Full Text Available The decoding of visually presented line segments into letters, and letters into words, is critical to fluent reading abilities. Here we investigate the temporal dynamics of visual orthographic processes, focusing specifically on right hemisphere contributions and interactions between the hemispheres involved in the implicit processing of visually presented words, consonants, false fonts, and symbolic strings. High-density EEG was recorded while participants detected infrequent, simple, perceptual targets (dot strings embedded amongst a of character strings. Beginning at 130ms, orthographic and non-orthographic stimuli were distinguished by a sequence of ERP effects over occipital recording sites. These early latency occipital effects were dominated by enhanced right-sided negative-polarity activation for non-orthographic stimuli that peaked at around 180ms. This right-sided effect was followed by bilateral positive occipital activity for false-fonts, but not symbol strings. Moreover the size of components of this later positive occipital wave was inversely correlated with the right-sided ROcc180 wave, suggesting that subjects who had larger early right-sided activation for non-orthographic stimuli had less need for more extended bilateral (e.g. interhemispheric processing of those stimuli shortly later. Additional early (130-150ms negative-polarity activity over left occipital cortex and longer-latency centrally distributed responses (>300ms were present, likely reflecting implicit activation of the previously reported ‘visual-word-form’ area and N400-related responses, respectively. Collectively, these results provide a close look at some relatively unexplored portions of the temporal flow of information processing in the brain related to the implicit processing of potentially linguistic information and provide valuable information about the interactions between hemispheres supporting visual orthographic processing.

  10. 50 CFR 216.257 - Letters of Authorization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE MARINE MAMMALS REGULATIONS GOVERNING THE TAKING AND IMPORTING OF MARINE MAMMALS Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Conducting Precision Strike Weapon Missions in the Gulf of Mexico § 216.257 Letters of Authorization. (a) A Letter of Authorization, unless suspended or revoked...

  11. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2004-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains nine separate letters on data on elastic (p,n) charge exchange: compilation, the potentialities of δ-electron control of luminosity in experiments with internal targets at the Nuclotron, pion broadening and low-mass dilepton production, fluctuation of electromagnetic cascade axis in dense amorphous segmented media, the forward detector of the ANKE spectrometer. Tracking system and its use in data analysis, quantum field theory with three-dimensional vector time, curvature decomposition and the Einstein-Yang-Mills equations, an integral equation for the spinor amplitude of a massive neutral Dirac particle in a curved space time with arbitrary geometry and surprising resonances in 147 Sm(nα) 144 Nd reaction

  12. Next-Generation Sequencing-Based Detection of Germline Copy Number Variations in BRCA1/BRCA2

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schmidt, Ane Y; Hansen, Thomas V O; Ahlborn, Lise B

    2017-01-01

    Genetic testing of BRCA1/2 includes screening for single nucleotide variants and small insertions/deletions and for larger copy number variations (CNVs), primarily by Sanger sequencing and multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA). With the advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS)...

  13. Experimental test of contemporary mathematical models of visual letter recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Townsend, J T; Ashby, F G

    1982-12-01

    A letter confusion experiment that used brief durations manipulated payoffs across the four stimulus letters, which were composed of line segments equal in length. The observers were required to report the features they perceived as well as to give a letter response. The early feature-sampling process is separated from the later letter-decision process in the substantive feature models, and predictions are thus obtained for the frequencies of feature report as well as letter report. Four substantive visual feature-processing models are developed and tested against one another and against three models of a more descriptive nature. The substantive models predict the decisional letter report phase much better than they do the feature-sampling phase, but the best overall 4 X 4 letter confusion matrix fits are obtained with one of the descriptive models, the similarity choice model. The present and other recent results suggest that the assumption that features are sampled in a stochastically independent manner may not be generally valid. The traditional high-threshold conceptualization of feature sampling is also falsified by the frequent reporting by observers of features not contained in the stimulus letter.

  14. Littlewood and Number Theory

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    IAS Admin

    improved by Selberg [4] in 1941 who showed that a pos- ... be seen by entries of his first letter to G H Hardy in ... tary in the technical sense of the word, employed com- ..... III: On the expression of a number as a sum of primes, Acta Math.,.

  15. Guilt and indignation in Folha de S. Paulo readers’ letters: a study about the discursive construction of the tragedy in Santa Maria

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paulo Roberto Gonçalves Segundo

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available This article aims to describe and analyze, through a representational and negotiative approach, the discursive construction of the fire that took place in the dance club Kiss, in Santa Maria, in January 2013, based on a corpus composed by readers’ letters published in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo in the days that followed the event. In order to do so, we used theoretical presuppositions and analytical categories related to systemic functional linguistics, focusing on the relation between lexicon-grammatical and discursive-semantic classes in terms of the ideational and interpersonal metafunctions. We concluded that these letters are marked by the prevalence of critical and exhortative text models, marked by a high incidence of negative judgments of social esteem and social sanction, focused on the construction of a frame of incapacity, omission and impropriety, responsible for the recurrence of this kind of events. Thus, there are, in this letters, evidences of the updating of a rhetoric-affective sequence of indignation – that supports the conception of several letters – embedded in the critical and exhortative models of textual production.

  16. DEEPre: sequence-based enzyme EC number prediction by deep learning

    KAUST Repository

    Li, Yu

    2017-10-20

    Annotation of enzyme function has a broad range of applications, such as metagenomics, industrial biotechnology, and diagnosis of enzyme deficiency-caused diseases. However, the time and resource required make it prohibitively expensive to experimentally determine the function of every enzyme. Therefore, computational enzyme function prediction has become increasingly important. In this paper, we develop such an approach, determining the enzyme function by predicting the Enzyme Commission number.We propose an end-to-end feature selection and classification model training approach, as well as an automatic and robust feature dimensionality uniformization method, DEEPre, in the field of enzyme function prediction. Instead of extracting manuallycrafted features from enzyme sequences, our model takes the raw sequence encoding as inputs, extracting convolutional and sequential features from the raw encoding based on the classification result to directly improve the prediction performance. The thorough cross-fold validation experiments conducted on two large-scale datasets show that DEEPre improves the prediction performance over the previous state-of-the-art methods. In addition, our server outperforms five other servers in determining the main class of enzymes on a separate low-homology dataset. Two case studies demonstrate DEEPre\\'s ability to capture the functional difference of enzyme isoforms.The server could be accessed freely at http://www.cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/DEEPre.

  17. DEEPre: sequence-based enzyme EC number prediction by deep learning

    KAUST Repository

    Li, Yu; Wang, Sheng; Umarov, Ramzan; Xie, Bingqing; Fan, Ming; Li, Lihua; Gao, Xin

    2017-01-01

    Annotation of enzyme function has a broad range of applications, such as metagenomics, industrial biotechnology, and diagnosis of enzyme deficiency-caused diseases. However, the time and resource required make it prohibitively expensive to experimentally determine the function of every enzyme. Therefore, computational enzyme function prediction has become increasingly important. In this paper, we develop such an approach, determining the enzyme function by predicting the Enzyme Commission number.We propose an end-to-end feature selection and classification model training approach, as well as an automatic and robust feature dimensionality uniformization method, DEEPre, in the field of enzyme function prediction. Instead of extracting manuallycrafted features from enzyme sequences, our model takes the raw sequence encoding as inputs, extracting convolutional and sequential features from the raw encoding based on the classification result to directly improve the prediction performance. The thorough cross-fold validation experiments conducted on two large-scale datasets show that DEEPre improves the prediction performance over the previous state-of-the-art methods. In addition, our server outperforms five other servers in determining the main class of enzymes on a separate low-homology dataset. Two case studies demonstrate DEEPre's ability to capture the functional difference of enzyme isoforms.The server could be accessed freely at http://www.cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/DEEPre.

  18. When Do First Letters Mnemonics Aid Recall?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morris, P. E.; Cook, N.

    1978-01-01

    The evidence for the effectiveness of the first letter mnemonic technique is confused. There are at least three studies showing no effect, and one where an improvement in recall occurred. Reports two experiments which attempted to locate the conditions under which the first letter mnemonic is effective. (Author/RK)

  19. Extra-large letter spacing improves reading in dyslexia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zorzi, Marco; Barbiero, Chiara; Facoetti, Andrea; Lonciari, Isabella; Carrozzi, Marco; Montico, Marcella; Bravar, Laura; George, Florence; Pech-Georgel, Catherine; Ziegler, Johannes C.

    2012-01-01

    Although the causes of dyslexia are still debated, all researchers agree that the main challenge is to find ways that allow a child with dyslexia to read more words in less time, because reading more is undisputedly the most efficient intervention for dyslexia. Sophisticated training programs exist, but they typically target the component skills of reading, such as phonological awareness. After the component skills have improved, the main challenge remains (that is, reading deficits must be treated by reading more—a vicious circle for a dyslexic child). Here, we show that a simple manipulation of letter spacing substantially improved text reading performance on the fly (without any training) in a large, unselected sample of Italian and French dyslexic children. Extra-large letter spacing helps reading, because dyslexics are abnormally affected by crowding, a perceptual phenomenon with detrimental effects on letter recognition that is modulated by the spacing between letters. Extra-large letter spacing may help to break the vicious circle by rendering the reading material more easily accessible. PMID:22665803

  20. The Predictive Validity of Teacher Candidate Letters of Reference

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mason, Richard W.; Schroeder, Mark P.

    2014-01-01

    Letters of reference are widely used as an essential part of the hiring process of newly licensed teachers. While the predictive validity of these letters of reference has been called into question it has never been empirically studied. The current study examined the predictive validity of the quality of letters of reference for forty-one student…

  1. Teaching letter sounds to kindergarten English language learners using incremental rehearsal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peterson, Meredith; Brandes, Dana; Kunkel, Amy; Wilson, Jennifer; Rahn, Naomi L; Egan, Andrea; McComas, Jennifer

    2014-02-01

    Proficiency in letter-sound correspondence is important for decoding connected text. This study examined the effects of an evidence-based intervention, incremental rehearsal (IR), on the letter-sound expression of three kindergarten English language learners (ELLs) performing below the district benchmark for letter-sound fluency. Participants were native speakers of Hmong, Spanish, and Polish. A multiple-baseline design across sets of unknown letter sounds was used to evaluate the effects of IR on letter-sound expression. Visual analysis of the data showed an increase in level and trend when IR was introduced in each phase. Percentage of all non-overlapping data (PAND) ranged from 95% to 100%. All participants exceeded expected growth and reached the spring district benchmark for letter-sound fluency. Results suggest that IR is a promising intervention for increasing letter-sound expression for ELLs who evidence delays in acquiring letter sounds. Copyright © 2013 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. 40 CFR 280.99 - Letter of credit.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... (UST) Financial Responsibility § 280.99 Letter of credit. (a) An owner or operator may satisfy the... brackets are to be replaced with the relevant information and the brackets deleted: Irrevocable Standby.... We certify that the wording of this letter of credit is identical to the wording specified in 40 CFR...

  3. Particles and Nuclei, Letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2004-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains eight separate letters on analysis of experimental data on relativistic nuclear collisions in the Lobachevski space, relativistic contribution of the final-state interaction to deuteron photodisintegration, on the charge asymmetry of the like-sign lepton pairs induced by B - B bar - production asymmetry, limits on the ν e → ν e neutrino oscillation parameters from an experiment at the IHEP-JINR neutrino detector, excitation of high spin isomers in photonuclear reactions, study of product formation in proton-nuclear reactions on the 129 I target induced by 660-MeV protons, application of jet pumps in the cryogenic system of the Nuclotron - superconducting accelerator of relativistic particles and study of the silicon drift detector performance with inclined tracks

  4. Hidden Markov model-derived structural alphabet for proteins: the learning of protein local shapes captures sequence specificity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Camproux, A C; Tufféry, P

    2005-08-05

    Understanding and predicting protein structures depend on the complexity and the accuracy of the models used to represent them. We have recently set up a Hidden Markov Model to optimally compress protein three-dimensional conformations into a one-dimensional series of letters of a structural alphabet. Such a model learns simultaneously the shape of representative structural letters describing the local conformation and the logic of their connections, i.e. the transition matrix between the letters. Here, we move one step further and report some evidence that such a model of protein local architecture also captures some accurate amino acid features. All the letters have specific and distinct amino acid distributions. Moreover, we show that words of amino acids can have significant propensities for some letters. Perspectives point towards the prediction of the series of letters describing the structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence.

  5. From algorithmic computing to direct retrieval: evidence from number and alphabetic arithmetic in children and adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barrouillet, P; Fayol, M

    1998-03-01

    A number of theories of mental arithmetic suggest that the ability to solve simple addition and subtraction problems develops from an algorithmic strategy toward a strategy based on the direct retrieval of the result from memory. In the experiment presented here, 2nd and 12th graders were asked to solve two tasks of number and alphabet arithmetic. The subjects transformed series of 1 to 4 numbers or letters (item span) by adding or subtracting an operand varying from 1 to 4 (operation span). Although both the item and operation span were associated with major and identical effects in the case of both numbers and letters at 2nd grade, such effects were clearly observable only in the case of letters for the adult subjects. This suggests the use of an algorithmic strategy for both types of material in the case of the children and for the letters only in the case of the adults, who retrieved numerical results directly from memory.

  6. Peer assessment of outpatient consultation letters – feasibility and satisfaction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dojeiji Suzan

    2007-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Written correspondence is one of the most important forms of communication between health care providers, yet there is little feedback provided to specialists. The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility and satisfaction of a peer assessment program on consultation letters and to determine inter-rater reliability between family physicians and specialists. Methods A rating scale of nine 5-point Likert scale items including specific content, style items, education value of the letter and an overall rating was developed from a previous validated tool. Nine Internal Medicine specialists/subspecialists from two tertiary care centres submitted 10 letters with patient and physician identifiers removed. Two Internal Medicine specialists, and 2 family physicians from the other centre rated each letter (to protect writer anonymity. A satisfaction survey was sent to each writer and rater after collation of the results. A follow-up survey was sent 6–8 months later. Results There was a high degree of satisfaction with the process and feedback. The rating scale information was felt to be useful and appropriate for evaluating the quality of consultation letters by 6/7 writers. 5/7 seven writers felt that the feedback they received resulted in immediate changes to their letters. Six months later, 6/9 writers indicated they had maintained changes in their letters. Raters rank ordered letters similarly (Cronbach's alpha 0.57–0.84 but mean scores were highly variant. At site 1 there were significant differences in scoring brevity (p Conclusion Most participants found peer assessment of letters feasible and beneficial and longstanding changes occurred in some individuals. Family physicians and specialists appear to have different expectations on some items. Further studies on reliability and validity, with a larger sample, are required before high stakes professional assessments include consultation letters.

  7. Bamgineer: Introduction of simulated allele-specific copy number variants into exome and targeted sequence data sets

    OpenAIRE

    Bruce, Jeff; Pugh, Trevor; Samadian, Soroush

    2017-01-01

    Somatic copy number variations (CNVs) play a crucial role in development of many human cancers. The broad availability of next-generation sequencing data has enabled the development of algorithms to computationally infer CNV profiles from a variety of data types including exome and targeted sequence data; currently the most prevalent types of cancer genomics data. However, systemic evaluation and comparison of these tools remains challenging due to a lack of ground truth reference sets. To ad...

  8. Pseudo-synesthesia through reading books with colored letters.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olympia Colizoli

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Synesthesia is a phenomenon where a stimulus produces consistent extraordinary subjective experiences. A relatively common type of synesthesia involves perception of color when viewing letters (e.g. the letter 'a' always appears as light blue. In this study, we examine whether traits typically regarded as markers of synesthesia can be acquired by simply reading in color. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Non-synesthetes were given specially prepared colored books to read. A modified Stroop task was administered before and after reading. A perceptual crowding task was administered after reading. Reading one book (>49,000 words was sufficient to induce effects regarded as behavioral markers for synesthesia. The results of the Stroop tasks indicate that it is possible to learn letter-color associations through reading in color (F(1, 14 = 5.85, p = .030. Furthermore, Stroop effects correlated with subjective reports about experiencing letters in color (r(13 = 0.51, p = .05. The frequency of viewing letters is related to the level of association as seen by the difference in the Stroop effect size between upper- and lower-case letters (t(14 = 2.79, p = .014 and in a subgroup of participants whose Stroop effects increased as they continued to read in color. Readers did not show significant performance advantages on the crowding task compared to controls. Acknowledging the many differences between trainees and synesthetes, results suggest that it may be possible to acquire a subset of synesthetic behavioral traits in adulthood through training. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: To our knowledge, this is the first evidence of acquiring letter-color associations through reading in color. Reading in color appears to be a promising avenue in which we may explore the differences and similarities between synesthetes and non-synesthetes. Additionally, reading in color is a plausible method for a long-term 'synesthetic' training program.

  9. Letter of Map Revision

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — The National Flood Hazard Layer (NFHL) data incorporates all Digital Flood Insurance Rate Map(DFIRM) databases published by FEMA, and any Letters Of Map Revision...

  10. Bamgineer: Introduction of simulated allele-specific copy number variants into exome and targeted sequence data sets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Samadian, Soroush; Bruce, Jeff P; Pugh, Trevor J

    2018-03-01

    Somatic copy number variations (CNVs) play a crucial role in development of many human cancers. The broad availability of next-generation sequencing data has enabled the development of algorithms to computationally infer CNV profiles from a variety of data types including exome and targeted sequence data; currently the most prevalent types of cancer genomics data. However, systemic evaluation and comparison of these tools remains challenging due to a lack of ground truth reference sets. To address this need, we have developed Bamgineer, a tool written in Python to introduce user-defined haplotype-phased allele-specific copy number events into an existing Binary Alignment Mapping (BAM) file, with a focus on targeted and exome sequencing experiments. As input, this tool requires a read alignment file (BAM format), lists of non-overlapping genome coordinates for introduction of gains and losses (bed file), and an optional file defining known haplotypes (vcf format). To improve runtime performance, Bamgineer introduces the desired CNVs in parallel using queuing and parallel processing on a local machine or on a high-performance computing cluster. As proof-of-principle, we applied Bamgineer to a single high-coverage (mean: 220X) exome sequence file from a blood sample to simulate copy number profiles of 3 exemplar tumors from each of 10 tumor types at 5 tumor cellularity levels (20-100%, 150 BAM files in total). To demonstrate feasibility beyond exome data, we introduced read alignments to a targeted 5-gene cell-free DNA sequencing library to simulate EGFR amplifications at frequencies consistent with circulating tumor DNA (10, 1, 0.1 and 0.01%) while retaining the multimodal insert size distribution of the original data. We expect Bamgineer to be of use for development and systematic benchmarking of CNV calling algorithms by users using locally-generated data for a variety of applications. The source code is freely available at http://github.com/pughlab/bamgineer.

  11. Bamgineer: Introduction of simulated allele-specific copy number variants into exome and targeted sequence data sets.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Soroush Samadian

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Somatic copy number variations (CNVs play a crucial role in development of many human cancers. The broad availability of next-generation sequencing data has enabled the development of algorithms to computationally infer CNV profiles from a variety of data types including exome and targeted sequence data; currently the most prevalent types of cancer genomics data. However, systemic evaluation and comparison of these tools remains challenging due to a lack of ground truth reference sets. To address this need, we have developed Bamgineer, a tool written in Python to introduce user-defined haplotype-phased allele-specific copy number events into an existing Binary Alignment Mapping (BAM file, with a focus on targeted and exome sequencing experiments. As input, this tool requires a read alignment file (BAM format, lists of non-overlapping genome coordinates for introduction of gains and losses (bed file, and an optional file defining known haplotypes (vcf format. To improve runtime performance, Bamgineer introduces the desired CNVs in parallel using queuing and parallel processing on a local machine or on a high-performance computing cluster. As proof-of-principle, we applied Bamgineer to a single high-coverage (mean: 220X exome sequence file from a blood sample to simulate copy number profiles of 3 exemplar tumors from each of 10 tumor types at 5 tumor cellularity levels (20-100%, 150 BAM files in total. To demonstrate feasibility beyond exome data, we introduced read alignments to a targeted 5-gene cell-free DNA sequencing library to simulate EGFR amplifications at frequencies consistent with circulating tumor DNA (10, 1, 0.1 and 0.01% while retaining the multimodal insert size distribution of the original data. We expect Bamgineer to be of use for development and systematic benchmarking of CNV calling algorithms by users using locally-generated data for a variety of applications. The source code is freely available at http://github.com/pughlab/bamgineer.

  12. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2004-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains nine separate letters on nonlocal chiral quark model with confinement, perturbation of finite-lattice spectral levels by nearby nuclear resonances, on the application of 'Z 0 + jet' events for determining the gluon distribution in a proton at the LHC, account of light velocity constancy in the Galilean problem on the free movement of a particle and its fall onto the ground, first results of crystal deflector investigations at the Nuclotron external beams, decay parameters of K mesons, measured at proton synchrotron U-70 using 'Hyperon' set-up and modern world data, prototype of atomic-emission spectrometer on the basis of one-electrode impulse RF discharge for analytical measurements, polarimeter for Nuclotron internal beam and primordial bubbles of colour superconducting quark matter

  13. Patient information letters on nutrition: development and implementation.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Binsbergen, J.J. van; Drenthen, A.J.

    2003-01-01

    BACKGROUND: In 1998 the Dutch College of General Practitioners (NHG) began developing patient information letters (PILs), based on the practice guidelines for family physicians (FPs) (NHG standards). Five nutritional guidance letters have since been developed with the Dutch Nutrition Center.

  14. A new method for detecting signal regions in ordered sequences of real numbers, and application to viral genomic data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gog, Julia R; Lever, Andrew M L; Skittrall, Jordan P

    2018-01-01

    We present a fast, robust and parsimonious approach to detecting signals in an ordered sequence of numbers. Our motivation is in seeking a suitable method to take a sequence of scores corresponding to properties of positions in virus genomes, and find outlying regions of low scores. Suitable statistical methods without using complex models or making many assumptions are surprisingly lacking. We resolve this by developing a method that detects regions of low score within sequences of real numbers. The method makes no assumptions a priori about the length of such a region; it gives the explicit location of the region and scores it statistically. It does not use detailed mechanistic models so the method is fast and will be useful in a wide range of applications. We present our approach in detail, and test it on simulated sequences. We show that it is robust to a wide range of signal morphologies, and that it is able to capture multiple signals in the same sequence. Finally we apply it to viral genomic data to identify regions of evolutionary conservation within influenza and rotavirus.

  15. A Finite Abelian Group of Two-Letter Inversions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sherwin E. Balbuena

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available In abstract algebra, the study of concrete groups is fundamentally important to beginners. Most commonly used groups as examples are integer addition modulo n, real number addition and multiplication, permutation groups, and groups of symmetry. The last two examples are finite non-abelian groups and can be investigated with the aid of concrete representations. This study presents a finite abelian group of inversions of two letter symbols with vertical and horizontal axes of symmetry and whose binary operation is established through motions like alternation, rotation, reflection, and a combination of two or all motions.

  16. Temporal and spatial predictability of an irrelevant event differently affect detection and memory of items in a visual sequence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Junji eOhyama

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available We examined how the temporal and spatial predictability of a task-irrelevant visual event affects the detection and memory of a visual item embedded in a continuously changing sequence. Participants observed 11 sequentially presented letters, during which a task-irrelevant visual event was either present or absent. Predictabilities of spatial location and temporal position of the event were controlled in 2 × 2 conditions. In the spatially predictable conditions, the event occurred at the same location within the stimulus sequence or at another location, while, in the spatially unpredictable conditions, it occurred at random locations. In the temporally predictable conditions, the event timing was fixed relative to the order of the letters, while in the temporally unpredictable condition, it could not be predicted from the letter order. Participants performed a working memory task and a target detection reaction time task. Memory accuracy was higher for a letter simultaneously presented at the same location as the event in the temporally unpredictable conditions, irrespective of the spatial predictability of the event. On the other hand, the detection reaction times were only faster for a letter simultaneously presented at the same location as the event when the event was both temporally and spatially predictable. Thus, to facilitate ongoing detection processes, an event must be predictable both in space and time, while memory processes are enhanced by temporally unpredictable (i.e., surprising events. Evidently, temporal predictability has differential effects on detection and memory of a visual item embedded in a sequence of images.

  17. Color associations for days and letters across different languages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rouw, Romke; Case, Laura; Gosavi, Radhika; Ramachandran, Vilayanur

    2014-01-01

    While colors are commonplace in everyday metaphors, relatively little is known about implicit color associations to linguistic or semantic concepts in a general population. In this study, we test color associations for ordered linguistic concepts (letters and days). The culture and language specificity of these effects was examined in a large group (457) of Dutch-speaking participants, 92 English-speaking participants, and 49 Hindi-speaking participants. Non-random distributions of color choices were revealed; consistencies were found across the three language groups in color preferences for both days and letters. Interestingly, while the Hindi-speaking participants were presented with letter stimuli matched on phonology, their pattern of letter-to-color preferences still showed similarities with Dutch- and English-speaking participants. Furthermore, we found that that the color preferences corresponded between participants indicating to have conscious color experiences with letters or days (putative synesthetes) and participants who do not (non-synesthetes). We also explored possible mechanisms underlying the color preferences. There were a few specific associations, including red for “A,” red for “Monday,” and white for “Sunday.” We also explored more general mechanisms, such as overall color preferences as shown by Simner et al. (2005). While certainly not all variation can be explained or predicted, the results show that regularities are present in color-to-letter or color-to-day preferences in both putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes across languages. Both letter-to-color and day-to-color preferences were influenced by multiple factors. The findings support a notion of abstract concepts (such as days and letters) that are not represented in isolation, but are connected to perceptual representational systems. Interestingly, at least some of these connections to color representations are shared across different language/cultural groups. PMID

  18. Color associations for days and letters across different languages

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Romke eRouw

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available While colors are commonplace in everyday metaphors, relatively little is known about implicit color associations to linguistic or semantic concepts in a general population. In this study, we test color associations for ordered linguistic concepts (letters and days. The culture and language specificity of these effects was examined in a large group (457 of Dutch-speaking participants, 92 English-speaking participants, and 49 Hindi-speaking participants. Non-random distributions of color choices were revealed; consistencies were found across the three language groups in color preferences for both days and letters. Interestingly, while the Hindi-speaking participants were presented with letter stimuli matched on phonology, their pattern of letter-to-color preferences still showed similarities with Dutch- and English-speaking participants. Furthermore, we found that that the color preferences corresponded between participants indicating to have conscious color experiences with letters or days (putative synesthetes and participants who do not (non-synesthetes. We also explored possible mechanisms underlying the color preferences. There were a few specific associations, including red for A, red for Monday, and white for Sunday. We also explored more general mechanisms, such as overall color preferences shown by Simner et al (2005. While certainly not all variation can be explained or predicted, the results show that regularities are present in color-to-letter or color-to-day preferences in both putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes across languages. Both letter-to-color and day-to-color preferences were influenced by multiple factors. The findings support a notion of abstract concepts (such as days and letters that are not represented in isolation, but are connected to perceptual representational systems. Interestingly, at least some of these connections to color representations are shared across different language/cultural groups.

  19. Michelangelo, a Tireless Letter Writer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adelin Charles Fiorato

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available A titan of artistic creation, the sculptor-painter-architect Michelangelo was also a tireless letter writer. Five hundred and eighteen of his letters have reached us, stretching from his youth to the eve of his death, but we know that many others have been lost. Written in a kind of familiar Florentine and in a style of minimalist ‘realism’ – which does not prevent the presence of either impetuous polemical flights or pages of literary indulgence – these letters deal mainly with everyday subjects: day-by-day relationships, either endearing or resentful, with his relatives, financial or property matters and, above all, the marriage problems which concerned his nephew Leonardo, the sole heir of the family. But one also discovers in them the artist’s warm feelings of friendship and love, his poetic and aesthetic exchanges, his relationships, often conflictual, with his fellow-artists and patrons as well as his reflections on old age and death. All in all, these letters represent a documentary chronicle of a Florentine bourgeois family and the technical hassle of an entrepreneur’s activity. If, on the one hand, the Carteggio does not shed light either on Michelangelo’s conception of art or the way in which he realized his works, on the other it illustrates certain latent aspects of his projects, as well as of his personality, which was at the same time melancholy and aggressive, surprisingly whole and manifold. This luxuriant correspondence presents, so to speak, a ‘genetic’ interest, since it reveals the hidden face of the brilliant conceiver and creator, of the artist and entrepreneur struggling with the obstacles whose overcoming makes creation possible. 

  20. How To Write a Business Letter. Power of the Printed Word.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forbes, Malcolm

    Business letters should turn people on rather than turning them off. To write a good business letter, know what the goal is before starting to write, call the reader by name, tell what the letter is about in the first paragraph, refer to dates when answering letters, and write from the reader's point of view. Be positive, be nice, and be natural.…

  1. Coverage and Rate of Downlink Sequence Transmissions with Reliability Guarantees

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Park, Jihong; Popovski, Petar

    2017-01-01

    Real-time distributed control is a promising application of 5G in which communication links should satisfy certain reliability guarantees. In this letter, we derive closed-form maximum average rate when a device (e.g. industrial machine) downloads a sequence of n operational commands through cell...

  2. Limitations and Pitfalls of Using Family Letters to Communicate Genetic Risk: a Qualitative Study with Patients and Healthcare Professionals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dheensa, Sandi; Lucassen, Anneke; Fenwick, Angela

    2018-06-01

    European genetic testing guidelines recommend that healthcare professionals (HCPs) discuss the familial implications of any test with a patient and offer written material to help them share the information with family members. Giving patients these "family letters" to alert any relatives of their risk has become part of standard practice and has gone relatively unquestioned over the years. Communication with at-risk relatives will become an increasingly pressing issue as mainstream and routine practice incorporates broad genome tests and as the number of findings potentially relevant to relatives increases. This study therefore explores problems around the use of family letters to communicate about genetic risk. We conducted 16 focus groups with 80 HCPs, and 35 interviews with patients, recruited from across the UK. Data were analyzed thematically and we constructed four themes: 1) HCPs writing family letters: how to write them and why?, 2) Patients' issues with handing out family letters, 3) Dissemination becomes an uncontrolled form of communication, and 4) When the relative has the letter, is the patient's and HCP's duty discharged? We conclude by suggesting alternative and supplementary methods of communication, for example through digital tools, and propose that in comparison to communication by family letter, direct contact by HCPs might be a more appropriate and successful option.

  3. Return to sender: Constantijn Huygens as a man of letters

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gosseye, L.; Blom, F.; Leerintveld, A.

    2013-01-01

    Return to Sender takes as its starting point Constantijn Huygens’ letters and shows us the author in his different guises: intimus of René Descartes, translator of John Donne, collector of art, writer of flirtatious love letters and the author of a long consolatory letter-poem for an ailing friend

  4. Evidence for magnocellular involvement in the identification of flanked letters

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Omtzigt, D.; Hendriks, A.W.C.J.; Kolk, H.H.J.

    2002-01-01

    Little is known about the role of the magno system in reading. One important hypothesis is that this system is involved in the allocation of attention. We reasoned that the presentation of a single letter automatically draws attention to this letter, whereas in the case of a flanked letter, an

  5. Letters of intent

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon.

    1993-01-01

    Thursday 5 November was another major milestone en route to the establishment of the experimental programme for CERN's LHC protonproton collider to be built in the 27- kilometre LEP tunnel. After initial discussions of 'Expressions of Interest' at the specially arranged meeting at Evian-les-Bains, France, earlier this year (May, page 1), three Letters of Intent have emerged, together involving nearly 2000 physicists from research institutes all over the world. As well as these researchers listed on the documents, the plans in fact involve many additional technical specialists who work behind the scenes. It was a historic moment as these three detector proposals were aired at the first open meeting of the new LHC Experiments Committee. CERN's main auditorium and a large overflow room receiving relayed video pictures were both packed. From these three schemes - ATLAS, CMS and L3P - and the first reactions to their letters of intent, eventually two projects will emerge, for which full technical proposals will be prepared, including construction plans and credible costings

  6. Pseudo-synesthesia through reading books with colored letters

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Colizoli, O.; Murre, J.M.J.; Rouw, R.

    2012-01-01

    Background Synesthesia is a phenomenon where a stimulus produces consistent extraordinary subjective experiences. A relatively common type of synesthesia involves perception of color when viewing letters (e.g. the letter ‘a’ always appears as light blue). In this study, we examine whether traits

  7. Letters on nuclear controversy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kafka, P.; Maier-Leibnitz, H.

    1982-01-01

    Heinz Maier-Leibnitz a well-known scientist, nuclear physicist, for 50 years, who publicily supported the idea not to overrate the dangers of peaceful utilization of nuclear energy, has grown tired of talking only to colleagues. He invites a junior fellow physicist, who held engaged speeches against the nuclear power plant Zwentendorf, to an exchange of thoughts. Peter Kafka, an astro-physicist studied the self organisation of the universe from the big bang to the economic crisis and encountered the question of which conditions have to be fulfilled to prevent progress from becoming caranogenous. He became one of the spokesmen of 'political ecology' and called for resistance again large-scale technological use of scientific knowledge. He was enthusiastic about the idea of an exchange of letters, because he - just like his partner - believes in gaining knowledge by discussion. The variety of subjects is sketched briefly in form of three lectures. In the letters both scientists discuss intensly about: - Freedom of science and responsibility of science. - Decisions on energy questions under time-pressure. - Risks of nuclear plants. - Large scale technology and large-scale research or decentralization. - Energy utilization and energy waste. - Nuclear energy and alternatives. - Sense and nonsense of detailed future planning. In the end no one has convinced the other. The reader however finds a lot of new incentives in the letters - printed in unabridged form - a lot of new and significant arguments for a discussion which has only just started. (orig.) [de

  8. Philanthropic Discourse vs Promotional Genre: To Study the Rhetorical Choices of Promotion and Structural Moves of Two Appeal Letters in Hong Kong

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Patrick Chi-wai LEE

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Based on two appeal letters from (i Oxfam Hong Kong and (ii Hong Kong Committee For United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF, this paper aims to study the rhetorical choices of promotion and structural moves of two appeal letters, exploring whether the philanthropic discourse can be viewed in line with the promotional genre. The findings appear to reveal that there is a hybrid form of promotional genre in philanthropic discourse, with reference to Bhatia’s (1998 generic patterns in fund-raising discourse framework. There are similar structural moves of advertising, although the move sequences could vary. However, the move of “introducing the cause” is always found at the very beginning because the readers are more interested to realise what the main theme of the appeal letter is. In addition, appeal letters are found to be modelled in promotional genre, in which they are rhetorical choices of promotion attracting attention from readers – by using “you” and marked devices of attention getters. The findings in this study appear to be in line with the argument that promotional concerns have influenced the nature of philanthropic discourse.

  9. Transposed-letter priming of prelexical orthographic representations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kinoshita, Sachiko; Norris, Dennis

    2009-01-01

    A prime generated by transposing two internal letters (e.g., jugde) produces strong priming of the original word (judge). In lexical decision, this transposed-letter (TL) priming effect is generally weak or absent for nonword targets; thus, it is unclear whether the origin of this effect is lexical or prelexical. The authors describe the Bayesian Reader theory of masked priming (D. Norris & S. Kinoshita, 2008), which explains why nonwords do not show priming in lexical decision but why they do in the cross-case same-different task. This analysis is followed by 3 experiments that show that priming in this task is not based on low-level perceptual similarity between the prime and target, or on phonology, to make the case that priming is based on prelexical orthographic representation. The authors then use this task to demonstrate equivalent TL priming effects for nonwords and words. The results are interpreted as the first reliable evidence based on the masked priming procedure that letter position is not coded absolutely within the prelexical, orthographic representation. The implications of the results for current letter position coding schemes are discussed.

  10. Insights from developmental and acquired letter position dyslexia on morphological decomposition in reading

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Naama eFriedmann

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available We explored morphological decomposition in reading, the locus in the reading process in which it takes place and its nature, comparing different types of morphemes. We assessed these questions through the analysis of letter position errors in readers with letter position dyslexia(LPD. LPD is a selective impairment to letter position encoding in the early stage of word reading, which results in letter migrations (cloud-could. We used the fact that migrations in LPD occur mainly in word-interior letters, whereas exterior letters rarely migrate.The rationale was that if morphological decomposition occurs prior to letter position encoding and strips off affixes, word-interior letters adjacent to an affix (signs-signs would become exterior following affix-stripping and hence exhibit fewer migrations.We tested 11 Hebrew readers with developmental LPD and 1 with acquired LPD in 6 experiments of reading aloud, lexical decision, and comprehension, at the single word and sentence levels. We examined migrations next to inflectional,derivational,or bound function morphemes compared with exterior letters.Root letters adjacent to inflectional and derivational morphemes were treated like middle letters, and migrated frequently, whereas root letters adjacent to bound function morphemes patterned with exterior letters, and almost never migrated. Given that LPD is a pre-lexical deficit, these results indicate that morphological decomposition takes place in an early, pre-lexical stage. Morphologically complex nonwords showed the same pattern, indicating that this decomposition is structurally, rather than lexically, driven.We suggest that letter position encoding takes place before morphological analysis, but in some cases, as with bound function morphemes, the complex word is re-analyzed as two separate words. In this reanalysis, letter positions in each constituent word are encoded separately,and hence the exterior letters of the root are treated as exterior and

  11. Particles and nuclei, letters; Proceedings of the international workshop 'Quantum Physics and Communication'

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ivanov, V.V.

    2003-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains ten separate records on the microscopic entropy and nonlocality, conditional density matrix: systems and subsystems in quantum mechanics, physics of quantum computation, flipping qubits, quantum zeno effect for N-level Friedrichs model, universal hybrid quantum processors, formation of the SU(3)-polarization states in atom-quantum electromagnetic field system under condition of the Bose-Einstein condensate existence, periodical sequences (trajectories) of outcomes of atomic state measurement on exit from the micromaser cavity, an algebraic method to solve the Tavis-Cummings problem, quantum teleportation of nuclear matter and its investigation

  12. Comprehensive assessment of sequence variation within the copy number variable defensin cluster on 8p23 by target enriched in-depth 454 sequencing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhang Xinmin

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background In highly copy number variable (CNV regions such as the human defensin gene locus, comprehensive assessment of sequence variations is challenging. PCR approaches are practically restricted to tiny fractions, and next-generation sequencing (NGS approaches of whole individual genomes e.g. by the 1000 Genomes Project is confined by an affordable sequence depth. Combining target enrichment with NGS may represent a feasible approach. Results As a proof of principle, we enriched a ~850 kb section comprising the CNV defensin gene cluster DEFB, the invariable DEFA part and 11 control regions from two genomes by sequence capture and sequenced it by 454 technology. 6,651 differences to the human reference genome were found. Comparison to HapMap genotypes revealed sensitivities and specificities in the range of 94% to 99% for the identification of variations. Using error probabilities for rigorous filtering revealed 2,886 unique single nucleotide variations (SNVs including 358 putative novel ones. DEFB CN determinations by haplotype ratios were in agreement with alternative methods. Conclusion Although currently labor extensive and having high costs, target enriched NGS provides a powerful tool for the comprehensive assessment of SNVs in highly polymorphic CNV regions of individual genomes. Furthermore, it reveals considerable amounts of putative novel variations and simultaneously allows CN estimation.

  13. 7 CFR 1737.80 - Description of characteristics letter.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... the amount of the proposed loan, its purposes, rate of interest, loan security requirements, and other... SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE PRE-LOAN POLICIES AND PROCEDURES COMMON TO INSURED AND GUARANTEED TELECOMMUNICATIONS LOANS Characteristics Letter § 1737.80 Description of characteristics letter. (a) After all of the...

  14. Pseudo-Synesthesia through Reading Books with Colored Letters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Colizoli, Olympia; Murre, Jaap M. J.; Rouw, Romke

    2012-01-01

    Background Synesthesia is a phenomenon where a stimulus produces consistent extraordinary subjective experiences. A relatively common type of synesthesia involves perception of color when viewing letters (e.g. the letter ‘a’ always appears as light blue). In this study, we examine whether traits typically regarded as markers of synesthesia can be acquired by simply reading in color. Methodology/Principal Findings Non-synesthetes were given specially prepared colored books to read. A modified Stroop task was administered before and after reading. A perceptual crowding task was administered after reading. Reading one book (>49,000 words) was sufficient to induce effects regarded as behavioral markers for synesthesia. The results of the Stroop tasks indicate that it is possible to learn letter-color associations through reading in color (F(1, 14) = 5.85, p = .030). Furthermore, Stroop effects correlated with subjective reports about experiencing letters in color (r(13) = 0.51, p = .05). The frequency of viewing letters is related to the level of association as seen by the difference in the Stroop effect size between upper- and lower-case letters (t(14) = 2.79, p = .014) and in a subgroup of participants whose Stroop effects increased as they continued to read in color. Readers did not show significant performance advantages on the crowding task compared to controls. Acknowledging the many differences between trainees and synesthetes, results suggest that it may be possible to acquire a subset of synesthetic behavioral traits in adulthood through training. Conclusion/Significance To our knowledge, this is the first evidence of acquiring letter-color associations through reading in color. Reading in color appears to be a promising avenue in which we may explore the differences and similarities between synesthetes and non-synesthetes. Additionally, reading in color is a plausible method for a long-term ‘synesthetic’ training program. PMID

  15. 30 CFR 1.3 - Use of letters and acronym MSHA.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Use of letters and acronym MSHA. 1.3 Section 1.3 Mineral Resources MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR OFFICIAL EMBLEM AND...; ESTABLISHMENT AND USE OF OFFICIAL EMBLEM § 1.3 Use of letters and acronym MSHA. The letters and acronym MSHA may...

  16. Anonymous letters? DNA and fingerprints technologies combined to solve a case.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barbaro, A; Cormaci, P; Teatino, A; La Marca, A; Barbaro, A

    2004-12-02

    Two brothers, living in two different cities, received two different anonymous letters. We performed latent prints development and DNA research on the letters and also on a glass used by a cousin suspected to be the letters' sender.

  17. Minimizing the number of segments in a delivery sequence for intensity-modulated radiation therapy with a multileaf collimator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dai Jianrong; Zhu Yunping

    2001-01-01

    This paper proposes a sequencing algorithm for intensity-modulated radiation therapy with a multileaf collimator in the static mode. The algorithm aims to minimize the number of segments in a delivery sequence. For a machine with a long verification and recording overhead time (e.g., 15 s per segment), minimizing the number of segments is equivalent to minimizing the delivery time. The proposed new algorithm is based on checking numerous candidates for a segment and selecting the candidate that results in a residual intensity matrix with the least complexity. When there is more than one candidate resulting in the same complexity, the candidate with the largest size is selected. The complexity of an intensity matrix is measured in the new algorithm in terms of the number of segments in the delivery sequence obtained by using a published algorithm. The beam delivery efficiency of the proposed algorithm and the influence of different published algorithms used to calculate the complexity of an intensity matrix were tested with clinical intensity-modulated beams. The results show that no matter which published algorithm is used to calculate the complexity of an intensity matrix, the sequence generated by the algorithm proposed here is always more efficient than that generated by the published algorithm itself. The results also show that the algorithm used to calculate the complexity of an intensity matrix affects the efficiency of beam delivery. The delivery sequences are frequently most efficient when the algorithm of Bortfeld et al. is used to calculate the complexity of an intensity matrix. Because no single variation is most efficient for all beams tested, we suggest implementing multiple variations of our algorithm

  18. Name-letter branding under scrutiny: real products, new algorithms, and the probability of buying.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stieger, Stefan

    2010-06-01

    People like letters matching their own first and last name initials more than nonname letters. This name-letter effect has also been found for brands, i.e., people like brands resembling their own name letters (initial or first three). This has been termed name-letter branding effect. In the present study of 199 participants, ages 12 to 79 years, this name-letter branding effect was found for a modified design (1) using real products, (2) concentrating on product names rather than brand names, (3) using five different products for each letter of the Roman alphabet, (4) asking for the buying probability, and (5) using recently introduced algorithms, controlling for individual response tendencies (i.e., liking all letters more or less) and general normative popularity of particular letters (i.e., some letters are generally preferred more than other letters).

  19. Open Letter to Religious Leaders about Sex Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    American Journal of Sexuality Education, 2011

    2011-01-01

    The "Open Letter to Religious Leaders about Sex Education" reinforces scriptural and theological commitments to truth-telling in calling for "full and honest education about sexual and reproductive health." This "Open Letter" was published in 2002, at about the midpoint of a decade-long federal government commitment to…

  20. Red, green, blue equals 1, 2, 3: Digit-color synesthetes can use structured digit information to boost recall of color sequences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teichmann, A Lina; Nieuwenstein, Mark R; Rich, Anina N

    2015-01-01

    Digit-color synesthetes report experiencing colors when perceiving letters and digits. The conscious experience is typically unidirectional (e.g., digits elicit colors but not vice versa) but recent evidence shows subtle bidirectional effects. We examined whether short-term memory for colors could be affected by the order of presentation reflecting more or less structure in the associated digits. We presented a stream of colored squares and asked participants to report the colors in order. The colors matched each synesthete's colors for digits 1-9 and the order of the colors corresponded either to a sequence of numbers (e.g., [red, green, blue] if 1 = red, 2 = green, 3 = blue) or no systematic sequence. The results showed that synesthetes recalled sequential color sequences more accurately than pseudo-randomized colors, whereas no such effect was found for the non-synesthetic controls. Synesthetes did not differ from non-synesthetic controls in recall of color sequences overall, providing no evidence of a general advantage in memory for serial recall of colors.

  1. Global repeat discovery and estimation of genomic copy number in a large, complex genome using a high-throughput 454 sequence survey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Varala Kranthi

    2007-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Extensive computational and database tools are available to mine genomic and genetic databases for model organisms, but little genomic data is available for many species of ecological or agricultural significance, especially those with large genomes. Genome surveys using conventional sequencing techniques are powerful, particularly for detecting sequences present in many copies per genome. However these methods are time-consuming and have potential drawbacks. High throughput 454 sequencing provides an alternative method by which much information can be gained quickly and cheaply from high-coverage surveys of genomic DNA. Results We sequenced 78 million base-pairs of randomly sheared soybean DNA which passed our quality criteria. Computational analysis of the survey sequences provided global information on the abundant repetitive sequences in soybean. The sequence was used to determine the copy number across regions of large genomic clones or contigs and discover higher-order structures within satellite repeats. We have created an annotated, online database of sequences present in multiple copies in the soybean genome. The low bias of pyrosequencing against repeat sequences is demonstrated by the overall composition of the survey data, which matches well with past estimates of repetitive DNA content obtained by DNA re-association kinetics (Cot analysis. Conclusion This approach provides a potential aid to conventional or shotgun genome assembly, by allowing rapid assessment of copy number in any clone or clone-end sequence. In addition, we show that partial sequencing can provide access to partial protein-coding sequences.

  2. Analyzing International Letters in a Business Communication Class.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Devet, Bonnie

    1998-01-01

    Shows how students can use persuasive principles of communication (format and writer's purpose) and of classical rhetoric (organization, ethos, pathos, logos, and style) to improve their ability to analyze business letters. Shows how applying these principles to the analysis of business letters from other countries helps students write better and…

  3. PREDICTION OF AEROSOL HAZARDS ARISING FROM THE OPENING OF AN ANTHRAX-TAINTED LETTER IN AN OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    FUE-SANG LIEN

    2010-09-01

    Full Text Available Early experimental work, conducted at Defence R&D Canada–Suffield, measured and characterized the personal and environmental contamination associated with simulated anthrax-tainted letters under a number of different scenarios in order to obtain a better understanding of the physical and biological processes for detecting, assessing, and formulating potential mitigation strategies for managing the risks associated with opening an anthrax-tainted letter. These experimental investigations have been extended in the present study to simulate numerically the contamination from the opening of anthrax-tainted letters in an open office environment using computational fluid dynamics (CFD. A quantity of 0.1 g of Bacillus atropheus (formerly referred to as Bacillus subtilis var globigii (BG spores in dry powder form, which was used here as a surrogate species for Bacillus anthracis (anthrax, was released from an opened letter in the experiment. The accuracy of the model for prediction of the spatial distribution of BG spores in the office from the opened letter is assessed qualitatively (and to the extent possible, quantitatively by detailed comparison with measured BG concentrations obtained under a number of different scenarios, some involving people moving within the office. The observed discrepancy between the numerical predictions and experimental measurements of concentration was probably the result of a number of physical processes which were not accounted for in the numerical simulation. These include air flow leakage from cracks and crevices of the building shell; the dispersion of BG spores in the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC system; and, the effect of deposition and re-suspension of BG spores from various surfaces in the office environment.

  4. The distributed neural system for top-down letter processing: an fMRI study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Jiangang; Feng, Lu; Li, Ling; Tian, Jie

    2011-03-01

    This fMRI study used Psychophysiological interaction (PPI) to investigate top-down letter processing with an illusory letter detection task. After an initial training that became increasingly difficult, participant was instructed to detect a letter from pure noise images where there was actually no letter. Such experimental paradigm allowed for isolating top-down components of letter processing and minimizing the influence of bottom-up perceptual input. A distributed cortical network of top-down letter processing was identified by analyzing the functional connectivity patterns of letter-preferential area (LA) within the left fusiform gyrus. Such network extends from the visual cortex to high level cognitive cortexes, including the left middle frontal gyrus, left medial frontal gyrus, left superior parietal gyrus, bilateral precuneus, and left inferior occipital gyrus. These findings suggest that top-down letter processing contains not only regions for processing of letter phonology and appearance, but also those involved in internal information generation and maintenance, and attention and memory processing.

  5. Professional Citation Practices in Child Maltreatment Forensic Letters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schryer, Catherine F.; Bell, Stephanie; Mian, Marcellina; Spafford, Marlee M.; Lingard, Lorelei

    2011-01-01

    Using rhetorical genre theory and research on reported speech, this study investigates the citation practices in 81 forensic letters written by paediatricians and nurse practitioners that provide their opinion for the courts as to whether a child has experienced maltreatment. These letters exist in a complex social situation where a lack of…

  6. Use of a journal club and letter-writing exercise to teach critical appraisal to medical undergraduates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edwards, R; White, M; Gray, J; Fischbacher, C

    2001-07-01

    There is growing interest in methods of teaching critical appraisal skills at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. We describe an approach using a journal club and subsequent letter writing to teach critical appraisal and writing skills to medical undergraduates. The exercise occurs during a 3-week public health medicine attachment in the third year of the undergraduate curriculum. Students work in small groups to appraise a recently published research paper, present their findings to their peers in a journal club, and draft a letter to the journal editor. Evaluation took place through: informal and formal feedback from students; number of letters written, submitted and published, and a comparison of marks obtained by students submitting a literature review assignment with and without critical appraisal teaching during the public health attachment. Feedback from students was overwhelmingly positive. In the first 3(1/2) years, 26 letters have been published or accepted for publication, and 58 letters published on the Internet. There were no significant differences in overall marks or marks for the critical appraisal component of the literature review assignments between the two student groups. We believe our approach is an innovative and enjoyable method for teaching critical appraisal and writing skills to medical students. Lack of difference in marks in the literature review between the student groups may reflect its insensitivity as an outcome measure, contamination by other critical appraisal teaching, or true ineffectiveness.

  7. Readability of "Dear Patient" device advisory notification letters created by a device manufacturer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mueller, Luke A; Sharma, Arjun; Ottenberg, Abigale L; Mueller, Paul S

    2013-04-01

    In 2006, the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) recommended that cardiovascular implantable electronic device (CIED) manufacturers use advisory notification letters to communicate with affected patients. To evaluate the readability of the HRS sample "patient device advisory notification" letter and those created by 1 CIED manufacturer. The HRS sample letter and 25 Boston Scientific Corporation letters dated from 2005 through 2011 were evaluated by using 6 readability tests. Readability (Flesch-Kincaid score) of the HRS sample letter was grade level 12.5, and median readability of the device manufacturer letters was grade level 12.8 (range 10.8-18.9). Similar results were obtained by using other readability scales. No letters had readability scores at the National Work Group on Literacy and Health's recommended reading level-fifth grade; the letters' readability exceeded this recommended level by an average of 7.7 grades (95% confidence interval 6.9-8.5; Preadability scores at the average reading level of US adults-eighth grade; the letters' readability exceeded this level by an average of 4.7 grades (95% confidence interval 3.9-5.5; Preadability of the HRS sample letter and those created by a CIED manufacturer significantly exceeded the recommended and average US adults' reading skill levels. Such letters are unlikely to be informative to many patients. CIED manufacturers should ensure that advisory letters are comprehensible to most affected patients. Copyright © 2013 Heart Rhythm Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Visual and Artistic Functions of Letters Khaghani’s Poetry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dr. M. Zolfaghari

    Full Text Available The intensity of emotion and vibration of meaning in the poet's mind causes him to go beyond the ordinary language and through metaphors, similes and linguistic preparation he conveys intellectual and emotional meanings. He has a sharp eye and a sensitive spirit and creative temprement and by inventing new images shows the creativity and imagination in various arenas and attempts in the way of literary strength and creating personal style and this point more than anything else must be done by presenting images and newness. Perhaps in the sixth century, and especially in Azerbaijani school, more than other periods, poets have been looking for creating innovative style in eloquence. Their major attempts were mainly in imaging, it was a wide field that they have competed and it is natural that in this illustration the alphabet letters would be very helpful. Khaghani poetry as one of the greatest poets of this school has the perfect poetrical book of painting and meaning, and delicated pattern in new and different scientific, cultural and religious paintings and letters are a broad range of elements that put a new field in front of the poet and he is aware of the potential features of the letters and also the new images and the artistic creativity.This paper shows descriptive - analytical study of various aspects of Khaghani’s poetry and frequency of letters in the alphabet, authentic images based on alphabet, taken at different pseudo relevance of poetry in the context of multiple semantic and literal characters, making figures of speech based on literary characters, images and characters and the sense of connection . . . which has been shown in his poetry.Letter has double and even multiple uses in Khaghani poetic works (divan and more than the construction of words which is the real and common sense that is used as an artistic. There is a world in the heart of every letter, word and morpheme lies in the poet's point of view is the last and

  9. Letter Frequency Analysis of Lithuanian and Other Languages Using the Latin Alphabet

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gintautas Grigas

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available It is important to evaluate specificities of alphabets, particularly the letter frequencies while designing keyboards, analyzing texts, designing games based on alphabets, and doing some text mining. In order to adequately compare lettter frequences of Lithuanian language to other languages in the Internet space, Wikipedia source was selected which content is common to different languages. The method of letter frequency jumps is used. The main attention is paid to the analysis of letter frequencies at the boundary between native letters and foreign letters used in Lithuanian and other languages.

  10. PREDICTION OF AEROSOL HAZARDS ARISING FROM THE OPENING OF AN ANTHRAX-TAINTED LETTER IN AN OPEN OFFICE ENVIRONMENT USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

    OpenAIRE

    FUE-SANG LIEN; HUA JI; EUGENE YEE; BILL KOURNIKAKIS

    2010-01-01

    Early experimental work, conducted at Defence R&D Canada–Suffield, measured and characterized the personal and environmental contamination associated with simulated anthrax-tainted letters under a number of different scenarios in order to obtain a better understanding of the physical and biological processes for detecting, assessing, and formulating potential mitigation strategies for managing the risks associated with opening an anthrax-tainted letter. These experimental investigations have ...

  11. Letter-By-Letter Reading: Natural Recovery and Response to Treatment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pélagie M. Beeson

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available The present investigation provides a longitudinal study of an individual (RB with acquired alexia following left posterior cerebral artery stroke. At initial testing, RB exhibited acquired alexia characterized by letter-by-letter (LBL reading, mild anomic aphasia, and acquired agraphia. Repeated measures of reading accuracy and rate were collected for single words and text over the course of one year, along with probes of naming and spelling abilities. Improvements associated with natural recovery (i.e., without treatment were documented up to the fourth month post onset, when text reading appeared to be relatively stable. Multiple oral reading (MOR treatment was initiated at 22 weeks post-stroke, and additional improvements in reading rate and accuracy for text were documented that were greater than those expected on the basis of spontaneous recovery alone. Over the course of one year, reading reaction times for single words improved, and the word-length effect that is the hallmark of LBL reading diminished. RB's response to treatment supports the therapeutic value of MOR treatment to in LBL readers. His residual impairment of reading and spelling one-year post stroke raised the question as to whether further progress was impeded by degraded orthographic knowledge.

  12. Standardized Letter of Recommendation for Otolaryngology Residency Selection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perkins, Jonathan N.; Liang, Conan; McFann, Kim; Abaza, Mona M.; Streubel, Sven-Olrik; Prager, Jeremy D.

    2013-01-01

    Objectives/Hypothesis Develop a standardized letter of recommendation (SLOR) for otolaryngology residency application that investigates the qualities desired in residents and letter writer’s experience. Compare this SLOR to narrative letters of recommendation (NLOR). Study Design Prospective SLOR/NLOR Comparison. Methods The SLOR was sent to a NLOR writer for each applicant. The applicant’s NLOR/SLOR pair was blinded and ranked in seven categories by three reviewers. Inter-rater reliability and NLOR/SLOR rankings were compared. Means of cumulative NLOR and SLOR scores were compared to our departmental rank list. Results Thirty-one SLORs (66%) were collected. The SLORs had higher inter-rater reliability for applicant’s qualifications for otolaryngology, global assessment, summary statement, and overall letter ranking. Writer’s background, comparison to contemporaries/predecessors, and letter review ease had higher inter-rater reliability on the NLORs. Mean SLOR rankings were higher for writer’s background (p=0.0007), comparison of applicant to contemporaries/predecessors (p=0.0031), and letter review ease (p<0.0001). Mean SLOR writing time was 4.17±2.18 minutes. Mean ranking time was significantly lower (p<0.0001) for the SLORs (39.24±23.45 seconds) compared to the NLORs (70.95±40.14 seconds). Means of cumulative SLOR scores correlated with our rank list (p=0.004), whereas means of cumulative NLOR scores did not (p=0.18). Means of cumulative NLOR and SLOR scores did not correlate (p=0.26). Conclusions SLORs require little writing time, save reviewing time, and are easier to review compared to NLORs. Our SLOR had higher inter-rater reliability in 4 of 7 categories and was correlated with our rank list. This tool conveys standardized information in an efficient manner. PMID:23172646

  13. Should intellectual property be disseminated by "forwarding" rejected letters without permission?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gupta, V K

    1996-08-01

    Substantive scientific letter writing is a cost-effective mode of complementing observational and experimental research. The value of such philosophically uncommitted and unsponsored well-balanced scientific activity has been relegated. Critical letter writing entails the abilities to: maintain rational scepticism; refuse to conform in order to explain data; persist in keeping common sense centre-stage; exercise logic to evaluate the biological significance of mathematical figures, including statistics, and the ability to sustain the will to share insights regarding disease mechanisms on an ostensibly lower research platform. During peer review, innovative letter writing may share the occasionally unfortunate fate of innovative research. Rejected scientific letters do not automatically lose copyright. Periodicals with high letter loads will see some valuable contributions wasted, but that is the price for maintaining autonomy in scientific publication. The scientific community is an integrated whole that must respect the rights of authors at all levels. Unauthorised forwarding of rejected letters sets the dangerous precedent of justifying unjust means.

  14. Letters to a Young Baller: Exploring Epistolary Criticism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chawansky, Megan

    2010-01-01

    This article explores the possibilities of epistolary criticism within the realm of sport studies and aspires to encourage scholars to consider the use of non-traditional sport memorabilia and source materials when telling emotive stories about sport and sport practices. The use of letters and the letter-writing format to tell a personal narrative…

  15. Melanie Klein's letters addressed to Marcelle Spira (1955-1960).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quinodoz, Jean-Michel

    2009-12-01

    Between 1955 and 1960, Melanie Klein wrote some 45 hitherto unpublished letters to Marcelle Spira, the Swiss psychoanalyst living at that time in Geneva. In 2006, after Spira's death, these letters were deposited with the Raymond de Saussure Psychoanalysis Centre in Geneva. They are the only known letters that Klein addressed to her psychoanalyst colleagues. Several topics are mentioned in them: (1) the meetings between the two women in Geneva and London; (2) Spira's contribution to Boulanger's translation into French of The Psychoanalysis of Children, which Klein herself carefully revised; (3) the papers that Klein was at that time working on, including Envy and Gratitude; (4) Spira's own work; (5) the difficulties that Spira, a Kleinian psychoanalyst who trained in Buenos Aires, was encountering in her attempt to be admitted to the Swiss Psychoanalytical Society; and (6) a few items of personal and family news. In addition to the invaluable historical information that these letters provide, they offer us a very moving epistolary self-portrait of Melanie Klein, enabling us to discover her personality in the final years of her life - she died in September 1960, just two months after writing her last letter to Spira.

  16. [Representation of letter position in visual word recognition process].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Makioka, S

    1994-08-01

    Two experiments investigated the representation of letter position in visual word recognition process. In Experiment 1, subjects (12 undergraduates and graduates) were asked to detect a target word in a briefly-presented probe. Probes consisted of two kanji words. The latters which formed targets (critical letters) were always contained in probes. (e.g. target: [symbol: see text] probe: [symbol: see text]) High false alarm rate was observed when critical letters occupied the same within-word relative position (left or right within the word) in the probe words as in the target word. In Experiment 2 (subject were ten undergraduates and graduates), spaces adjacent to probe words were replaced by randomly chosen hiragana letters (e.g. [symbol: see text]), because spaces are not used to separate words in regular Japanese sentences. In addition to the effect of within-word relative position as in Experiment 1, the effect of between-word relative position (left or right across the probe words) was observed. These results suggest that information about within-word relative position of a letter is used in word recognition process. The effect of within-word relative position was explained by a connectionist model of word recognition.

  17. Pseudo-random number generator based on asymptotic deterministic randomness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Kai; Pei, Wenjiang; Xia, Haishan; Cheung, Yiu-ming

    2008-06-01

    A novel approach to generate the pseudorandom-bit sequence from the asymptotic deterministic randomness system is proposed in this Letter. We study the characteristic of multi-value correspondence of the asymptotic deterministic randomness constructed by the piecewise linear map and the noninvertible nonlinearity transform, and then give the discretized systems in the finite digitized state space. The statistic characteristics of the asymptotic deterministic randomness are investigated numerically, such as stationary probability density function and random-like behavior. Furthermore, we analyze the dynamics of the symbolic sequence. Both theoretical and experimental results show that the symbolic sequence of the asymptotic deterministic randomness possesses very good cryptographic properties, which improve the security of chaos based PRBGs and increase the resistance against entropy attacks and symbolic dynamics attacks.

  18. Pseudo-random number generator based on asymptotic deterministic randomness

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang Kai; Pei Wenjiang; Xia Haishan; Cheung Yiuming

    2008-01-01

    A novel approach to generate the pseudorandom-bit sequence from the asymptotic deterministic randomness system is proposed in this Letter. We study the characteristic of multi-value correspondence of the asymptotic deterministic randomness constructed by the piecewise linear map and the noninvertible nonlinearity transform, and then give the discretized systems in the finite digitized state space. The statistic characteristics of the asymptotic deterministic randomness are investigated numerically, such as stationary probability density function and random-like behavior. Furthermore, we analyze the dynamics of the symbolic sequence. Both theoretical and experimental results show that the symbolic sequence of the asymptotic deterministic randomness possesses very good cryptographic properties, which improve the security of chaos based PRBGs and increase the resistance against entropy attacks and symbolic dynamics attacks

  19. [Patients' letters and pre-modern medical lay-culture].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stolberg, Michael

    2007-01-01

    Consulting by letter was fairly common practice among the educated, upper classes of early modern Europe. Surviving letters of consultation written by patients, relatives or friends count among the most valuable source for the analysis of pre-modern experiences of disease and the body. This essay gives a brief overview of the various types of consultation letters and related documents which resulted from this practice before tracing the historical development of epistolary consultations from the late Middle Ages through the heyday medical correspondence in the 18th c. before its decline in the 19th c. It presents "experience", "self-fashioning" and "discourse" as three particularly fruitful levels of analysis on which patients' letters can be used within the wider framework of a cultural history of medicine. These three levels of analysis, or three distinct approaches, enable historians to access a greater awareness of the ways in which the experience of illness and the body is culturally framed with an analysis of the performative effects of patients' narratives and the influence of medical discourse among the wider society.

  20. Collected Letters of José Martí: a linguistic approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guerra, Ana Jústiz

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Any approach to José Marti’s literary production should consider the study of his collected letters, which are noticeable for its content and expressive devices. This article synthesizes the criteria of former researchers who have considered Marti’s collected letters as a privileged genre among the multiple and diverse cultivated by the Apostle (speeches, dramas, essays, journal article, short stories and literary criticism. The collected letters takes a large proportion of his prolific literary production and its expressive force has been widely recognized as a source of inspiration for other poets. His collection of letters is outstanding and lasting in time for its expressive magnificence, its depth of content and precise choice of words. Originally written for a definite addressee, the letters are currently read by new generations of readers, who rediscover a new message in each. Topic considered in this article is part of a wider range study which is been prepared as Ph. D. thesis.

  1. The Complaint Letter and Response.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shukla, P. K.

    1998-01-01

    Describes an assignment in which students write a letter of complaint, and discusses how this assignment aids students in seeing the importance of effective written communication to their daily lives. (SR)

  2. Scientific Letter: Monosymptomatic Hypochondriacal Psychosis ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Scientific Letter: Monosymptomatic Hypochondriacal Psychosis (somatic delusional disorder): A report of two cases. ... African Journal of Psychiatry. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives.

  3. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2004-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains thirteen separate letters on start-to-end simulations of SASE FEL at the TESLA test facility, possible ways of improvement of the FEM oscillator with a Bragg resonator, the status and perspectives of the electron cooling method development, crystalline ion beams in storage rings, latest results of modeling of LHC beam injection, charge exchange injection in a synchrotron equipped with an electron cooling system, fringe and hysteresis effects in electron guns, nonstationary regimes of electron flow formation in secondary emission inverse coaxial diodes, a proposal of the experiment testing of the fine structure of the Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation, computer simulation of the electron beam dynamics at the accelerator structure and the injector of S-band linac with energies of 3 and 10 MeV, calculation of the electron beam dynamics of the accelerator LUE-200, the accelerator-accumulation facility ITEP-TWAC and accelerators-drivers of electronuclear facilities

  4. Burroughs's Postcolonial Visions in The Yage Letters

    OpenAIRE

    Keomany, Melanie

    2016-01-01

    In her article "Burroughs's Postcolonial Visions in The Yage Letters" Melanie Keomany discusses the contents of William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg's The Yage Letters which could be dismissed as openly bigoted and racist. Keomany posits that the text reveals valuable connections between the colonial expansion of the eighteenth century and 1950s USA and Latin America. By re-shaping Burroughs's lived experiences in the Amazon into a text where the narrator William Lee mimics sardonically an...

  5. Letters to a Young Writer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Waldman, Anne; Becker, Robin

    2002-01-01

    Presents words of encouragement to a young poet. Includes empathetic words and motivating ideas. Presents a letter including a quote from "Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth and ideas about that quote. (SG)

  6. The impact of familiarization strategies on the missing-letter effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Plamondon, Andréanne; Roy-Charland, Annie; Chamberland, Justin; Quenneville, Joannie; Laforge, Christian

    2017-08-01

    When reading a text and searching for a target letter, readers make more omissions of the target letter if it is embedded in frequent function words than if it is in rare content words. While word frequency effects are consistently found, few studies have examined the impacts of passage familiarity on the missing-letter effect and studies that have present conflicting evidence. The present study examines the effects of passage familiarity, as well as the impacts of passage familiarization strategy promoting surface or deep encoding, on the missing-letter effect. Participants were familiarized with a passage by retyping a text, replacing all common nouns with synonyms, or generating a text on the same topic as that of the original text, and then completed a letter search task on the familiar passage as well as an unfamiliar passage. In Experiment 1, when both familiar and unfamiliar passages use the same words, results revealed fewer omissions for the retyping and synonyms conditions. However, in Experiment 2, when different words are used in both types of texts, no effect of familiarization strategy was observed. Furthermore, the missing-letter effect is maintained in all conditions, adding support to the robustness of the effect regardless of familiarity with the text.

  7. Adaptation of Shift Sequence Based Method for High Number in Shifts Rostering Problem for Health Care Workers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mindaugas Liogys

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available Purpose—is to investigate a shift sequence-based approach efficiency then problem consisting of a high number of shifts.Research objectives:• Solve health care workers rostering problem using a shift sequence based method.• Measure its efficiency then number of shifts increases.Design/methodology/approach—Usually rostering problems are highly constrained. Constraints are classified to soft and hard constraints. Soft and hard constraints of the problem are additionally classified to: sequence constraints, schedule constraints and roster constraints. Sequence constraints are considered when constructing shift sequences. Schedule constraints are considered when constructing a schedule. Roster constraints are applied, then constructing overall solution, i.e. combining all schedules.Shift sequence based approach consists of two stages:• Shift sequences construction,• The construction of schedules.In the shift sequences construction stage, the shift sequences are constructed for each set of health care workers of different skill, considering sequence constraints. Shifts sequences are ranked by their penalties for easier retrieval in later stage.In schedules construction stage, schedules for each health care worker are constructed iteratively, using the shift sequences produced in stage 1.Shift sequence based method is an adaptive iterative method where health care workers who received the highest schedule penalties in the last iteration are scheduled first at the current iteration.During the roster construction, and after a schedule has been generated for the current health care worker, an improvement method based on an efficient greedy local search is carried out on the partial roster. It simply swaps any pair of shifts between two health care workers in the (partial roster, as long as the swaps satisfy hard constraints and decrease the roster penalty.Findings—Using shift sequence method for solving health care workers rostering problem

  8. Adaptation of Shift Sequence Based Method for High Number in Shifts Rostering Problem for Health Care Workers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mindaugas Liogys

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available Purpose—is to investigate a shift sequence-based approach efficiency then problem consisting of a high number of shifts. Research objectives:• Solve health care workers rostering problem using a shift sequence based method.• Measure its efficiency then number of shifts increases. Design/methodology/approach—Usually rostering problems are highly constrained.Constraints are classified to soft and hard constraints. Soft and hard constraints of the problem are additionally classified to: sequence constraints, schedule constraints and roster constraints. Sequence constraints are considered when constructing shift sequences. Schedule constraints are considered when constructing a schedule. Roster constraints are applied, then constructing overall solution, i.e. combining all schedules.Shift sequence based approach consists of two stages:• Shift sequences construction,• The construction of schedules.In the shift sequences construction stage, the shift sequences are constructed for each set of health care workers of different skill, considering sequence constraints. Shifts sequences are ranked by their penalties for easier retrieval in later stage.In schedules construction stage, schedules for each health care worker are constructed iteratively, using the shift sequences produced in stage 1. Shift sequence based method is an adaptive iterative method where health care workers who received the highest schedule penalties in the last iteration are scheduled first at the current iteration. During the roster construction, and after a schedule has been generated for the current health care worker, an improvement method based on an efficient greedy local search is carried out on the partial roster. It simply swaps any pair of shifts between two health care workers in the (partial roster, as long as the swaps satisfy hard constraints and decrease the roster penalty.Findings—Using shift sequence method for solving health care workers rostering

  9. Human Y chromosome copy number variation in the next generation sequencing era and beyond.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Massaia, Andrea; Xue, Yali

    2017-05-01

    The human Y chromosome provides a fertile ground for structural rearrangements owing to its haploidy and high content of repeated sequences. The methodologies used for copy number variation (CNV) studies have developed over the years. Low-throughput techniques based on direct observation of rearrangements were developed early on, and are still used, often to complement array-based or sequencing approaches which have limited power in regions with high repeat content and specifically in the presence of long, identical repeats, such as those found in human sex chromosomes. Some specific rearrangements have been investigated for decades; because of their effects on fertility, or their outstanding evolutionary features, the interest in these has not diminished. However, following the flourishing of large-scale genomics, several studies have investigated CNVs across the whole chromosome. These studies sometimes employ data generated within large genomic projects such as the DDD study or the 1000 Genomes Project, and often survey large samples of healthy individuals without any prior selection. Novel technologies based on sequencing long molecules and combinations of technologies, promise to stimulate the study of Y-CNVs in the immediate future.

  10. Open letter to EU Commission about proposed EDC Criteria

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ågerstrand, Marlene; Bero, Lisa; Beronius, Anna

    2016-01-01

    Open letter in response to the proposed criteria for identification and regulation of endocrine disrupting chemicals, under the PPP and Biocides Regulations......Open letter in response to the proposed criteria for identification and regulation of endocrine disrupting chemicals, under the PPP and Biocides Regulations...

  11. 50 CFR 216.258 - Renewal of Letters of Authorization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE MARINE MAMMALS REGULATIONS GOVERNING THE TAKING AND IMPORTING OF MARINE MAMMALS Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Conducting Precision Strike Weapon Missions in the Gulf of Mexico § 216.258 Renewal of Letters of Authorization. (a) A Letter of Authorization...

  12. David Bohm : causality and chance, letters to three women

    CERN Document Server

    2017-01-01

    The letters transcribed in this book were written by physicist David Bohm to three close female acquaintances in the period 1950 to 1956. They provide a background to his causal interpretation of quantum mechanics and the Marxist philosophy that inspired his scientific work in quantum theory, probability and statistical mechanics. In his letters, Bohm reveals the ideas that led to his ground breaking book Causality and Chance in Modern Physics. The political arguments as well as the acute personal problems contained in these letters help to give a rounded, human picture of this leading scientist and twentieth century thinker.

  13. Contributions of Emergent Literacy Skills to Name Writing, Letter Writing, and Spelling in Preschool Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Puranik, Cynthia S.; Lonigan, Christopher J.; Kim, Young-Suk

    2011-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine which emergent literacy skills contribute to preschool children’s emergent writing (name-writing, letter-writing, and spelling) skills. Emergent reading and writing tasks were administered to 296 preschool children aged 4–5 years. Print knowledge and letter-writing skills made positive contributions to name writing; whereas alphabet knowledge, print knowledge, and name writing made positive contributions to letter writing. Both name-writing and letter-writing skills made significant contributions to the prediction of spelling after controlling for age, parental education, print knowledge, phonological awareness, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge; however, only letter-writing abilities made a significant unique contribution to the prediction of spelling when both letter-writing and name-writing skills were considered together. Name writing reflects knowledge of some letters rather than a broader knowledge of letters that may be needed to support early spelling. Children’s letter-writing skills may be a better indicator of children’s emergent literacy and developing spelling skills than are their name-writing skills at the end of the preschool year. Spelling is a developmentally complex skill beginning in preschool and includes letter writing and blending skills, print knowledge, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge. PMID:21927537

  14. Genome-wide patterns of copy number variation in the diversified chicken genomes using next-generation sequencing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yi, Guoqiang; Qu, Lujiang; Liu, Jianfeng; Yan, Yiyuan; Xu, Guiyun; Yang, Ning

    2014-11-07

    Copy number variation (CNV) is important and widespread in the genome, and is a major cause of disease and phenotypic diversity. Herein, we performed a genome-wide CNV analysis in 12 diversified chicken genomes based on whole genome sequencing. A total of 8,840 CNV regions (CNVRs) covering 98.2 Mb and representing 9.4% of the chicken genome were identified, ranging in size from 1.1 to 268.8 kb with an average of 11.1 kb. Sequencing-based predictions were confirmed at a high validation rate by two independent approaches, including array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) and quantitative PCR (qPCR). The Pearson's correlation coefficients between sequencing and aCGH results ranged from 0.435 to 0.755, and qPCR experiments revealed a positive validation rate of 91.71% and a false negative rate of 22.43%. In total, 2,214 (25.0%) predicted CNVRs span 2,216 (36.4%) RefSeq genes associated with specific biological functions. Besides two previously reported copy number variable genes EDN3 and PRLR, we also found some promising genes with potential in phenotypic variation. Two genes, FZD6 and LIMS1, related to disease susceptibility/resistance are covered by CNVRs. The highly duplicated SOCS2 may lead to higher bone mineral density. Entire or partial duplication of some genes like POPDC3 may have great economic importance in poultry breeding. Our results based on extensive genetic diversity provide a more refined chicken CNV map and genome-wide gene copy number estimates, and warrant future CNV association studies for important traits in chickens.

  15. Number Sense on the Number Line

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woods, Dawn Marie; Ketterlin Geller, Leanne; Basaraba, Deni

    2018-01-01

    A strong foundation in early number concepts is critical for students' future success in mathematics. Research suggests that visual representations, like a number line, support students' development of number sense by helping them create a mental representation of the order and magnitude of numbers. In addition, explicitly sequencing instruction…

  16. Performance Evaluation of NIPT in Detection of Chromosomal Copy Number Variants Using Low-Coverage Whole-Genome Sequencing of Plasma DNA

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Liu, Hongtai; Gao, Ya; Hu, Zhiyang

    2016-01-01

    , including 33 CNVs samples and 886 normal samples from September 1, 2011 to May 31, 2013, were enrolled in this study. The samples were randomly rearranged and blindly sequenced by low-coverage (about 7M reads) whole-genome sequencing of plasma DNA. Fetal CNVs were detected by Fetal Copy-number Analysis...

  17. LETTERS OF MARIA KUNCEWICZOWA TO HER LATE HUSBAND

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna Wzorek

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available The article discusses the last book of Maria Kuncewiczowa – a set of twenty-three letters (provided with a postscript addressed to her deceased husband. The uniqueness of this correspondence, presented in literary form, lies in the fact that the recipient is dead, treated by the sender as someone constantly present in the real world and still associated with the temporality. "Listy do Jerzego" ("Letters to Jerzy" are – as Tadeusz Swat, one of the reviewers say – “an attempt at denial of death, to save Jerzy by love, memory, and literature.” The analysis of the work highlights the occurring axiological categories. It has been demonstrated that "Letters to Jerzy" is a book about eternal love reaching beyond the grave (in this respect, in stark contrast with "Tristan" 1946, felt with dignity of old age, and finally transcending into faith. "Letters to Jerzy" is also an attempt to reduce the suffering of the writer over the loss of her beloved husband. To some extent, therefore, they correspond to her earlier work "Cudzoziemka" ("Foreigner" in which Kuncewiczowa liberates from the negative emotions associated with the death of her mother.

  18. Referral letters to the psychiatrist in Nigeria: is communication ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    history, may not be elements that non-psychiatrist phy- sicians routinely collect during their examinations and, therefore, one would not expect such information to be available to be included in referral letters. Conclusion. Deficits in communication or information transfer through referral letters to the psychiatrist are common.

  19. Referral letters to the psychiatrist in Nigeria: is communication ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Result: A majority (>80%) of the referral letters had no information on the current medication list, relevant psychosocial history, outline of management to date, results of investigations to date, and known allergies. Conclusion: Deficits in communication or information transfer through referral letters to the psychiatrist are ...

  20. Love letters to the dead: resurrecting an epistolary art.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lander, Dorothy A; Graham-Pole, John R

    This article explores the art of letter-writing, specifically to our beloved dead, as a form of autoethnographic research, pedagogy, and care work. As university teachers and qualitative researchers in palliative and end-of-life care, we review the literature and history of epistolary communications with the deceased, as a prelude to writing our own letters. John writes to his long-dead mother and Dorothy to her recently deceased spouse Patrick, each letter followed by a reflective dialogue between us. Through this dialogue, we highlight the potential application of this art, or handcraft, to formal and informal palliative care, and the implications for practice, pedagogy, policy, and research. We propose that such direct, non-mediated, communications can offer a valuable form of healing for bereaved people. The therapeutic potential of letter writing and the abundance of literary and popular culture exemplars of responses from the dead are also largely unexplored in death education and research.

  1. Leo Tolstoy’s novel "War and Peace" in diaries and letters (to 150 anniversary beginning the work on the novel

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Batchaeva Klara Hamidovna

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available The article «Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” in diaries and letters» subjects to a detailed analysis the letters by L.N. Tolstoy, A.A. Fet, A.I. Ertel, diaries of L.N. Tolstoy and his wife S.A. Tolstoya, as well as letters of A.A Fet, I.S. Turgenev and others, to a greater or lesser extent on the novel «War and Peace». The most significant in number and in content - letter by L.N. Tolstoy, A.A. Fet and writing responses by A.A. Fet. The article stresses that it is from A.A. Fet, as a friend and colleague writers, Tolstoy shared his innermost thoughts, doubts, plans, letters to him talking about numerous overtime novel text and took notes with gratitude the poet. Letters by I.S. Turgenev differed greatly often unjustified, criticism of the novel «War and Peace», although later Turgenev would call this work «a wonderful book.» In this article, through the prism of letters and diaries, it is analyzed the questions of the history of the novel, publications on chapters and parts, recreating historical events and facts that shaped the system works also reflected variant titles of the novel «1805», «All is well that ends well», «War and peace». The subject of many scientific studies was to determine the relation of historical facts and fictitious people, that is given special attention in this article.

  2. Letters in this Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    1998-01-01

    Reforming the General Chemistry Textbook individual letters by Edward T. Samulski; Stephen J. Hawkes; Stephen J. Fisher; J. Stephen Hartman; A. R. H. Cole; Stanley Pine, Ronald Archer, and Herbert Kaesz; Jimmy Reeves; Robert Hill; and Brock Spencer, C. Bradley Moore and Nedah Rose. Re: article by R. J. Gillespie The author replies

  3. The Letters of Maximos Planudes to Alexios Philanthropenos and Melchisedek Akropolites: the Problems of Source Studies in the Context of the Politico-Military Situation in Byzantium in the Late 13th C.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pavel I. Lysikov

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available This research work is dedicated to the problem of dating of the Byzantine scholar and monk Maximos Planudes’ letters to the general, pinkernes Alexios Philanthropenos and his companion, monk Melchisedek Akropolites. Our goal is to date these letters on the basis of their content and data from other sources and to reconstruct chronological sequence of their writing. The period of time when Alexios Philanthropenos was in office of dux of Thrakision (1293–1295 during which he conducted some military operations against the Turks of beyliks Germiyan and Menteєe has a special place in the history of the Byzantine-Turkish wars in the early Palaiologan era. At this time the Byzantine state made some of its last successful military efforts in this struggle. By studying this theme the present article makes a contribution to research the Byzantine wars against the Turks and the military art and military organization of the empire in the late 13th century. Following the explicit consideration of some disputed items in dating of Maximos Planudes’ letters to the persons mentioned above (42 letters the author specifies the chronological sequence of their writing and clarifies the stages of the Alexios Philanthropenos’ military activity in Asia Minor. This article also makes a contribution to using of epistolographic data in historical study.

  4. Letter processing and font information during reading: beyond distinctiveness, where vision meets design.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sanocki, Thomas; Dyson, Mary C

    2012-01-01

    Letter identification is a critical front end of the reading process. In general, conceptualizations of the identification process have emphasized arbitrary sets of distinctive features. However, a richer view of letter processing incorporates principles from the field of type design, including an emphasis on uniformities across letters within a font. The importance of uniformities is supported by a small body of research indicating that consistency of font increases letter identification efficiency. We review design concepts and the relevant literature, with the goal of stimulating further thinking about letter processing during reading.

  5. The Syntax of Persuasion: Two Business Letters of Request.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Limaye, Mohan R.

    1983-01-01

    Business letter-writers are advised to develop reader empathy and benefit before they ask a favor. The author analyzed two model 16th century letters of request to determine if similar advice was given in the past, and found that the request was subordinate to building a mutually beneficial relationship. (PD)

  6. Undergraduate nursing students writing therapeutic letters to families: an educational strategy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Erlingsson, Christen

    2009-02-01

    Writing therapeutic letters to families is discussed in this article as an educational strategy encouraging students to think reflectively about family nursing. At the University of Kalmar, Sweden, undergraduate nursing students in a primary care module interviewed families using the Calgary Family Assessment Model and wrote therapeutic letters to these families. This article describes (a) the examination process, which was the context for writing therapeutic letters, (b) results of analyses of the letters, and (c) student's post-examination evaluation comments. Results indicate that most students needed encouragement to focus on the family's strengths and resources instead of focusing on own feelings or problems they perceived the family as having. Students also needed support in relinquishing their hierarchical role of "expert nurse." Students' evaluation comments showed that writing therapeutic letters provided students with opportunities to reflect about the connections between family nursing theory and the family itself.

  7. A Fragmentary Archive: Migratory Feelings in Early Anglo-Saxon Women's Letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watt, Diane

    2017-01-01

    The letters by Anglo-Saxon women in the Boniface correspondence are connected by cultural practices and emotions centered on the conversion mission that functioned to maintain connections between the Anglo-Saxon diaspora. A striking recurring focus of these letters is on loss and isolation, which connects them to the Old English elegies. Many of the letters describe the writers' traumatic experiences that result from the death or absence of kin. These are women who endured the trauma of being left behind when others migrated overseas or who, in traveling away from their homeland, found themselves isolated in an alien environment, displaced in time as well as space. This article offers an analysis of the letters, focusing on the queer temporalities they explore, the queer emotions they evoke, and the queer kinships that they forge. It argues that the women's letters represent fragments of an early queer archive of migratory feelings.

  8. Open letter to the Vatican.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1999-01-01

    An open letter was published by Latin American and Caribbean women during the Special Session of the UN General Assembly on the International Conference on Population and Development. The letter generally focused on the Church¿s stand on women's reproductive rights. In particular, it questioned the Church on the following aspects of reproductive health, which include: 1) maternal death related to lack of access to reproductive health care; 2) Vatican representatives insisting that only parents can supervise their children education and health, which also lead to many cases of sexual abuse and incest; 3) women's sexual inequality and daily violence; 4) the Vatican delegation blocking the advances of contraception, sexual education, and HIV prevention; 5) problems of migrants and allocation of resources; and 6) the Church failing to recognize the capacity of young people to make decisions based on their own conscience.

  9. Scientific Letter: High-intent suicide and the Beck's Suicide Intent ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Scientific Letter: High-intent suicide and the Beck's Suicide Intent scale: a case report. ... African Journal of Psychiatry. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current ... Abstract. Scientific Letter - No Abstract Available ...

  10. 32 CFR 884.17 - Commander's instruction letter to member.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... instruction letter to member. Subject: Instructions in Case of Release on Bail or Personal Recognizance 1. You... 32 National Defense 6 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Commander's instruction letter to member. 884.17... civilian custody on bail or on your own recognizance, report immediately in person or by telephone to the...

  11. Lost and Found, Letters and Methods: Assessing Attitudes toward Chiropractic and Medical Care

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hannah Kern

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available Attitudes toward traditional and chiropractic medicine were compared using Milgram's lost letter technique. A total of 192 letters were placed on the windshields of vehicles in parking lots at six restaurants and department stores in each of four quadrants of a medium-sized, Southeastern city. These letters were addressed to "Admissions" at either a fictitious Institute of Medicine or Institute of Chiropractic Care. Return addresses included either a male or a female name. Thus, those who found a lost letter were faced with the option of returning or not returning a letter from either a male or a female, addressed to an Institute of traditional or non-traditional medicine. After examining previous studies which had used the lost letter technique, numerous methodological improvements were implemented. For example, letters were randomly assigned to potential drop spots for each of 24 study locations (six study locations in each of four city quadrants, and a Latin square design was used to control for possible order effects in the four study conditions that were implemented. Nearly 65% of the letters (124 of 192 were returned. We found: 1 letters addressed to a fictitious Institute of Chiropractic Care were just as likely to be returned as those addressed to a fictitious Institute of Medicine; 2 letters with female return addresses were as likely to be returned as those with male return addresses; 3 there was no interaction between study conditions; 4 based on what was essentially a replication study, a comparison of the pattern of returns using the first and second cycle of lost letters (n = 96 for each cycle revealed an equivalent pattern of no-difference findings. DOI: 10.2458/azu_jmmss.v1i1.78

  12. Contemporary trends in the research of the Letter to Philemon

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bartosz Adamczewski

    2005-03-01

    Full Text Available In the period of last two or three decades interpretation of the Letter to Philemon has undergone significant changes. Exegetes applying the historical-critical method proposed recently several new ways of reconstructing the situation that occasioned Paul’s writing the letter. It has been suggested e.g. that Onesimus was no runaway, but probably an envoy from Colossae, or Philemon’s estranged brother, or a slave justifiably seeking intercession, or a roamer. Synchronic methods applied by many exegetes (structural, rhetorical, narrative and pragmatic criticism elucidate various kinds of influence of the letter upon the reader. More and more popular becomes also nowadays manifold liberationist approach. However, beyond applying these various hermeneutic procedures there is also, at least for believing exegetes, an important task of adequate explaining the significance of the Letter to Philemon as an inspired writing.

  13. An analysis of the warning letters issued by the FDA to pharmaceutical manufacturers regarding misleading health outcomes claims

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chatterjee S

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Objective: To evaluate the number and type of warning letters issued by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA to pharmaceutical manufacturers for promotional violations.Methods: Two reviewers downloaded, printed and independently evaluated warning letters issued by the FDA to pharmaceutical manufacturers from years 2003-2008. Misleading claims were broadly classified as clinical, Quality-of-Life (QoL, and economic claims. Clinical claims included claims regarding unsubstantiated efficacy, safety and tolerability, superiority, broadening of indication and/or omission of risk information. QoL claims included unsubstantiated quality of life and/or health-related quality of life claims. Economic claims included any form of claim made on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies related to cost superiority of or cost savings from the drug compared to other drugs in the market.Results: In the 6-year study period, 65 warning letters were issued by FDA, which contained 144 clinical, three QoL, and one economic claim. On an average, 11 warning letters were issued per year. Omission of risk information was the most frequently violated claim (30.6% followed by unsubstantiated efficacy claims (18.6%. Warning letters were primarily directed to manufacturers of cardiovascular (14.6%, anti-microbial (14.6%, and CNS (12.5% drugs. Majority of the claims referenced in warning letters contained promotional materials directed to physicians (57%. Conclusion: The study found that misleading clinical outcome claims formed the majority of the promotional violations, and majority of the claims were directed to physicians. Since inadequate promotion of medications may lead to irrational prescribing, the study emphasizes the importance of disseminating reliable, credible, and scientific information to patients, and more importantly, physicians to protect public health.

  14. A classification of marked hijaiyah letters' pronunciation using hidden Markov model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wisesty, Untari N.; Mubarok, M. Syahrul; Adiwijaya

    2017-08-01

    Hijaiyah letters are the letters that arrange the words in Al Qur'an consisting of 28 letters. They symbolize the consonant sounds. On the other hand, the vowel sounds are symbolized by harokat/marks. Speech recognition system is a system used to process the sound signal to be data so that it can be recognized by computer. To build the system, some stages are needed i.e characteristics/feature extraction and classification. In this research, LPC and MFCC extraction method, K-Means Quantization vector and Hidden Markov Model classification are used. The data used are the 28 letters and 6 harakat with the total class of 168. After several are testing done, it can be concluded that the system can recognize the pronunciation pattern of marked hijaiyah letter very well in the training data with its highest accuracy of 96.1% using the feature of LPC extraction and 94% using the MFCC. Meanwhile, when testing system is used, the accuracy decreases up to 41%.

  15. The A.I.D.A. Plan and the Writing of Sales Letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jong, Rowena

    A study based on textual analysis of sales letters is reported that evaluates the Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action (AIDA) approach to teaching the writing of sales letters. Thirty business letters written by undergraduate business students and executives were analyzed. The forms of cohesion, voice pattern, and information focus of the…

  16. 22 CFR 201.71 - Terms of letters of credit.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... shall not be inconsistent with or contrary to the terms of the letter of commitment. Any such letter of credit or agreement may be modified or extended at any time in such a manner and to such extent as is acceptable to the approved applicant and the bank: Provided, That such modification or extension may not be...

  17. Serial recall of rhythms and verbal sequences: Impacts of concurrent tasks and irrelevant sound.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall, Debbora; Gathercole, Susan E

    2011-08-01

    Rhythmic grouping enhances verbal serial recall, yet very little is known about memory for rhythmic patterns. The aim of this study was to compare the cognitive processes supporting memory for rhythmic and verbal sequences using a range of concurrent tasks and irrelevant sounds. In Experiment 1, both concurrent articulation and paced finger tapping during presentation and during a retention interval impaired rhythm recall, while letter recall was only impaired by concurrent articulation. In Experiments 2 and 3, irrelevant sound consisted of irrelevant speech or tones, changing-state or steady-state sound, and syncopated or paced sound during presentation and during a retention interval. Irrelevant speech was more damaging to rhythm and letter recall than was irrelevant tone sound, but there was no effect of changing state on rhythm recall, while letter recall accuracy was disrupted by changing-state sound. Pacing of sound did not consistently affect either rhythm or letter recall. There are similarities in the way speech and rhythms are processed that appear to extend beyond reliance on temporal coding mechanisms involved in serial-order recall.

  18. 24 CFR 242.49 - Funds and finances: deposits and letters of credit.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... collection under the letter of credit. In the event a demand for payment thereunder is not immediately met... letters of credit. 242.49 Section 242.49 Housing and Urban Development Regulations Relating to Housing and...: deposits and letters of credit. (a) Deposits. Where HUD requires the mortgagor to make a deposit of cash or...

  19. Scientific Letter: Stabbing nails into the neck: an unusual self ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Scientific Letter: Stabbing nails into the neck: an unusual self-damaging behavior mandating neurosurgery. A Aghabiklooei, R Aghabiklooei, N Zamani. Abstract. Scientific Letter - No Abstract Available. Full Text: EMAIL FREE FULL TEXT EMAIL FREE FULL TEXT · DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT.

  20. Involuntary attention with uncertainty: peripheral cues improve perception of masked letters, but may impair perception of low-contrast letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kerzel, Dirk; Gauch, Angélique; Buetti, Simona

    2010-10-01

    Improvements of perceptual performance following the presentation of peripheral cues have been ascribed to accelerated accrual of information, enhanced contrast perception, and decision bias. We investigated effects of peripheral cues on the perception of Gabor and letter stimuli. Non-predictive, peripheral cues improved perceptual accuracy when the stimuli were masked. In contrast, peripheral cues degraded perception of low-contrast letters and did not affect the perception of low-contrast Gabors. The results suggest that involuntary attention accelerates accrual of information but are not entirely consistent with the idea that involuntary attention enhances subjective contrast. Rather, peripheral cues may cause crowding with single letter targets of low contrast. Further, we investigated the effect of the amount of uncertainty on involuntary attention. Cueing effects were (initially) larger when there were more possible target locations. In addition, cueing effects were larger when error feedback was absent and observers had no knowledge of results. Despite these strategic factors, location uncertainty was not sufficient to produce cueing effects, showing that location uncertainty paired with non-predictive cues reveals perceptual and not (only) decisional processes.

  1. The Danish letters

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Beier, Sofie; Ejlers, Steen

    2011-01-01

    The talk will focus on Danish type designers and their work on Æ (AE), Ø (Oslash) and Å (Aring). These 'anomalies' found in the Danish written language, often causes difficulties for type designers. The counters of Ø/ø sometimes appear overcrowded, the uppercase Æ can result in an uncomfortably o......' attempt to create the optimal variation of these letters, we will give a brief introduction to the Danish typography tradition ranging from the early 20th Century and up until today....

  2. Letters to the Editor

    Science.gov (United States)

    1999-09-01

    All the Letters to the Editor in this issue are in the same PostScript or PDF file. Contents The imaginary Sun? Harold Aspden Energy Science Ltd, PO Box 35, Southampton SO16 7RB, UK Difficult physics? Tim Akrill Chief Examiner, A-level Physics, Edexcel Foundation Was it a dream? Bill Jarvis 6 Peggy's Mill Road, Edinburgh EH4 6JY

  3. Analysis of letter name knowledge using Rasch measurement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bowles, Ryan P; Skibbe, Lori E; Justice, Laura M

    2011-01-01

    Letter name knowledge (LNK) is a key predictor of later reading ability and has been emphasized strongly in recent educational policy. Studies of LNK have implicitly treated it as a unidimensional construct with all letters equally relevant to its measurement. However, some empirical research suggests that contextual factors can affect the measurement of LNK. In this study, we analyze responses from 909 children on measures of LNK using the Rasch model and its extensions, and consider two contextual factors: the format of assessment and the own-name advantage, which states that children are more likely to know letters in their own first names. Results indicate that both contextual factors have important impacts on measurement and that LNK does not meet the requirements of Rasch measurement even when accounting for the contextual factors. These findings introduce philosophical concerns for measurement of constrained skills which have limited content for assessment.

  4. 29 CFR 1621.3 - Procedure for requesting an opinion letter.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 1621.3 Labor Regulations Relating to Labor (Continued) EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION PROCEDURES-THE EQUAL PAY ACT § 1621.3 Procedure for requesting an opinion letter. (a) A request for an opinion letter should be submitted in writing to the Chairman, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission...

  5. Pirates at Parties: Letter Position Processing in Developing Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kohnen, Saskia; Castles, Anne

    2013-01-01

    There has been much recent interest in letter position coding in adults, but little is known about the development of this process in children learning to read. Here, the letter position coding abilities of 127 children in Grades 2, 3, and 4 (aged 7-10 years) were examined by comparing their performance in reading aloud "migratable" words (e.g.,…

  6. Gift from statistical learning: Visual statistical learning enhances memory for sequence elements and impairs memory for items that disrupt regularities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Otsuka, Sachio; Saiki, Jun

    2016-02-01

    Prior studies have shown that visual statistical learning (VSL) enhances familiarity (a type of memory) of sequences. How do statistical regularities influence the processing of each triplet element and inserted distractors that disrupt the regularity? Given that increased attention to triplets induced by VSL and inhibition of unattended triplets, we predicted that VSL would promote memory for each triplet constituent, and degrade memory for inserted stimuli. Across the first two experiments, we found that objects from structured sequences were more likely to be remembered than objects from random sequences, and that letters (Experiment 1) or objects (Experiment 2) inserted into structured sequences were less likely to be remembered than those inserted into random sequences. In the subsequent two experiments, we examined an alternative account for our results, whereby the difference in memory for inserted items between structured and random conditions is due to individuation of items within random sequences. Our findings replicated even when control letters (Experiment 3A) or objects (Experiment 3B) were presented before or after, rather than inserted into, random sequences. Our findings suggest that statistical learning enhances memory for each item in a regular set and impairs memory for items that disrupt the regularity. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. Referral letters to the emergency department: is the medication list accurate?

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    McCullagh, M

    2015-02-01

    Medication errors are common when patients transfer across healthcare boundaries. This study was designed to investigate the quality of information on medicines provided by general practitioners (GPs) on emergency department (ED) referral letters. A convenience sample of referral letters to the ED of a teaching hospital was reviewed. The medication list and\\/or patient\\'s drug allergy status were noted. Medicines reconciliation including patient (or carer) interview was conducted to determine the patient\\'s actual home medication list. This was compared with the GP list and any discrepancies were identified and addressed. A total of 92 referral letters were included in the analysis of which 60 were computer-generated and 32 were hand-written. GPs provided dose and frequency of administration information in 47 (51%) of the letters sampled i.e. 44 (71%) computer-generated versus 3 (10%) hand-written; p < 0.001. In addition, the patient was taking their medicines exactly as per the GP list in 20 (22%) of cases. The patient\\'s drug allergy status was documented in 13 (14%) of the letters.

  8. Targeted next-generation sequencing at copy-number breakpoints for personalized analysis of rearranged ends in solid tumors.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hyun-Kyoung Kim

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The concept of the utilization of rearranged ends for development of personalized biomarkers has attracted much attention owing to its clinical applicability. Although targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS for recurrent rearrangements has been successful in hematologic malignancies, its application to solid tumors is problematic due to the paucity of recurrent translocations. However, copy-number breakpoints (CNBs, which are abundant in solid tumors, can be utilized for identification of rearranged ends. METHOD: As a proof of concept, we performed targeted next-generation sequencing at copy-number breakpoints (TNGS-CNB in nine colon cancer cases including seven primary cancers and two cell lines, COLO205 and SW620. For deduction of CNBs, we developed a novel competitive single-nucleotide polymorphism (cSNP microarray method entailing CNB-region refinement by competitor DNA. RESULT: Using TNGS-CNB, 19 specific rearrangements out of 91 CNBs (20.9% were identified, and two polymerase chain reaction (PCR-amplifiable rearrangements were obtained in six cases (66.7%. And significantly, TNGS-CNB, with its high positive identification rate (82.6% of PCR-amplifiable rearrangements at candidate sites (19/23, just from filtering of aligned sequences, requires little effort for validation. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that TNGS-CNB, with its utility for identification of rearrangements in solid tumors, can be successfully applied in the clinical laboratory for cancer-relapse and therapy-response monitoring.

  9. Targeted next-generation sequencing at copy-number breakpoints for personalized analysis of rearranged ends in solid tumors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Hyun-Kyoung; Park, Won Cheol; Lee, Kwang Man; Hwang, Hai-Li; Park, Seong-Yeol; Sorn, Sungbin; Chandra, Vishal; Kim, Kwang Gi; Yoon, Woong-Bae; Bae, Joon Seol; Shin, Hyoung Doo; Shin, Jong-Yeon; Seoh, Ju-Young; Kim, Jong-Il; Hong, Kyeong-Man

    2014-01-01

    The concept of the utilization of rearranged ends for development of personalized biomarkers has attracted much attention owing to its clinical applicability. Although targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) for recurrent rearrangements has been successful in hematologic malignancies, its application to solid tumors is problematic due to the paucity of recurrent translocations. However, copy-number breakpoints (CNBs), which are abundant in solid tumors, can be utilized for identification of rearranged ends. As a proof of concept, we performed targeted next-generation sequencing at copy-number breakpoints (TNGS-CNB) in nine colon cancer cases including seven primary cancers and two cell lines, COLO205 and SW620. For deduction of CNBs, we developed a novel competitive single-nucleotide polymorphism (cSNP) microarray method entailing CNB-region refinement by competitor DNA. Using TNGS-CNB, 19 specific rearrangements out of 91 CNBs (20.9%) were identified, and two polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-amplifiable rearrangements were obtained in six cases (66.7%). And significantly, TNGS-CNB, with its high positive identification rate (82.6%) of PCR-amplifiable rearrangements at candidate sites (19/23), just from filtering of aligned sequences, requires little effort for validation. Our results indicate that TNGS-CNB, with its utility for identification of rearrangements in solid tumors, can be successfully applied in the clinical laboratory for cancer-relapse and therapy-response monitoring.

  10. Different letter-processing strategies in diagnostic subgroups of developmental dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lachmann, Thomas; van Leeuwen, Cees

    2008-07-01

    Normally reading adults (N = 15) and primary school children (N = 24) and two diagnostic subgroups of children with developmental dyslexia (N = 21)-all native German speakers-performed a successive same-different task with pairs of letters and nonletters (pseudoletters or geometrical shapes). The first item of a pair was always presented on its own, and the second either on its own or surrounded by a congruent or incongruent nontarget shape. Adults showed congruence effects with nonletters but not with letters, and children with both types of stimuli. Frequent-word reading-impaired dyslexics (N = 11) in addition showed dramatically slower overall reaction times. Nonword reading-impaired dyslexics (N = 10) showed congruence effects with nonletters but negative congruence effects with letters. The results support the notion that normal readers have established a special visual processing strategy for letters. Processing speed rather than reading expertise seems crucial for this strategy to emerge. The contrasting effects between subgroups of dyslexics reveal specific underlying deficits.

  11. How to write effective business letters: scribing information for pharmacists.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamilton, C W

    1993-11-01

    Pharmacists frequently write letters but lack specific training on how to do it well. This review summarizes strategies for improving business correspondence, emphasizes basic writing guidelines, and offers practical advice for pharmacists. The first steps for effective communication are careful planning and identifying the main message to be conveyed. The purpose for writing should be stated in the opening paragraph of the letter. To ensure a successful outcome, actions needed should be clearly summarized and visually highlighted. The tone of the letter should reflect a reasonable speech pattern, not the cryptic writing found in many scientific papers. The layout of the letter should be inviting, which is readily achievable through judicious use of word processing. Many delivery options are available, such as traditional postal services, express mail, and facsimile transmission. Readers are encouraged to test these basic writing principles and decide for themselves whether these recommendations affect the success of business correspondence.

  12. John von Neumann selected letters

    CERN Document Server

    2005-01-01

    John von Neuman was perhaps the most influential mathematician of the twentieth century, especially if his broad influence outside mathematics is included. Not only did he contribute to almost all branches of mathematics and created new fields, but he also changed post-World War II history with his work on the design of computers and with being a sought-after technical advisor to many figures in the U.S. military-political establishment in the 1940s and 1950s. The present volume is the first substantial collection of (previously mainly unpublished) letters written by von Neumann to colleagues, friends, government officials, and others. The letters give us a glimpse of the thinking of John von Neumann about mathematics, physics, computer science, science management, education, consulting, politics, and war. Readers of quite diverse backgrounds will find much of interest in this fascinating first-hand look at one of the towering figures of twentieth century science.

  13. Intertextuality in Ba's So Long a Letter and Umunnakwe's Dear ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Intertextuality takes for granted the interdependence of literary texts because every artistic creation is a re-echoing of past knowledge. Mariama Ba's So Long A Letter and Ndubisi Umunnakwe's Dear Ramatoulaye are African examples. This work examines how Ba's So Long A Letter intertextualises with Umunnakwe's Dear ...

  14. 24 CFR 200.63 - Required deposits and letters of credit.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... Commissioner for collection under the letter of credit. In the event a demand for payment thereunder is not... credit. 200.63 Section 200.63 Housing and Urban Development Regulations Relating to Housing and Urban... Required deposits and letters of credit. (a) Deposits. Where the Commissioner requires the mortgagor to...

  15. Electronic Discharge Letter Mobile App

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lezcano, Leonardo; Triana, Michel; Ternier, Stefaan; Hartkopf, Kathleen; Stieger, Lina; Schroeder, Hanna; Sopka, Sasa; Drachsler, Hendrik; Maher, Bridget; Henn, Patrick; Orrego, Carola; Specht, Marcus

    2014-01-01

    The electronic discharge letter mobile app takes advantage of Near Field Communication (NFC) within the PATIENT project and a related post-doc study. NFC enabled phones to read passive RFID tags, but can also use this short-range wireless technology to exchange (small) messages. NFC in that sense

  16. Traditions of martyrdom in the Ignatian Letters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Fuhrmann

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available The letters of Ignatius represent one of the key texts for the emergence of martyrdom during the second century AD in Christianity. This article is concerned with the question whether Ignatius contributed to a “theology of martyrdom” or whether he rather relied on previous traditions. The author argues, by undertaking an analysis of certain pragmatics and semantics, that the motif of martyrdom is solely used to buttress Ignatius’ claim for authority among his intended addressees by referring to an understanding of martyrdom that has its roots in the New Testament. An identification of the author of the letters with a historical martyr is regarded as unlikely.

  17. Objectifying user critique. A means of continuous quality assurance for physician discharge letter composition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oschem, M; Mahler, V; Prokosch, H U

    2011-01-01

    The aim of this study is to objectify user critique rendering it usable for quality assurance. Based on formative and summative evaluation results we strive to promote software improvements; in our case, the physician discharge letter composition process at the Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Erlangen, Germany. We developed a novel six-step approach to objectify user critique: 1) acquisition of user critique using subjectivist methods, 2) creation of a workflow model, 3) definition of hypothesis and indicators, 4) measuring of indicators, 5) analyzing results, 6) optimization of the system regarding both subjectivist and objectivist evaluation results. In particular, we derived indicators and workflows directly from user critique/narratives. The identified indicators were mapped onto workflow activities, creating a link between user critique and the evaluated system. Users criticized a new discharge letter system as "too slow" and "too labor-intensive" in comparison with the previously used system. In a stepwise approach we collected subjective user critique, derived a comprehensive process model including deviations and deduced a set of five indicators for objectivist evaluation: processing time, system-related waiting time, number of mouse clicks, number of keyboard inputs, and throughput time. About 3500 measurements have been performed to compare the workflow-steps of both systems, regarding 20 discharge letters. Although the difference of the mean total processing time between both systems was statistically insignificant (2011.7 s vs. 1971.5 s; p = 0.457), we detected a significant difference in waiting times (101.8 s vs. 37.2 s; p quality assurance. To our knowledge no previous study in medical informatics mapped user critique onto workflow steps. Subjectivist analysis prompted us to use the indicator system-related waiting time for the objectivist study, which was rarely done before. We consider combining subjectivist and objectivist methods

  18. Letter-Sound Reading: Teaching Preschool Children Print-to-Sound Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolf, Gail Marie

    2016-01-01

    This intervention study investigated the growth of letter sound reading and growth of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word decoding abilities for a representative sample of 41 US children in preschool settings. Specifically, the study evaluated the effectiveness of a 3-step letter-sound teaching intervention in teaching preschool children to…

  19. Why Doctors Do Not Answer Referral Letters | Smith | South African ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Background: Healthcare workers at primary healthcare (PHC) clinics are frustrated by the fact that they do not receive replies to their referral letters to doctors. Referral letters act as permission slips to allow patients easy access to treatment by specialists at secondary and tertiary service levels and communicate reasons for ...

  20. 21 CFR 170.6 - Opinion letters on food additive status.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 21 Food and Drugs 3 2010-04-01 2009-04-01 true Opinion letters on food additive status. 170.6... (CONTINUED) FOOD FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION (CONTINUED) FOOD ADDITIVES General Provisions § 170.6 Opinion letters on food additive status. (a) Over the years the Food and Drug Administration has given informal...

  1. Teaching Braille Letters, Numerals, Punctuation, and Contractions to Sighted Individuals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Putnam, Brittany C.; Tiger, Jeffrey H.

    2015-01-01

    Braille-character recognition is one of the foundational skills required for teachers of braille. Prior research has evaluated computer programming for teaching braille-to-print letter relations (e.g., Scheithauer & Tiger, 2012). In the current study, we developed a program (the Visual Braille Trainer) to teach not only letters but also…

  2. Trends in the Employment Process: Resumes and Job Application Letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spinks, Neld; Wells, Barron

    1999-01-01

    Surveys of Fortune 500 companies in 1978, 1985, and 1995 revealed trends and preferences in content of resumes and cover letters. Compared to earlier years, current preferences were for both letters and resumes in the initial contact, more emphasis on grammar and spelling, and acceptance of two-page resumes. (SK)

  3. 77 FR 45411 - Letters of Interest for Credit Assistance Under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-07-31

    amended by MAP-21, which takes effect on October 1, 2012. Letter of Interest Submission: All project sponsors wishing to apply for TIFIA credit assistance must first submit a Letter of Interest, as more fully described in this notice of funding availability. Letters of Interest will be received on a rolling basis commencing on the date hereof, using the form on the TIFIA Web site: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ipd/tifia/guidance_applications/index.htm. Project sponsors that have previously submitted Letters of Interest for a prior fiscal year's funding, but have not been asked by DOT to submit an application as of the date of this notice, must submit a new Letter of Interest to be considered for the funding described in this notice of funding availability. Addresses for Letters of Interest: Submit all Letters of Interest to the attention of Mr. Duane Callender via email at: [email protected] Submitters should receive a confirmation email, but are advised to request a return receipt to confirm transmission. Only Letters of Interest received via email, as provided above, shall be deemed properly filed. Addresses for Comments: You must include the agency name (Office of the Secretary of Transportation) and the docket number DOT-OST-2012- 0130 with your comments. To ensure your comments are not entered into the docket more than once, please submit comments, identified by the docket number DOT-OST-2012-0130, by only one of the following methods: Web site: The U.S. Government electronic docket site is www.regulations.gov. Go to this Web site and follow the instructions for submitting comments into docket number DOT-OST-2012-0130; Fax: Telefax comments to: 202-366-2908. Mail: Mail your comments to U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., Docket Operations, M-30, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590; or Hand Delivery: Bring your comments to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., Docket Operations, M-30, West Building Ground Floor, Room W

  4. 21 CFR 570.6 - Opinion letters on food additive status.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 21 Food and Drugs 6 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Opinion letters on food additive status. 570.6... (CONTINUED) ANIMAL DRUGS, FEEDS, AND RELATED PRODUCTS FOOD ADDITIVES General Provisions § 570.6 Opinion letters on food additive status. (a) Over the years the Food and Drug Administration has given informal...

  5. Mud, Blood, and Bullet Holes: Teaching History with War Letters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carroll, Andrew

    2013-01-01

    From handwritten letters of the American Revolution to typed emails from Iraq and Afghanistan, correspondence from U.S. troops offers students deep insight into the specific conflicts and experiences of soldiers. Over 100,000 correspondences have been donated to the Legacy Project, a national initiative launched in 1998 to preserve war letters by…

  6. 46 CFR 308.522 - Collateral deposit fund, letter of transmittal, Form MA-302.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 46 Shipping 8 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Collateral deposit fund, letter of transmittal, Form MA... Collateral deposit fund, letter of transmittal, Form MA-302. The standard form of letter of transmittal for use in establishing a collateral deposit fund, may be obtained from the American War Risk Agency or...

  7. Resource Letter MP-3: The Manhattan Project and Related Nuclear Research

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reed, B. Cameron

    2016-10-01

    This Resource Letter is a supplement to the earlier Resource Letters MP-1 and MP-2, and provides further sources on the Manhattan Project and related research. Books, review papers, journal articles, videos, and websites are cited for the following topics: general works, technical works, biographical and autobiographical works, foreign wartime nuclear programs and related allied intelligence, the use of the bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, technical papers of historical interest, postwar policy and technical developments, and educational materials. Together, these three Resource Letters describe nearly 400 sources of information on the Manhattan Project.

  8. Dear Hacker Letters to the Editor of 2600

    CERN Document Server

    Goldstein, Emmanuel

    2010-01-01

    Actual letters written to the leading hackers' magazine. For 25 years, 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has given voice to the hacker community in all its manifestations. This collection of letters to the magazine reveals the thoughts and viewpoints of hackers, both white and black hat, as well as hacker wannabes, technophiles, and people concerned about computer security. Insightful and entertaining, the exchanges illustrate 2600 's vast readership, from teenage rebels, anarchists, and survivalists to law enforcement, consumer advocates, and worried parents.: 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has been the

  9. A Poisson hierarchical modelling approach to detecting copy number variation in sequence coverage data

    KAUST Repository

    Sepúlveda, Nuno

    2013-02-26

    Background: The advent of next generation sequencing technology has accelerated efforts to map and catalogue copy number variation (CNV) in genomes of important micro-organisms for public health. A typical analysis of the sequence data involves mapping reads onto a reference genome, calculating the respective coverage, and detecting regions with too-low or too-high coverage (deletions and amplifications, respectively). Current CNV detection methods rely on statistical assumptions (e.g., a Poisson model) that may not hold in general, or require fine-tuning the underlying algorithms to detect known hits. We propose a new CNV detection methodology based on two Poisson hierarchical models, the Poisson-Gamma and Poisson-Lognormal, with the advantage of being sufficiently flexible to describe different data patterns, whilst robust against deviations from the often assumed Poisson model.Results: Using sequence coverage data of 7 Plasmodium falciparum malaria genomes (3D7 reference strain, HB3, DD2, 7G8, GB4, OX005, and OX006), we showed that empirical coverage distributions are intrinsically asymmetric and overdispersed in relation to the Poisson model. We also demonstrated a low baseline false positive rate for the proposed methodology using 3D7 resequencing data and simulation. When applied to the non-reference isolate data, our approach detected known CNV hits, including an amplification of the PfMDR1 locus in DD2 and a large deletion in the CLAG3.2 gene in GB4, and putative novel CNV regions. When compared to the recently available FREEC and cn.MOPS approaches, our findings were more concordant with putative hits from the highest quality array data for the 7G8 and GB4 isolates.Conclusions: In summary, the proposed methodology brings an increase in flexibility, robustness, accuracy and statistical rigour to CNV detection using sequence coverage data. 2013 Seplveda et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

  10. A Poisson hierarchical modelling approach to detecting copy number variation in sequence coverage data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sepúlveda, Nuno; Campino, Susana G; Assefa, Samuel A; Sutherland, Colin J; Pain, Arnab; Clark, Taane G

    2013-02-26

    The advent of next generation sequencing technology has accelerated efforts to map and catalogue copy number variation (CNV) in genomes of important micro-organisms for public health. A typical analysis of the sequence data involves mapping reads onto a reference genome, calculating the respective coverage, and detecting regions with too-low or too-high coverage (deletions and amplifications, respectively). Current CNV detection methods rely on statistical assumptions (e.g., a Poisson model) that may not hold in general, or require fine-tuning the underlying algorithms to detect known hits. We propose a new CNV detection methodology based on two Poisson hierarchical models, the Poisson-Gamma and Poisson-Lognormal, with the advantage of being sufficiently flexible to describe different data patterns, whilst robust against deviations from the often assumed Poisson model. Using sequence coverage data of 7 Plasmodium falciparum malaria genomes (3D7 reference strain, HB3, DD2, 7G8, GB4, OX005, and OX006), we showed that empirical coverage distributions are intrinsically asymmetric and overdispersed in relation to the Poisson model. We also demonstrated a low baseline false positive rate for the proposed methodology using 3D7 resequencing data and simulation. When applied to the non-reference isolate data, our approach detected known CNV hits, including an amplification of the PfMDR1 locus in DD2 and a large deletion in the CLAG3.2 gene in GB4, and putative novel CNV regions. When compared to the recently available FREEC and cn.MOPS approaches, our findings were more concordant with putative hits from the highest quality array data for the 7G8 and GB4 isolates. In summary, the proposed methodology brings an increase in flexibility, robustness, accuracy and statistical rigour to CNV detection using sequence coverage data.

  11. A Poisson hierarchical modelling approach to detecting copy number variation in sequence coverage data

    KAUST Repository

    Sepú lveda, Nuno; Campino, Susana G; Assefa, Samuel A; Sutherland, Colin J; Pain, Arnab; Clark, Taane G

    2013-01-01

    Background: The advent of next generation sequencing technology has accelerated efforts to map and catalogue copy number variation (CNV) in genomes of important micro-organisms for public health. A typical analysis of the sequence data involves mapping reads onto a reference genome, calculating the respective coverage, and detecting regions with too-low or too-high coverage (deletions and amplifications, respectively). Current CNV detection methods rely on statistical assumptions (e.g., a Poisson model) that may not hold in general, or require fine-tuning the underlying algorithms to detect known hits. We propose a new CNV detection methodology based on two Poisson hierarchical models, the Poisson-Gamma and Poisson-Lognormal, with the advantage of being sufficiently flexible to describe different data patterns, whilst robust against deviations from the often assumed Poisson model.Results: Using sequence coverage data of 7 Plasmodium falciparum malaria genomes (3D7 reference strain, HB3, DD2, 7G8, GB4, OX005, and OX006), we showed that empirical coverage distributions are intrinsically asymmetric and overdispersed in relation to the Poisson model. We also demonstrated a low baseline false positive rate for the proposed methodology using 3D7 resequencing data and simulation. When applied to the non-reference isolate data, our approach detected known CNV hits, including an amplification of the PfMDR1 locus in DD2 and a large deletion in the CLAG3.2 gene in GB4, and putative novel CNV regions. When compared to the recently available FREEC and cn.MOPS approaches, our findings were more concordant with putative hits from the highest quality array data for the 7G8 and GB4 isolates.Conclusions: In summary, the proposed methodology brings an increase in flexibility, robustness, accuracy and statistical rigour to CNV detection using sequence coverage data. 2013 Seplveda et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

  12. Variations in CCL3L gene cluster sequence and non-specific gene copy numbers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Edberg Jeffrey C

    2010-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Copy number variations (CNVs of the gene CC chemokine ligand 3-like1 (CCL3L1 have been implicated in HIV-1 susceptibility, but the association has been inconsistent. CCL3L1 shares homology with a cluster of genes localized to chromosome 17q12, namely CCL3, CCL3L2, and, CCL3L3. These genes are involved in host defense and inflammatory processes. Several CNV assays have been developed for the CCL3L1 gene. Findings Through pairwise and multiple alignments of these genes, we have shown that the homology between these genes ranges from 50% to 99% in complete gene sequences and from 70-100% in the exonic regions, with CCL3L1 and CCL3L3 being identical. By use of MEGA 4 and BioEdit, we aligned sense primers, anti-sense primers, and probes used in several previously described assays against pre-multiple alignments of all four chemokine genes. Each set of probes and primers aligned and matched with overlapping sequences in at least two of the four genes, indicating that previously utilized RT-PCR based CNV assays are not specific for only CCL3L1. The four available assays measured median copies of 2 and 3-4 in European and African American, respectively. The concordance between the assays ranged from 0.44-0.83 suggesting individual discordant calls and inconsistencies with the assays from the expected gene coverage from the known sequence. Conclusions This indicates that some of the inconsistencies in the association studies could be due to assays that provide heterogenous results. Sequence information to determine CNV of the three genes separately would allow to test whether their association with the pathogenesis of a human disease or phenotype is affected by an individual gene or by a combination of these genes.

  13. Limited copy number-high resolution melting (LCN-HRM) enables the detection and identification by sequencing of low level mutations in cancer biopsies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Do, Hongdo; Dobrovic, Alexander

    2009-10-08

    Mutation detection in clinical tumour samples is challenging when the proportion of tumour cells, and thus mutant alleles, is low. The limited sensitivity of conventional sequencing necessitates the adoption of more sensitive approaches. High resolution melting (HRM) is more sensitive than sequencing but identification of the mutation is desirable, particularly when it is important to discriminate false positives due to PCR errors or template degradation from true mutations.We thus developed limited copy number - high resolution melting (LCN-HRM) which applies limiting dilution to HRM. Multiple replicate reactions with a limited number of target sequences per reaction allow low level mutations to be detected. The dilutions used (based on Ct values) are chosen such that mutations, if present, can be detected by the direct sequencing of amplicons with aberrant melting patterns. Using cell lines heterozygous for mutations, we found that the mutations were not readily detected when they comprised 10% of total alleles (20% tumour cells) by sequencing, whereas they were readily detectable at 5% total alleles by standard HRM. LCN-HRM allowed these mutations to be identified by direct sequencing of those positive reactions.LCN-HRM was then used to review formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) clinical samples showing discordant findings between sequencing and HRM for KRAS exon 2 and EGFR exons 19 and 21. Both true mutations present at low levels and sequence changes due to artefacts were detected by LCN-HRM. The use of high fidelity polymerases showed that the majority of the artefacts were derived from the damaged template rather than replication errors during amplification. LCN-HRM bridges the sensitivity gap between HRM and sequencing and is effective in distinguishing between artefacts and true mutations.

  14. High-Throughput Block Optical DNA Sequence Identification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sagar, Dodderi Manjunatha; Korshoj, Lee Erik; Hanson, Katrina Bethany; Chowdhury, Partha Pratim; Otoupal, Peter Britton; Chatterjee, Anushree; Nagpal, Prashant

    2018-01-01

    Optical techniques for molecular diagnostics or DNA sequencing generally rely on small molecule fluorescent labels, which utilize light with a wavelength of several hundred nanometers for detection. Developing a label-free optical DNA sequencing technique will require nanoscale focusing of light, a high-throughput and multiplexed identification method, and a data compression technique to rapidly identify sequences and analyze genomic heterogeneity for big datasets. Such a method should identify characteristic molecular vibrations using optical spectroscopy, especially in the "fingerprinting region" from ≈400-1400 cm -1 . Here, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy is used to demonstrate label-free identification of DNA nucleobases with multiplexed 3D plasmonic nanofocusing. While nanometer-scale mode volumes prevent identification of single nucleobases within a DNA sequence, the block optical technique can identify A, T, G, and C content in DNA k-mers. The content of each nucleotide in a DNA block can be a unique and high-throughput method for identifying sequences, genes, and other biomarkers as an alternative to single-letter sequencing. Additionally, coupling two complementary vibrational spectroscopy techniques (infrared and Raman) can improve block characterization. These results pave the way for developing a novel, high-throughput block optical sequencing method with lossy genomic data compression using k-mer identification from multiplexed optical data acquisition. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  15. Verse Letter from Gregory of Nazianzus to Vitalianus

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Erika Brodňanská

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available The article offers a complex view of the poetic letter of Gregory of Nazianzus II, II, 3 Ad Vitalianum, which has not yet been the subject of modern criticism. The letter is a plea by Vitalianus’ banished sons for their father to take them back. Based on the manuscript tradition, the article’s author concludes that the fictional author of the letter is the son Phocas rather than Peter. The disrupted relationship between father and sons is reflected in both the content of the poem and the forms of salutations used: the seemingly positive epithets φέριστε, μακάρτατε, and φίλε; forms of address which directly express a certain distance and coldness (μέγα φέρτατε, ὦ ἄνα, or even animosity towards the father (ὀλοώτατε δαῖμον, ὦ κακόβουλε. The poetic letter has a concentric structure (A; B; C; D; E; F; G; F´; E´; D´; C´; B´; A´, with individual com­ponents linked for the most part thematically. The letter is written in dactylic hexameter. The most frequently used metre in the verses is the holodactyl, and the most frequent caesura is the caesura post tertium trochaeum. As far as the breach of Hermann’s bridge in verses is concerned, and based on the understanding of the term ‘word’ in metrics, the author of the article concludes that in the majority of cases the breach is only ‘visual’, and cannot be detected when listened to. Gregory did not avoid three true hiatuses; and in two verses, in order to keep the rhythm of dactylic hexameter, it is essential to measure a long syllable as a short one. However, metric errors may be related to prosodic licence.

  16. Allograph priming is based on abstract letter identities: Evidence from Japanese kana.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kinoshita, Sachiko; Schubert, Teresa; Verdonschot, Rinus G

    2018-04-23

    It is well-established that allographs like the uppercase and lowercase forms of the Roman alphabet (e.g., a and A) map onto the same "abstract letter identity," orthographic representations that are independent of the visual form. Consistent with this, in the allograph match task ("Are 'a' and 'A' the same letter?"), priming by a masked letter prime is equally robust for visually dissimilar prime-target pairs (e.g., d and D) and similar pairs (e.g., c and C). However, in principle this pattern of priming is also consistent with the possibility that allograph priming is purely phonological, based on the letter name. Because different allographic forms of the same letter, by definition, share a letter name, it is impossible to rule out this possibility a priori. In the present study, we investigated the influence of shared letter names by taking advantage of the fact that Japanese is written in two distinct writing systems, syllabic kana-that has two parallel forms, hiragana and katakana-and logographic kanji. Using the allograph match task, we tested whether a kanji prime with the same pronunciation as the target kana (e.g., - い, both pronounced /i/) produces the same amount of priming as a kana prime in the opposite kana form (e.g., イ- い). We found that the kana primes produced substantially greater priming than the phonologically identical kanji prime, which we take as evidence that allograph priming is based on abstract kana identity, not purely phonology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  17. Titles of Scientific Letters and Research Papers in Astrophysics: A Comparative Study of Some Linguistic Aspects and Their Relationship with Collaboration Issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Méndez, David I.; Alcaraz, M. Ángeles

    2017-01-01

    In this study we compare the titles of scientific letters and those of research papers published in the field of astrophysics in order to identify the possible differences and/or similarities between both genres in terms of several linguistic and extra-linguistic variables (length, lexical density, number of prepositions, number of compound…

  18. Open letter to Mr Christian Bataille, Deputy of Nord region, France. Open letter on nuclear energy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Delacroix P

    2007-02-01

    The author, by means of a letter to the deputy Christian Bataille, presents arguments to the shutdown of old nuclear power plants. He points out the environmental and economical arguments in favor of a decrease of the nuclear power use in France. (A.L.B.)

  19. 50 CFR 216.219 - Renewal and modifications of Letters of Authorization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE MARINE MAMMALS REGULATIONS GOVERNING THE TAKING AND IMPORTING OF MARINE MAMMALS Taking of Marine Mammals Incidental to Explosive Severance.... Gulf of Mexico § 216.219 Renewal and modifications of Letters of Authorization. (a) A Letter of...

  20. Letter: Meyerhofer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mackinnon, A.J.

    2011-01-01

    This letter confirms that the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) was an important part of the FY10 NIF Polar Drive Exploding Pusher experiments on the National Ignition Facility (NIF). These experiments were designed by LLE to produce requested neutron yields to calibrate and qualify nuclear diagnostics. LLE built a deuterium-tritium filling system for the glass shells and provided them to LLNL for mounting. In FY10, four exploding pusher implosions were performed with measured neutron yields within a factor of two of requested and ion temperatures within 20% of requested. These implosions are proving to be an ideal platform for commissioning the nuclear diagnostic suite on the NIF and are achieving all of the objectives planned for this campaign.

  1. SiD Letter of Intent

    CERN Document Server

    Aihara, H.; Oreglia, M.; Berger, E.L.; Guarino, V.; Repond, J.; Weerts, H.; Xia, L.; Zhang, J.; Zhang, Q.; Srivastava, A.; Butler, J.M.; Goldstein, Joel; Velthuis, J.; Radeka, V.; Zhu, R.-Y.; Lutz, P.; de Roeck, A.; Elsener, K.; Gaddi, A.; Gerwig, H.; Grefe, C.; Klempt, W.; Linssen, L.; Schlatter, D.; Speckmayer, P.; Thom, J.; Yang, J.; Christian, D.C.; Cihangir, S.; Cooper, W.E.; Demarteau, M.; Fisk, H.E.; Garren, L.A.; Krempetz, K.; Kutschke, R.K.; Lipton, R.; Para, A.; Tschirhart, R.; Wenzel, H.; Yarema, R.; Grunewald, M.; Pankov, A.; U., Gomel State Tech.; Dutta, T.; Dauncey, P.D.; Balbuena, J.P.; Fleta, C.; Lozano, M.; Ullan, M.; Christian, G.B.; Faus-Golfe, A.; Fuster, J.; Lacasta, C.; Marinnas, C.; Vos, M.; Duarte, J.; Fernandez, M.; Gonzalez, J.; Jaramillo, R.; Lopez, Virto A.; Martinez-Eivero, C.; Moya, D.; Ruiz-Mimeno, A.; Vila, I.; Colledani, C.; Dorokhov, A.; Hu-Guo, C.; Winter, M.; Moortgat-Pick, G.; Onoprienko, D.V.; Kim, G.N.; Park, H.; Adloff, C.; Blaha, J.; Blaising, J.-J.; Cap, S.; Chefdeville, M.; Drancourt, C.; Espargiliare, A.; Gaglione, R.; Geffroy, N.; Jacquemier, J.; Karyotakis, Y.; Prast, J.; Vouters, G.; Gronberg, J.; Walston, S.; Wright, D.; Sawyer, L.; Laloum, M.; Ciobanu, C.; Chauveau, J.; Savoy-Navarro, A.; Andricek, L.; Moser, H.-G.; Cowan, R.f.; Fisher, P.; Yamamoto, R.K.; Kenney, ClMl; Boos, E.E.; Merkin, M.; Chen, S.; Chakraborty, D.; Dyshkant, A.; Hedin, D.; Zutshi, V.; Galkin, V.; D'Ascenzo, N.; Ossetski, D.; Saveliev, V.; Kapusta, F.; De Masi, R.; Vrba, V.; Lu, C.; McDonald, K.T.; Smith, A.J.S.; Bortoletto, D.; Coath, R.; Crooks, J.; Damerell, C.; Gibson, M.; Nichols, A.; Stanitzki, M.; Strube, J.; Turchetta, R.; Tyndel, M.; Weber, M.; Worm, S.; Zhang, Z.; Barklow, T.L.; Belymam, A.; Breidenbach, M.; Cassell, R.; Craddock, W.; Deaconu, C.; Dragone, A.; Graf, N.A.; Haller, G.; Herbst, R.; Hewett, J.L.; Jaros, J.A.; Johnson, A.S.; Kim, P.C.; MacFarlane, D.B.; Markiewicz, T.; Maruyama, T.; McCormick, J.; Moffeit, K.; Neal, H.A.; Nelson, T.K.; Oriunno, M.; Partridge, R.; Peskin, M.E.; Rizzo, T.G.; Rowson, P.; Su, D.; Woods, M.; Chakrabarti, S.; Dieguez, A.; Garrido, Ll.; Kaminski, J.; Conway, J.S.; Chertok, M.; Gunion, J.; Holbrook, B.; Lander, R.L.; Tripathi, S.M.; Fadeyev, V.; Schumm, B.A.; Oreglia, M.; Gill, J.; Nauenberg, U.; Oleinik, G.; Wagner, S.R.; Ranjan, K.; Shivpuri, R.; Varner, G.S.; Orava, R.; Van Kooten, R.; Bilki, B.; Charles, M.; Kim, T.J.; Mallik, U.; Norbeck, E.; Onel, Y.; Brau, B.P.; Willocq, S.; Taylor, G.N.; Riles, Keith; Yang, H.-J.; Kriske, R.; Cremaldi, L.; Rahmat, R.; Lastovicka-Medin, G.; Seidel, S.; Hildreth, M.D.; Wayne, M.; Brau, J.E.; Frey, R.; Sinev, N.; Strom, D.M.; Torrence, E.; Banda, Y.; Burrows, P.N.; Devetak, E.; Foster, B.; Lastovicka, T.; Li, Y.-M.; Nomerotski, A.; Riera-Babures, J.; Vilasis-Cardona, X.; Manly, S.; Adeva, B.; Iglesias Escudero, C.; Vazquez Regueiro, P.; Saborido Silva, J.J.; Gallas Torreira, A.; Gao, D.; Jie, W.; Jungfeng, Y.; Li, C.; Liu, S.; Liu, Y.; Sun, Y.; Wang, Q.; Yi, J.; Yonggang, W.; Zhao, Z.; De, K.; Farbin, A.; Park, S.; Smith, J.; White, A.P.; Yu, J.; Lou, X.C.; Abe, T.; Iwasaki, M.; Lubatti, H.J.; Band, H.R.; Feyzi, F.; Prepost, R.; Karchin, P.E.; Milstene, C.; Baltay, C.; Dhawan, S.; Kwon, Y.-J.

    2009-01-01

    Letter of intent describing SiD (Silicon Detector) for consideration by the International Linear Collider IDAG panel. This detector concept is founded on the use of silicon detectors for vertexing, tracking, and electromagnetic calorimetry. The detector has been cost-optimized as a general-purpose detector for a 500 GeV electron-positron linear collider.

  2. Goldbach Partitions and Sequences

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    IAS Admin

    conjecture was first made in a letter Christian Goldbach wrote to ... 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 g(n) 1 1 1 2 ..... Ken Ono, The Last Words of a Genius, Notices of the American Math- ematical ... III: on the expression of a number as a sum of primes, Acta Mathematica. Vol.44 ...

  3. Measuring Young Children's Alphabet Knowledge: Development and Validation of Brief Letter-Sound Knowledge Assessments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piasta, Shayne B.; Phillips, Beth M.; Williams, Jeffrey M.; Bowles, Ryan P.; Anthony, Jason L.

    2016-01-01

    Early childhood teachers are increasingly encouraged to support children's development of letter-sound abilities. Assessment of letter-sound knowledge is key in planning for effective instruction, yet the letter-sound knowledge assessments currently available and suitable for preschool-age children demonstrate significant limitations. The purpose…

  4. Letter-sound processing deficits in children with developmental dyslexia: An ERP study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moll, Kristina; Hasko, Sandra; Groth, Katharina; Bartling, Jürgen; Schulte-Körne, Gerd

    2016-04-01

    The time course during letter-sound processing was investigated in children with developmental dyslexia (DD) and typically developing (TD) children using electroencephalography. Thirty-eight children with DD and 25 TD children participated in a visual-auditory oddball paradigm. Event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by standard and deviant stimuli in an early (100-190 ms) and late (560-750 ms) time window were analysed. In the early time window, ERPs elicited by the deviant stimulus were delayed and less left lateralized over fronto-temporal electrodes for children with DD compared to TD children. In the late time window, children with DD showed higher amplitudes extending more over right frontal electrodes. Longer latencies in the early time window and stronger right hemispheric activation in the late time window were associated with slower reading and naming speed. Additionally, stronger right hemispheric activation in the late time window correlated with poorer phonological awareness skills. Deficits in early stages of letter-sound processing influence later more explicit cognitive processes during letter-sound processing. Identifying the neurophysiological correlates of letter-sound processing and their relation to reading related skills provides insight into the degree of automaticity during letter-sound processing beyond behavioural measures of letter-sound-knowledge. Copyright © 2016 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Sense-Making and Map-Making: War Letters as Personal Geographies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christina Knopf

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available Structured in three parts, this article will briefly review David Herman’s idea of “spatial reference” in narrative, particularly in epistolary form, and explain the research method used in this project; introduce military geographies and demonstrate how various spatial references function in war letters; and, lastly, illustrate the value of war letters as spatial artifacts and subjective cartography.

  6. A Novel Handwritten Letter Recognizer Using Enhanced Evolutionary Neural Network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mahmoudi, Fariborz; Mirzashaeri, Mohsen; Shahamatnia, Ehsan; Faridnia, Saed

    This paper introduces a novel design for handwritten letter recognition by employing a hybrid back-propagation neural network with an enhanced evolutionary algorithm. Feeding the neural network consists of a new approach which is invariant to translation, rotation, and scaling of input letters. Evolutionary algorithm is used for the global search of the search space and the back-propagation algorithm is used for the local search. The results have been computed by implementing this approach for recognizing 26 English capital letters in the handwritings of different people. The computational results show that the neural network reaches very satisfying results with relatively scarce input data and a promising performance improvement in convergence of the hybrid evolutionary back-propagation algorithms is exhibited.

  7. Some Influences of Greek and Roman Rhetoric on Early Letter Writing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hildebrandt, Herbert W.

    1988-01-01

    Describes how letter writing, especially business letters, was influenced by Greek and Roman oral rhetoricians. Discusses three precepts of oral rhetoric--inventio, dispositio, and style--and notes that the classical theories' reflection in written communication can be seen in selected Italian, German, and English epistolographic works. (MM)

  8. Similarly shaped letters evoke similar colors in grapheme-color synesthesia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brang, David; Rouw, Romke; Ramachandran, V S; Coulson, Seana

    2011-04-01

    Grapheme-color synesthesia is a neurological condition in which viewing numbers or letters (graphemes) results in the concurrent sensation of color. While the anatomical substrates underlying this experience are well understood, little research to date has investigated factors influencing the particular colors associated with particular graphemes or how synesthesia occurs developmentally. A recent suggestion of such an interaction has been proposed in the cascaded cross-tuning (CCT) model of synesthesia, which posits that in synesthetes connections between grapheme regions and color area V4 participate in a competitive activation process, with synesthetic colors arising during the component-stage of grapheme processing. This model more directly suggests that graphemes sharing similar component features (lines, curves, etc.) should accordingly activate more similar synesthetic colors. To test this proposal, we created and regressed synesthetic color-similarity matrices for each of 52 synesthetes against a letter-confusability matrix, an unbiased measure of visual similarity among graphemes. Results of synesthetes' grapheme-color correspondences indeed revealed that more similarly shaped graphemes corresponded with more similar synesthetic colors, with stronger effects observed in individuals with more intense synesthetic experiences (projector synesthetes). These results support the CCT model of synesthesia, implicate early perceptual mechanisms as driving factors in the elicitation of synesthetic hues, and further highlight the relationship between conceptual and perceptual factors in this phenomenon. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Philosophical Intelligence: Letters, Print, and Experiment during Napoleon's Continental Blockade.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watts, Iain P

    2015-12-01

    This essay investigates scientific exchanges between Britain and France from 1806 to 1814, at the height of the Napoleonic Wars. It argues for a picture of scientific communication that sees letters and printed texts not as separate media worlds, but as interconnected bearers of time-critical information within a single system of intelligence gathering and experimental practice. During this period, Napoleon Bonaparte's Continental System blockade severed most links between Britain and continental Europe, yet scientific communications continued--particularly on electrochemistry, a subject of fierce rivalry between Britain and France. The essay traces these exchanges using the archive of a key go-between, the English man of science Sir Charles Blagden. The first two sections look at Blagden's letter-writing operation, reconstructing how he harnessed connections with neutral American diplomats, merchants, and the State to get scientific intelligence between London and Paris. The third section, following Blagden's words from Britain to France to America, looks at how information in letters cross-fertilized with information in print. The final section considers how letters and print were used together to solve the difficult practical problem of replicating experiments across the blockade.

  10. Politeness Strategies in Good-news Business Letters

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    毕争; 李纳

    2008-01-01

    This paper analyzes the presentation of politeness in good-news business letters at the lexical,syntactic,and discourse levels based on Leech's Politeness Principle and Brown and Levinson's Face-saving Theory.

  11. Development of motion-defined figure-ground segregation in preschool and older children, using a letter-identification task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giaschi, D; Regan, D

    1997-09-01

    Three-month-old infants can discriminate motion-defined (MD) form, but we do not know the age at which this ability reaches adult levels. Previous psychophysical evidence suggests that different neural mechanisms are involved in the processing of luminance-defined (LD) and MD spatial form in adults. This difference may be reflected in the development of LD versus MD form identification in children. We measured speed threshold for identifying MD letters, letter-chart (i.e, Snellen) acuity for high-contrast LD letters and single-letter acuity for high- and low-contrast LD letters. Forty-seven children between 3 and 12 years of age and 20 adult subjects were tested. Development to the adult level was observed as follows: low-contrast single-letter acuity before 3 years; high-contrast single-letter acuity by 5 to 6 years; the ability to identify MD letters by 7 to 8 years; letter-chart acuity by 9 to 10 years. MD form identification continues to mature in preschool children. LD form identification also matures in this age group but with a different time course. MD letters are not equivalent to low-contrast letters developmentally. Our findings provide further support for the hypothesis that the spatial aspects of MD and LD form are processed separately to some extent.

  12. Letter position coding across modalities: braille and sighted reading of sentences with jumbled words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perea, Manuel; Jiménez, María; Martín-Suesta, Miguel; Gómez, Pablo

    2015-04-01

    This article explores how letter position coding is attained during braille reading and its implications for models of word recognition. When text is presented visually, the reading process easily adjusts to the jumbling of some letters (jugde-judge), with a small cost in reading speed. Two explanations have been proposed: One relies on a general mechanism of perceptual uncertainty at the visual level, and the other focuses on the activation of an abstract level of representation (i.e., bigrams) that is shared by all orthographic codes. Thus, these explanations make differential predictions about reading in a tactile modality. In the present study, congenitally blind readers read sentences presented on a braille display that tracked the finger position. The sentences either were intact or involved letter transpositions. A parallel experiment was conducted in the visual modality. Results revealed a substantially greater reading cost for the sentences with transposed-letter words in braille readers. In contrast with the findings with sighted readers, in which there is a cost of transpositions in the external (initial and final) letters, the reading cost in braille readers occurs serially, with a large cost for initial letter transpositions. Thus, these data suggest that the letter-position-related effects in visual word recognition are due to the characteristics of the visual stream.

  13. Letters from a Nightingale nurse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Denny, E

    1996-01-01

    Mary Cadbury was one of six daughters in a wealthy Birmingham family, all of whom took up professional or unpaid philanthropic work. In 1873 Mary began nurse training at the Nightingale School, St Thomas's Hospital, and regularly sent letters to family and friends, which provide a graphic account of the experience of a nurse in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

  14. Magnocellular involvement in flanked-letter identification relates to the allocation of attention

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Omtzigt, D.; Hendriks, A.W.C.J.

    2004-01-01

    To verify the hypothesis that the magnocellular system is important to flanked-letter identification [Neuropsychologia 40 (2002) 1881] because it subserves attention allocation, we conducted three letter-naming experiments in which we manipulated magnocellular involvement (colour vs. luminance

  15. AFSC/RACE/EcoFOCI - Genetics analyses performed in support of FOCI assessment surveys and ecosystem observations in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska 2009 - 2010

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The datasets contain nucleotide sequence data that is in text format and each line of sequence has a unique sample code (combination of letters and numbers).

  16. Re-Audit of the Contents of GP Referral letters to General Adult Community Psychiatrists.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Odelola, Catherine; Jabbar, Farid

    2017-09-01

    The quality of information provided by referring general practitioners to secondary care mental health services are crucial elements in the effective management of patients. In order to establish effective communication, both primary and secondary care health professionals should contribute to planning and organising this process taking into account their different opinions and views. Anonymous questionnaire was designed to collect information on items that GPs and psychiatrist rated as most important items in GP referral letters to psychiatrists. The questionnaires were sent out electronically. Each item was scored using a rating scale where 0 was least important and 10 was most important. Items that scored 8 and above were agreed by all as the most important items. 76 GP letters were audited using a devised checklist of the identified most important items. Data was collected and analysed using a devised data collection tool. A re-audit was done 6months later. A response rate of 70% was obtained for both psychiatrists and GPs. Reasons for referral were described in almost all GP referral letters (95%). Only 24% referral letters had details about current physical health which improved to 59%. Concerns about risk were described in only 47% of letters and treatment provided by GP in 50% of letters. These improved in 79% and 71% of letters respectively in the re-audit. The involvement of professionals in devising a standardised approach for referral letters has improved communication in this re-audit between GPs and Psychiatrists. This is evident in the improvement in key aspects of the referral letters: past medical history, past psychiatric history, current physical health, treatment provided by GP. Efficient communication between GPs and psychiatrists improves the quality of health care for patients.

  17. The Number, Organization, and Size of Polymorphic Membrane Protein Coding Sequences as well as the Most Conserved Pmp Protein Differ within and across Chlamydia Species.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Lent, Sarah; Creasy, Heather Huot; Myers, Garry S A; Vanrompay, Daisy

    2016-01-01

    Variation is a central trait of the polymorphic membrane protein (Pmp) family. The number of pmp coding sequences differs between Chlamydia species, but it is unknown whether the number of pmp coding sequences is constant within a Chlamydia species. The level of conservation of the Pmp proteins has previously only been determined for Chlamydia trachomatis. As different Pmp proteins might be indispensible for the pathogenesis of different Chlamydia species, this study investigated the conservation of Pmp proteins both within and across C. trachomatis,C. pneumoniae,C. abortus, and C. psittaci. The pmp coding sequences were annotated in 16 C. trachomatis, 6 C. pneumoniae, 2 C. abortus, and 16 C. psittaci genomes. The number and organization of polymorphic membrane coding sequences differed within and across the analyzed Chlamydia species. The length of coding sequences of pmpA,pmpB, and pmpH was conserved among all analyzed genomes, while the length of pmpE/F and pmpG, and remarkably also of the subtype pmpD, differed among the analyzed genomes. PmpD, PmpA, PmpH, and PmpA were the most conserved Pmp in C. trachomatis,C. pneumoniae,C. abortus, and C. psittaci, respectively. PmpB was the most conserved Pmp across the 4 analyzed Chlamydia species. © 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  18. 42 CFR 93.202 - Charge letter.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 42 Public Health 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Charge letter. 93.202 Section 93.202 Public Health PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES HEALTH ASSESSMENTS AND HEALTH EFFECTS STUDIES OF HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES RELEASES AND FACILITIES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE POLICIES ON RESEARCH...

  19. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2000-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains six separate records on the DELPHI experiment at LEP, the Fermi-surface dynamics of rotating nuclei, production of large samples of the silica dioxide aerogel in the 37-litre autoclave and test of its optical properties, preliminary radiation resource results on scintillating fibers, a new algorithm for the direct transformation method of time to digital with the high time resolution and development and design of analogue read-out electronics for HADES drift chamber system

  20. Michael Maier--nine newly discovered letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lenke, Nils; Roudet, Nicolas; Tilton, Hereward

    2014-02-01

    The authors provide a transcription, translation, and evaluation of nine newly discovered letters from the alchemist Michael Maier (1568-1622) to Gebhardt Johann von Alvensleben (1576-1631), a noble landholder in the vicinity of Magdeburg. Stemming from the final year of his life, this correspondence casts new light on Maier's biography, detailing his efforts to secure patronage amid the financial crisis of the early Thirty Years' War. While his ill-fated quest to perfect potable gold continued to form the central focus of his patronage suits, Maier also offered his services in several arts that he had condemned in his printed works, namely astrology and "supernatural" magic. Remarks concerning his previously unknown acquaintance with Heinrich Khunrath call for a re-evaluation of Maier's negotiation of the discursive boundaries between Lutheran orthodoxy and Paracelsianism. The letters also reveal Maier's substantial contribution to a work previously ascribed solely to the English alchemist Francis Anthony.

  1. Age-related differences in the automatic processing of single letters: implications for selective attention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Daffner, Kirk R; Alperin, Brittany R; Mott, Katherine K; Holcomb, Phillip J

    2014-01-22

    Older adults exhibit diminished ability to inhibit the processing of visual stimuli that are supposed to be ignored. The extent to which age-related changes in early visual processing contribute to impairments in selective attention remains to be determined. Here, 103 adults, 18-85 years of age, completed a color selective attention task in which they were asked to attend to a specified color and respond to designated target letters. An optimal approach would be to initially filter according to color and then process letter forms in the attend color to identify targets. An asymmetric N170 ERP component (larger amplitude over left posterior hemisphere sites) was used as a marker of the early automatic processing of letter forms. Young and middle-aged adults did not generate an asymmetric N170 component. In contrast, young-old and old-old adults produced a larger N170 over the left hemisphere. Furthermore, older adults generated a larger N170 to letter than nonletter stimuli over the left, but not right hemisphere. More asymmetric N170 responses predicted greater allocation of late selection resources to target letters in the ignore color, as indexed by P3b amplitude. These results suggest that unlike their younger counterparts, older adults automatically process stimuli as letters early in the selection process, when it would be more efficient to attend to color only. The inability to ignore letters early in the processing stream helps explain the age-related increase in subsequent processing of target letter forms presented in the ignore color.

  2. Justification and authority in institutional review board decision letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clapp, Justin T; Gleason, Katharine A; Joffe, Steven

    2017-12-01

    While ethnographic study has described the discussions that occur during human subjects research ethics review, investigators have minimal access to the interactions of ethics oversight committees. They instead receive letters stipulating changes to their proposed studies. Ethics committee letters are central to the practice of research ethics: they change the nature of research, alter the knowledge it produces, and in doing so construct what ethical research is and how it is pursued. However, these letters have rarely been objects of analysis. Accordingly, we conducted a qualitative analysis of letters written by American institutional review boards (IRBs) overseeing biomedical and health behavioral research. We sought to clarify how IRBs exercise their authority by assessing the frequency with which they provided reasons for their stipulations as well as the nature of these reasons. We found that IRBs frequently do not justify their stipulations; rather, they often leave ethical or regulatory concerns implicit or frame their comments as boilerplate language replacements, procedural instructions, or demands for missing information. When they do provide justifications, their rationales exhibit substantial variability in explicitness and clarity. These rhetorical tendencies indicate that the authority of IRBs is grounded primarily in their role as bureaucratic gatekeepers. We conclude by suggesting that greater attention to justification could help shift the basis of the IRB-researcher relationship from compliance to mutual accountability. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  3. Substituted-Letter and Transposed-Letter Effects in a Masked Priming Paradigm with French Developing Readers and Dyslexics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lete, Bernard; Fayol, Michel

    2013-01-01

    The aim of the study was to undertake a behavioral investigation of the development of automatic orthographic processing during reading acquisition in French. Following Castles and colleagues' 2007 study ("Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 97," 165-182) and their lexical tuning hypothesis framework, substituted-letter and…

  4. Suggestopaedia-Canada. Information Letter, No. 4.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Racle, Gabriel

    This issue of the information letter consists of two articles, "Music Therapy" and "Research and Applications of Psychomusical Techniques"; a review of the book, "La musicotherapie et les methods nouvelles d'association des techniques" by Guilhot and Cecourt, and a bibliography of books on music therapy written in…

  5. [Letters to the editor published in Peruvian biomedical journals indexed in SciELO-Peru 2006-2013].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Montenegro-Idrogo, Juan José; Mejía-Dolores, Jhon William; Chalco-Huamán, Joel L

    2015-01-01

    This bibliometric study describes the characteristics of letters to the editor published between 2006-2013 in biomedical journals indexed in SciELO-Peru.253 letters (10.3% of total publications) were collected. Most letters (139) were in the Peruvian Journal of Experimental Medicine and Public Health, with marked increase throughout those years. 25% of letters submitted included medical student participation. 14% of authors presented with international affiliations and 27% with endogenous affiliation - common in university journals (Anales de la Facultad de Medicina, Revista Médica Herediana).The usual criteria justifying the publication of letters were: opinion of medical fact or public domain (35.6%) and discussion of results, methodological flaws or interpretation (22.9%). In biomedical journals indexed in SciELO Peru the letters to the editor comprise a percentage of publications that has increased in recent years, with low publication of letters of findings or primary data, compared with opinion or criticism.

  6. Number and sequence of preceding miscarriages and maternal age for the prediction of antiphospholipid syndrome in women with recurrent miscarriage.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Boogaard, E. van den; Cohn, D.M.; Korevaar, J.C.; Dawood, F.; Vissenberg, R.; Middeldorp, S.; Goddijn, M.; Farquharson, R.G.

    2013-01-01

    Objective: To investigate the relationship between the number and sequence of preceding miscarriages and antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: Recurrent miscarriage (RM) clinic. Patient(s): Women who attended the RM clinic from 1988 to 2006. Intervention(s):

  7. Google matrix analysis of DNA sequences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kandiah, Vivek; Shepelyansky, Dima L

    2013-01-01

    For DNA sequences of various species we construct the Google matrix [Formula: see text] of Markov transitions between nearby words composed of several letters. The statistical distribution of matrix elements of this matrix is shown to be described by a power law with the exponent being close to those of outgoing links in such scale-free networks as the World Wide Web (WWW). At the same time the sum of ingoing matrix elements is characterized by the exponent being significantly larger than those typical for WWW networks. This results in a slow algebraic decay of the PageRank probability determined by the distribution of ingoing elements. The spectrum of [Formula: see text] is characterized by a large gap leading to a rapid relaxation process on the DNA sequence networks. We introduce the PageRank proximity correlator between different species which determines their statistical similarity from the view point of Markov chains. The properties of other eigenstates of the Google matrix are also discussed. Our results establish scale-free features of DNA sequence networks showing their similarities and distinctions with the WWW and linguistic networks.

  8. Google matrix analysis of DNA sequences.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vivek Kandiah

    Full Text Available For DNA sequences of various species we construct the Google matrix [Formula: see text] of Markov transitions between nearby words composed of several letters. The statistical distribution of matrix elements of this matrix is shown to be described by a power law with the exponent being close to those of outgoing links in such scale-free networks as the World Wide Web (WWW. At the same time the sum of ingoing matrix elements is characterized by the exponent being significantly larger than those typical for WWW networks. This results in a slow algebraic decay of the PageRank probability determined by the distribution of ingoing elements. The spectrum of [Formula: see text] is characterized by a large gap leading to a rapid relaxation process on the DNA sequence networks. We introduce the PageRank proximity correlator between different species which determines their statistical similarity from the view point of Markov chains. The properties of other eigenstates of the Google matrix are also discussed. Our results establish scale-free features of DNA sequence networks showing their similarities and distinctions with the WWW and linguistic networks.

  9. Bayesian Action–Perception Computational Model: Interaction of Production and Recognition of Cursive Letters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilet, Estelle; Diard, Julien; Bessière, Pierre

    2011-01-01

    In this paper, we study the collaboration of perception and action representations involved in cursive letter recognition and production. We propose a mathematical formulation for the whole perception–action loop, based on probabilistic modeling and Bayesian inference, which we call the Bayesian Action–Perception (BAP) model. Being a model of both perception and action processes, the purpose of this model is to study the interaction of these processes. More precisely, the model includes a feedback loop from motor production, which implements an internal simulation of movement. Motor knowledge can therefore be involved during perception tasks. In this paper, we formally define the BAP model and show how it solves the following six varied cognitive tasks using Bayesian inference: i) letter recognition (purely sensory), ii) writer recognition, iii) letter production (with different effectors), iv) copying of trajectories, v) copying of letters, and vi) letter recognition (with internal simulation of movements). We present computer simulations of each of these cognitive tasks, and discuss experimental predictions and theoretical developments. PMID:21674043

  10. CodonLogo: a sequence logo-based viewer for codon patterns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sharma, Virag; Murphy, David P; Provan, Gregory; Baranov, Pavel V

    2012-07-15

    Conserved patterns across a multiple sequence alignment can be visualized by generating sequence logos. Sequence logos show each column in the alignment as stacks of symbol(s) where the height of a stack is proportional to its informational content, whereas the height of each symbol within the stack is proportional to its frequency in the column. Sequence logos use symbols of either nucleotide or amino acid alphabets. However, certain regulatory signals in messenger RNA (mRNA) act as combinations of codons. Yet no tool is available for visualization of conserved codon patterns. We present the first application which allows visualization of conserved regions in a multiple sequence alignment in the context of codons. CodonLogo is based on WebLogo3 and uses the same heuristics but treats codons as inseparable units of a 64-letter alphabet. CodonLogo can discriminate patterns of codon conservation from patterns of nucleotide conservation that appear indistinguishable in standard sequence logos. The CodonLogo source code and its implementation (in a local version of the Galaxy Browser) are available at http://recode.ucc.ie/CodonLogo and through the Galaxy Tool Shed at http://toolshed.g2.bx.psu.edu/.

  11. A new pseudorandom number generator based on a complex number chaotic equation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Liu Yang; Tong Xiao-Jun

    2012-01-01

    In recent years, various chaotic equation based pseudorandom number generators have been proposed. However, the chaotic equations are all defined in the real number field. In this paper, an equation is proposed and proved to be chaotic in the imaginary axis. And a pseudorandom number generator is constructed based on the chaotic equation. The alteration of the definitional domain of the chaotic equation from the real number field to the complex one provides a new approach to the construction of chaotic equations, and a new method to generate pseudorandom number sequences accordingly. Both theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the sequences generated by the proposed pseudorandom number generator possess many good properties

  12. Reply to letter to the editor

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Woelders, H.

    2006-01-01

    In response to the letter by Dr. Amir Arav I would like to mention the following. The application of the principle of directional solidification to cryopreservation of living cells was, as far as I am aware, not the invention of Dr. Arav. It was first published and patented by Rubinsky (Berkeley,

  13. A Deep Learning Model of Perception in Color-Letter Synesthesia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joel R. Bock

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Synesthesia is a psychological phenomenon where sensory signals become mixed. Input to one sensory modality produces an experience in a second, unstimulated modality. In “grapheme-color synesthesia”, viewed letters and numbers evoke mental imagery of colors. The study of this condition has implications for increasing our understanding of brain architecture and function, language, memory and semantics, and the nature of consciousness. In this work, we propose a novel application of deep learning to model perception in grapheme-color synesthesia. Achromatic letter images, taken from database of handwritten characters, are used to train the model, and to induce computational synesthesia. Results show the model learns to accurately create a colored version of the inducing stimulus, according to a statistical distribution from experiments on a sample population of grapheme-color synesthetes. To the author’s knowledge, this work represents the first model that accurately produces spontaneous, creative mental imagery characteristic of the synesthetic perceptual experience. Experiments in cognitive science have contributed to our understanding of some of the observable behavioral effects of synesthesia, and previous models have outlined neural mechanisms that may account for these observations. A model of synesthesia that generates testable predictions on brain activity and behavior is needed to complement large scale data collection efforts in neuroscience, especially when articulating simple descriptions of cause (stimulus and effect (behavior. The research and modeling approach reported here provides a framework that begins to address this need.

  14. Generalized catalan numbers, sequences and polynomials

    OpenAIRE

    KOÇ, Cemal; GÜLOĞLU, İsmail; ESİN, Songül

    2010-01-01

    In this paper we present an algebraic interpretation for generalized Catalan numbers. We describe them as dimensions of certain subspaces of multilinear polynomials. This description is of utmost importance in the investigation of annihilators in exterior algebras.

  15. Application of Quaternion in improving the quality of global sequence alignment scores for an ambiguous sequence target in Streptococcus pneumoniae DNA

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lestari, D.; Bustamam, A.; Novianti, T.; Ardaneswari, G.

    2017-07-01

    DNA sequence can be defined as a succession of letters, representing the order of nucleotides within DNA, using a permutation of four DNA base codes including adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). The precise code of the sequences is determined using DNA sequencing methods and technologies, which have been developed since the 1970s and currently become highly developed, advanced and highly throughput sequencing technologies. So far, DNA sequencing has greatly accelerated biological and medical research and discovery. However, in some cases DNA sequencing could produce any ambiguous and not clear enough sequencing results that make them quite difficult to be determined whether these codes are A, T, G, or C. To solve these problems, in this study we can introduce other representation of DNA codes namely Quaternion Q = (PA, PT, PG, PC), where PA, PT, PG, PC are the probability of A, T, G, C bases that could appear in Q and PA + PT + PG + PC = 1. Furthermore, using Quaternion representations we are able to construct the improved scoring matrix for global sequence alignment processes, by applying a dot product method. Moreover, this scoring matrix produces better and higher quality of the match and mismatch score between two DNA base codes. In implementation, we applied the Needleman-Wunsch global sequence alignment algorithm using Octave, to analyze our target sequence which contains some ambiguous sequence data. The subject sequences are the DNA sequences of Streptococcus pneumoniae families obtained from the Genebank, meanwhile the target DNA sequence are received from our collaborator database. As the results we found the Quaternion representations improve the quality of the sequence alignment score and we can conclude that DNA sequence target has maximum similarity with Streptococcus pneumoniae.

  16. On the Fibonacci k-numbers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Falcon, Sergio; Plaza, Angel

    2007-01-01

    We introduce a general Fibonacci sequence that generalizes, between others, both the classic Fibonacci sequence and the Pell sequence. These general kth Fibonacci numbers {F k,n } n=0 ∼ were found by studying the recursive application of two geometrical transformations used in the well-known four-triangle longest-edge (4TLE) partition. Many properties of these numbers are deduce directly from elementary matrix algebra

  17. 31 CFR 500.406 - Drafts under irrevocable letters of credit; documentary drafts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 31 Money and Finance: Treasury 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Drafts under irrevocable letters of credit; documentary drafts. 500.406 Section 500.406 Money and Finance: Treasury Regulations Relating to... ASSETS CONTROL REGULATIONS Interpretations § 500.406 Drafts under irrevocable letters of credit...

  18. 31 CFR 515.406 - Drafts under irrevocable letters of credit; documentary drafts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 31 Money and Finance: Treasury 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Drafts under irrevocable letters of credit; documentary drafts. 515.406 Section 515.406 Money and Finance: Treasury Regulations Relating to... CONTROL REGULATIONS Interpretations § 515.406 Drafts under irrevocable letters of credit; documentary...

  19. Why doctors do not answer referral letters

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Referral letters act as permission slips to allow patients easy access to ... Methods: A qualitative study method was used, as the purpose of this study was to .... The total list of topics ..... Research design: qualitative and quantitative approaches.

  20. Integrated analysis of gene expression, CpG island methylation, and gene copy number in breast cancer cells by deep sequencing.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhifu Sun

    Full Text Available We used deep sequencing technology to profile the transcriptome, gene copy number, and CpG island methylation status simultaneously in eight commonly used breast cell lines to develop a model for how these genomic features are integrated in estrogen receptor positive (ER+ and negative breast cancer. Total mRNA sequence, gene copy number, and genomic CpG island methylation were carried out using the Illumina Genome Analyzer. Sequences were mapped to the human genome to obtain digitized gene expression data, DNA copy number in reference to the non-tumor cell line (MCF10A, and methylation status of 21,570 CpG islands to identify differentially expressed genes that were correlated with methylation or copy number changes. These were evaluated in a dataset from 129 primary breast tumors. Gene expression in cell lines was dominated by ER-associated genes. ER+ and ER- cell lines formed two distinct, stable clusters, and 1,873 genes were differentially expressed in the two groups. Part of chromosome 8 was deleted in all ER- cells and part of chromosome 17 amplified in all ER+ cells. These loci encoded 30 genes that were overexpressed in ER+ cells; 9 of these genes were overexpressed in ER+ tumors. We identified 149 differentially expressed genes that exhibited differential methylation of one or more CpG islands within 5 kb of the 5' end of the gene and for which mRNA abundance was inversely correlated with CpG island methylation status. In primary tumors we identified 84 genes that appear to be robust components of the methylation signature that we identified in ER+ cell lines. Our analyses reveal a global pattern of differential CpG island methylation that contributes to the transcriptome landscape of ER+ and ER- breast cancer cells and tumors. The role of gene amplification/deletion appears to more modest, although several potentially significant genes appear to be regulated by copy number aberrations.

  1. Classification of the Correct Quranic Letters Pronunciation of Male and Female Reciters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khairuddin, Safiah; Ahmad, Salmiah; Embong, Abdul Halim; Nur Wahidah Nik Hashim, Nik; Altamas, Tareq M. K.; Nuratikah Syd Badaruddin, Syarifah; Shahbudin Hassan, Surul

    2017-11-01

    Recitation of the Holy Quran with the correct Tajweed is essential for every Muslim. Islam has encouraged Quranic education since early age as the recitation of the Quran correctly will represent the correct meaning of the words of Allah. It is important to recite the Quranic verses according to its characteristics (sifaat) and from its point of articulations (makhraj). This paper presents the identification and classification analysis of Quranic letters pronunciation for both male and female reciters, to obtain the unique representation of each letter by male as compared to female expert reciters. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) was used as the classifier to classify the data with Formants and Power Spectral Density (PSD) as the acoustic features. The result shows that linear classifier of PSD with band 1 and band 2 power spectral combinations gives a high percentage of classification accuracy for most of the Quranic letters. It is also shown that the pronunciation by male reciters gives better result in the classification of the Quranic letters.

  2. Rotation number of integrable symplectic mappings of the plane

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zolkin, Timofey [Fermilab; Nagaitsev, Sergei [Fermilab; Danilov, Viatcheslav [Oak Ridge

    2017-04-11

    Symplectic mappings are discrete-time analogs of Hamiltonian systems. They appear in many areas of physics, including, for example, accelerators, plasma, and fluids. Integrable mappings, a subclass of symplectic mappings, are equivalent to a Twist map, with a rotation number, constant along the phase trajectory. In this letter, we propose a succinct expression to determine the rotation number and present two examples. Similar to the period of the bounded motion in Hamiltonian systems, the rotation number is the most fundamental property of integrable maps and it provides a way to analyze the phase-space dynamics.

  3. 46 CFR 28.60 - Exemption letter.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... VESSELS General Provisions § 28.60 Exemption letter. (a) Types of exemptions. (1) Specific exemption means... for an exemption of either type must be in writing, have specific reasons for the request, and be sent... vessel to which any exemption applies. (e) Right of appeal. Any person directly affected by a decision or...

  4. Decoding English Alphabet Letters Using EEG Phase Information

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    YiYan Wang

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Increasing evidence indicates that the phase pattern and power of the low frequency oscillations of brain electroencephalograms (EEG contain significant information during the human cognition of sensory signals such as auditory and visual stimuli. Here, we investigate whether and how the letters of the alphabet can be directly decoded from EEG phase and power data. In addition, we investigate how different band oscillations contribute to the classification and determine the critical time periods. An English letter recognition task was assigned, and statistical analyses were conducted to decode the EEG signal corresponding to each letter visualized on a computer screen. We applied support vector machine (SVM with gradient descent method to learn the potential features for classification. It was observed that the EEG phase signals have a higher decoding accuracy than the oscillation power information. Low-frequency theta and alpha oscillations have phase information with higher accuracy than do other bands. The decoding performance was best when the analysis period began from 180 to 380 ms after stimulus presentation, especially in the lateral occipital and posterior temporal scalp regions (PO7 and PO8. These results may provide a new approach for brain-computer interface techniques (BCI and may deepen our understanding of EEG oscillations in cognition.

  5. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains seven separate records on physics from extra dimensions, new physics in the new millennium with GENIUS: double beta decay, dark matter, solar neutrinos, the (μ - , e + ) conversion in nuclei mediated by light Majorana neutrinos, exotic muon-to-positron conversion in nuclei: partial transition sum evaluation by using shell model, solar neutrino problem accounting for self consistent magnetohydrodynamics solution for solar magnetic fields, first neutrino observations from the Sudbury neutrino observatory and status report on BOREXINO and results of the muon-background measurements at CERN

  6. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2002-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains seven separate records on kinematic separation and mass analysis of heavy recoiling nuclei, dynamical effects prior to heavy ion fusion, VACTIV-DELPHI graphical dialog based program for the analysis of gamma-ray spectra, irradiation of nuclear emulsions in relativistic beams of 6 He and 3 H nuclei, optical and structural investigations of PLZT x/65/35 (x = 4, 8 %) ferroelectric ceramics irradiated by a high-current pulsed electron beam, the oscillating charge and first evidence for neutrinoless double beta decay

  7. Analysis of Perioperative Chemotherapy in Resected Pancreatic Cancer: Identifying the Number and Sequence of Chemotherapy Cycles Needed to Optimize Survival.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Epelboym, Irene; Zenati, Mazen S; Hamad, Ahmad; Steve, Jennifer; Lee, Kenneth K; Bahary, Nathan; Hogg, Melissa E; Zeh, Herbert J; Zureikat, Amer H

    2017-09-01

    Receipt of 6 cycles of adjuvant chemotherapy (AC) is standard of care in pancreatic cancer (PC). Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is increasingly utilized; however, optimal number of cycles needed alone or in combination with AC remains unknown. We sought to determine the optimal number and sequence of perioperative chemotherapy cycles in PC. Single institutional review of all resected PCs from 2008 to 2015. The impact of cumulative number of chemotherapy cycles received (0, 1-5, and ≥6 cycles) and their sequence (NAC, AC, or NAC + AC) on overall survival was evaluated Cox-proportional hazard modeling, using 6 cycles of AC as reference. A total of 522 patients were analyzed. Based on sample size distribution, four combinations were evaluated: 0 cycles = 12.1%, 1-5 cycles of combined NAC + AC = 29%, 6 cycles of AC = 25%, and ≥6 cycles of combined NAC + AC = 34%, with corresponding survival. 13.1, 18.5, 37, and 36.8 months. On MVA (P cycles AC, receipt of 0 cycles [HR 3.57, confidence interval (CI) 2.47-5.18] or 1-5 cycles in any combination (HR 2.37, CI 1.73-3.23) was associated with increased hazard of death, whereas receipt of ≥6 cycles in any sequence was associated with optimal and comparable survival (HR 1.07, CI 0.78-1.47). Receipt of 6 or more perioperative cycles of chemotherapy either as combined neoadjuvant and adjuvant or adjuvant alone may be associated with optimal and comparable survival in resected PC.

  8. Standardized letters of recommendation and successful match into otolaryngology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kimple, Adam J; McClurg, Stanley W; Del Signore, Anthony G; Tomoum, Mohamed O; Lin, Feng-Chang; Senior, Brent A

    2016-05-01

    Historically, narrative letters of recommendation have been utilized in the selection of applicants for otolaryngology residency programs. In the last two application cycles, our specialty adopted a standardized letter of recommendation (SLOR). The intent was to decrease time burden for letter writers and to provide readers with an objective evaluation of applicants. The objective of this study was to determine attributes in the SLOR that correlate with matching into a residency program. We performed a retrospective study using SLOR, United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) step 1 scores, and matched outcomes of applicants who applied to our institution for the 2013 and 2014 match cycle. We included the following variables from the SLOR in the statistical analysis to determine which ones were associated with matching: patient care, medical knowledge, communication skills, procedural skills, research, initiative and drive, commitment to otolaryngology, commitment to academic medicine, match potential, and USMLE1 scores. We identified 532 applicants and 963 SLOR. In successful applicants, scores for patient care, medical knowledge, communication skills, initiative and drive, and match potential were statistically higher (P otolaryngology, commitment to academic medicine, and USMLE step 1 scores were not higher among successfully matched applicants. Although SLOR can save time for letter writers and provide an objective description of applicants, the utility of individual domains within the SLOR is questionable. Additionally, it is concerning that applicants' professionalism and procedural skills are not correlated with matching in our specialty. NA. Laryngoscope, 126:1071-1076, 2016. © 2016 The American Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Society, Inc.

  9. Detection of M-Sequences from Spike Sequence in Neuronal Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yoshi Nishitani

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available In circuit theory, it is well known that a linear feedback shift register (LFSR circuit generates pseudorandom bit sequences (PRBS, including an M-sequence with the maximum period of length. In this study, we tried to detect M-sequences known as a pseudorandom sequence generated by the LFSR circuit from time series patterns of stimulated action potentials. Stimulated action potentials were recorded from dissociated cultures of hippocampal neurons grown on a multielectrode array. We could find several M-sequences from a 3-stage LFSR circuit (M3. These results show the possibility of assembling LFSR circuits or its equivalent ones in a neuronal network. However, since the M3 pattern was composed of only four spike intervals, the possibility of an accidental detection was not zero. Then, we detected M-sequences from random spike sequences which were not generated from an LFSR circuit and compare the result with the number of M-sequences from the originally observed raster data. As a result, a significant difference was confirmed: a greater number of “0–1” reversed the 3-stage M-sequences occurred than would have accidentally be detected. This result suggests that some LFSR equivalent circuits are assembled in neuronal networks.

  10. African Journals Online: Browse Alphabetically -- letter T

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Items 1 - 19 of 19 ... African Journals Online: Browse Alphabetically -- letter T ... and economic aspects of management and conservation of tropical flora and fauna. ... Les principaux thèmes qui y sont abordés recouvrent les axes de recherche ...

  11. The Effect of Orthographic Depth on Letter String Processing: The Case of Visual Attention Span and Rapid Automatized Naming

    Science.gov (United States)

    Antzaka, Alexia; Martin, Clara; Caffarra, Sendy; Schlöffel, Sophie; Carreiras, Manuel; Lallier, Marie

    2018-01-01

    The present study investigated whether orthographic depth can increase the bias towards multi-letter processing in two reading-related skills: visual attention span (VAS) and rapid automatized naming (RAN). VAS (i.e., the number of visual elements that can be processed at once in a multi-element array) was tested with a visual 1-back task and RAN…

  12. Increasing Word-Reading Speed in Poor Readers: No Additional Benefits of Explicit Letter-Cluster Training

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marinus, Eva; de Jong, Peter; van der Leij, Aryan

    2012-01-01

    The present study examined whether explicit training of letter-clusters leads to more gains in word-reading speed than training of the separate letters of the same clusters. Ninety-nine poor reading second-grade children were randomly assigned to a cluster-training, a parallel letter-training, or a no-training condition. The cluster-training…

  13. Sequence assembly

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Scheibye-Alsing, Karsten; Hoffmann, S.; Frankel, Annett Maria

    2009-01-01

    Despite the rapidly increasing number of sequenced and re-sequenced genomes, many issues regarding the computational assembly of large-scale sequencing data have remain unresolved. Computational assembly is crucial in large genome projects as well for the evolving high-throughput technologies and...... in genomic DNA, highly expressed genes and alternative transcripts in EST sequences. We summarize existing comparisons of different assemblers and provide a detailed descriptions and directions for download of assembly programs at: http://genome.ku.dk/resources/assembly/methods.html....

  14. The New Scarlet Letter: Student Perceptions of the Accounting Profession after Enron

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coleman, Mimi; Kreuze, Jerry; Langsam, Sheldon

    2004-01-01

    Recent scandals have tarnished the integrity of the accounting profession, marking it with a modern version of the scarlet letter "A," which represented disgrace in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter." In this study, the authors surveyed college business students on their perceptions of the accounting profession and examined how it can…

  15. Should intellectual property be disseminated by "forwarding" rejected letters without permission?

    OpenAIRE

    Gupta, V K

    1996-01-01

    Substantive scientific letter writing is a cost-effective mode of complementing observational and experimental research. The value of such philosophically uncommitted and unsponsored well-balanced scientific activity has been relegated. Critical letter writing entails the abilities to: maintain rational scepticism; refuse to conform in order to explain data; persist in keeping common sense centre-stage; exercise logic to evaluate the biological significance of mathematical figures, including ...

  16. Analysis and synthesis of nuclear medical letters in the field of nephrological diseases

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kley, K.H.

    1979-01-01

    The task of this study consisted in providing the conditions for the automized issue of nuclear nephrological medical letters based on the nuclear medical polyclinic Marburg Selex system working for 8 years now. Part of the task was to develop the structure and coding of the medical letter content appropriately for EDP documentation, as in the Selex system all data for medical letter acquisition are simultaneously acquired on a data carrier for EDP documentation. The analysis of commonly provided medical letters also exhibited in this field the known weaknesses: especially insufficient systematics and the all-over information of interfering redundances. The work describes in detail how the required thesaurus has been worked out and structured into obligatory and optional rough and detailed components. A general form was developed for the findings of paired organs and the special form for nuclear nephrological medical letters was adapted to it. Of the auxiliaries worked out for the doctor in setting up the working instructions to operate the Selex system, scriptate leaflet, short vocabulary album; the two former are presented fully and the latter with typical examples. The result of this work can basically also be applied to other hardware. (orig.) [de

  17. Lexical semantic access and letter access are involved in different aspects of reading

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Poulsen, Mads

    ). In this subset sample, both letter access and lexical access accounted for unique variance in reading fluency. The pattern of effects for lexical access did not change by controlling for serial rapid naming (RAN). Conclusions: The results suggest that letter access and lexical access are important for different......Purpose: This study investigated the effects of lexical access speed and letter access speed on reading fluency and reading comprehension. We hypothesized that 1) letter access speed would correlate with reading fluency but not comprehension, while 2) lexical access speed would influence reading...... comprehension. For readers who are struggling with recoding, most of the reading effort is probably tied up with recoding, leaving little to be explained by lexical access. Therefore we expected that 3) lexical access speed would primarily predict reading fluency for readers who were no longer struggling...

  18. Study of EEG during Sternberg Tasks with Different Direction of Arrangement for Letters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kamihoriuchi, Kenji; Nuruki, Atsuo; Matae, Tadashi; Kurono, Asutsugu; Yunokuchi, Kazutomo

    In previous study, we recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) of patients with dementia and healthy subjects during Sternberg task. But, only one presentation method of Sternberg task was considered in previous study. Therefore, we examined whether the EEG was different in two different presentation methods wrote letters horizontally and wrote letters vertically in this study. We recorded EEG of six healthy subjects during Sternberg task using two different presentation methods. The result was not different in EEG topography of all subjects. In all subjects, correct rate increased in case of vertically arranged letters.

  19. "Physical Review Letters" in the Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Angiolillo, Paul J.; Lynch, Jonathan

    2010-01-01

    Ask any physicist what the preeminent journal in the field is, and I think the almost unanimous answer will be "Physical Review Letters" ("PRL"). This weekly journal of the American Physical Society publishes high-impact research from all the major subdisciplines of physics. This journal is not the one you would think is the first place a high…

  20. Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tuck, Eve

    2009-01-01

    In this open letter, Eve Tuck calls on communities, researchers, and educators to reconsider the long-term impact of "damage-centered" research--research that intends to document peoples' pain and brokenness to hold those in power accountable for their oppression. This kind of research operates with a flawed theory of change: it is often used to…

  1. Language Arts/Arts: Adopt-a-Letter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soloway, Rhoda K.

    1978-01-01

    Describes a five-week project in which elementary students chose a favorite letter as the main character of a 25- to 30-page book for practice in language skills. The book each child made was composed of more than 20 learning activities that stimulated students to review and practice skills, parts of speech, synonyms, antonyms and alliteration as…

  2. An Analysis of English Business Letters from the Perspective of Interpersonal Function

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Bo

    2012-01-01

    The purpose of the present study is to find out the features of English business letters. Halliday's systemic functional linguistics is used as the theoretical framework, mainly, interpersonal fucntion. The English business letter (EBL) is an important written text used for international business communication and it has its own features of text.…

  3. medication history documentation in referral letters of children

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    CHILDREN PRESENTING AT THE EMERGENCY UNIT OF A TEACHING. HOSPITAL IN LAGOS ... infrequently reported in referral letters to a tertiary care hospital in Lagos,. Nigeria. .... researcher, a pharmacist and clinical pharmacologist.

  4. The influence of reading expertise in mirror-letter perception: Evidence from beginning and expert readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duñabeitia, Jon Andoni; Dimitropoulou, María; Estévez, Adelina; Carreiras, Manuel

    2013-01-01

    The visual word recognition system recruits neuronal systems originally developed for object perception which are characterized by orientation insensitivity to mirror reversals. It has been proposed that during reading acquisition beginning readers have to “unlearn” this natural tolerance to mirror reversals in order to efficiently discriminate letters and words. Therefore, it is supposed that this unlearning process takes place in a gradual way and that reading expertise modulates mirror-letter discrimination. However, to date no supporting evidence for this has been obtained. We present data from an eye-movement study that investigated the degree of sensitivity to mirror-letters in a group of beginning readers and a group of expert readers. Participants had to decide which of the two strings presented on a screen corresponded to an auditorily presented word. Visual displays always included the correct target word and one distractor word. Results showed that those distractors that were the same as the target word except for the mirror lateralization of two internal letters attracted participants’ attention more than distractors created by replacement of two internal letters. Interestingly, the time course of the effects was found to be different for the two groups, with beginning readers showing a greater tolerance (decreased sensitivity) to mirror-letters than expert readers. Implications of these findings are discussed within the framework of preceding evidence showing how reading expertise modulates letter identification. PMID:24273596

  5. The Presentation of Self in Letters of Application: A Mixed-Method Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soroko, Emilia

    2012-01-01

    The application letter, as the first phase of employment-seeking, is an opportunity for a job applicant to make a favorable impression on a potential employer. In the current study, the author used a mixed-method approach to empirically explore strategies for self-presentation in job application letters and determine the methods used in the…

  6. 12 CFR 614.4720 - Letters of credit.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... Banks and Banking FARM CREDIT ADMINISTRATION FARM CREDIT SYSTEM LOAN POLICIES AND OPERATIONS Banks for Cooperatives and Agricultural Credit Banks Financing International Trade § 614.4720 Letters of credit. Banks for cooperatives and agricultural credit banks, under policies adopted by their boards of directors...

  7. Normative adjustments to the D-KEFS trail making test: corrections for education and vocabulary level.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fine, Eric M; Delis, Dean C; Holdnack, James

    2011-11-01

    The Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) Trail Making Test (TMT), a modification of the original TMT, was created to isolate set-shifting (Letter-Number Switching) from other component skills. This was accomplished by including four baseline conditions (Visual Scanning, Number Sequencing, Letter Sequencing, and Motor Speed) and by placing equal numbers of stimuli in the three sequencing conditions. Given that some studies with the original TMT demonstrated a significant effect of education and intellectual functioning on performance, we utilized the D-KEFS national standardization sample to examine the effects of education and vocabulary level-i.e., Vocabulary subtest from the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI)-on the D-KEFS TMT. The results indicate a significant effect of these variables on each D-KEFS TMT condition. Normative tables for education- and vocabulary-adjusted scaled scores based on the database from the D-KEFS national normative study were generated.

  8. Number words and number symbols a cultural history of numbers

    CERN Document Server

    Menninger, Karl

    1992-01-01

    Classic study discusses number sequence and language and explores written numerals and computations in many cultures. "The historian of mathematics will find much to interest him here both in the contents and viewpoint, while the casual reader is likely to be intrigued by the author's superior narrative ability.

  9. The influence of visual and phonological features on the hemispheric processing of hierarchical Navon letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aiello, Marilena; Merola, Sheila; Lasaponara, Stefano; Pinto, Mario; Tomaiuolo, Francesco; Doricchi, Fabrizio

    2018-01-31

    The possibility of allocating attentional resources to the "global" shape or to the "local" details of pictorial stimuli helps visual processing. Investigations with hierarchical Navon letters, that are large "global" letters made up of small "local" ones, consistently demonstrate a right hemisphere advantage for global processing and a left hemisphere advantage for local processing. Here we investigated how the visual and phonological features of the global and local components of Navon letters influence these hemispheric advantages. In a first study in healthy participants, we contrasted the hemispheric processing of hierarchical letters with global and local items competing for response selection, to the processing of hierarchical letters in which a letter, a false-letter conveying no phonological information or a geometrical shape presented at the unattended level did not compete for response selection. In a second study, we investigated the hemispheric processing of hierarchical stimuli in which global and local letters were both visually and phonologically congruent (e.g. large uppercase G made of smaller uppercase G), visually incongruent and phonologically congruent (e.g. large uppercase G made of small lowercase g) or visually incongruent and phonologically incongruent (e.g. large uppercase G made of small lowercase or uppercase M). In a third study, we administered the same tasks to a right brain damaged patient with a lesion involving pre-striate areas engaged by global processing. The results of the first two experiments showed that the global abilities of the left hemisphere are limited because of its strong susceptibility to interference from local letters even when these are irrelevant to the task. Phonological features played a crucial role in this interference because the interference was entirely maintained also when letters at the global and local level were presented in different uppercase vs. lowercase formats. In contrast, when local features

  10. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2002-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains eight separate records on the role of the complanar emission of particles in nuclear interaction for E 0 >10 16 eV detected in the stratosphere, 10 B nucleus fragment yields, nuclear teleportation (proposal for an experiment), invisible 'glue' bosons in model field theory, calculation of the ionization differential effective cross sections in fast ion-atom collisions, interactions of ultracold neutrons near surface of solids, g factors as a probe for high-spin structure of neutron-rich Dy isotopes, search for periodicities in experimental data by the autoregressive model methods

  11. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2000-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains eight separate records on quantum field theory and symmetries in nuclear physics, multifractal analysis of AFM images of Nb thin film surfaces, the fast-acting memory for multichannel converters of time to digital, an analysis of the anomalous Cherenkov radiation obtained in the relativistic lead ion beam at CERN SPS, the problem of consistency of the thermal-spike model with experimentally determined electron temperature, ATLAS calorimeter performance for charged pion as well as on collective flow in multifragmentation induced by relativistic helium and carbon ions variation of the coulomb repulsion in multifragmentation

  12. The "One-Letter-War"

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gammeltoft, Peder

    2017-01-01

    The resolve of the naming dispute between Denmark, Norway and Sweden over the sea name Skagerrak has always been hailed as a prime example of how a naming dispute between countries over joint geographical name features should be handled and solved. This is a search into the story behind the scenes...... by the national mapping agencies. Practical Implications: Useful for institutions seeking name dispute resolution. Building on the extensive correspondence of almost fifty letters in the Danish Place-Name Commission’s journal archive, this naming dispute is shown to be of a rather different nature and resolve...

  13. Sequence embedding for fast construction of guide trees for multiple sequence alignment

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Blackshields, Gordon

    2010-05-14

    Abstract Background The most widely used multiple sequence alignment methods require sequences to be clustered as an initial step. Most sequence clustering methods require a full distance matrix to be computed between all pairs of sequences. This requires memory and time proportional to N 2 for N sequences. When N grows larger than 10,000 or so, this becomes increasingly prohibitive and can form a significant barrier to carrying out very large multiple alignments. Results In this paper, we have tested variations on a class of embedding methods that have been designed for clustering large numbers of complex objects where the individual distance calculations are expensive. These methods involve embedding the sequences in a space where the similarities within a set of sequences can be closely approximated without having to compute all pair-wise distances. Conclusions We show how this approach greatly reduces computation time and memory requirements for clustering large numbers of sequences and demonstrate the quality of the clusterings by benchmarking them as guide trees for multiple alignment. Source code is available for download from http:\\/\\/www.clustal.org\\/mbed.tgz.

  14. 75 FR 75453 - Proposed Information Collection; Comment Request; Technical Data Letter of Explanation

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-12-03

    ... Request; Technical Data Letter of Explanation AGENCY: Bureau of Industry and Security. ACTION: Notice....gov . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Abstract These technical data letters of explanation will assure the Bureau of Industry and Security that U.S.-origin technical data will be exported only for...

  15. Who Learns More? Cultural Differences in Implicit Sequence Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fu, Qiufang; Dienes, Zoltan; Shang, Junchen; Fu, Xiaolan

    2013-01-01

    Background It is well documented that East Asians differ from Westerners in conscious perception and attention. However, few studies have explored cultural differences in unconscious processes such as implicit learning. Methodology/Principal Findings The global-local Navon letters were adopted in the serial reaction time (SRT) task, during which Chinese and British participants were instructed to respond to global or local letters, to investigate whether culture influences what people acquire in implicit sequence learning. Our results showed that from the beginning British expressed a greater local bias in perception than Chinese, confirming a cultural difference in perception. Further, over extended exposure, the Chinese learned the target regularity better than the British when the targets were global, indicating a global advantage for Chinese in implicit learning. Moreover, Chinese participants acquired greater unconscious knowledge of an irrelevant regularity than British participants, indicating that the Chinese were more sensitive to contextual regularities than the British. Conclusions/Significance The results suggest that cultural biases can profoundly influence both what people consciously perceive and unconsciously learn. PMID:23940773

  16. Blindness and the age of enlightenment: Diderot's letter on the blind.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Margo, Curtis E; Harman, Lynn E; Smith, Don B

    2013-01-01

    Several months after anonymously publishing an essay in 1749 with the title "Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those Who Can See," the chief editor of the French Encyclopédie was arrested and taken to the prison fortress of Vincennes just east of Paris, France. The correctly assumed author, Denis Diderot, was 35 years old and had not yet left his imprint on the Age of Enlightenment. His letter, which recounted the life of Nicolas Saunderson, a blind mathematician, was intended to advance secular empiricism and disparage the religiously tinged rationalism put forward by Rene Descartes. The letter's discussion of sensory perception in men born blind dismissed the supposed primacy of visual imagery in abstract thinking. The essay did little to resolve any philosophical controversy, but it marked a turning point in Western attitudes toward visual disability.

  17. Explanations on nomenclature and number of material for steels in accordance with DIN norm - (Deutsch Industrie Norm)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Barone, S.D.; Silva, T.C.V. da; Bittencourt, M.S.Q.

    1980-01-01

    The materials specified by DIN norm are identified by its nomenclature and corresponding DIN number. The characters (numbers and letters) aim to classify the material and provide indication on main alloy properties and elements. (M.C.K.) [pt

  18. Use of automated reminder letters to improve diabetes management in primary care: outcomes of a quality improvement initiative.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berryman, Sally H; Sick, Brian T; Wang, Qi; Swan, Paul J; Weber-Main, Anne Marie

    2013-01-01

    Effective management of patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) can be time-consuming and costly. One patient-centred quality improvement strategy is to generate reminder letters to prompt patient action(s), but this strategy's effect on DM outcomes is uncertain. To determine whether using the electronic medical record to automatically generate reminder letters for patients not meeting recommended DM targets is associated with improvement in practice level quality metrics for DM management. Over 15 months, letters were sent monthly to all patients with DM in a large, urban, primary care teaching practice whose records for haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or blood pressure (BP) indicated non-compliance with recommended levels and testing intervals. Logistic regression was used to analyse cross-sectional, practice-level differences in the proportion of patients meeting DM quality metrics (HbA1c < 7%, LDL < 100 mg/dl and BP < 130/80 mmHg; rates of checking each value within the last 12 months; and a composite of these five measures) across four time points: six months before the intervention, start of the intervention, end of the 15-month intervention period and six months after the intervention. The number of letters sent per month ranged from 284 to 392, representing 28-38% of all patients with DM. At the end of the intervention, patients' odds of being at goal were higher than before the intervention began for LDL < 100 mg/dl, and for HbA1c and LDL tested once within the last 12 months (or 1.24, P = 0.005; or 1.35, P = 0.03; or 1.48, P < 0.001, respectively). Post intervention, declines were seen in LDL checked within the last 12 months (or 0.76, P = 0.003) and in the composite endpoint (or 0.78, P = 0.005). The automated patient-reminder letter intervention was associated with modest improvements in several, but not all DM measures. This approach may be an effective tool for improving quality of care for patients with DM.

  19. Pre-notification letter type and response rate to a postal survey among women who have recently given birth.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Todd, Angela L; Porter, Maree; Williamson, Jennifer L; Patterson, Jillian A; Roberts, Christine L

    2015-12-01

    Surveys are commonly used in health research to assess patient satisfaction with hospital care. Achieving an adequate response rate, in the face of declining trends over time, threatens the quality and reliability of survey results. This paper evaluates a strategy to increase the response rate in a postal satisfaction survey with women who had recently given birth. A sample of 2048 Australian women who had recently given birth at seven maternity units in New South Wales were invited to participate in a postal survey about their recent experiences with maternity care. The study design included a randomised controlled trial that tested two types of pre-notification letter (with or without the option of opting out of the survey). The study also explored the acceptability of a request for consent to link survey data with existing routinely collected health data (omitting the latter data items from the survey reduced survey length and participant burden). This consent was requested of all women. The survey had an overall response rate of 46% (913 completed surveys returned, total sample 1989). Women receiving the pre-notification letter with the option of opting out of the survey were more likely to actively decline to participate than women receiving the letter without this option, although the overall numbers of women declining were small (27 versus 12). Letter type was not significantly associated with the return of a completed survey. Among women who completed the survey, 97% gave consent to link their survey data with existing health data. The two types of pre-notification letters used in our study did not influence the survey response rate. However, seeking consent for record linkage was highly acceptable to women who completed the survey, and represents an important strategy to add to the arsenal for designing and implementing effective surveys. In addition to aspects of survey design, future research should explore how to more effectively influence personal

  20. African Journals Online: Browse Alphabetically -- letter D

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Dar Es Salaam Medical Students' Journal. The journal publishes original research, case report/case series, letter to the editor, reviews of health related issues in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, public and allied health sciences. Furthermore the DMSJ endeavours to disseminate research findings mainly of medical ...

  1. 50 CFR 216.218 - Letters of Authorization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE MARINE MAMMALS REGULATIONS GOVERNING THE TAKING AND IMPORTING OF MARINE MAMMALS Taking of Marine Mammals Incidental to Explosive Severance Activities Conducted During Offshore Structure Removal Operations on the Outer Continental Shelf in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico § 216.218 Letters of...

  2. 15 CFR 700.63 - Letters of Understanding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Letters of Understanding. 700.63 Section 700.63 Commerce and Foreign Trade Regulations Relating to Commerce and Foreign Trade (Continued) BUREAU OF INDUSTRY AND SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE NATIONAL SECURITY INDUSTRIAL BASE REGULATIONS...

  3. Una lettera a Sylos Labini. (A letter to Sylos Labini

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Franco Modigliani

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available The letter, dated 14 September 1956, starts a decade long correspondence between Franco Modigliani and Paolo Sylos Labini. Here Modigliani discusses at length a first draft of Sylos Labini’s book on oligopoly theory. Differently from Modigliani’s well known 1958 review of the book, Modigliani focuses here not mainly on the structure of oligopoly industries, but especially on the macroeconomic implications of Sylos Labini’s model. The letter is reproduced with Sylos Labini’s annotated comments on Modigliani’s remarks. JEL codes: B31, D43, E13

  4. Teaching braille letters, numerals, punctuation, and contractions to sighted individuals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Putnam, Brittany C; Tiger, Jeffrey H

    2015-01-01

    Braille-character recognition is one of the foundational skills required for teachers of braille. Prior research has evaluated computer programming for teaching braille-to-print letter relations (e.g., Scheithauer & Tiger, 2012). In the current study, we developed a program (the Visual Braille Trainer) to teach not only letters but also numerals, punctuation, symbols, and contractions; we evaluated this program with 4 sighted undergraduate participants. Exposure to this program resulted in mastery of all braille-to-print relations for each participant. © Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

  5. A letter signed: the very beginnings of Dalton's atomic theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pratt, Herbert T

    2010-11-01

    This paper explores the provenance and content of a previously unknown personal letter by John Dalton (1766-1844), which is dated 12 April 1803. It relates to a startling breakthrough in Dalton's research, which pre-dates by five months the earliest date in his laboratory notebook, namely, 6 September 1803. The author acquired the letter about thirty years ago, and now offers it to the public. He makes no attempt to explain how it contributes to--or even changes--our understanding of Dalton, but leaves that privilege to Dalton scholars.

  6. The Number of Candidate Variants in Exome Sequencing for Mendelian Disease under No Genetic Heterogeneity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jo Nishino

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available There has been recent success in identifying disease-causing variants in Mendelian disorders by exome sequencing followed by simple filtering techniques. Studies generally assume complete or high penetrance. However, there are likely many failed and unpublished studies due in part to incomplete penetrance or phenocopy. In this study, the expected number of candidate single-nucleotide variants (SNVs in exome data for autosomal dominant or recessive Mendelian disorders was investigated under the assumption of “no genetic heterogeneity.” All variants were assumed to be under the “null model,” and sample allele frequencies were modeled using a standard population genetics theory. To investigate the properties of pedigree data, full-sibs were considered in addition to unrelated individuals. In both cases, particularly regarding full-sibs, the number of SNVs remained very high without controls. The high efficacy of controls was also confirmed. When controls were used with a relatively large total sample size (e.g., N=20, 50, filtering incorporating of incomplete penetrance and phenocopy efficiently reduced the number of candidate SNVs. This suggests that filtering is useful when an assumption of no “genetic heterogeneity” is appropriate and could provide general guidelines for sample size determination.

  7. The Neural Substrates for Letter String Readings in The Normal and Reverse Directions: An fMRI Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ge, Sheng; Saito, Takashi; Wu, Jing-Long; Ogasawara, Jun-Ichi; Yamauchi, Shuichi; Matsunaga, Naofumi; Iramina, Keiji

    In order to investigate the difference in cortical activations between reading letter strings in the normal direction and the reverse direction, an fMRI study was conducted. In this study, the cortical activations elicited by Japanese letter string reading and Chinese letter string reading were investigated. The subjects performed the normal direction reading task (read letter strings from left to right), and the reverse direction reading task (read letter strings from right to left). According to the experimental results, the activated brain regions during the normal and the reverse direction reading tasks were compared. It was found that visuospatial transformation was involved in the reverse direction reading task, while this function was not significant during the normal direction reading task. Furthermore, we found that there was no significant difference in cortical activation between Japanese and Chinese letter string readings.

  8. Letter of Polish Hetman Jan Zamoyski “About Passage of Tatars through Pokuttya in 1594”.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roman Hautala

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The present article contains the text of the letter sent by Polish hetman Jan Zamoyski to Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini August 12, 1594 describing the circumstances of the recent invasion of Tatar troops in Hungary. Judging by contents of the letter, Zamoyski did not hide his desire to be justified in the eyes of the Roman Curia for the ineffectiveness of his actions, which would have to prevent Tatars to invade Hungary through Ukrainian territory that was subordinated to Rzeczpospolita. Thus, this letter is interesting for two reasons. In the first place, Zamoyski’s letter contains detailed information about movement of Tartar troops to the west and stratagemme of khan Ghazi Giray, which allowed Tatars to lull Polish hetman and painlessly penetrate into Hungarian territory. On the other hand, the letter contains somewhat clumsy attempts of Zamoyski to justify his unsuccessful actions, which represent a particular interest. This article, therefore, contains the Latin text of the letter and its Russian translation as well as the preface and necessary comments to the text explaining the reasons and the very course of Tatar invasion of the Kingdom of Hungary. In addition, the authors placed facsimiles of two handwritten copies of the letter from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan at the end of the article.

  9. 39 CFR 320.4 - Suspension for certain letters of college and university organizations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... universities to carry in their internal mail systems the letters of their bona fide student or faculty... university. Colleges and universities choosing to provide their student or faculty organizations access to their internal mail systems are responsible for assuring that only letters of bona fide student or...

  10. Error Analysis of Deep Sequencing of Phage Libraries: Peptides Censored in Sequencing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wadim L. Matochko

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Next-generation sequencing techniques empower selection of ligands from phage-display libraries because they can detect low abundant clones and quantify changes in the copy numbers of clones without excessive selection rounds. Identification of errors in deep sequencing data is the most critical step in this process because these techniques have error rates >1%. Mechanisms that yield errors in Illumina and other techniques have been proposed, but no reports to date describe error analysis in phage libraries. Our paper focuses on error analysis of 7-mer peptide libraries sequenced by Illumina method. Low theoretical complexity of this phage library, as compared to complexity of long genetic reads and genomes, allowed us to describe this library using convenient linear vector and operator framework. We describe a phage library as N×1 frequency vector n=ni, where ni is the copy number of the ith sequence and N is the theoretical diversity, that is, the total number of all possible sequences. Any manipulation to the library is an operator acting on n. Selection, amplification, or sequencing could be described as a product of a N×N matrix and a stochastic sampling operator (Sa. The latter is a random diagonal matrix that describes sampling of a library. In this paper, we focus on the properties of Sa and use them to define the sequencing operator (Seq. Sequencing without any bias and errors is Seq=Sa IN, where IN is a N×N unity matrix. Any bias in sequencing changes IN to a nonunity matrix. We identified a diagonal censorship matrix (CEN, which describes elimination or statistically significant downsampling, of specific reads during the sequencing process.

  11. Brain activation patterns resulting from learning letter forms through active self-production and passive observation in young children

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alyssa J Kersey

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Although previous literature suggests that writing practice facilitates neural specialization for letters, it is unclear if this facilitation is driven by the perceptual feedback from the act of writing or the actual execution of the motor act. The present study addresses this issue by measuring the change in BOLD signal in response to hand-printed letters, unlearned cursive letters, and cursive letters that 7 year-old children learned actively, by writing, and passively, by observing an experimenter write. Brain activation was assessed using fMRI while perceiving letters – in both cursive and manuscript forms. Results showed that active training led to increased recruitment of the sensori-motor network associated with letter perception as well as the insula and claustrum, but passive observation did not. This suggests that perceptual networks for newly learned cursive letters are driven by motor execution rather than by perceptual feedback.

  12. Analysis of opinions issued in comment letters on the term prudence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Victor Ranieri Bomfim Sampaio de Araújo

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Since 2001, the International Accounting Standards Board (Iasb has worked to revise the Conceptual Framework (CF. Therefore, it has issued Discussion papers (DP, aiming to collect the stakeholders’ opinions about different aspects of the CF. One of the aspects discussed is the inclusion or not of Prudence in the CF. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the opinions issued in the comment letters in response to the DPs between 2006 and 2013 about the exclusion of the term Prudence from the CF. The research was undertaken through the content analysis of 420 comment letters forwarded to the Iasb, among which 176 were identified that contain the terms Prudence/Conservatism, 117 of which are in favor of including the term. Among those against the inclusion, the main justification is the existence of conflict between Prudence and neutrality. The respondents’ opinions were also separated per location and interest groups, showing that the European respondents are more favorable to the inclusion of the term, while Anglo-Saxon America defends it least. What the interest groups is concerned, the group that was most in favor of the insertion of the term were the Preparers, while the Financial Institutions were the most unfavorable agents. Using Kappa Analysis, it was observed that the level of agreement among the respondents’ opinions indicates weak agreement with the total number of samples, suggesting that further debate and reflection on the theme is needed.

  13. Rene Descartes’ letter to abbot Mersenne. November, 20, 1629. Translation from English

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Goncharova Alina Alekseevna

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available This letter is of value for lingua-philosophical and linguistic researches. Rene Descartes’ remarks about the first proposal for the universal language are expounded in it. Descartes was considered as a pioneer in linguistic constructions due to these remarks. This letter contains philosopher’s conclusions about the universal language’s grammar and use, as well as project’s implementation obstacles.

  14. Consideration of the linguistic characteristics of letters makes the universal model of reading more universal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Kyungil; Lee, Chang H; Lee, Yoonhyoung

    2012-10-01

    We suggest that the linguistic characteristics of letters also need to be considered to fully understand how a reader processes printed words. For example, studies in Korean showed that unambiguity in the assignment of letters to their appropriate onset, vowel, or coda slot is one of the main sources of the letter-transposition effect. Indeed, the cognitive system that processes Korean is tuned to the structure of the Korean writing system.

  15. Crossmodal deficit in dyslexic children: practice affects the neural timing of letter-speech sound integration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gojko eŽarić

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available A failure to build solid letter-speech sound associations may contribute to reading impairments in developmental dyslexia. Whether this reduced neural integration of letters and speech sounds changes over time within individual children and how this relates to behavioral gains in reading skills remains unknown. In this research, we examined changes in event-related potential (ERP measures of letter-speech sound integration over a 6-month period during which 9-year-old dyslexic readers (n=17 followed a training in letter-speech sound coupling next to their regular reading curriculum. We presented the Dutch spoken vowels /a/ and /o/ as standard and deviant stimuli in one auditory and two audiovisual oddball conditions. In one audiovisual condition (AV0, the letter ‘a’ was presented simultaneously with the vowels, while in the other (AV200 it was preceding vowel onset for 200 ms. Prior to the training (T1, dyslexic readers showed the expected pattern of typical auditory mismatch responses, together with the absence of letter-speech sound effects in a late negativity (LN window. After the training (T2, our results showed earlier (and enhanced crossmodal effects in the LN window. Most interestingly, earlier LN latency at T2 was significantly related to higher behavioral accuracy in letter-speech sound coupling. On a more general level, the timing of the earlier mismatch negativity (MMN in the simultaneous condition (AV0 measured at T1, significantly related to reading fluency at both T1 and T2 as well as with reading gains. Our findings suggest that the reduced neural integration of letters and speech sounds in dyslexic children may show moderate improvement with reading instruction and training and that behavioral improvements relate especially to individual differences in the timing of this neural integration.

  16. 48 CFR 49.601-2 - Letter notice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Letter notice. 49.601-2 Section 49.601-2 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION CONTRACT MANAGEMENT... immediate complete spoilage of work-in-process having a definite commercial value, or (D) to prevent any...

  17. An Invitation to between-Session Change: The Use of Therapeutic Letters in Couples and Family Counseling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kindsvatter, Aaron; Nelson, Jill R.; Desmond, Kimberly J.

    2009-01-01

    Therapeutic letters (i.e., brief therapeutic messages that are sent to clients between counseling sessions) have been used since the days of Freud and have been shown to have beneficial therapeutic impacts. This article describes the use of therapeutic letters in couples and family counseling. The use of three types of therapeutic letter (letters…

  18. Scientific Letter: Self-inflicted bilateral orchidectomy precipitated by ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Scientific Letter: Self-inflicted bilateral orchidectomy precipitated by erotic bizarre delusions: a case report. ... African Journal of Psychiatry. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives · Journal Home ...

  19. 14 CFR 21.617 - Issue of letters of TSO design approval: import appliances.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ...: import appliances. 21.617 Section 21.617 Aeronautics and Space FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION... Order Authorizations § 21.617 Issue of letters of TSO design approval: import appliances. (a) A letter of TSO design approval may be issued for an appliance that is manufactured in a foreign country with...

  20. Resource Letter MP-2: The Manhattan project and related nuclear research

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reed, B. Cameron

    2011-02-01

    This Resource Letter is a supplement to my earlier Resource Letter MP-1 and provides further sources on the Manhattan Project and related nuclear research. Books and journal articles are cited for the following topics: General works, technical works, biographical and autobiographical works, foreign wartime programs and allied intelligence, technical papers of historical interest, and postwar policy and technical developments. I also give a list of videos and websites dealing with the Manhattan Project, nuclear weapons, and nuclear issues.

  1. Valued Components of a Consultant Letter from Referring Physicians' Perspective: a Systematic Literature Synthesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rash, Arjun H; Sheldon, Robert; Donald, Maoliosa; Eronmwon, Cindy; Kuriachan, Vikas P

    2018-03-05

    Effective communication between the consultants and physicians form an integral foundation of effective and expert patient care. A broad review of the literature has not been undertaken to determine the components of a consultant's letter of most value to the referring physician. We aimed to identify the components of a consultant's letter preferred by referring physicians. We searched Embase and MEDLINE (OVID) Medicine (EBM) Reviews and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for English articles with no restriction on initial date to January 6, 2017. Articles containing letters from specialists to referring physicians regarding outpatient assessments with either an observational or experimental design were included. Studies were excluded if they pertained to communications from referring physicians to consultant specialists, or pertained to allied health professionals, inpatient documents, or opinion articles. We enumerated the frequencies with which three common themes were addressed, and the positive or negative nature of the comments. The three themes were the structure of consultant letters, their contents, and whether referring physicians and consultants shared a common opinion about the items. Eighteen articles were included in our synthesis. In 11 reports, 91% of respondents preferred structured formats. Other preferred structural features were problem lists and brevity (four reports each). The most preferred contents were oriented to insight: diagnosis, prognosis, and management plan (16/21 mentions in the top tertile). Data items such as history, physical examination, and medication lists were less important (1/23 mentions in the top tertile). Reports varied as to whether referring physicians and consultants shared common opinions about letter features. Referring physicians prefer brief, structured letters from consultants that feature diagnostic and prognostic opinions and management plans over unstructured letters that emphasize data elements such as

  2. Hamlet and Japanese Men of Letters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kawachi Yoshiko

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Shakespeare has exerted a powerful influence on Japanese literature since he was accepted in the second half of the nineteenth century. Particularly Hamlet has had a strong impact on Japanese men of letters and provided them with the impetus to revive the play in contemporary literature. In this paper I discuss how they have utilized Hamlet for their creative activity and enriched Japanese literature.

  3. "Letter-Space": Typographic Translations of Urban Place

    Science.gov (United States)

    Naismith, Jacqueline; O'Sullivan, Annette

    2011-01-01

    This article discusses a Bachelor of Design honours year typography project in the medium of letterpress. The "Letter-space" project positioned letterpress as a textual, spatial and structural visual language, through which the experiences and meanings of a local urban place were translated, mapped and given form through typographic design. We…

  4. Readerly and Writerly "Letters from the Park."

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conde, Susana

    1993-01-01

    Discusses in depth the film "Cartas del parque" ("Letters from the Park"), the first of six films in the "Amores Dificiles" series. Notes that the film is pervaded by the traditional overdetermination of gender roles. Suggests that an intrusive and authoritative narrator makes of this both a "readerly" and a…

  5. Documentary Letters of Credit, Legal Nature and Sources of Law

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alavi Hamed

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available There is no doubt about risky nature of international trade. Such risk can be conceptualized as country risk, transportation risk, customer risk and etc. Documentary Letters of Credit (LC are used as a method of payment in international business for many centuries in order to reduce risk of trade specially when parties are located in different countries and do not have precise information from financial standing of each other. In such occasion LC will reduce the risk of trade by shifting payment obligation from buyer as an individual to a payment guarantee of a bank as a legal entity in return for presentation of complying documents with terms of credit by seller. Familiarity with legal nature and different legal frameworks which govern the international operation of documentary letters of credit can facilitate the process of international trade for businessmen and boost national economies. However, lack of knowledge about them can impose huge losses on international traders. Situation will be more complicated when we understand that there are many internationally recognized legal frameworks which can affect the operation of LC and they get frequently updated in order to address technological and economic developments in global market. In this paper, author tries to answer questions regarding (i what are international legal frameworks governing operation of documentary letters of credit? (ii which areas of LC operation has been covered by them and (iii how do they address the legal questions regarding international operation of documentary letters of credit?

  6. ACCURATE 3D SCANNING OF DAMAGED ANCIENT GREEK INSCRIPTIONS FOR REVEALING WEATHERED LETTERS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. I. Papadaki

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available In this paper two non-invasive non-destructive alternative techniques to the traditional and invasive technique of squeezes are presented alongside with specialized developed processing methods, aiming to help the epigraphists to reveal and analyse weathered letters in ancient Greek inscriptions carved in masonry or marble. The resulting 3D model would serve as a detailed basis for the epigraphists to try to decipher the inscription. The data were collected by using a Structured Light scanner. The creation of the final accurate three dimensional model is a complicated procedure requiring large computation cost and human effort. It includes the collection of geometric data in limited space and time, the creation of the surface, the noise filtering and the merging of individual surfaces. The use of structured light scanners is time consuming and requires costly hardware and software. Therefore an alternative methodology for collecting 3D data of the inscriptions was also implemented for reasons of comparison. Hence, image sequences from varying distances were collected using a calibrated DSLR camera aiming to reconstruct the 3D scene through SfM techniques in order to evaluate the efficiency and the level of precision and detail of the obtained reconstructed inscriptions. Problems in the acquisition processes as well as difficulties in the alignment step and mesh optimization are also encountered. A meta-processing framework is proposed and analysed. Finally, the results of processing and analysis and the different 3D models are critically inspected and then evaluated by a specialist in terms of accuracy, quality and detail of the model and the capability of revealing damaged and ”hidden” letters.

  7. Accurate 3d Scanning of Damaged Ancient Greek Inscriptions for Revealing Weathered Letters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Papadaki, A. I.; Agrafiotis, P.; Georgopoulos, A.; Prignitz, S.

    2015-02-01

    In this paper two non-invasive non-destructive alternative techniques to the traditional and invasive technique of squeezes are presented alongside with specialized developed processing methods, aiming to help the epigraphists to reveal and analyse weathered letters in ancient Greek inscriptions carved in masonry or marble. The resulting 3D model would serve as a detailed basis for the epigraphists to try to decipher the inscription. The data were collected by using a Structured Light scanner. The creation of the final accurate three dimensional model is a complicated procedure requiring large computation cost and human effort. It includes the collection of geometric data in limited space and time, the creation of the surface, the noise filtering and the merging of individual surfaces. The use of structured light scanners is time consuming and requires costly hardware and software. Therefore an alternative methodology for collecting 3D data of the inscriptions was also implemented for reasons of comparison. Hence, image sequences from varying distances were collected using a calibrated DSLR camera aiming to reconstruct the 3D scene through SfM techniques in order to evaluate the efficiency and the level of precision and detail of the obtained reconstructed inscriptions. Problems in the acquisition processes as well as difficulties in the alignment step and mesh optimization are also encountered. A meta-processing framework is proposed and analysed. Finally, the results of processing and analysis and the different 3D models are critically inspected and then evaluated by a specialist in terms of accuracy, quality and detail of the model and the capability of revealing damaged and "hidden" letters.

  8. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains eight separate records on the interaction of high energy Λ 6 He hypernuclear beams with atomic nuclei, the position-sensitive detector of a high spatial resolution on the basis of a multiwire gas electron multiplier, pseudorapidity hadron density at the LHC energy, high precision laser control of the ATLAS tile-calorimeter module mass production at JINR, a new approach to ECG's features recognition involving neural network, subcriticity of a uranium target enriched in 235 U, beam space charge effects in high-current cyclotron injector CI-5, a homogeneous static gravitational field and the principle of equivalence

  9. Universal model of finite Reynolds number turbulent flow in channels and pipes

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    L'vov, V.S.; Procaccia, I.; Rudenko, O.

    2008-01-01

    In this Letter, we suggest a simple and physically transparent analytical model of pressure driven turbulent wall-bounded flows at high but finite Reynolds numbers Re. The model provides an accurate quantitative description of the profiles of the mean-velocity and Reynolds stresses (second order

  10. High-throughput sequencing and copy number variation detection using formalin fixed embedded tissue in metastatic gastric cancer.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Seokhwi Kim

    Full Text Available In the era of targeted therapy, mutation profiling of cancer is a crucial aspect of making therapeutic decisions. To characterize cancer at a molecular level, the use of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue is important. We tested the Ion AmpliSeq Cancer Hotspot Panel v2 and nCounter Copy Number Variation Assay in 89 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded gastric cancer samples to determine whether they are applicable in archival clinical samples for personalized targeted therapies. We validated the results with Sanger sequencing, real-time quantitative PCR, fluorescence in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry. Frequently detected somatic mutations included TP53 (28.17%, APC (10.1%, PIK3CA (5.6%, KRAS (4.5%, SMO (3.4%, STK11 (3.4%, CDKN2A (3.4% and SMAD4 (3.4%. Amplifications of HER2, CCNE1, MYC, KRAS and EGFR genes were observed in 8 (8.9%, 4 (4.5%, 2 (2.2%, 1 (1.1% and 1 (1.1% cases, respectively. In the cases with amplification, fluorescence in situ hybridization for HER2 verified gene amplification and immunohistochemistry for HER2, EGFR and CCNE1 verified the overexpression of proteins in tumor cells. In conclusion, we successfully performed semiconductor-based sequencing and nCounter copy number variation analyses in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded gastric cancer samples. High-throughput screening in archival clinical samples enables faster, more accurate and cost-effective detection of hotspot mutations or amplification in genes.

  11. The effects of age, viewing distance, display type, font type, colour contrast and number of syllables on the legibility of Korean characters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kong, Yong-Ku; Lee, Inseok; Jung, Myung-Chul; Song, Young-Woong

    2011-05-01

    This study evaluated the effects of age (20s and 60s), viewing distance (50 cm, 200 cm), display type (paper, monitor), font type (Gothic, Ming), colour contrast (black letters on white background, white letters on black background) and number of syllables (one, two) on the legibility of Korean characters by using the four legibility measures (minimum letter size for 100% correctness, maximum letter size for 0% correctness, minimum letter size for the least discomfort and maximum letter size for the most discomfort). Ten subjects in each age group read the four letters presented on a slide (letter size varied from 80 pt to 2 pt). Subjects also subjectively rated the reading discomfort of the letters on a 4-point scale (1 = no discomfort, 4 = most discomfort). According to the ANOVA procedure, age, viewing distance and font type significantly affected the four dependent variables (p fonts were smaller than the Ming fonts. Monitors were smaller than paper for correctness and maximum letter size for the most discomfort. From a comparison of the results for correctness and discomfort, people generally preferred larger letter sizes to those that they could read. The findings of this study may provide basic information for setting a global standard of letter size or font type to improve the legibility of characters written in Korean. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: Results obtained in this study will provide basic information and guidelines for setting standards of letter size and font type to improve the legibility of characters written in Korean. Also, the results might offer useful information for people who are working on design of visual displays.

  12. Letters from Augustin Hallerstein, an eighteenth century Jesuit astronomer in Beijing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Juznic, Stanislav

    2008-11-01

    Augustin Hallerstein (1703-1774) was the last astronomer sent to Beijing by the Society of Jesus. He left Europe for China in his mid-thirties, and continued to send letters back home until he died thirty-five years later. These letters and reports contained important information on Chinese astronomy, and were read in the courts of Europe; many were also published. Hallerstein was one of the most important European astronomers in Beijing, his European publications surpassing those of his predecessors.

  13. HIV Sequence Compendium 2015

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Foley, Brian Thomas [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Leitner, Thomas Kenneth [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Apetrei, Cristian [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States); Hahn, Beatrice [Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States); Mizrachi, Ilene [National Center for Biotechnology Information, Bethesda, MD (United States); Mullins, James [Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States); Rambaut, Andrew [Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland (United Kingdom); Wolinsky, Steven [Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States); Korber, Bette Tina Marie [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

    2015-10-05

    This compendium is an annual printed summary of the data contained in the HIV sequence database. We try to present a judicious selection of the data in such a way that it is of maximum utility to HIV researchers. Each of the alignments attempts to display the genetic variability within the different species, groups and subtypes of the virus. This compendium contains sequences published before January 1, 2015. Hence, though it is published in 2015 and called the 2015 Compendium, its contents correspond to the 2014 curated alignments on our website. The number of sequences in the HIV database is still increasing. In total, at the end of 2014, there were 624,121 sequences in the HIV Sequence Database, an increase of 7% since the previous year. This is the first year that the number of new sequences added to the database has decreased compared to the previous year. The number of near complete genomes (>7000 nucleotides) increased to 5834 by end of 2014. However, as in previous years, the compendium alignments contain only a fraction of these. A more complete version of all alignments is available on our website, http://www.hiv.lanl.gov/ content/sequence/NEWALIGN/align.html As always, we are open to complaints and suggestions for improvement. Inquiries and comments regarding the compendium should be addressed to seq-info@lanl.gov.

  14. Relationships between the National Adult Reading Test and memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frick, Andreas; Wahlin, Tarja-Brita Robins; Pachana, Nancy A; Byrne, Gerard J

    2011-05-01

    The aims of this study were to investigate the relationships between performance on the National Adult Reading Test (NART) and retrospective, concurrent, and prospective memory functioning, as well as between the NART and change in memory functioning over time. NART administered in 2005 was used as a predictor for memory functioning in 2001, 2005, and 2008, and change in memory functioning from 2001 to 2008. Outcome measures were Logical Memory II, Letter-Number Sequencing, and Spatial Span from the Wechsler Memory Scale. Participants were 319 healthy women aged 40-79 years at baseline (2001). Significant correlations were found between the number of errors on the NART and memory measures in 2001, 2005, and 2008; Logical Memory II (r = -.41, -.38, -.39, respectively), Letter-Number Sequencing (r = -.38, -.35, -.36, respectively) and Spatial Span (r = -.23, -.22, -.19, respectively; all p values memory, after controlling for age, level of education and socioeconomic status. NART also significantly added to predictions of change in Logical Memory II and Letter-Number Sequencing over a 7-year period. The results indicate that the NART is correlated with episodic and working memory, and that the NART added to predictions of change in verbal episodic and working memory. Although the relationships are only moderate at best, the NART may be used in conjunction with demographic information and clinical reasoning to estimate premorbid memory functioning.

  15. A few Smarandache Integer Sequences

    OpenAIRE

    Ibstedt, Henry

    2010-01-01

    This paper deals with the analysis of a few Smarandache Integer Sequences which first appeared in Properties or the Numbers, F. Smarandache, University or Craiova Archives, 1975. The first four sequences are recurrence generated sequences while the last three are concatenation sequences.

  16. The Quasi-Business Letter: Passport to Foreign Culture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lalande, John F.

    1979-01-01

    Suggests having foreign language students write business letters to stimulate interest in developing writing skills. This project gives the students the opportunity of travelling abroad vicariously and to collect souvenirs while improving their communication skills in the foreign language. (CFM)

  17. Post eLetter Solutions: Healthy Results for Improving Patient Communication Processes at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boulter, Rhonda

    2009-06-01

    The primary objective of the Australia Post eLetter project 1 was to determine the feasibility of using the eLetter service with the Patient Administration System Appointment Scheduling Module to provide a fully automated mailing function that would eliminate the need for manual processing of mail delivery. Issues with timely delivery of letters throughout all outpatient sites at the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH) have been identified as being mainly due to limited human resources being available to perform mailing duties and the like. This new desktop service enables staff to transmit data electronically in conjunction with the appointment software for large quantity mail postings to Australia Post via a secure line. Australia Post then validates the address, appends a barcode, prints the letter, envelopes it and inserts it into the mail distribution network in the state of the recipient. This article depicts the process that has eliminated the manual processing of a letter via the traditional Microsoft application, Wordmate, a system at RHH that was always difficult to use. With the introduction of eLetter, the RHH's Specialist Clinics have significantly improved the timeliness and quality of communication with patients as well as reducing administration tasks for staff.

  18. What can we learn from learning models about sensitivity to letter-order in visual word recognition?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lerner, Itamar; Armstrong, Blair C.; Frost, Ram

    2014-01-01

    Recent research on the effects of letter transposition in Indo-European Languages has shown that readers are surprisingly tolerant of these manipulations in a range of tasks. This evidence has motivated the development of new computational models of reading that regard flexibility in positional coding to be a core and universal principle of the reading process. Here we argue that such approach does not capture cross-linguistic differences in transposed-letter effects, nor do they explain them. To address this issue, we investigated how a simple domain-general connectionist architecture performs in tasks such as letter-transposition and letter substitution when it had learned to process words in the context of different linguistic environments. The results show that in spite of of the neurobiological noise involved in registering letter-position in all languages, flexibility and inflexibility in coding letter order is also shaped by the statistical orthographic properties of words in a language, such as the relative prevalence of anagrams. Our learning model also generated novel predictions for targeted empirical research, demonstrating a clear advantage of learning models for studying visual word recognition. PMID:25431521

  19. Letters of credit getting more expensive.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nemes, J

    1991-09-02

    Hospital executives who haven't been in the market recently for a new or renewed letter of credit will find it a more expensive way to back their variable-rate debt. Annual fees are surging, for reasons ranging from an international banking agreement that goes into effect next year to more conservative fee structures being instituted because of bad loans made by some banks in the past decade.

  20. LIPS TRACKING IDENTIFICATION OF A CORRECT QURANIC LETTERS PRONUNCIATION FOR TAJWEED TEACHING AND LEARNING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tareq Altalmas

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Mastering the recitation of the holy Quran is an obligation among Muslims. It is an important task to fulfill other Ibadat like prayer, pilgrimage and zikr. However, the traditional way of teaching Quran recitation is a hard task due to the extensive training time and effort required from both teacher and learner. In fact, learning the correct pronunciation of the Quranic letters is the first step in mastering Tajweed (Rules and Guidance in Quranic recitation. The pronunciation of Arabic letters is based on its points of articulation and the characteristics of a particular letter. In this paper we implement the lip identification technique from video signal acquired from expert to extract the movement data of the lips while pronouncing the correct Quranic letters. The extracted lip movement data from expert helps in categorizing the letters into 5 groups and in deciding the final shape of the lips. Later the technique was then tested among a public reciter and then compared for similarity verification between the public and the professional reciter. The system is able to extract the lips movement of the random user and draw the displacement graph and compared with the pronunciation of the expert. The error will be shown if the user has mistakenly pronounced the letter and suggested for improvement. More subjects with different background will be tested in very near future with feedback instructions. Machine learning techniques will be implemented at later stage for the real time application for learning process.

  1. MRT letter: Guided filtering of image focus volume for 3D shape recovery of microscopic objects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mahmood, Muhammad Tariq

    2014-12-01

    In this letter, a shape from focus (SFF) method is proposed that utilizes the guided image filtering to enhance the image focus volume efficiently. First, image focus volume is computed using a conventional focus measure. Then each layer of image focus volume is filtered using guided filtering. In this work, the all-in-focus image, which can be obtained from the initial focus volume, is used as guidance image. Finally, improved depth map is obtained from the filtered image focus volume by maximizing the focus measure along the optical axis. The proposed SFF method is efficient and provides better depth maps. The improved performance is highlighted by conducting several experiments using image sequences of simulated and real microscopic objects. The comparative analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed SFF method. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  2. Adolescent Suidice--An Open Letter to Counselors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolfe, Jane

    1988-01-01

    A mother of a 16 year-old suicide victim writes to school counselors who let her down by not informing her of important changes in her son's activities, personality, and choice of friends at school. The letter also addresses two psychologists in a psychiatric hospital who suppressed information about the boy's suicidal intentions and his…

  3. The anthrax letters: a medical detective story

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Cole, Leonard A

    2003-01-01

    .... Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cole, Leonard A., 1933The anthrax letters : a medical detective story / Leonard A. Cole. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-309-08881-X - ISBN 0-309-52584-5 (PDF) 1. Bioterrorism- United States. 2. Anthrax- United States. 3. Postal service- United States. 4. Victims of...

  4. Letter report: Evaluation of dryer/calciner technologies for testing

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sevigny, G.

    1996-02-01

    This letter report describes some past experiences on the drying and calcination of radioactive materials or corresponding simulants; and the information needed from testing. The report also includes an assessment of informational needs including possible impacts to a full-scale plant. This includes reliability, maintenance, and overall size versus throughput. Much of the material was previously compiled and reported by Mike Elliott of PNL open-quotes Melter Performance Assessmentclose quotes and Larry Eisenstatt of SEG on contract to WHC in a letter to Rod Powell. Also, an annotated bibliography was prepared by Reagan Seymour of WHC. Descriptions of the drying and calciner technologies, development status, advantages and disadvantages of using a WFE or calciner, and recommendations for future testing are discussed in this report

  5. I like Cities; Do You like Letters? Introducing Urban Typography in Art Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huerta, Ricard

    2010-01-01

    This article proposes a study of the letters and graphics found in the city, while at the same time opening up unusual spaces linked to the cultural arena and visual geographies for the creation of learning spaces in art education, introducing urban typography for training teachers. The letters in urban spaces can help us reinterpret the…

  6. A 2004 unanswered letter to the Economist magazine requesting a retraction (and apology).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ling, Gilbert N

    2012-01-01

    This is a copy of (the bulk of) a letter I mailed on May 13, 2004 to Sir Robert P. Wilson, President, and three editors of the magazine, the Economist. With the letter, I also sent each recipient a copy of my latest book, "Life at the Cell and Below-Cell Level" as a gesture of good will.

  7. THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    attention. In fact, I am aware of only two studies that focus on Galatians in .... does not explicitly use the term “coming age” here or elsewhere in his letters, .... framework according to which history is divided into the period before and the.

  8. To Domingos: letters, friends, literature

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laíse Ribas Bastos

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The object for studying and analysis in this work is a set of letters received by Domingos Carvalho da Silva, which points to the constitution of a scene consisted of friendship and dissidences around a common literary and intellectual perspective. The objective of this work is to map the heterogeneity of the group as well as the problematic project involving the literary production in that moment, in order to find, thus, the means and ways of permanence of literature as it was configured between the 1940s and the 1960s.

  9. "I know your name, but not your number"--Patients with verbal short-term memory deficits are impaired in learning sequences of digits.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bormann, Tobias; Seyboth, Margret; Umarova, Roza; Weiller, Cornelius

    2015-06-01

    Studies on verbal learning in patients with impaired verbal short-term memory (vSTM) have revealed dissociations among types of verbal information. Patients with impaired vSTM are able to learn lists of known words but fail to acquire new word forms. This suggests that vSTM is involved in new word learning. The present study assessed both new word learning and the learning of digit sequences in two patients with impaired vSTM. In two experiments, participants were required to learn people's names, ages and professions, or their four digit 'phone numbers'. The STM patients were impaired on learning unknown family names and phone numbers, but managed to acquire other verbal information. In contrast, a patient with a severe verbal episodic memory impairment was impaired across information types. These results indicate verbal STM involvement in the learning of digit sequences. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Letter report: Cold crucible melter assessment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Elliott, M.L.

    1996-03-01

    One of the activities of the PNL Vitrification Technology Development (PVTD) Project is to assist the Tank Waste Remediation Systems (TWRS) Program in determining which melter systems should be performance tested for potential implementation in the high-level waste (HLW) vitrification plant. The Richland Operations Office (RL) has recommended that the Cold Crucible Melter (CCM) be evaluated as a candidate ''next generation'' melter. As a result, the CCM System Evaluation cost account was established under the PVTD Project so that the CCM could be initially assessed on a high-priority basis. This letter report summarizes a brief initial review and assessment of the CCM. Using the recommendations made in this document, Westinghouse Hanford Company (WHC) and RL will make a decision regarding the urgency of performance testing the CCM. If the decision is favorable, a subcontract will be negotiated for performance testing of a CCM using Hanford HLW simulants in a pilot-scale facility. Because of the aggressive nature of the schedule, the CCM evaluation was not rigorous. The evaluation consisted of a literature review and interviews with proponents of the technology during a recent trip to France. This letter report summarizes the evaluation and makes recommendations regarding further work in this area

  11. Resource letter SH-1: superfluid helium

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hallock, R.B.

    1982-01-01

    The resource letter covers the general subject of superfluid helium and treats 3 He and 3 He-- 4 He mixtures as well as 4 He. No effort has been made to include the fascinating experiments on either solid helium or the equally fascinating work on adsorbed helium where the helium coverage is below that necessary for superfluidity. An earlier resource letter by C. T. Lane [Am. J. Phys. 35, 367 (1967)] may be consulted for additional comments on some of the cited earlier manuscripts, but the present work is self-contained and may be used independently. Many high-quality research reports have not been cited here. Rather, the author has tried in most cases to include works particularly readable or relevant. There is a relatively heavy emphasis on experimental references. The primary reason is that these works tend to be more generally readable. No doubt some works that might have been included, have not, and for this the author takes responsibility with apology. Articles selected for incorporation in a reprint volume (to be published separately by the American Association of Physics Teachers) are marked with an asterisk(*). Following each referenced work the general level of difficulty is indicated by E, I, or A for elementary, intermediate, or advanced

  12. Letter to Congressional Leaders on Top Defense Management Challenges

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    2000-01-01

    ... Budget Committee and you on Department of Defense (DoD) management challenges. The joint letter requested that we update our previous assessments of the most significant management problems facing the DoD...

  13. A Simple Method for the Extraction, PCR-amplification, Cloning, and Sequencing of Pasteuria 16S rDNA from Small Numbers of Endospores.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Atibalentja, N; Noel, G R; Ciancio, A

    2004-03-01

    For many years the taxonomy of the genus Pasteuria has been marred with confusion because the bacterium could not be cultured in vitro and, therefore, descriptions were based solely on morphological, developmental, and pathological characteristics. The current study sought to devise a simple method for PCR-amplification, cloning, and sequencing of Pasteuria 16S rDNA from small numbers of endospores, with no need for prior DNA purification. Results show that DNA extracts from plain glass bead-beating of crude suspensions containing 10,000 endospores at 0.2 x 10 endospores ml(-1) were sufficient for PCR-amplification of Pasteuria 16S rDNA, when used in conjunction with specific primers. These results imply that for P. penetrans and P. nishizawae only one parasitized female of Meloidogyne spp. and Heterodera glycines, respectively, should be sufficient, and as few as eight cadavers of Belonolaimus longicaudatus with an average number of 1,250 endospores of "Candidatus Pasteuria usgae" are needed for PCR-amplification of Pasteuria 16S rDNA. The method described in this paper should facilitate the sequencing of the 16S rDNA of the many Pasteuria isolates that have been reported on nematodes and, consequently, expedite the classification of those isolates through comparative sequence analysis.

  14. Geophysical Research Letters: New policies improve top-cited geosciences journal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Calais, Eric; Diffenbaugh, Noah; D'Odorico, Paolo; Harris, Ruth; Knorr, Wolfgang; Lavraud, Benoit; Mueller, Anne; Peterson, William; Rignot, Eric; Srokosz, Meric; Strutton, Peter; Tyndall, Geoff; Wysession, Michael; Williams, Paul

    2010-01-01

    Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) is the American Geophysical Union's premier journal of fast, groundbreaking communication. It rapidly publishes high- impact,letter-length articles, and it is the top-cited multidisciplinary geosciences journal over the past 10 years, with an impact factor that increased again in 2009, to 3.204. For manuscripts submitted to GRL, the median time to first and final decision is 23 and 27 days, respectively—a 35% improvement since 2007—and the median time from submission to publication is 13 weeks for 90% of GRL papers—a 25% improvement since 2007. Among high-impact publications in the geosciences, GRL has the fastest turnaround.

  15. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2000-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains nine separate records on the new results on simulation of the nuclotron beam extraction with a bent crystal, the Ehrenfest force in inhomogeneous magnetic field, the e/h ratio of the electromagnetic calorimeter, a new approach to develop hadronic event generators in HEP, an algebraic description of multilayer systems with resonances, a high-voltage module for photomultipliers, an estimation of the spin-flip contribution to the np→pn process from the charge exchange reaction on the deuteron, a measurement of the tensor analyzing powers in the dd→ 3 Hp reactions at RIKEN as well as on calibration of SPES4-π set-up in experiments on SATURNE-II

  16. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2000-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains seven separate records on the integral representation for structure functions and target mass effects, multiscale properties of DNA primary structure including cross-scale correlations, dissipative evolution of the elementary act, the fine structure of the M T =1 Gamow-Teller resonance in 147g Tb→ 147 Gd β + /EC decay, the behaviour of the TVO temperature sensors in the magnetic fields, a fast method for searching for tracks in multilayer drift chambers of HADES spectrometer, a novel approach to particle track etching including surfactant enhanced control of pore morphology, azimuthal correlations of secondary particles in 32 S induced interactions with Ag(Br) nuclei at 4.5 GeV/ c/ nucleon

  17. Letter to Congressional Leaders on Top Defense Management Challenges

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    2000-01-01

    This is in reply to the joint letter of October 12, 2000, from the Chairmen of the Senate Committee on the Budget and Committee on Governmental Affairs, the House Government Reform Committee, House...

  18. Scientific Letter: Gestalt psychotherapy in the outpatient treatment of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Scientific Letter: Gestalt psychotherapy in the outpatient treatment of borderline personality disorder: a case report. ... African Journal of Psychiatry. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives.

  19. Can Governments Use Get Out the Vote Letters to Solve Europe’s Turnout Crisis?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bhatti, Yosef; Dahlgaard, Jens Olav; Hansen, Jonas Hedegaard

    2018-01-01

    to vote in an upcoming Danish election is delivered to more than 60,000 first-time voters using direct personal letters. Eight different letters are designed, based on the calculus of voting and prospect theory. The sample is randomly divided into treatment groups or the control group. Using validated...

  20. Letter to the Editor: Re: A Five-year Survey of Cesarean Delivery at a ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Letter to the Editor: Re: A Five-year Survey of Cesarean Delivery at a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital. VO Ajuzieogu, AO Amucheazi. Abstract. Letter to the editor - no abstract. Full Text: EMAIL FREE FULL TEXT EMAIL FREE FULL TEXT · DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT. Article Metrics. Metrics Loading .

  1. Mixed Sequence Reader: A Program for Analyzing DNA Sequences with Heterozygous Base Calling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Chun-Tien; Tsai, Chi-Neu; Tang, Chuan Yi; Chen, Chun-Houh; Lian, Jang-Hau; Hu, Chi-Yu; Tsai, Chia-Lung; Chao, Angel; Lai, Chyong-Huey; Wang, Tzu-Hao; Lee, Yun-Shien

    2012-01-01

    The direct sequencing of PCR products generates heterozygous base-calling fluorescence chromatograms that are useful for identifying single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), insertion-deletions (indels), short tandem repeats (STRs), and paralogous genes. Indels and STRs can be easily detected using the currently available Indelligent or ShiftDetector programs, which do not search reference sequences. However, the detection of other genomic variants remains a challenge due to the lack of appropriate tools for heterozygous base-calling fluorescence chromatogram data analysis. In this study, we developed a free web-based program, Mixed Sequence Reader (MSR), which can directly analyze heterozygous base-calling fluorescence chromatogram data in .abi file format using comparisons with reference sequences. The heterozygous sequences are identified as two distinct sequences and aligned with reference sequences. Our results showed that MSR may be used to (i) physically locate indel and STR sequences and determine STR copy number by searching NCBI reference sequences; (ii) predict combinations of microsatellite patterns using the Federal Bureau of Investigation Combined DNA Index System (CODIS); (iii) determine human papilloma virus (HPV) genotypes by searching current viral databases in cases of double infections; (iv) estimate the copy number of paralogous genes, such as β-defensin 4 (DEFB4) and its paralog HSPDP3. PMID:22778697

  2. «Strange bread has more than bitter»...Letters from Archimandrite Theodosius (Melnik to Archimandrite Anthony (Sinkevich

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kostriukov Andrei

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Archimandrite Theodosius (Melnik was the cellarer of Metropolitan Anthonii (Khrapovitskii who was the head of the Russian Church Abroad. Archimandrite Theodosius was with his spiritual father and his teacher, Metropolitan Anthonii and shared all the sorrows that have fallen in exile. They lived in Serbia. Then Sremski Karlovci was the center of life of the Russian Orthodox Church. Archimandrite Theodosius become a witness of the important events taking place in Russian Church Abroad and the Serbian Orthodox Church. Letters written by Archimandrite Theodosius in 1933 — 1938 years are published here. The last letter was written after the death of Metropolitan Anthonii. The letters contained information about the life of Metropolitan Anthonii. In his letters, Archimandrite Theodosius assess a personality — Metropolitan Anastasii (Gribanovskii, Metropolitan Nestor (Anisimov, Archpriest Michael Polsky, Yuriy Grabbe, Peter Lopuchin. The letters describe important events in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church, for example, in 1921 Karlovci Council; in 1936 the reconciliation of the Russian Church Abroad with Metropolitan Evlogii (Georgievskii and with Metropolitan Platon (Rozhdestvenskii; in 1938 the preparation of the Second Karlovci Council. All the letters are written to Archimandrite Anthonii (Sinkevich who served in the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem. In 1951 Archimandrite Anthony became Archbishop Los Angeles and West American. These letters are kept in the archives of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem (Moscow Patriarchate.

  3. p-adic numbers

    OpenAIRE

    Grešak, Rozalija

    2015-01-01

    The field of real numbers is usually constructed using Dedekind cuts. In these thesis we focus on the construction of the field of real numbers using metric completion of rational numbers using Cauchy sequences. In a similar manner we construct the field of p-adic numbers, describe some of their basic and topological properties. We follow by a construction of complex p-adic numbers and we compare them with the ordinary complex numbers. We conclude the thesis by giving a motivation for the int...

  4. A String Number-Line Lesson Sequence to Promote Students' Relative Thinking and Understanding of Scale, Key Elements of Proportional Reasoning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hilton, Annette; Hilton, Geoff

    2018-01-01

    This article describes part of a study in which researchers designed lesson sequences based around using a string number line to help teachers support children's development of relative thinking and understanding of linear scale. In the first year of the study, eight teachers of Years 3-5 participated in four one-day professional development…

  5. Cascading activation from lexical processing to letter-level processing in written word production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buchwald, Adam; Falconer, Carolyn

    2014-01-01

    Descriptions of language production have identified processes involved in producing language and the presence and type of interaction among those processes. In the case of spoken language production, consensus has emerged that there is interaction among lexical selection processes and phoneme-level processing. This issue has received less attention in written language production. In this paper, we present a novel analysis of the writing-to-dictation performance of an individual with acquired dysgraphia revealing cascading activation from lexical processing to letter-level processing. The individual produced frequent lexical-semantic errors (e.g., chipmunk → SQUIRREL) as well as letter errors (e.g., inhibit → INBHITI) and had a profile consistent with impairment affecting both lexical processing and letter-level processing. The presence of cascading activation is suggested by lower letter accuracy on words that are more weakly activated during lexical selection than on those that are more strongly activated. We operationalize weakly activated lexemes as those lexemes that are produced as lexical-semantic errors (e.g., lethal in deadly → LETAHL) compared to strongly activated lexemes where the intended target word (e.g., lethal) is the lexeme selected for production.

  6. Deficits in Letter-Speech Sound Associations but Intact Visual Conflict Processing in Dyslexia: Results from a Novel ERP-Paradigm

    OpenAIRE

    Bakos, Sarolta; Landerl, Karin; Bartling, Jürgen; Schulte-Körne, Gerd; Moll, Kristina

    2017-01-01

    The reading and spelling deficits characteristic of developmental dyslexia (dyslexia) have been related to problems in phonological processing and in learning associations between letters and speech-sounds. Even when children with dyslexia have learned the letters and their corresponding speech sounds, letter-speech sound associations might still be less automatized compared to children with age-adequate literacy skills. In order to examine automaticity in letter-speech sound associations and...

  7. The visibility of The lettered city Angel Rama in mainstream literature (WOS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Exequiel Aarón Fontans Alvarez

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available Angel Rama (1926-1986 is noted by some specialized as one of the precursors of the current cultural studies in Latin authors; The lettered city is one of the most cited works and has written stating this influence. However it has not been approached from the Metric Information Studies. The aim of this paper is to highlight the visibility of the lettered city in mainstream literature collected by the Web based of Science (WOS, Thomson Reuters. A brief introduction to the British Cultural Studies (Birmingham School is performed, with the understanding that they represent a history of Latin American Cultural Studies, where this work is framed. Areas, institutions and sources where this work is cited and co-cited authors are presented. Finally low visibility reflected WOS noted in the Latin American production considering that "lettered city" is a theoretical concept coined in the region.

  8. THE LETTER OF GUARANTEE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE NEW CIVIL CODE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    LUMINITA TULEASCA

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available The letter of guarantee is frequently used in the domestic and international commercial activity, first of all, for the safety offered for securing the contractual obligations without blocking the pecuniary funds and, second of all, due to the existing uniform international regulations that correspond to the needs supporting the occurrence of these types of autonomous securities.In Romania, the lack of legal policing of the letter of guarantee has created practical difficulties and offered judges the possibility to "make the law" in the litigations generated by the enforcement or by the suspension of enforcement of these contractual securities.This work analysis the regulation of the letter of guarantee provided in the New Civil Code from the perspective of its harmonization with the Uniform Rules of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris and with the Draft Common Frame of Reference in the matter of the European private law.

  9. A consistent nomenclature of antimicrobial peptides isolated from frogs of the subfamily Phyllomedusinae.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amiche, Mohamed; Ladram, Ali; Nicolas, Pierre

    2008-11-01

    A growing number of cationic antimicrobial peptides have been isolated from the skin of hylid frogs belonging to the Phyllomedusinae subfamily. The amino acid sequences of these peptides are currently located in several databases under identifiers with no consistent system of nomenclature to describe them. In order to provide a workable terminology for antimicrobial peptides from Phyllomedusid frogs, we have made a systematic effort to collect, analyze, and classify all the Phyllomedusid peptide sequences available in databases. We propose that frogs belonging to the Phyllomedusinae subfamily should be described by the species names set out in Amphibian Species of the World: http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.php, American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA. Multiple alignments analysis of at least 80 antimicrobial peptides isolated from 12 Phyllomedusinae species were distributed in seven distinct peptide families including dermaseptin, phylloseptin, plasticin, dermatoxin, phylloxin, hyposin and orphan peptides, and will be considered as the name of the headgroup of each family. The parent peptide's name should be followed by the first upper letter of the species for orthologous peptides and publication date determines priority. For example, the abbreviation B for bicolor and H for hypochondrialis. When two species begin with the same letter, two letters in upper case should be used (the first letter followed by the second or the third letter and so on). For example, the abbreviation DI for distincta, DU for duellmani, VA for vaillanti and VN for vanzolinii. Paralogous peptides should bear letter(s) in upper case followed by numbers.

  10. Varsity letters documenting modern colleges and universities

    CERN Document Server

    Samuels, Helen Willa

    1998-01-01

    A study of the functions of colleges and universities, Varsity Letters is intended to aid those responsible for the documentation of these institutions. Samuels offers specific advice about the records of modern colleges and universities and proposes a method to ensure their adequate documentation. She also offers a method to analyze and plan the preservation of records for any type of institution.

  11. Transcribing and digitizing eighteenth- and nineteenth-century letters for a historical digital repository.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dunster, Emily S; Kipnis, Daniel G; Angelo, F Michael

    2014-01-01

    In fall 2011, the Scott Memorial Library purchased 53 letters belonging to an 1841 graduate of Jefferson Medical College, John Plimpton Green. The library staff transcribed and digitized the letters, creating an online collection in the university's institutional repository, Jefferson Digital Commons. This article will detail the process of transcribing and digitizing the collection along with sharing statistics and the benefits of this project to global researchers.

  12. HIV Sequence Compendium 2010

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kuiken, Carla [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Foley, Brian [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Leitner, Thomas [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Apetrei, Christian [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States); Hahn, Beatrice [Univ. of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL (United States); Mizrachi, Ilene [National Center for Biotechnology Information, Bethesda, MD (United States); Mullins, James [Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States); Rambaut, Andrew [Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland (United Kingdom); Wolinsky, Steven [Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States); Korber, Bette [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

    2010-12-31

    This compendium is an annual printed summary of the data contained in the HIV sequence database. In these compendia we try to present a judicious selection of the data in such a way that it is of maximum utility to HIV researchers. Each of the alignments attempts to display the genetic variability within the different species, groups and subtypes of the virus. This compendium contains sequences published before January 1, 2010. Hence, though it is called the 2010 Compendium, its contents correspond to the 2009 curated alignments on our website. The number of sequences in the HIV database is still increasing exponentially. In total, at the time of printing, there were 339,306 sequences in the HIV Sequence Database, an increase of 45% since last year. The number of near complete genomes (>7000 nucleotides) increased to 2576 by end of 2009, reflecting a smaller increase than in previous years. However, as in previous years, the compendium alignments contain only a small fraction of these. Included in the alignments are a small number of sequences representing each of the subtypes and the more prevalent circulating recombinant forms (CRFs) such as 01 and 02, as well as a few outgroup sequences (group O and N and SIV-CPZ). Of the rarer CRFs we included one representative each. A more complete version of all alignments is available on our website, http://www.hiv.lanl.gov/content/sequence/NEWALIGN/align.html. Reprints are available from our website in the form of both HTML and PDF files. As always, we are open to complaints and suggestions for improvement. Inquiries and comments regarding the compendium should be addressed to seq-info@lanl.gov.

  13. Beginners Remember Orthography when They Learn to Read Words: The Case of Doubled Letters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wright, Donna-Marie; Ehri, Linnea C.

    2007-01-01

    Sight word learning and memory were studied to clarify how early during development readers process visual letter patterns that are not dictated by phonology, and whether their word learning is influenced by the legality of letter patterns. Forty kindergartners and first graders were taught to read 12 words containing either single consonants…

  14. Morphology and Spelling in French Students with Dyslexia: The Case of Silent Final Letters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quémart, Pauline; Casalis, Séverine

    2017-01-01

    Spelling is a challenge for individuals with dyslexia. Phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence rules are highly inconsistent in French, which make them very difficult to master, in particular for dyslexics. One recurrent manifestation of this inconsistency is the presence of silent letters at the end of words. Many of these silent letters perform a…

  15. Impaired Letter-String Processing in Developmental Dyslexia: What Visual-to-Phonology Code Mapping Disorder?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valdois, Sylviane; Lassus-Sangosse, Delphine; Lobier, Muriel

    2012-01-01

    Poor parallel letter-string processing in developmental dyslexia was taken as evidence of poor visual attention (VA) span, that is, a limitation of visual attentional resources that affects multi-character processing. However, the use of letter stimuli in oral report tasks was challenged on its capacity to highlight a VA span disorder. In…

  16. When do letter features migrate? A boundary condition for feature-integration theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Butler, B E; Mewhort, D J; Browse, R A

    1991-01-01

    Feature-integration theory postulates that a lapse of attention will allow letter features to change position and to recombine as illusory conjunctions (Treisman & Paterson, 1984). To study such errors, we used a set of uppercase letters known to yield illusory conjunctions in each of three tasks. The first, a bar-probe task, showed whole-character mislocations but not errors based on feature migration and recombination. The second, a two-alternative forced-choice detection task, allowed subjects to focus on the presence or absence of subletter features and showed illusory conjunctions based on feature migration and recombination. The third was also a two-alternative forced-choice detection task, but we manipulated the subjects' knowledge of the shape of the stimuli: In the case-certain condition, the stimuli were always in uppercase, but in the case-uncertain condition, the stimuli could appear in either upper- or lowercase. Subjects in the case-certain condition produced illusory conjunctions based on feature recombination, whereas subjects in the case-uncertain condition did not. The results suggest that when subjects can view the stimuli as feature groups, letter features regroup as illusory conjunctions; when subjects encode the stimuli as letters, whole items may be mislocated, but subletter features are not. Thus, illusory conjunctions reflect the subject's processing strategy, rather than the architecture of the visual system.

  17. Responses to lost letters about a 2000 General Election amendment to abolish prohibition of interracial marriages in Alabama.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bridges, F Stephen; Keeton, Kato B; Clark, L Nicholle

    2002-12-01

    A field study using 621 "lost" letters was conducted in the city of Mobile and in small towns in mostly rural Baldwin County, Alabama. Milgram's lost letter technique was validated against the actual votes cast during the November 7, 2000 General Election. The technique was successful as an unobtrusive measure useful for predicting patterns of voting behavior. Rates of return of lost letters "in favor of and opposed to legalizing interracial marriage" agreed with the actual election returns (chi-square "goodness of fit"). Community size seemed associated with return of lost letters.

  18. Particles and nuclei, letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2002-01-01

    The present collection of letters from JINR, Dubna, contains ten separate records on Wien filter using in exploring on low-energy radioactive nuclei, memory effects in dissipative nucleus-nucleus collision, topological charge and topological susceptibility in connection with translation and gauge invariance, solutions of the multitime Dirac equation, the maximum entropy technique. System's statistical description, the charged conductor inside dielectric. Solution of boundary condition by means of auxiliary charges and the method of linear algebraic equations, optical constants of the TGS single crystal irradiated by power pulsed electron beam, interatomic pair potential and n-e amplitude from slow neutron scattering by noble gases, the two-coordinate multiwire proportional chamber of the high spatial resolution and neutron drip line in the region of O-Mg isotopes

  19. Chocolate Numbers

    OpenAIRE

    Ji, Caleb; Khovanova, Tanya; Park, Robin; Song, Angela

    2015-01-01

    In this paper, we consider a game played on a rectangular $m \\times n$ gridded chocolate bar. Each move, a player breaks the bar along a grid line. Each move after that consists of taking any piece of chocolate and breaking it again along existing grid lines, until just $mn$ individual squares remain. This paper enumerates the number of ways to break an $m \\times n$ bar, which we call chocolate numbers, and introduces four new sequences related to these numbers. Using various techniques, we p...

  20. Repdigits in k-Lucas sequences

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    57(2) 2000 243-254) proved that 11 is the largest number with only one distinct digit (the so-called repdigit) in the sequence ( L n ( 2 ) ) n . In this paper, we address a similar problem in the family of -Lucas sequences. We also show that the -Lucas sequences have similar properties to those of -Fibonacci sequences ...

  1. Disabled vs nondisabled readers: perceptual vs higher-order processing of one vs three letters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allegretti, C L; Puglisi, J T

    1986-10-01

    12 disabled and 12 nondisabled readers (mean age, 11 yr.) were compared on a letter-search task which separated perceptual processing from higher-order processing. Participants were presented a first stimulus (for 200 msec. to minimize eye movements) followed by a second stimulus immediately to estimate the amount of information initially perceived or after a 3000-msec. interval to examine information more permanently stored. Participants were required to decide whether any letter present in the first stimulus was also present in the second. Two processing loads (1 and 3 letters) were examined. Disabled readers showed more pronounced deficits when they were given very little time to process information or more information to process.

  2. Asset securitization and rate of return: A study on letters of guarantee

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Binghui

    2018-01-01

    Using the theory of asset securitization, we analyze the feasibility of the securitization of letters of guarantee in theory. In the process of constructing the model of rate of return of securities backed by letters of guarantee, we propose two indices: the risk probability of asset-backed securities and the loss rate of asset-backed securities to analyze the cash flow of securities. On the basis of no arbitrage principle, the expression of rate of return of securities backed by letters of guarantee is put forward. In order to study the relationship between the rate of return of securities and other influential factor in the model, a simulation experiment is designed. The experiment results show that (i) an increasing risk probability of cash flow or a short maturity date also make the return rate of securities increase and (ii) the return rate of securities is higher in economic boom than that in economic recession when other parameters remain unchanged.

  3. Region 6: Texas Austin Adequate Letter (11/23/2016)

    Science.gov (United States)

    EPA letter approves the Motor Vehicle Emissions Budgets contained in the latest revision to Dallas/Fort Worth 2008 8-hour Ozone State Implementation Plan, finding them adequate for transportation conformity purposes to be announced in the Federal Register.

  4. Computational analysis of sequence selection mechanisms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meyerguz, Leonid; Grasso, Catherine; Kleinberg, Jon; Elber, Ron

    2004-04-01

    Mechanisms leading to gene variations are responsible for the diversity of species and are important components of the theory of evolution. One constraint on gene evolution is that of protein foldability; the three-dimensional shapes of proteins must be thermodynamically stable. We explore the impact of this constraint and calculate properties of foldable sequences using 3660 structures from the Protein Data Bank. We seek a selection function that receives sequences as input, and outputs survival probability based on sequence fitness to structure. We compute the number of sequences that match a particular protein structure with energy lower than the native sequence, the density of the number of sequences, the entropy, and the "selection" temperature. The mechanism of structure selection for sequences longer than 200 amino acids is approximately universal. For shorter sequences, it is not. We speculate on concrete evolutionary mechanisms that show this behavior.

  5. A compact representation of drawing movements with sequences of parabolic primitives.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Felix Polyakov

    2009-07-01

    Full Text Available Some studies suggest that complex arm movements in humans and monkeys may optimize several objective functions, while others claim that arm movements satisfy geometric constraints and are composed of elementary components. However, the ability to unify different constraints has remained an open question. The criterion for a maximally smooth (minimizing jerk motion is satisfied for parabolic trajectories having constant equi-affine speed, which thus comply with the geometric constraint known as the two-thirds power law. Here we empirically test the hypothesis that parabolic segments provide a compact representation of spontaneous drawing movements. Monkey scribblings performed during a period of practice were recorded. Practiced hand paths could be approximated well by relatively long parabolic segments. Following practice, the orientations and spatial locations of the fitted parabolic segments could be drawn from only 2-4 clusters, and there was less discrepancy between the fitted parabolic segments and the executed paths. This enabled us to show that well-practiced spontaneous scribbling movements can be represented as sequences ("words" of a small number of elementary parabolic primitives ("letters". A movement primitive can be defined as a movement entity that cannot be intentionally stopped before its completion. We found that in a well-trained monkey a movement was usually decelerated after receiving a reward, but it stopped only after the completion of a sequence composed of several parabolic segments. Piece-wise parabolic segments can be generated by applying affine geometric transformations to a single parabolic template. Thus, complex movements might be constructed by applying sequences of suitable geometric transformations to a few templates. Our findings therefore suggest that the motor system aims at achieving more parsimonious internal representations through practice, that parabolas serve as geometric primitives and that non

  6. Genome-wide massively parallel sequencing of formaldehyde fixed-paraffin embedded (FFPE tumor tissues for copy-number- and mutation-analysis.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michal R Schweiger

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Cancer re-sequencing programs rely on DNA isolated from fresh snap frozen tissues, the preparation of which is combined with additional preservation efforts. Tissue samples at pathology departments are routinely stored as formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE samples and their use would open up access to a variety of clinical trials. However, FFPE preparation is incompatible with many down-stream molecular biology techniques such as PCR based amplification methods and gene expression studies. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we investigated the sample quality requirements of FFPE tissues for massively parallel short-read sequencing approaches. We evaluated key variables of pre-fixation, fixation related and post-fixation processes that occur in routine medical service (e.g. degree of autolysis, duration of fixation and of storage. We also investigated the influence of tissue storage time on sequencing quality by using material that was up to 18 years old. Finally, we analyzed normal and tumor breast tissues using the Sequencing by Synthesis technique (Illumina Genome Analyzer, Solexa to simultaneously localize genome-wide copy number alterations and to detect genomic variations such as substitutions and point-deletions and/or insertions in FFPE tissue samples. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The application of second generation sequencing techniques on small amounts of FFPE material opens up the possibility to analyze tissue samples which have been collected during routine clinical work as well as in the context of clinical trials. This is in particular important since FFPE samples are amply available from surgical tumor resections and histopathological diagnosis, and comprise tissue from precursor lesions, primary tumors, lymphogenic and/or hematogenic metastases. Large-scale studies using this tissue material will result in a better prediction of the prognosis of cancer patients and the early identification of patients which

  7. A Study of the Effect of Letter Spacing on the Reading Speed of Young Readers with Low Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    McLeish, Eve

    2007-01-01

    The aims of this study were two-fold: firstly, to establish a method of applying consistent letter spacing to documents using MS Word, and secondly, to investigate the effect of increased letter spacing on the reading speeds of readers with low vision. Tests on 14 readers with low vision showed that increased letter spacing benefited their reading…

  8. The publication lapse of papers in Radiochemical and Radioanalytical Letters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Braun, T.; Nagydiosi-Kocsis, Gy.

    1982-01-01

    The time needed for passing through journal editorial and publication processing has been examined for the papers published in Radiochemical and Radioanalytical Letters for the years 1969-1981. (author)

  9. George gives to geology Jane : the name letter effect and incidental similarity cues in fundraising

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bekkers, René H.F.P.

    2010-01-01

    - People tend to like others with attributes similar to their own (the similarity principle) and favor products with names similar to their own (the name letter effect). - In the present field experiment, the name letter effect and similarity principle are tested in a phonaton among alumni of

  10. Universal sequence map (USM of arbitrary discrete sequences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Almeida Jonas S

    2002-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background For over a decade the idea of representing biological sequences in a continuous coordinate space has maintained its appeal but not been fully realized. The basic idea is that any sequence of symbols may define trajectories in the continuous space conserving all its statistical properties. Ideally, such a representation would allow scale independent sequence analysis – without the context of fixed memory length. A simple example would consist on being able to infer the homology between two sequences solely by comparing the coordinates of any two homologous units. Results We have successfully identified such an iterative function for bijective mappingψ of discrete sequences into objects of continuous state space that enable scale-independent sequence analysis. The technique, named Universal Sequence Mapping (USM, is applicable to sequences with an arbitrary length and arbitrary number of unique units and generates a representation where map distance estimates sequence similarity. The novel USM procedure is based on earlier work by these and other authors on the properties of Chaos Game Representation (CGR. The latter enables the representation of 4 unit type sequences (like DNA as an order free Markov Chain transition table. The properties of USM are illustrated with test data and can be verified for other data by using the accompanying web-based tool:http://bioinformatics.musc.edu/~jonas/usm/. Conclusions USM is shown to enable a statistical mechanics approach to sequence analysis. The scale independent representation frees sequence analysis from the need to assume a memory length in the investigation of syntactic rules.

  11. The Wartime Success of Karl Shapiro's V-Letter

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Oostdijk, D.M.

    2006-01-01

    The American soldier-poet Karl Shapiro won the Pulitzer Prize for V-Letter and Other Poems (1944), making him an instant celebrity. The volume was written while he was stationed in Australia and New Guinea during World War II. Shaprio sent the completed poems to his fiancée, Evalyn Katz, who edited

  12. 12 CFR 614.4810 - Standby letters of credit.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... party in the performance of an obligation. (b) As a matter of sound banking practice, banks for... 12 Banks and Banking 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Standby letters of credit. 614.4810 Section 614.4810 Banks and Banking FARM CREDIT ADMINISTRATION FARM CREDIT SYSTEM LOAN POLICIES AND OPERATIONS Banks...

  13. George gives to geology Jane: The name letter effect and incidental similarity cues in fundraising

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bekkers, R.H.F.P.

    2010-01-01

    People tend to like others with attributes similar to their own (the similarity principle) and favor products with names similar to their own (the name letter effect). In the present field experiment, the name letter effect and similarity principle are tested in a phonaton among alumni of Utrecht

  14. Unsolicited information letters to increase awareness of Lynch syndrome and familial colorectal cancer: reactions and attitudes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petersen, Helle Vendel; Frederiksen, Birgitte Lidegaard; Lautrup, Charlotte Kvist; Lindberg, Lars Joachim; Ladelund, Steen; Nilbert, Mef

    2018-04-12

    Dissemination of information on a genetically increased risk should according to guidelines primarily be family-mediated. Incomplete and incorrect information spread has, however, been documented and implies missed possibilities for prevention. In Denmark, the national HNPCC register has been granted an exception to send unsolicited letters with information on hereditary colorectal cancer and an invitation to genetic counseling to members of families with familial and hereditary colorectal cancer. To evaluate this approach, we investigated reactions and attitudes to unsolicited letters in 708 members of families with genetic predisposition and in 1600 individuals from the general population. Support for information letters was expressed by 78% of the family members and by 82% of the general population. Regarding route of information, 90% of family members preferred a letter to no information, 66% preferred information from the hospital rather than from family members and 40% preferred to obtain information from a close family member. Our results suggest that use of unsolicited information letters from the health care system may be a feasible and highly acceptable strategy to disseminate information to families at high risk of colorectal cancer.

  15. Letters

    Science.gov (United States)

    2001-09-01

    The Editor welcomes letters, by e-mail to ped@iop.org or by post to Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE, UK. Contents: M-set as metaphor The abuse of algebra M-set as metaphor 'To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour' William Blake's implied relativity of spatial and temporal scales is intriguing and, given the durability of this worlds-within-worlds concept (he wrote in 1803) in art, literature and science, the blurring of distinctions between the very large and the very small must strike some kind of harmonious chord in the human mind. Could this concept apply to the physical world? To be honest, we cannot be absolutely sure. Most cosmological thinking still retains the usual notions of a finite universe and an absolute size scale extending from smallest to largest objects. In the boundless realm of mathematics, however, the story is quite different. The M-set was discovered by the French mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot in 1980, created by just a few simple lines of computer code that are repeated recursively. As in Blake's poem, this 'world' has no bottom we have an almost palpable archetype for the concept of infinity. I would use the word 'tangible', but one of the defining features of the M-set is that nowhere in the labyrinth can one find a surface smooth enough for a tangent. Upon magnification even surfaces that appeared to be smooth explode with quills and scrolls and lightning bolts and spiral staircases. And there is something more, something truly sublime. Observe a small patch with unlimited magnifying power and, as you observe the M-set on ever-smaller scales, down through literally endless layers of ornate structure, you occasionally come upon a rapidly expanding cortex of dazzling colour with a small black structure at its centre. The black spot appears to be the M-set itself! There is no end to the hierarchy, no bottom-most level, just endless recursive

  16. Letter from the Editor

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Germán A. Prieto

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Letter from the editor Our first issue of 2018 is available now. We have 9 articles in this issue, in topics ranging from soil characterization, petrophysical properties of rocks, signal processing of images and GNSS station to asteroid impact effects. Mechanical soil properties in sandy-pebble soil are studied as a function of grain size content in Lu et al. Satellite-derived soil moisture estimation is discussed in Thanabalan and Vidhya, based on a semi-empirical approach and backscattering images. Macroscopic mechanical characteristics of rocks depend on a number of factors, including microstructure damage. Under changing temperature conditions (freeze-thaw rock samples studied by Jiang show significant strength decrease, which has important consequences in engineering. Advanced signal processing methods are used in Zeng et al. for image retrieval applied to remote sensing data, using a Bayesian network approach. Similarly, Oktar and Erdogan use linear trend and wavelet analysis to continuous GNSS data showing both displacements due to tectonic as well as atmospheric and hydrologic effects. Debris flows can in some cases become serious hazards because they can block river flow as a debris flow dam. Chen et al. propose a method to identify the formation of such dams, with an example from the Er river in Taiwan. Mamaseni et al. study the petrophysical properties of three formations in the Duhok Basin, northern Iran, based on well-log data. Results suggest a significant thickness with good moveable hydrocarbons in the study area. Methane adsorption and gas content are strongly influenced by shale composition. Zhu et al. show that Total Organic Content has a stronger influence on methane adsorption and gas content than the mineral composition, studying samples from the southern Sichuan Basin. Our last contribution in this issue discussed a large asteroid impact in eastern Colombia. The impact would have affected the environment and landscape, but

  17. Decidability of uniform recurrence of morphic sequences

    OpenAIRE

    Durand , Fabien

    2012-01-01

    We prove that the uniform recurrence of morphic sequences is decidable. For this we show that the number of derived sequences of uniformly recurrent morphic sequences is bounded. As a corollary we obtain that uniformly recurrent morphic sequences are primitive substitutive sequences.

  18. 50 CFR 216.256 - Applications for Letters of Authorization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE MARINE MAMMALS REGULATIONS GOVERNING THE TAKING AND IMPORTING OF MARINE MAMMALS Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Conducting Precision Strike Weapon Missions in the Gulf of Mexico § 216.256 Applications for Letters of Authorization. To incidentally take...

  19. Rock 'n' Roll Heroes: Letter to President Eisenhower.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mueller, Jean W., Ed.

    1985-01-01

    This primary source document can be used to teach secondary students about the rock 'n' roll era that emerged in the 1950's. The document is a letter written in 1958 by three teenagers to President Eisenhower concerning the induction of Elvis Presley into the U.S. Army. Class activities are also suggested. (RM)

  20. 76 FR 57767 - Proposed Generic Communication; Draft NRC Generic Letter 2011-XX: Seismic Risk Evaluations for...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-09-16

    ... NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [NRC-2011-0204] Proposed Generic Communication; Draft NRC Generic Letter 2011-XX: Seismic Risk Evaluations for Operating Reactors AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission... FR 54507), that requested public comment on Draft NRC Generic Letter 2011- XX: Seismic Risk...