WorldWideScience

Sample records for surgery key words

  1. [A study on English loan words in French plastic surgery].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hansson, E; Tegelberg, E

    2014-10-01

    The French language is less and less used as an international scientific language and many French researchers publish their work in English. Nowadays, Annales de Chirurgie Plastique Esthétique is the only international plastic surgical journal published completely in French. The use of English loan words in French plastic surgery has never been studied. The aim of this study was to describe the frequency and types of English loan words in French plastic surgery. A corpus consisting of all the articles in a number of Annales de Chirurgie Plastique Esthethique, chosen by default, was created. The frequency of English loan words was calculated and the types of words were analysed. The corpus contains 367 (0.8%) English loan words. Most of them are non-integrated loan words and calques. The majority of the plastic surgical loan words describe surgical techniques. The French plastic surgical language seems to be influenced by English. The usage of loan words does not always follow the recommendations and the usage is sometimes ambiguous. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  2. Questionable Word Choice in Scientific Writing in Orthopedic Surgery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Casey M. O`Connor

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Background: Given the strong influence of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors on musculoskeletal symptoms andlimitations it’s important that both scientific and lay writing use the most positive, hopeful, and adaptive words andconcepts consistent with medical evidence. The use of words that might reinforce misconceptions about preferencesensitiveconditions (particularly those associated with age could increase symptoms and limitations and might alsodistract patients from the treatment preferences they would select when informed and at ease.Methods: We reviewed 100 consecutive papers published in 2014 and 2015 in 6 orthopedic surgery scientific journals.We counted the number and proportion of journal articles with questionable use of one or more of the following words:tear, aggressive, required, and fail. For each word, we counted the rate of misuse per journal and the number of specificterms misused per article per journalResults: Eighty percent of all orthopedic scientific articles reviewed had questionable use of at least one term. Tearwas most questionably used with respect to rotator cuff pathology. The words fail and require were the most commonquestionably used terms overall.Conclusion: The use of questionable words and concepts is common in scientific writing in orthopedic surgery. It’sworth considering whether traditional ways or referring to musculoskeletal illness merit rephrasing.

  3. Video Feedback in Key Word Signing Training for Preservice Direct Support Staff

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rombouts, Ellen; Meuris, Kristien; Maes, Bea; De Meyer, Anne-Marie; Zink, Inge

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: Research has demonstrated that formal training is essential for professionals to learn key word signing. Yet, the particular didactic strategies have not been studied. Therefore, this study compared the effectiveness of verbal and video feedback in a key word signing training for future direct support staff. Method: Forty-nine future…

  4. 40 CFR 370.3 - Which section contains the definitions of the key words used in this part?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... of the key words used in this part? 370.3 Section 370.3 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL... definitions of the key words used in this part? The definitions of key words used in this part are in § 370.66. It is important to read the definitions for key words because the definition explains the word's...

  5. 40 CFR 355.3 - Which section contains the definitions of the key words used in this part?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... of the key words used in this part? 355.3 Section 355.3 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL... words used in this part? The definitions of key words used in this part are in § 355.61. It is important to read the definitions for these key words because the definition explains the word's specific...

  6. 104 Key words: Moringa, marinade, bacteria, fungi, catfish, smoke ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Osondu

    2013-01-16

    Jan 16, 2013 ... spoilage thus limiting economic loss and possible heath risk to consumers. Key words: Moringa, marinade, bacteria, fungi, catfish, smoke-dried. Introduction ..... were reared because E. coli is an indicator organism and its ...

  7. THE EFFECT OF TEACHING WITHIN-TEXT KEY WORDS ON STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE IN READING COMPREHENSION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohammad Reza Khodasenas

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of teaching within-text key word synonyms, opposites and related words on students’ performance on reading comprehension of TOEFL among Iranian EFL learners. To carry out the research, 60 Iranian EFL learners, who participated in a TOEFL preparation course, were selected as the participants of the study. Afterward they were randomly assigned into experimental and comparison groups. The experimental group was given a treatment including within-text key word synonyms, opposites and their translations, while the comparison group was given a placebo. To collect the required data, two instruments (a pre-test, and a post-test were administered to both groups during the experimentation. Subsequently, students’ scores were collected through the administration of different tests and the results were statistically analyzed. The results of these analyses revealed that the experimental group outperformed the comparison group and thus, it was concluded that teaching within-text key word synonyms, opposites and related words can improve the reading comprehension ability and general proficiency of EFL language learners.

  8. 40 CFR 63.2831 - Where can I find definitions of key words used in this subpart?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... words used in this subpart? 63.2831 Section 63.2831 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION... Vegetable Oil Production What This Subpart Covers § 63.2831 Where can I find definitions of key words used in this subpart? You can find definitions of key words used in this subpart in § 63.2872. ...

  9. Bibliography on moving boundary problems with key word index

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wilson, D.G.; Solomon, A.D.; Trent, J.S.

    1979-10-01

    This bibliography concentrates mainly on time-dependent moving-boundary problems of heat and mass transfer. The bibliography is in two parts, a list of the references ordered by last name of the first author and a key word index to the titles. Few references from before 1965 are included

  10. Bibliography on moving boundary problems with key word index

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wilson, D.G.; Solomon, A.D.; Trent, J.S.

    1979-10-01

    This bibliography concentrates mainly on time-dependent moving-boundary problems of heat and mass transfer. The bibliography is in two parts, a list of the references ordered by last name of the first author and a key word index to the titles. Few references from before 1965 are included. (RWR)

  11. 40 CFR 63.1176 - Where can I find definitions of key words used in this subpart?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... words used in this subpart? 63.1176 Section 63.1176 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION... Production § 63.1176 Where can I find definitions of key words used in this subpart? The definitions of key words used in this subpart are in the Clean Air Act (Act), in § 63.2 of the general provisions in...

  12. COMPUTERS IN SURGERY

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    BODE

    Key words: Computers, surgery, applications. Introduction ... With improved memory, speed and processing power in an ever more compact ... with picture and voice embedment to wit. With the ... recall the tedium of anatomy, physiology and.

  13. The case for testing memory with both stories and word lists prior to dbs surgery for Parkinson's Disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zahodne, Laura B; Bowers, Dawn; Price, Catherine C; Bauer, Russell M; Nisenzon, Anne; Foote, Kelly D; Okun, Michael S

    2011-04-01

    Patients seeking deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery for Parkinson's disease (PD) typically undergo neuropsychological assessment to determine candidacy for surgery, with poor memory performance interpreted as a contraindication. Patients with PD may exhibit worse memory for word lists than for stories due to the lack of inherent organization in a list of unrelated words. Unfortunately, word list and story tasks are typically developed from different normative datasets, and the existence of a memory performance discrepancy in PD has been challenged. We compared recall of stories and word lists in 35 non-demented PD candidates for DBS. We administered commonly used neuropsychological measures of word list and story memory (Hopkins Verbal Learning Test, Logical Memory), along with a second word list task that was co-normed with the story task. Age-corrected scores were higher for the story task than for both word list tasks. Compared to story recall, word list recall correlated more consistently with motor severity and composite measures of processing speed, working memory, and executive functioning. These results support the classic view of fronto-subcortical contributions to memory in PD and suggest that executive deficits may influence word list recall more than story recall. We recommend a multi-componential memory battery in the neuropsychological assessment of DBS candidates to characterize both mesial temporal and frontal-executive memory processes. One should not rely solely on a word list task because patients exhibiting poor memory for word lists may perform better with stories and therefore deserve an interdisciplinary discussion for DBS surgery.

  14. Orthognathic model surgery with LEGO key-spacer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsang, Alfred Chee-Ching; Lee, Alfred Siu Hong; Li, Wai Keung

    2013-12-01

    A new technique of model surgery using LEGO plates as key-spacers is described. This technique requires less time to set up compared with the conventional plaster model method. It also retains the preoperative setup with the same set of models. Movement of the segments can be measured and examined in detail with LEGO key-spacers. Copyright © 2013 American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Fast-track video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Holbek, Bo Laksafoss; Petersen, René Horsleben; Kehlet, Henrik

    2016-01-01

    Objectives To provide a short overview of fast-track video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) and to identify areas requiring further research. Design A literature search was made using key words including: fast-track, enhanced recovery, video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery, robot......-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (RATS), robotic, thoracotomy, single-incision, uniportal, natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES), chest tube, air-leak, digital drainage, pain management, analgesia, perioperative management, anaesthesia and non-intubated. References from articles were screened for further...

  16. Key word placing in Web page body text to increase visibility to search engines

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    W. T. Kritzinger

    2007-11-01

    Full Text Available The growth of the World Wide Web has spawned a wide variety of new information sources, which has also left users with the daunting task of determining which sources are valid. Many users rely on the Web as an information source because of the low cost of information retrieval. It is also claimed that the Web has evolved into a powerful business tool. Examples include highly popular business services such as Amazon.com and Kalahari.net. It is estimated that around 80% of users utilize search engines to locate information on the Internet. This, by implication, places emphasis on the underlying importance of Web pages being listed on search engines indices. Empirical evidence that the placement of key words in certain areas of the body text will have an influence on the Web sites' visibility to search engines could not be found in the literature. The result of two experiments indicated that key words should be concentrated towards the top, and diluted towards the bottom of a Web page to increase visibility. However, care should be taken in terms of key word density, to prevent search engine algorithms from raising the spam alarm.

  17. Bibliography of mass spectroscopy literature for 1972 compiled by a computer method. Volume II. Key Word Out of Context (KWOC) Index

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Capellen, J.; Svec, H.J.; Sage, C.R.; Sun, R.

    1975-08-01

    This report covers the year 1972, and lists approximately 10,000 articles of interest to mass spectroscopists. This two-volume report consists of three sections. Vol. II contains the Key Word Out of Context Index (KWOC Index) section. The KWOC Index lists the key words, the reference numbers of the articles in which the key word appears, and the first 100 characters of the title

  18. Patients` compliance with instructions after oral surgery in Nigeria

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2Department of Dental Surgery, Military Hospital, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. KEY WORDS: ... Objective: To prospectively study the behaviour of oral surgery patients given verbal and written instructions ..... This is intriguing in view of the general belief in the dental .... comply with the antibiotic prescription while the response.

  19. Quality Management and Key Performance Indicators in Oncologic Esophageal Surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gockel, Ines; Ahlbrand, Constantin Johannes; Arras, Michael; Schreiber, Elke Maria; Lang, Hauke

    2015-12-01

    Ranking systems and comparisons of quality and performance indicators will be of increasing relevance for complex "high-risk" procedures such as esophageal cancer surgery. The identification of evidence-based standards relevant for key performance indicators in esophageal surgery is essential for establishing monitoring systems and furthermore a requirement to enhance treatment quality. In the course of this review, we analyze the key performance indicators case volume, radicality of resection, and postoperative morbidity and mortality, leading to continuous quality improvement. Ranking systems established on this basis will gain increased relevance in highly complex procedures within the national and international comparison and furthermore improve the treatment of patients with esophageal carcinoma.

  20. List of key words with classification for a standard safety report for nuclear power plants with PWR or BWR

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1976-01-01

    Under the efforts of improving the licensing procedure for nuclear power plants, the Federal Minister of the Interior set up a task group of experts of the manufacturers and operators of nuclear power plants, the assessors (Technische Ueberwachungsvereine, TUeVs), the Institute for Reactor Safety of the TUeVs, the licensing authorities of the Laender, and the Federal Ministry of the Interior which worked out a list of key words for writing the safety report for nuclear power plants with PWRs and BWRs. This list of key words is published herewith in order to encourage its application when writing or assessing safety reports for nuclear power plants and in order to present the opportunity to make proposals for improvement to a group as large as possible. At a later date, it is intended to incorporate the list of key words as soon as sufficient experience from the practical application will justify this, it is intended to incorporate the list of key words in a general administrative regulation. (orig.) [de

  1. Evaluating a Bilingual Text-Mining System with a Taxonomy of Key Words and Hierarchical Visualization for Understanding Learner-Generated Text

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kong, Siu Cheung; Li, Ping; Song, Yanjie

    2018-01-01

    This study evaluated a bilingual text-mining system, which incorporated a bilingual taxonomy of key words and provided hierarchical visualization, for understanding learner-generated text in the learning management systems through automatic identification and counting of matching key words. A class of 27 in-service teachers studied a course…

  2. Historical Account of Key Words in Non-Financial Report Titles (A review of FT 500 corporations from 1989 to 2007

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Caroline D Ditlev-Simonsen

    2010-12-01

    “responsib” to catch relevant versions are investigated.  The key words were initially applied by a few companies, and then grew in popularity. While “sustainab” and “responsib” are still growing in popularity, “environment” grew, peaked around 2002 and then reduced in frequency as a term in the titles. Based on business theories, the paper discusses alternative explanations for why corporations introduced the new key words in their non-financial reports. Whereas issuing non-financial reports can be understood from a legitimacy perspective, the introduction of new key words in the titles can be explained by a multitude of alternative theories.

  3. Investigating the functional neuroanatomy of concrete and abstract word processing through direct electric stimulation (DES) during awake surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Orena, E F; Caldiroli, D; Acerbi, F; Barazzetta, I; Papagno, C

    2018-06-05

    Neuropsychological, neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies demonstrate that abstract and concrete word processing relies not only on the activity of a common bilateral network but also on dedicated networks. The neuropsychological literature has shown that a selective sparing of abstract relative to concrete words can be documented in lesions of the left anterior temporal regions. We investigated concrete and abstract word processing in 10 patients undergoing direct electrical stimulation (DES) for brain mapping during awake surgery in the left hemisphere. A lexical decision and a concreteness judgment task were added to the neuropsychological assessment during intra-operative monitoring. On the concreteness judgment, DES delivered over the inferior frontal gyrus significantly decreased abstract word accuracy while accuracy for concrete words decreased when the anterior temporal cortex was stimulated. These results are consistent with a lexical-semantic model that distinguishes between concrete and abstract words related to different neural substrates in the left hemisphere.

  4. Complications of Cataract Surgery at the University Teaching ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Visual outcome was not significantly affected by the early postoperative complication, but was significantly affected by late postoperative complication. Proper management of operative complications will help in reducing their adverse effects on the eye. Key words: cataract surgery, operative, complications, visual outcome ...

  5. Analysis of mechanics of verbal manipulation with key words of social vocabulary exemplified in journalistic article

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Наталья Александровна Бубнова

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with the analysis of mechanism of speech manipulation on readers' consciousness by means of socially marked key words, forming four concept groups: power, nation, wealth, poverty (on the material of journalistic article.

  6. What are the key elements required for a successful and effective word of mouth tourism marketing campaign? – Case analysis

    OpenAIRE

    Piltonen, Anna

    2016-01-01

    The purpose of this thesis was to further study what are the key elements for successful and effective word of mouth marketing campaign in tourism. The objective was to identify the key elements by analysing a real life case provided for this thesis where a tourism board used word of mouth as part of their marketing campaign to increase awareness of the destination and drive tourism in the destination. The case was analysed with the support of secondary research conducted around the topics of...

  7. On the problem of non-zero word error rates for fixed-rate error correction codes in continuous variable quantum key distribution

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Johnson, Sarah J; Ong, Lawrence; Shirvanimoghaddam, Mahyar; Lance, Andrew M; Symul, Thomas; Ralph, T C

    2017-01-01

    The maximum operational range of continuous variable quantum key distribution protocols has shown to be improved by employing high-efficiency forward error correction codes. Typically, the secret key rate model for such protocols is modified to account for the non-zero word error rate of such codes. In this paper, we demonstrate that this model is incorrect: firstly, we show by example that fixed-rate error correction codes, as currently defined, can exhibit efficiencies greater than unity. Secondly, we show that using this secret key model combined with greater than unity efficiency codes, implies that it is possible to achieve a positive secret key over an entanglement breaking channel—an impossible scenario. We then consider the secret key model from a post-selection perspective, and examine the implications for key rate if we constrain the forward error correction codes to operate at low word error rates. (paper)

  8. Cerebral Oximetry in Cardiac Surgery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. N. Shepelyuk

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Based on the data of numerous current references, the review describes different neuromonitoring methods during cardiac surgery under extracorporeal circulation. It shows that it is important and necessary to make neuromonitoring for the early diagnosis and prevention of neurological complications after cardiac surgery. Particular attention is given to cerebral oximetry; the possibilities and advantages of this technique are described. Correction of cerebral oximetric values is shown to improve survival rates and to reduce the incidence of postoperative complications. Lack of cerebral oximetry monitoring denudes a clinician of important information and possibilities to optimize patient status and to prevent potentially menacing complications, which allows one to conclude that it is necessary to use cerebral oximetry procedures within neu-romonitoring in cardiac surgery. Key words: extracorporeal circulation, cerebral oximetry, neurological dysfunction, cerebral oxygenation.

  9. Plastic Surgery

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Staying Safe Videos for Educators Search English Español Plastic Surgery KidsHealth / For Teens / Plastic Surgery What's in ... her forehead lightened with a laser? What Is Plastic Surgery? Just because the name includes the word " ...

  10. Assessing language skills in adult key word signers with intellectual disabilities: Insights from sign linguistics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grove, Nicola; Woll, Bencie

    2017-03-01

    Manual signing is one of the most widely used approaches to support the communication and language skills of children and adults who have intellectual or developmental disabilities, and problems with communication in spoken language. A recent series of papers reporting findings from this population raises critical issues for professionals in the assessment of multimodal language skills of key word signers. Approaches to assessment will differ depending on whether key word signing (KWS) is viewed as discrete from, or related to, natural sign languages. Two available assessments from these different perspectives are compared. Procedures appropriate to the assessment of sign language production are recommended as a valuable addition to the clinician's toolkit. Sign and speech need to be viewed as multimodal, complementary communicative endeavours, rather than as polarities. Whilst narrative has been shown to be a fruitful context for eliciting language samples, assessments for adult users should be designed to suit the strengths, needs and values of adult signers with intellectual disabilities, using materials that are compatible with their life course stage rather than those designed for young children. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Topical video object discovery from key frames by modeling word co-occurrence prior.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Gangqiang; Yuan, Junsong; Hua, Gang; Yang, Jiong

    2015-12-01

    A topical video object refers to an object, that is, frequently highlighted in a video. It could be, e.g., the product logo and the leading actor/actress in a TV commercial. We propose a topic model that incorporates a word co-occurrence prior for efficient discovery of topical video objects from a set of key frames. Previous work using topic models, such as latent Dirichelet allocation (LDA), for video object discovery often takes a bag-of-visual-words representation, which ignored important co-occurrence information among the local features. We show that such data driven co-occurrence information from bottom-up can conveniently be incorporated in LDA with a Gaussian Markov prior, which combines top-down probabilistic topic modeling with bottom-up priors in a unified model. Our experiments on challenging videos demonstrate that the proposed approach can discover different types of topical objects despite variations in scale, view-point, color and lighting changes, or even partial occlusions. The efficacy of the co-occurrence prior is clearly demonstrated when compared with topic models without such priors.

  12. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: An ESL Textbook/Workbook [In Four Volumes]: (1) Teaching Guide; (2) Edition A. Key Vocabulary Words Translated into 6 Languages: Hmong, Laotian, Korean, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese; (3) Edition B. Key Vocabulary Words Translated into 6 Languages: Spanish, Somali, Russian, Farsi, Bosnian, Arabic; (4) Edition C. Key Vocabulary Words Translated in 6 Languages: Spanish, Russian, Bosnian, Somali, Vietnamese, Hmong.

    Science.gov (United States)

    LaRue, Charles

    Each of these three separately-published textbook/workbook editions on the topic of recycling presents key vocabulary words relating to this topic for English as a Second Language students in six languages. These books are designed to increase students' understanding of what the most typical local recycling rules are, why complying with them is…

  13. Essential words for the TOEFL

    CERN Document Server

    Matthiesen, Steven J

    2017-01-01

    This revised book is specifically designed for ESL students preparing to take the TOEFL. Includes new words and phrases, a section on purpose words, a list of vocabulary words with definitions, sample sentences, practice exercises for 500 need-to-know words, practice test with answer key, and more.

  14. Investigating Peer Attitudes towards the Use of Key Word Signing by Children with Down Syndrome in Mainstream Schools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bowles, Caoimhe; Frizelle, Pauline

    2016-01-01

    Background: Lámh is a key word signing approach used in Ireland, which can support the communication needs of children with Down syndrome. However, the success of this approach in mainstream schools relies heavily on the attitudes of those within the school environment. To date, two studies have explored the attitudes of teaching staff towards the…

  15. THE SPECIAL STATUS OF EXOGENOUS WORD-FORMATION WITHIN THE GERMAN WORD-FORMATION SYSTEM

    OpenAIRE

    Zhilyuk Sergey Aleksandrovich

    2014-01-01

    The article presents the properties of exogenous word-formation system taking into account the existence of two word-formation systems in modern German. On the basis of foreign research which reveal modern trends in German word-formation connected with the internationalization and the development of new European Latin language. The author defines key features of exogenous word-formation, i.e. foreign origin of wordformation units, unmotivated units, unmotivated interchange in base and affixes...

  16. Use of Key Word Signing by Staff in Special Schools and in Day Centres for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rombouts, E.; Maes, B.; Zink, I.

    2018-01-01

    Background: Staff may encourage individuals with intellectual disabilities to use manual signs by modelling its use, but implementing key word signing during daily activities can be demanding. Method: Staff's use of manual signs was observed in four special schools and four day centres for adults with intellectual disabilities during communicative…

  17. Sonority and early words

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kjærbæk, Laila; Boeg Thomsen, Ditte; Lambertsen, Claus

    2015-01-01

    Syllables play an important role in children’s early language acquisition, and children appear to rely on clear syllabic structures as a key to word acquisition (Vihman 1996; Oller 2000). However, not all languages present children with equally clear cues to syllabic structure, and since the spec......Syllables play an important role in children’s early language acquisition, and children appear to rely on clear syllabic structures as a key to word acquisition (Vihman 1996; Oller 2000). However, not all languages present children with equally clear cues to syllabic structure, and since...... acquisition therefore presents us with the opportunity to examine how children respond to the task of word learning when the input language offers less clear cues to syllabic structure than usually seen. To investigate the sound structure in Danish children’s lexical development, we need a model of syllable......-29 months. For the two children, the phonetic structure of the first ten words to occur is compared with that of the last ten words to occur before 30 months of age, and with that of ten words in between. Measures related to the sonority envelope, viz. sonority types and in particular sonority rises...

  18. The emotional importance of key: do Beatles songs written in different keys convey different emotional tones?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Whissel, R; Whissel, C

    2000-12-01

    Lyrics from 155 songs written by the Lennon-McCartney team were scored using the Dictionary of Affect in Language. Resultant scores (pleasantness, activation, and imagery of words) were compared across key signatures using one way analyses of variance. Words from songs written in minor keys were less pleasant and less active than those from songs written in major keys. Words from songs written in the key of F scored extremely low on all three measures. Lyrics from the keys of C, D, and G were relatively active in tone. Results from Dictionary scoring were compared with assignments of character to keys made more than one century ago and with current musicians' opinions.

  19. Application of Indocyanine Green in Flap Surgery: A Systematic Review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Ke; Zhang, Zheng; Nicoli, Fabio; D'Ambrosia, Christopher; Xi, Wenjing; Lazzeri, Davide; Feng, Shaoqing; Su, Weijie; Li, Hua; Ciudad, Pedro; Tremp, Mathias; Zhang, Yi Xin

    2018-02-01

     The vascularization of the distal portions of transferred tissue represents the most critical factor in the success of reconstructive surgery. In recent years, indocyanine green (ICG) fluorescence imaging techniques have been applied during surgery to evaluate flap perfusion. However, this investigation has found that there is little consensus regarding the standard dose of ICG as well as the pre-operative requirements of ICG allergy testing. The aim of this study is to summarize the applications of ICG to tissue transfers and safe dosing practices and to provide insight to the possible adverse effects of ICG on flap surgery with the goal of helping clinicians apply ICG safely and efficiently to tissue transfer procedures.  A literature search was performed using, Wiley InterScience, and Springer with the key words, 'Flap,' 'indocyanine green,' 'surgery,' and related mesh words for all publications between 2005 and 2015. Title and abstract screening was performed using predefined in- and exclusion criteria.  Seventy-three articles were included. These were classified as "application of ICG in flap surgery" and "the security of applying ICG in flap surgery".  ICG fluorescence imaging preoperatively facilitates the detection of perforators in tissue flaps with thickness <20 mm, aids in the evaluation of flap microcirculation and perfusion, and allows surgeons to select dominant cutaneous nerves while evaluating the quality of vascular anastomoses and locating thromboses. The literature also concluded that potential allergic reactions to ICG should be taken into consideration. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

  20. From Word Alignment to Word Senses, via Multilingual Wordnets

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dan Tufis

    2006-05-01

    Full Text Available Most of the successful commercial applications in language processing (text and/or speech dispense with any explicit concern on semantics, with the usual motivations stemming from the computational high costs required for dealing with semantics, in case of large volumes of data. With recent advances in corpus linguistics and statistical-based methods in NLP, revealing useful semantic features of linguistic data is becoming cheaper and cheaper and the accuracy of this process is steadily improving. Lately, there seems to be a growing acceptance of the idea that multilingual lexical ontologisms might be the key towards aligning different views on the semantic atomic units to be used in characterizing the general meaning of various and multilingual documents. Depending on the granularity at which semantic distinctions are necessary, the accuracy of the basic semantic processing (such as word sense disambiguation can be very high with relatively low complexity computing. The paper substantiates this statement by presenting a statistical/based system for word alignment and word sense disambiguation in parallel corpora. We describe a word alignment platform which ensures text pre-processing (tokenization, POS-tagging, lemmatization, chunking, sentence and word alignment as required by an accurate word sense disambiguation.

  1. Procedural key steps in laparoscopic colorectal surgery, consensus through Delphi methodology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dijkstra, Frederieke A; Bosker, Robbert J I; Veeger, Nicolaas J G M; van Det, Marc J; Pierie, Jean Pierre E N

    2015-09-01

    While several procedural training curricula in laparoscopic colorectal surgery have been validated and published, none have focused on dividing surgical procedures into well-identified segments, which can be trained and assessed separately. This enables the surgeon and resident to focus on a specific segment, or combination of segments, of a procedure. Furthermore, it will provide a consistent and uniform method of training for residents rotating through different teaching hospitals. The goal of this study was to determine consensus on the key steps of laparoscopic right hemicolectomy and laparoscopic sigmoid colectomy among experts in our University Medical Center and affiliated hospitals. This will form the basis for the INVEST video-assisted side-by-side training curriculum. The Delphi method was used for determining consensus on key steps of both procedures. A list of 31 steps for laparoscopic right hemicolectomy and 37 steps for laparoscopic sigmoid colectomy was compiled from textbooks and national and international guidelines. In an online questionnaire, 22 experts in 12 hospitals within our teaching region were invited to rate all steps on a Likert scale on importance for the procedure. Consensus was reached in two rounds. Sixteen experts agreed to participate. Of these 16 experts, 14 (88%) completed the questionnaire for both procedures. Of the 14 who completed the first round, 13 (93%) completed the second round. Cronbach's alpha was 0.79 for the right hemicolectomy and 0.91 for the sigmoid colectomy, showing high internal consistency between the experts. For the right hemicolectomy, 25 key steps were established; for the sigmoid colectomy, 24 key steps were established. Expert consensus on the key steps for laparoscopic right hemicolectomy and laparoscopic sigmoid colectomy was reached. These key steps will form the basis for a video-assisted teaching curriculum.

  2. The impact of robotic surgery in urology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giedelman, C A; Abdul-Muhsin, H; Schatloff, O; Palmer, K; Lee, L; Sanchez-Salas, R; Cathelineau, X; Dávila, H; Cavelier, L; Rueda, M; Patel, V

    2013-01-01

    More than a decade ago, robotic surgery was introduced into urology. Since then, the urological community started to look at surgery from a different angle. The present, the future hopes, and the way we looked at our past experience have all changed. Between 2000 and 2011, the published literature was reviewed using the National Library of Medicine database and the following key words: robotic surgery, robot-assisted, and radical prostatectomy. Special emphasis was given to the impact of the robotic surgery in urology. We analyzed the most representative series (finished learning curve) in each one of the robotic approaches regarding perioperative morbidity and oncological outcomes. This article looks into the impact of robotics in urology, starting from its background applications before urology, the way it was introduced into urology, its first steps, current status, and future expectations. By narrating this journey, we tried to highlight important modifications that helped robotic surgery make its way to its position today. We looked as well into the dramatic changes that robotic surgery introduced to the field of surgical training and its consequence on its learning curve. Basic surgical principles still apply in Robotics: experience counts, and prolonged practice provides knowledge and skills. In this way, the potential advantages delivered by technology will be better exploited, and this will be reflected in better outcomes for patients. Copyright © 2012 AEU. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

  3. THE SPECIAL STATUS OF EXOGENOUS WORD-FORMATION WITHIN THE GERMAN WORD-FORMATION SYSTEM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhilyuk Sergey Aleksandrovich

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available The article presents the properties of exogenous word-formation system taking into account the existence of two word-formation systems in modern German. On the basis of foreign research which reveal modern trends in German word-formation connected with the internationalization and the development of new European Latin language. The author defines key features of exogenous word-formation, i.e. foreign origin of wordformation units, unmotivated units, unmotivated interchange in base and affixes as well as limited distribution rules in combination with German word-formation. The article analyzes various approaches to word-division, as well as motivated and unmotivated interchange of consonants in bases and in affixes. Unmotivated interchange showcases a special status of the exogenous word-formation within German. Another item covered by the article is the issue of confix. The article has opinions of researchers about correctness of its separation and a list of its features. The author presents his definition of confix: a confix is a bound exogenous word-formation unit with a certain lexical and semantic meaning and joining other units directly or indirectly (through linking morpheme -o-, which is able to make a base. Moreover, some confixes are able to participate at word-combination and have unlimited distribution. So far, confix showcases the integration of exogenous word-formation and traditional German word-formation. The research proves the special status of exogenous word-formation in German. Its results can be used as a base for further analysis of co-existing word-formation systems in German and determination of their characteristic features.

  4. Accessing word meaning: Semantic word knowledge and reading comprehension in Dutch monolingual and bilingual fifth-graders

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Cremer, M.

    2013-01-01

    Word knowledge is one of the key elements in reading comprehension and by extension in school success. At the same time, it is not quite clear which components of lexical knowledge play a role in reading. Is it enough to recognize the words we read? Do we need an in-depth understanding of their

  5. Decline in word-finding: The objective cognitive finding most relevant to patients after mesial temporal lobe epilepsy surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pauli, Carla; de Oliveira Thais, Maria Emilia Rodrigues; Guarnieri, Ricardo; Schwarzbold, Marcelo Liborio; Diaz, Alexandre Paim; Ben, Juliana; Linhares, Marcelo Neves; Markowitsch, Hans Joachim; Wolf, Peter; Wiebe, Samuel; Lin, Katia; Walz, Roger

    2017-10-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the following: i) the objective impairment in neuropsychological tests that were associated with the subjective perception of cognitive function decline in Brazilian patients who underwent mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) surgery and ii) the predictive variables for those impaired objective neuropsychological tests. Forty-eight adults with MTLE (27 right HS and 23 male) were divided according to their perception of changes (Decline or No-decline) of cognitive function domain of the QOLIE-31 questionnaire applied before and 1year after the ATL. The mean (SD) of changes in the raw score difference of the neuropsychological tests before and after the ATL was compared between Decline and No-decline groups. Receiver Operating Characteristic curves, sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values were used to assess the optimum cutoff points of neuropsychological test score changes to predict patient-reported subjective cognitive decline. Six (12.5%) patients reported a perception of cognitive function decline after ATL. Among the 25 cognitive tests analyzed, only changes in the Boston Naming Test (BNT) were associated with subjective cognitive decline reported by patients. A reduction of ≥8 points in the raw score of BNT after surgery had 91% of sensitivity and 45% specificity for predicting subjective perception of cognitive function decline by the patient. Left side surgery and age older than 40years were more associated with an important BNT reduction with overall accuracy of 91.7%, 95% predictive ability for no impairment, and 75% for impairment of cognitive function. Impairment in word-finding seems to be the objective cognitive finding most relevant to Brazilian patients after mesial temporal lobe epilepsy surgery. Similar to American patients, the side of surgery and age are good predictors for no decline in the BNT, but shows a lower accuracy to predict its decline. If replicated in other populations, the

  6. Use of Hypertonic Sodium Chloride Solution at Surgery under Extracorporeal Circulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. V. Lomivorotov

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper analyzes the data available in the references on different aspects of using hypertonic sodium chloride solution during surgery under extracorporeal circulation in cardiosurgical care. The hypertonic solution is shown to lower positive fluid balance in the perioperative period, to increase cardiac output with simultaneously decreased vascular resistance, to improve lung oxygenating function, and to normalize tissue blood circulation and neurological status in patients exposed to artificial perfusion. There is evidence for its effect on the immune system and capillary endothelium. It is suggested that it is necessary to study the effect of the hypertonic solution on the incidence of complications and death rates during surgery under extracorporeal circulation and it is proposed to use the solution under long-term extracorporeal circulation. Key words: hypertonic saline, sodium chloride, extracorporeal circulation.

  7. Ancient Greek Terminology in Hepatopancreatobiliary Anatomy and Surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Papoulas, Michail; Douvetzemis, Stergios

    2015-08-01

    Most of the terminology in medicine originates from Greek or Latin, revealing the impact of the ancient Greeks on modern medicine. However, the literature on the etymology of Greek words used routinely in medical practice is sparse. We provide a short guide to the etymology and meaning of Greek words currently used in the field of hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) anatomy and surgery. Focusing on HPB medical literature, the etymology and origin of Greek words including suffixes and prefixes are shown and analyzed. For example, anatomy (anatomia) is a Greek word derived from the prefix ana- (on, upon) and the suffix -tomy from the verb temno meaning to cut. Surgery, however, is not a Greek word. The corresponding Greek word is chirourgiki derived from cheir (hand) and ergon (action, work) meaning the action made by hands. Understanding the root of Greek terminology leads to an accurate, precise and comprehensive scientific medical language, reflecting the need for a universal medical language as a standardized means of communication within the health care sector.

  8. Actual Arabic loan-words of religious content (on the material of modern foreign words

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Al Shammari Majid Jamil Ashur

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Application of thematic classification of actual vocabulary as a whole to the formation of loan words allows to see the uniqueness of seperate groups of the vocabulary. English loan words prevail relating to the sphere of economy, science and technology, loan words from Arabic dominate from the religious vocabulary. Application of field approach to the analysis of actual religious Arabisms revealed both nuclear and peripheral components of the field. At the core of the field there are such Arabisms as Allah and Islam, which can be characterized as key words. However, in unifying the features of these words vary at a number of parameters. The word Allah has zero derivation productivity and at lexicographical description (as opposed to functioning in the language of the media is free of connotations. Arabism, Islam, by contrast, has a high derivation productivity and derived words can express evaluation. Lexicographic description of the Arabism Islam is also quite diverse stylistically and in contents. The core of the field “Muslim religion” also includes a number of words fixed in most modern dictionaries of foreign words. At the periphery of the field there are Arabisms that do not have high levels of frequency, but at the same time as an indicator of dominant Arabisms of religious content among topical Arabisms.

  9. From Words to Concepts: Focusing on Word Knowledge When Teaching for Conceptual Understanding within an Inquiry-Based Science Setting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haug, Berit S.; Ødegaard, Marianne

    2014-01-01

    This qualitative video study explores how two elementary school teachers taught for conceptual understanding throughout different phases of science inquiry. The teachers implemented teaching materials with a focus on learning science key concepts through the development of word knowledge. A framework for word knowledge was applied to examine the…

  10. Robotic assisted minimally invasive surgery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Palep Jaydeep

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available The term "robot" was coined by the Czech playright Karel Capek in 1921 in his play Rossom′s Universal Robots. The word "robot" is from the check word robota which means forced labor.The era of robots in surgery commenced in 1994 when the first AESOP (voice controlled camera holder prototype robot was used clinically in 1993 and then marketed as the first surgical robot ever in 1994 by the US FDA. Since then many robot prototypes like the Endoassist (Armstrong Healthcare Ltd., High Wycombe, Buck, UK, FIPS endoarm (Karlsruhe Research Center, Karlsruhe, Germany have been developed to add to the functions of the robot and try and increase its utility. Integrated Surgical Systems (now Intuitive Surgery, Inc. redesigned the SRI Green Telepresence Surgery system and created the daVinci Surgical System ® classified as a master-slave surgical system. It uses true 3-D visualization and EndoWrist ® . It was approved by FDA in July 2000 for general laparoscopic surgery, in November 2002 for mitral valve repair surgery. The da Vinci robot is currently being used in various fields such as urology, general surgery, gynecology, cardio-thoracic, pediatric and ENT surgery. It provides several advantages to conventional laparoscopy such as 3D vision, motion scaling, intuitive movements, visual immersion and tremor filtration. The advent of robotics has increased the use of minimally invasive surgery among laparoscopically naοve surgeons and expanded the repertoire of experienced surgeons to include more advanced and complex reconstructions.

  11. Rate of complications in scoliosis surgery – a systematic review of the Pub Med literature

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    Goodall Deborah

    2008-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Spinal fusion surgery is currently recommended when curve magnitude exceeds 40–45 degrees. Early attempts at spinal fusion surgery which were aimed to leave the patients with a mild residual deformity, failed to meet such expectations. These aims have since been revised to the more modest goals of preventing progression, restoring 'acceptability' of the clinical deformity and reducing curvature. In view of the fact that there is no evidence that health related signs and symptoms of scoliosis can be altered by spinal fusion in the long-term, a clear medical indication for this treatment cannot be derived. Knowledge concerning the rate of complications of scoliosis surgery may enable us to establish a cost/benefit relation of this intervention and to improve the standard of the information and advice given to patients. It is also hoped that this study will help to answer questions in relation to the limiting choice between the risks of surgery and the "wait and see – observation only until surgery might be recommended", strategy widely used. The purpose of this review is to present the actual data available on the rate of complications in scoliosis surgery. Materials and methods Search strategy for identification of studies; Pub Med and the SOSORT scoliosis library, limited to English language and bibliographies of all reviewed articles. The search strategy included the terms; 'scoliosis'; 'rate of complications'; 'spine surgery'; 'scoliosis surgery'; 'spondylodesis'; 'spinal instrumentation' and 'spine fusion'. Results The electronic search carried out on the 1st February 2008 with the key words "scoliosis", "surgery", "complications" revealed 2590 titles, which not necessarily attributed to our quest for the term "rate of complications". 287 titles were found when the term "rate of complications" was used as a key word. Rates of complication varied between 0 and 89% depending on the aetiology of the entity investigated

  12. Words, Words, Words: English, Vocabulary.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lamb, Barbara

    The Quinmester course on words gives the student the opportunity to increase his proficiency by investigating word origins, word histories, morphology, and phonology. The course includes the following: dictionary skills and familiarity with the "Oxford,""Webster's Third," and "American Heritage" dictionaries; word…

  13. Identification of vowel length, word stress and compound words and phrases by postlingually-deafened cochlear implant listeners

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Morris, David Jackson; Magnusson, Lennart; Faulkner, Andrew

    2013-01-01

    Background: The accurate perception of prosody assists a listener in deriving meaning from natural speech. Few studies have addressed the ability of cochlear implant (CI) listeners to perceive the brief duration prosodic cues involved in contrastive vowel length, word stress, and compound word...... word stress, vowel length, and compound words or phrases all of which were presented with minimal-pair response choices. Tests were performed in quiet and in speech-spectrum shaped noise at a 10 dB signal- to-noise ratio. Also, discrimination thresholds for four acoustic properties of a synthetic vowel...... recipients’ ability to perceive brief prosodic cues. This is of interest in the preparation of rehabilitation materials used in training and in developing realistic expectations for potential CI candidates. Key Words: Cochlear implants, speech acoustics, speech intelligibility...

  14. Prior oral conditions in patients undergoing heart valve surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silvestre, Francisco-Javier; Gil-Raga, Irene; Martinez-Herrera, Mayte; Lauritano, Dorina; Silvestre-Rangil, Javier

    2017-11-01

    Patients scheduled for heart valve surgery should be free of any oral infectious disorders that might pose a risk in the postoperative period. Few studies have been made on the dental conditions of such patients prior to surgery. The present study describes the most frequent prior oral diseases in this population group. A prospective, observational case-control study was designed involving 60 patients (30 with heart valve disease and 30 controls, with a mean age of 71 years in both groups). A dental exploration was carried out, with calculation of the DMFT (decayed, missing and filled teeth) index and recording of the periodontal parameters (plaque index, gingival bleeding index, periodontal pocket depth, and attachment loss). The oral mucosa was also examined, and panoramic X-rays were used to identify possible intrabony lesions. Significant differences in bacterial plaque index were observed between the two groups ( p <0.05), with higher scores in the patients with valve disease. Probing depth and the presence of moderate pockets were also greater in the patients with valve disease than among the controls ( p <0.01). Sixty percent of the patients with valve disease presented periodontitis. Patients scheduled for heart valve surgery should be examined for possible active periodontitis before the operation. Those individuals found to have periodontal disease should receive adequate periodontal treatment before heart surgery. Key words: Valve disease, aortic, mitral, heart surgery, periodontitis.

  15. Cascaded processing in written compound word production

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raymond eBertram

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available In this study we investigated the intricate interplay between central linguistic processing and peripheral motor processes during typewriting. Participants had to typewrite two-constituent (noun-noun Finnish compounds in response to picture presentation while their typing behavior was registered. As dependent measures we used writing onset time to assess what processes were completed before writing and inter-key intervals to assess what processes were going on during writing. It was found that writing onset time was determined by whole word frequency rather than constituent frequencies, indicating that compound words are retrieved as whole orthographic units before writing is initiated. In addition, we found that the length of the first syllable also affects writing onset time, indicating that the first syllable is fully prepared before writing commences. The inter-key interval results showed that linguistic planning is not fully ready before writing, but cascades into the motor execution phase. More specifically, inter-key intervals were largest at syllable and morpheme boundaries, supporting the view that additional linguistic planning takes place at these boundaries. Bigram and trigram frequency also affected inter-key intervals with shorter intervals corresponding to higher frequencies. This can be explained by stronger memory traces for frequently co-occurring letter sequences in the motor memory for typewriting. These frequency effects were even larger in the second than in the first constituent, indicating that low-level motor memory starts to become more important during the course of writing compound words. We discuss our results in the light of current models of morphological processing and written word production.

  16. Cascaded processing in written compound word production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bertram, Raymond; Tønnessen, Finn Egil; Strömqvist, Sven; Hyönä, Jukka; Niemi, Pekka

    2015-01-01

    In this study we investigated the intricate interplay between central linguistic processing and peripheral motor processes during typewriting. Participants had to typewrite two-constituent (noun-noun) Finnish compounds in response to picture presentation while their typing behavior was registered. As dependent measures we used writing onset time to assess what processes were completed before writing and inter-key intervals to assess what processes were going on during writing. It was found that writing onset time was determined by whole word frequency rather than constituent frequencies, indicating that compound words are retrieved as whole orthographic units before writing is initiated. In addition, we found that the length of the first syllable also affects writing onset time, indicating that the first syllable is fully prepared before writing commences. The inter-key interval results showed that linguistic planning is not fully ready before writing, but cascades into the motor execution phase. More specifically, inter-key intervals were largest at syllable and morpheme boundaries, supporting the view that additional linguistic planning takes place at these boundaries. Bigram and trigram frequency also affected inter-key intervals with shorter intervals corresponding to higher frequencies. This can be explained by stronger memory traces for frequently co-occurring letter sequences in the motor memory for typewriting. These frequency effects were even larger in the second than in the first constituent, indicating that low-level motor memory starts to become more important during the course of writing compound words. We discuss our results in the light of current models of morphological processing and written word production.

  17. Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cai, Zhenguang G; Gilbert, Rebecca A; Davis, Matthew H; Gaskell, M Gareth; Farrar, Lauren; Adler, Sarah; Rodd, Jennifer M

    2017-11-01

    Speech carries accent information relevant to determining the speaker's linguistic and social background. A series of web-based experiments demonstrate that accent cues can modulate access to word meaning. In Experiments 1-3, British participants were more likely to retrieve the American dominant meaning (e.g., hat meaning of "bonnet") in a word association task if they heard the words in an American than a British accent. In addition, results from a speeded semantic decision task (Experiment 4) and sentence comprehension task (Experiment 5) confirm that accent modulates on-line meaning retrieval such that comprehension of ambiguous words is easier when the relevant word meaning is dominant in the speaker's dialect. Critically, neutral-accent speech items, created by morphing British- and American-accented recordings, were interpreted in a similar way to accented words when embedded in a context of accented words (Experiment 2). This finding indicates that listeners do not use accent to guide meaning retrieval on a word-by-word basis; instead they use accent information to determine the dialectic identity of a speaker and then use their experience of that dialect to guide meaning access for all words spoken by that person. These results motivate a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition in which comprehenders determine key characteristics of their interlocutor and use this knowledge to guide word meaning access. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. Word form Encoding in Chinese Word Naming and Word Typing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Jenn-Yeu; Li, Cheng-Yi

    2011-01-01

    The process of word form encoding was investigated in primed word naming and word typing with Chinese monosyllabic words. The target words shared or did not share the onset consonants with the prime words. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was 100 ms or 300 ms. Typing required the participants to enter the phonetic letters of the target word,…

  19. The QWERTY effect: how typing shapes the meanings of words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jasmin, Kyle; Casasanto, Daniel

    2012-06-01

    The QWERTY keyboard mediates communication for millions of language users. Here, we investigated whether differences in the way words are typed correspond to differences in their meanings. Some words are spelled with more letters on the right side of the keyboard and others with more letters on the left. In three experiments, we tested whether asymmetries in the way people interact with keys on the right and left of the keyboard influence their evaluations of the emotional valence of the words. We found the predicted relationship between emotional valence and QWERTY key position across three languages (English, Spanish, and Dutch). Words with more right-side letters were rated as more positive in valence, on average, than words with more left-side letters: the QWERTY effect. This effect was strongest in new words coined after QWERTY was invented and was also found in pseudowords. Although these data are correlational, the discovery of a similar pattern across languages, which was strongest in neologisms, suggests that the QWERTY keyboard is shaping the meanings of words as people filter language through their fingers. Widespread typing introduces a new mechanism by which semantic changes in language can arise.

  20. The Keyword Bank as a tool for finding exclusive keywords in WordSmith Tools

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tony Berber Sardinha

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available KeyWords is a very useful program for computer text analysis found in WordSmith Tools. A problem with KeyWords, though, is the large number of keywords returned by the program, which can be at least 500. This paper proposes a procedure for making reductions in lists of keywords based on the concept of exclusive keywords. These are words that are key in the study corpus only, in comparison to lots of others. This procedure draws on the existence of a keyword bank, which is a collection of keywords from several corpora. When contrasted to a study corpus, the keyword bank brings up keywords that are found in the study corpus only, leaving out those that are key in other corpora. This enables the researcher to focus on words that are most typical of his/her own corpus. The analysis reported here, carried out with a large multi-register keyword bank, suggests that the keyword bank achieved its goal, by allowing for a 77% reduction in the total keywords, and by selecting keywords that are most representative of the study corpus in question.

  1. Original article Key factors for successful solving of mathematical word problems in fifth-grade learners

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marija Kavkler

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND Difficulties in solving mathematical word problems (MWP are one of the most common reasons for weak mathematics performance, and poor mathematical literacy has important implications for an individual’s further education, employment opportunities, mental health and quality of life in today’s modern technological society. The purpose of the study was to examine whether Slovenian good and poor MWP solvers differ in arithmetic knowledge and skills, non-verbal reasoning, pupils’ self-evaluations of MWP abilities, teachers’ assessment of their mathematical knowledge and what strategies fifth- grade learners use in solving MWP. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE The larger sample included 233 pupils from 14 fifth-grade classes (mean age 10 years 3 months and 14 teachers. On the basis of the teachers’ opinions and the results of MWP solving two sub-samples of 24 students were formed, good and poor MWP solvers. Several tests were used to determine MWP solving ability, automation of arithmetic facts and procedures as well as Raven’s SPM. Questionnaires for pupils were used to assess pupils’ estimations of MWP tasks’ difficulty, their own ability to solve them and the strategies used. To assess pupils’ knowledge a questionnaire for teachers was used. RESULTS Slovenian 5 th graders in the larger sample generally used very few empirically proven effective cognitive and metacognitive strategies to solve MWP. Pupils with lower achievement in solving MWP, compared to pupils with higher achievement demonstrated significantly less automated arithmetic facts and procedures of the algorithm, less flexible use of arithmetic skills, as well as qualitatively different MWP solving, which is also related to their lower non-verbal reasoning. Teachers’ assessments and pupils’ self-assessments matched the achieved test results. CONCLUSIONS The results exposed important key factors for successful solving of mathematical word problems with

  2. Rapid formation and flexible expression of memories of subliminal word pairs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reber, Thomas P; Henke, Katharina

    2011-01-01

    Our daily experiences are incidentally and rapidly encoded as episodic memories. Episodic memories consist of numerous associations (e.g., who gave what to whom where and when) that can be expressed flexibly in new situations. Key features of episodic memory are speed of encoding, its associative nature, and its representational flexibility. Another defining feature of human episodic memory has been consciousness of encoding/retrieval. Here, we show that humans can rapidly form associations between subliminal words and minutes later retrieve these associations even if retrieval words were conceptually related to, but different from encoding words. Because encoding words were presented subliminally, associative encoding, and retrieval were unconscious. Unconscious association formation and retrieval were dependent on a preceding understanding of task principles. We conclude that key computations underlying episodic memory - rapid encoding and flexible expression of associations - can operate outside consciousness.

  3. Differential emotional processing in concrete and abstract words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yao, Bo; Keitel, Anne; Bruce, Gillian; Scott, Graham G; O'Donnell, Patrick J; Sereno, Sara C

    2018-02-12

    Emotion (positive and negative) words are typically recognized faster than neutral words. Recent research suggests that emotional valence, while often treated as a unitary semantic property, may be differentially represented in concrete and abstract words. Studies that have explicitly examined the interaction of emotion and concreteness, however, have demonstrated inconsistent patterns of results. Moreover, these findings may be limited as certain key lexical variables (e.g., familiarity, age of acquisition) were not taken into account. We investigated the emotion-concreteness interaction in a large-scale, highly controlled lexical decision experiment. A 3 (Emotion: negative, neutral, positive) × 2 (Concreteness: abstract, concrete) design was used, with 45 items per condition and 127 participants. We found a significant interaction between emotion and concreteness. Although positive and negative valenced words were recognized faster than neutral words, this emotion advantage was significantly larger in concrete than in abstract words. We explored potential contributions of participant alexithymia level and item imageability to this interactive pattern. We found that only word imageability significantly modulated the emotion-concreteness interaction. While both concrete and abstract emotion words are advantageously processed relative to comparable neutral words, the mechanisms of this facilitation are paradoxically more dependent on imageability in abstract words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  4. Information content versus word length in random typing

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ferrer-i-Cancho, Ramon; Moscoso del Prado Martín, Fermín

    2011-01-01

    Recently, it has been claimed that a linear relationship between a measure of information content and word length is expected from word length optimization and it has been shown that this linearity is supported by a strong correlation between information content and word length in many languages (Piantadosi et al 2011 Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 108 3825). Here, we study in detail some connections between this measure and standard information theory. The relationship between the measure and word length is studied for the popular random typing process where a text is constructed by pressing keys at random from a keyboard containing letters and a space behaving as a word delimiter. Although this random process does not optimize word lengths according to information content, it exhibits a linear relationship between information content and word length. The exact slope and intercept are presented for three major variants of the random typing process. A strong correlation between information content and word length can simply arise from the units making a word (e.g., letters) and not necessarily from the interplay between a word and its context as proposed by Piantadosi and co-workers. In itself, the linear relation does not entail the results of any optimization process. (letter)

  5. Seeking and receiving social support on Facebook for surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Matthew A; Anthony, Denise L; Pauls, Scott D

    2015-04-01

    Social networking sites such as Facebook provide a new way to seek and receive social support, a factor widely recognized as important for one's health. However, few studies have used actual conversations from social networking sites to study social support for health related matters. We studied 3,899 Facebook users, among a sample of 33,326 monitored adults, who initiated a conversation that referred to surgery on their Facebook Wall during a six-month period. We explored predictors of social support as measured by number of response posts from "friends." Among our sample, we identified 8,343 Facebook conversation threads with the term "surgery" in the initial post with, on average, 5.7 response posts (SD 6.2). We used a variant of latent semantic analysis to explore the relationship between specific words in the posts that allowed us to develop three thematic categories of words related to family, immediacy of the surgery, and prayer. We used generalized linear mixed models to examine the association between characteristics of the Facebook user as well as the thematic categories on the likelihood of receiving response posts following the announcement of a surgery. Words from the three thematic categories were used in 32.5% (family), 39.5 (immediacy), and 50.7% (prayer) of root posts. Few user characteristics were associated with response in multivariate models [rate ratios, RR, 1.08 (95% CI 1.01, 1.15) for married/living with partner; 1.10 (95% CI 1.03, 1.19) for annual income > $75,000]. In multivariate models adjusted for Facebook user characteristics and network size, use of family and prayer words in the root post were associated with significantly higher number of response posts, RR 1.40 (95% CI 1.37, 1.43) and 2.07 (95% CI 2.02, 2.12) respectively. We found some evidence of social support on Facebook for surgery and that the language used in the root post of a conversation thread is predictive of overall response. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All

  6. Combinatorics on words Christoffel words and repetitions in words

    CERN Document Server

    Berstel, Jean; Reutenauer, Christophe; Saliola, Franco V

    2008-01-01

    The two parts of this text are based on two series of lectures delivered by Jean Berstel and Christophe Reutenauer in March 2007 at the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques, Montréal, Canada. Part I represents the first modern and comprehensive exposition of the theory of Christoffel words. Part II presents numerous combinatorial and algorithmic aspects of repetition-free words stemming from the work of Axel Thue-a pioneer in the theory of combinatorics on words. A beginner to the theory of combinatorics on words will be motivated by the numerous examples, and the large variety of exercises, which make the book unique at this level of exposition. The clean and streamlined exposition and the extensive bibliography will also be appreciated. After reading this book, beginners should be ready to read modern research papers in this rapidly growing field and contribute their own research to its development. Experienced readers will be interested in the finitary approach to Sturmian words that Christoffel words offe...

  7. The Relationships among Cognitive Correlates and Irregular Word, Non-Word, and Word Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abu-Hamour, Bashir; University, Mu'tah; Urso, Annmarie; Mather, Nancy

    2012-01-01

    This study explored four hypotheses: (a) the relationships among rapid automatized naming (RAN) and processing speed (PS) to irregular word, non-word, and word reading; (b) the predictive power of various RAN and PS measures, (c) the cognitive correlates that best predicted irregular word, non-word, and word reading, and (d) reading performance of…

  8. Word Domain Disambiguation via Word Sense Disambiguation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Tratz, Stephen C.; Gregory, Michelle L.

    2006-06-04

    Word subject domains have been widely used to improve the perform-ance of word sense disambiguation al-gorithms. However, comparatively little effort has been devoted so far to the disambiguation of word subject do-mains. The few existing approaches have focused on the development of al-gorithms specific to word domain dis-ambiguation. In this paper we explore an alternative approach where word domain disambiguation is achieved via word sense disambiguation. Our study shows that this approach yields very strong results, suggesting that word domain disambiguation can be ad-dressed in terms of word sense disam-biguation with no need for special purpose algorithms.

  9. Imageability and age of acquisition effects in disyllabic word recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cortese, Michael J; Schock, Jocelyn

    2013-01-01

    Imageability and age of acquisition (AoA) effects, as well as key interactions between these variables and frequency and consistency, were examined via multiple regression analyses for 1,936 disyllabic words, using reaction time and accuracy measures from the English Lexicon Project. Both imageability and AoA accounted for unique variance in lexical decision and naming reaction time performance. In addition, across both tasks, AoA and imageability effects were larger for low-frequency words than high-frequency words, and imageability effects were larger for later acquired than earlier acquired words. In reading aloud, consistency effects in reaction time were larger for later acquired words than earlier acquired words, but consistency did not interact with imageability in the reaction time analysis. These results provide further evidence that multisyllabic word recognition is similar to monosyllabic word recognition and indicate that AoA and imageability are valid predictors of word recognition performance. In addition, the results indicate that meaning exerts a larger influence in the reading aloud of multisyllabic words than monosyllabic words. Finally, parallel-distributed-processing approaches provide a useful theoretical framework to explain the main effects and interactions.

  10. Goodnight Book: Sleep Consolidation Improves Word Learning via Storybooks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sophie E. Williams

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available Reading the same storybooks repeatedly helps preschool children learn words. In addition, sleeping shortly after learning also facilitates memory consolidation and aids learning in older children and adults. The current study explored how sleep promotes word learning in preschool children using a shared storybook reading task. Children were either read the same story repeatedly or different stories and either napped after the stories or remained awake. Children’s word retention were tested 2.5 hours later, 24 hours later and 7 days later. Results demonstrate strong, persistent effects for both repeated readings and sleep consolidation on young children’s word learning. A key finding is that children who read different stories before napping learned words as well as children who had the advantage of hearing the same story. In contrast, children who read different stories and remained awake never caught up to their peers on later word learning tests. Implications for educational practices are discussed.

  11. Forehearing words: Pre-activation of word endings at word onset.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roll, Mikael; Söderström, Pelle; Frid, Johan; Mannfolk, Peter; Horne, Merle

    2017-09-29

    Occurring at rates up to 6-7 syllables per second, speech perception and understanding involves rapid identification of speech sounds and pre-activation of morphemes and words. Using event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the time-course and neural sources of pre-activation of word endings as participants heard the beginning of unfolding words. ERPs showed a pre-activation negativity (PrAN) for word beginnings (first two segmental phonemes) with few possible completions. PrAN increased gradually as the number of possible completions of word onsets decreased and the lexical frequency of the completions increased. The early brain potential effect for few possible word completions was associated with a blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) contrast increase in Broca's area (pars opercularis of the left inferior frontal gyrus) and angular gyrus of the left parietal lobe. We suggest early involvement of the left prefrontal cortex in inhibiting irrelevant left parietal activation during lexical selection. The results further our understanding of the importance of Broca's area in rapid online pre-activation of words. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. A multicenter prospective cohort study on camera navigation training for key user groups in minimally invasive surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Graafland, Maurits; Bok, Kiki; Schreuder, Henk W R; Schijven, Marlies P

    2014-06-01

    Untrained laparoscopic camera assistants in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) may cause suboptimal view of the operating field, thereby increasing risk for errors. Camera navigation is often performed by the least experienced member of the operating team, such as inexperienced surgical residents, operating room nurses, and medical students. The operating room nurses and medical students are currently not included as key user groups in structured laparoscopic training programs. A new virtual reality laparoscopic camera navigation (LCN) module was specifically developed for these key user groups. This multicenter prospective cohort study assesses face validity and construct validity of the LCN module on the Simendo virtual reality simulator. Face validity was assessed through a questionnaire on resemblance to reality and perceived usability of the instrument among experts and trainees. Construct validity was assessed by comparing scores of groups with different levels of experience on outcome parameters of speed and movement proficiency. The results obtained show uniform and positive evaluation of the LCN module among expert users and trainees, signifying face validity. Experts and intermediate experience groups performed significantly better in task time and camera stability during three repetitions, compared to the less experienced user groups (P < .007). Comparison of learning curves showed significant improvement of proficiency in time and camera stability for all groups during three repetitions (P < .007). The results of this study show face validity and construct validity of the LCN module. The module is suitable for use in training curricula for operating room nurses and novice surgical trainees, aimed at improving team performance in minimally invasive surgery. © The Author(s) 2013.

  13. Periodic words connected with the Fibonacci words

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    G. M. Barabash

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we introduce two families of periodic words (FLP-words of type 1 and FLP-words of type 2 that are connected with the Fibonacci words and investigated their properties.

  14. Como encontrar as palavras-chave mais importantes de um corpus com WordSmith tools How to find the most important keywords in a corpus with WordSmith tools

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tony Berber-Sardinha

    2005-12-01

    Full Text Available Um dos procedimentos mais delicados envolvidos numa análise de corpus via palavras-chave com WordSmith Tools KeyWords é a seleção de um sub-conjunto de palavras para serem investigadas em detalhe. A seleção se faz necessária, via de regra, porque o tamanho do léxico chave de um corpus de estudo é em geral muito grande, em geral em torno de 1500 palavras ou até mais. Uma maneira de fazer esse recorte consiste na extração de palavras-chave exclusivas. O léxico chave exclusivo é composto das palavras-chave que ocorrem somente no corpus de estudo em questão em comparação com palavras-chave de outros corpora de estudo. Contudo, comparar a lista de palavras-chave com várias outras é um procedimento custoso e complicado, que não pode ser exigido da maioria dos usuários de WordSmith Tools KeyWords. Uma alternativa para este cenário seria a aplicação de um ponto de corte generalizado baseado em tendências de retorno de palavras-chave observadas através da aplicação do banco de palavras-chave existente. Tal ponto de corte indicaria a região da lista de palavras-chave na qual há maior probabilidade de ocorrência do léxico chave exclusivo. Os resultados obtidos aqui indicam um ponto de corte entre 31% a 53% das palavras da lista, a partir da primeira de uma lista ordenada por chavicidade.One of the most sensitive issues surrounding a keywords analysis with WordSmith Tools is the selection of a subset of words in a corpus that deserve being looked at in greater detail. This selection is normally needed because the size of the key word list can reach several hundred, up to 1,500 or more. One way to extract a selection consists of the pulling out 'exclusive key words'. This key lexis is made up of keywords that only in a single corpus only, in comparison with a bank of keyword lists. Nevertheless, comparing several keyword lists together is a demanding task, which most users of WordSmith Tools are not expected to cope with. An

  15. An overview of surgery-first approach: Recent advances in orthognathic surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sharma, Vipul Kumar; Yadav, Kirti; Tandon, Pradeep

    2015-01-01

    The disadvantages of having orthodontic interventions both before and after orthognathic surgery include a long treatment time of 7-47 months and temporary worsening of facial appearance. Nowadays, the concept of surgery-first, followed by orthodontic treatment is applied to orthognathic surgery cases in different orthodontic centers in the world. This concept and technique is called "surgery-first-orthognathic-approach" or "surgery-first approach" (SFA) rigid fixation (skeletal anchorage system) of the bony segments and regional acceleratory phenomenon were keys to broad implementation of the SFA. This article is intended to provide an overview of SFA including indications, general and specific guidelines, different protocol variations, success rate and potential problems.

  16. Mesenchymal stem cells in oral reconstructive surgery

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jakobsen, C; Sørensen, J A; Kassem, M

    2013-01-01

    This study evaluated clinical outcomes following intraoperative use of adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in various oral reconstructive procedures. PubMed was searched without language restrictions from 2000 to 2011 using the search words stem cell, oral surgery, tissue engineering, sinus lift...

  17. Acquired Affective Associations Induce Emotion Effects in Word Recognition: An ERP Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fritsch, Nathalie; Kuchinke, Lars

    2013-01-01

    The present study examined how contextual learning and in particular emotionality conditioning impacts the neural processing of words, as possible key factors for the acquisition of words' emotional connotation. 21 participants learned on five consecutive days associations between meaningless pseudowords and unpleasant or neutral pictures using an…

  18. A Review of RSA and Public-Key Cryptosystems | Rabah | Botswana ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    ... study and analyze the RSA cryptosystems – a public-key cryptographic algorithm - a system that uses two sets of keys; one for encryption and the other for decryption. Key Words: Public-key cryptography, DH, RSA, Internet Security and attacks, Digital Signature, Message digest, Authentication, Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

  19. Word generalization by a dog (Canis familiaris: is shape important?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Emile van der Zee

    Full Text Available We investigated the presence of a key feature of human word comprehension in a five year old Border Collie: the generalization of a word referring to an object to other objects of the same shape, also known as shape bias. Our first experiment confirmed a solid history of word learning in the dog, thus making it possible for certain object features to have become central in his word comprehension. Using an experimental paradigm originally employed to establish shape bias in children and human adults we taught the dog arbitrary object names (e.g. dax for novel objects. Two experiments showed that when briefly familiarized with word-object mappings the dog did not generalize object names to object shape but to object size. A fourth experiment showed that when familiarized with a word-object mapping for a longer period of time the dog tended to generalize the word to objects with the same texture. These results show that the dog tested did not display human-like word comprehension, but word generalization and word reference development of a qualitatively different nature compared to humans. We conclude that a shape bias for word generalization in humans is due to the distinct evolutionary history of the human sensory system for object identification and that more research is necessary to confirm qualitative differences in word generalization between humans and dogs.

  20. Word Generalization by a Dog (Canis familiaris): Is Shape Important?

    Science.gov (United States)

    van der Zee, Emile; Zulch, Helen; Mills, Daniel

    2012-01-01

    We investigated the presence of a key feature of human word comprehension in a five year old Border Collie: the generalization of a word referring to an object to other objects of the same shape, also known as shape bias. Our first experiment confirmed a solid history of word learning in the dog, thus making it possible for certain object features to have become central in his word comprehension. Using an experimental paradigm originally employed to establish shape bias in children and human adults we taught the dog arbitrary object names (e.g. dax) for novel objects. Two experiments showed that when briefly familiarized with word-object mappings the dog did not generalize object names to object shape but to object size. A fourth experiment showed that when familiarized with a word-object mapping for a longer period of time the dog tended to generalize the word to objects with the same texture. These results show that the dog tested did not display human-like word comprehension, but word generalization and word reference development of a qualitatively different nature compared to humans. We conclude that a shape bias for word generalization in humans is due to the distinct evolutionary history of the human sensory system for object identification and that more research is necessary to confirm qualitative differences in word generalization between humans and dogs. PMID:23185321

  1. The word-length effect and disyllabic words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lovatt, P; Avons, S E; Masterson, J

    2000-02-01

    Three experiments compared immediate serial recall of disyllabic words that differed on spoken duration. Two sets of long- and short-duration words were selected, in each case maximizing duration differences but matching for frequency, familiarity, phonological similarity, and number of phonemes, and controlling for semantic associations. Serial recall measures were obtained using auditory and visual presentation and spoken and picture-pointing recall. In Experiments 1a and 1b, using the first set of items, long words were better recalled than short words. In Experiments 2a and 2b, using the second set of items, no difference was found between long and short disyllabic words. Experiment 3 confirmed the large advantage for short-duration words in the word set originally selected by Baddeley, Thomson, and Buchanan (1975). These findings suggest that there is no reliable advantage for short-duration disyllables in span tasks, and that previous accounts of a word-length effect in disyllables are based on accidental differences between list items. The failure to find an effect of word duration casts doubt on theories that propose that the capacity of memory span is determined by the duration of list items or the decay rate of phonological information in short-term memory.

  2. Computing with Words Principal Concepts and Ideas

    CERN Document Server

    Zadeh, Lotfi A

    2012-01-01

    In essence, Computing with Words (CWW) is a system of computation in which the objects of computation are predominantly words, phrases and propositions drawn from a natural language. CWW is based on fuzzy logic. In science there is a deep-seated tradition of according much more respect to numbers than to words. In a fundamental way, CWW is a challenge to this tradition. What is not widely recognized is that, today, words are used in place of numbers in a wide variety of applications ranging from digital cameras and household appliances to fraud detection systems, biomedical instrumentation and subway trains.  CWW offers a unique capability—the capability to precisiate natural language. Unprecisiated (raw) natural language cannot be computed with. A key concept which underlies precisiation of meaning is that of the meaning postulate: A proposition, p, is a restriction on the values which a variable, X—a variable which is implicit in p—is allowed to take. CWW has an important ramification for mathema...

  3. Do handwritten words magnify lexical effects in visual word recognition?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perea, Manuel; Gil-López, Cristina; Beléndez, Victoria; Carreiras, Manuel

    2016-01-01

    An examination of how the word recognition system is able to process handwritten words is fundamental to formulate a comprehensive model of visual word recognition. Previous research has revealed that the magnitude of lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) is greater with handwritten words than with printed words. In the present lexical decision experiments, we examined whether the quality of handwritten words moderates the recruitment of top-down feedback, as reflected in word-frequency effects. Results showed a reading cost for difficult-to-read and easy-to-read handwritten words relative to printed words. But the critical finding was that difficult-to-read handwritten words, but not easy-to-read handwritten words, showed a greater word-frequency effect than printed words. Therefore, the inherent physical variability of handwritten words does not necessarily boost the magnitude of lexical effects.

  4. Statistical Laws Governing Fluctuations in Word Use from Word Birth to Word Death

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petersen, Alexander M.; Tenenbaum, Joel; Havlin, Shlomo; Stanley, H. Eugene

    2012-03-01

    We analyze the dynamic properties of 107 words recorded in English, Spanish and Hebrew over the period 1800-2008 in order to gain insight into the coevolution of language and culture. We report language independent patterns useful as benchmarks for theoretical models of language evolution. A significantly decreasing (increasing) trend in the birth (death) rate of words indicates a recent shift in the selection laws governing word use. For new words, we observe a peak in the growth-rate fluctuations around 40 years after introduction, consistent with the typical entry time into standard dictionaries and the human generational timescale. Pronounced changes in the dynamics of language during periods of war shows that word correlations, occurring across time and between words, are largely influenced by coevolutionary social, technological, and political factors. We quantify cultural memory by analyzing the long-term correlations in the use of individual words using detrended fluctuation analysis.

  5. Cognitive Abilities Explain Wording Effects in the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gnambs, Timo; Schroeders, Ulrich

    2017-12-01

    There is consensus that the 10 items of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) reflect wording effects resulting from positively and negatively keyed items. The present study examined the effects of cognitive abilities on the factor structure of the RSES with a novel, nonparametric latent variable technique called local structural equation models. In a nationally representative German large-scale assessment including 12,437 students competing measurement models for the RSES were compared: a bifactor model with a common factor and a specific factor for all negatively worded items had an optimal fit. Local structural equation models showed that the unidimensionality of the scale increased with higher levels of reading competence and reasoning, while the proportion of variance attributed to the negatively keyed items declined. Wording effects on the factor structure of the RSES seem to represent a response style artifact associated with cognitive abilities.

  6. The Activation of Embedded Words in Spoken Word Recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Xujin; Samuel, Arthur G

    2015-01-01

    The current study investigated how listeners understand English words that have shorter words embedded in them. A series of auditory-auditory priming experiments assessed the activation of six types of embedded words (2 embedded positions × 3 embedded proportions) under different listening conditions. Facilitation of lexical decision responses to targets (e.g., pig) associated with words embedded in primes (e.g., hamster ) indexed activation of the embedded words (e.g., ham ). When the listening conditions were optimal, isolated embedded words (e.g., ham ) primed their targets in all six conditions (Experiment 1a). Within carrier words (e.g., hamster ), the same set of embedded words produced priming only when they were at the beginning or comprised a large proportion of the carrier word (Experiment 1b). When the listening conditions were made suboptimal by expanding or compressing the primes, significant priming was found for isolated embedded words (Experiment 2a), but no priming was produced when the carrier words were compressed/expanded (Experiment 2b). Similarly, priming was eliminated when the carrier words were presented with one segment replaced by noise (Experiment 3). When cognitive load was imposed, priming for embedded words was again found when they were presented in isolation (Experiment 4a), but not when they were embedded in the carrier words (Experiment 4b). The results suggest that both embedded position and proportion play important roles in the activation of embedded words, but that such activation only occurs under unusually good listening conditions.

  7. WORD LEVEL DISCRIMINATIVE TRAINING FOR HANDWRITTEN WORD RECOGNITION

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Chen, W.; Gader, P.

    2004-01-01

    Word level training refers to the process of learning the parameters of a word recognition system based on word level criteria functions. Previously, researchers trained lexicon­driven handwritten word recognition systems at the character level individually. These systems generally use statistical

  8. The x-word and its usage : Taboo words and swearwords in general, and x-words in newspapers

    OpenAIRE

    Lindahl, Katarina

    2008-01-01

    All languages have words that are considered taboo – words that are not supposed to be said or used. Taboo words, or swearwords, can be used in many different ways and they can have different meanings depending on what context they appear in. Another aspect of taboo words is the euphemisms that are used in order to avoid obscene speech. This paper will focus on x-words, words like the f-word or the c-word, which replace the words fuck or cunt, but as the study will show they also have other m...

  9. The Activation of Embedded Words in Spoken Word Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Xujin; Samuel, Arthur G.

    2015-01-01

    The current study investigated how listeners understand English words that have shorter words embedded in them. A series of auditory-auditory priming experiments assessed the activation of six types of embedded words (2 embedded positions × 3 embedded proportions) under different listening conditions. Facilitation of lexical decision responses to targets (e.g., pig) associated with words embedded in primes (e.g., hamster) indexed activation of the embedded words (e.g., ham). When the listening conditions were optimal, isolated embedded words (e.g., ham) primed their targets in all six conditions (Experiment 1a). Within carrier words (e.g., hamster), the same set of embedded words produced priming only when they were at the beginning or comprised a large proportion of the carrier word (Experiment 1b). When the listening conditions were made suboptimal by expanding or compressing the primes, significant priming was found for isolated embedded words (Experiment 2a), but no priming was produced when the carrier words were compressed/expanded (Experiment 2b). Similarly, priming was eliminated when the carrier words were presented with one segment replaced by noise (Experiment 3). When cognitive load was imposed, priming for embedded words was again found when they were presented in isolation (Experiment 4a), but not when they were embedded in the carrier words (Experiment 4b). The results suggest that both embedded position and proportion play important roles in the activation of embedded words, but that such activation only occurs under unusually good listening conditions. PMID:25593407

  10. Evaluation of orthognathic surgery on articular disc position and temporomandibular joint symptoms in skeletal class II patients: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Firoozei, Gholamreza; Shahnaseri, Shirin; Momeni, Hasan; Soltani, Parisa

    2017-08-01

    The purpose of orthognathic surgery is to correct facial deformity and dental malocclusion and to obtain normal orofacial function. However, there are controversies of whether orthognathic surgery might have any negative influence on temporomandibular (TM) joint. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of orthognathic surgery on articular disc position and temporomandibular joint symptoms of skeletal CI II patients by means of magnetic resonance imaging. For this purpose, fifteen patients with skeletal CI II malocclusion, aged 19-32 years (mean 23 years), 10 women and 5 men, from the Isfahan Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery were studied. All received LeFort I and bilateral sagittal split osteotomy (BSSO) osteotomies and all patients received pre- and post-surgical orthodontic treatment. Magnetic resonance imaging was performed 1 day preoperatively and 3 month postoperatively. Descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon and Mc-Nemar tests were used for statistical analysis. P surgery (mean=5.74±1.21). After surgery disc position range was 4.36 to 7.40 (mean=5.65±1.06). Statistical analysis proved that although TM disc tended to move anteriorly after BSSO surgery, this difference was not statistically significant ( p valuesurgery does not alter the disc and condyle relationship. Therefore, it has minimal effects on intact and functional TM joint. Key words: Orthognathic surgery, skeletal class 2, magnetic resonance imaging, temporomandibular disc.

  11. Some words on Word

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Janssen, Maarten; Visser, A.

    In many disciplines, the notion of a word is of central importance. For instance, morphology studies le mot comme tel, pris isol´ement (Mel’ˇcuk, 1993 [74]). In the philosophy of language the word was often considered to be the primary bearer of meaning. Lexicography has as its fundamental role

  12. The Emotions of Abstract Words: A Distributional Semantic Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lenci, Alessandro; Lebani, Gianluca E; Passaro, Lucia C

    2018-04-06

    Recent psycholinguistic and neuroscientific research has emphasized the crucial role of emotions for abstract words, which would be grounded by affective experience, instead of a sensorimotor one. The hypothesis of affective embodiment has been proposed as an alternative to the idea that abstract words are linguistically coded and that linguistic processing plays a key role in their acquisition and processing. In this paper, we use distributional semantic models to explore the complex interplay between linguistic and affective information in the representation of abstract words. Distributional analyses on Italian norming data show that abstract words have more affective content and tend to co-occur with contexts with higher emotive values, according to affective statistical indices estimated in terms of distributional similarity with a restricted number of seed words strongly associated with a set of basic emotions. Therefore, the strong affective content of abstract words might just be an indirect byproduct of co-occurrence statistics. This is consistent with a version of representational pluralism in which concepts that are fully embodied either at the sensorimotor or at the affective level live side-by-side with concepts only indirectly embodied via their linguistic associations with other embodied words. Copyright © 2018 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  13. Sub-word based Arabic handwriting analysis for writer identification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maliki, Makki; Al-Jawad, Naseer; Jassim, Sabah

    2013-05-01

    Analysing a text or part of it is key to handwriting identification. Generally, handwriting is learnt over time and people develop habits in the style of writing. These habits are embedded in special parts of handwritten text. In Arabic each word consists of one or more sub-word(s). The end of each sub-word is considered to be a connect stroke. The main hypothesis in this paper is that sub-words are essential reflection of Arabic writer's habits that could be exploited for writer identification. Testing this hypothesis will be based on experiments that evaluate writer's identification, mainly using K nearest neighbor from group of sub-words extracted from longer text. The experimental results show that using a group of sub-words could be used to identify the writer with a successful rate between 52.94 % to 82.35% when top1 is used, and it can go up to 100% when top5 is used based on K nearest neighbor. The results show that majority of writers are identified using 7 sub-words with a reliability confident of about 90% (i.e. 90% of the rejected templates have significantly larger distances to the tested example than the distance from the correctly identified template). However previous work, using a complete word, shows successful rate of at most 90% in top 10.

  14. The Visual Word Form Area remains in the dominant hemisphere for language in late-onset left occipital lobe epilepsies: A postsurgery analysis of two cases.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lopes, Ricardo; Nunes, Rita Gouveia; Simões, Mário Rodrigues; Secca, Mário Forjaz; Leal, Alberto

    2015-05-01

    Automatic recognition of words from letter strings is a critical processing step in reading that is lateralized to the left-hemisphere middle fusiform gyrus in the so-called Visual Word Form Area (VWFA). Surgical lesions in this location can lead to irreversible alexia. Very early left hemispheric lesions can lead to transfer of the VWFA to the nondominant hemisphere, but it is currently unknown if this capability is preserved in epilepsies developing after reading acquisition. In this study, we aimed to determine the lateralization of the VWFA in late-onset left inferior occipital lobe epilepsies and also the effect of surgical disconnection from the adjacent secondary visual areas. Two patients with focal epilepsies with onset near the VWFA underwent to surgery for epilepsy, with sparing of this area. Neuropsychology evaluations were performed before and after surgery, as well as quantitative evaluation of the speed of word reading. Comparison of the surgical localization of the lesion, with the BOLD activation associated with the contrast of words-strings, was performed, as well as a study of the associated main white fiber pathways using diffusion-weighted imaging. Neither of the patients developed alexia after surgery (similar word reading speed before and after surgery) despite the fact that the inferior occipital surgical lesions reached the neighborhood (less than 1cm) of the VWFA. Surgeries partly disconnected the VWFA from left secondary visual areas, suggesting that pathways connecting to the posterior visual ventral stream were severely affected but did not induce alexia. The anterior and superior limits of the resection suggest that the critical connection between the VWFA and the Wernicke's Angular Gyrus cortex was not affected, which is supported by the detection of this tract with probabilistic tractography. Left occipital lobe epilepsies developing after reading acquisition did not produce atypical localizations of the VWFA, even with foci in the

  15. Contemporary cosmetic surgery: the potential risks and relevance for practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilmartin, Jo

    2011-07-01

    To examine and critique the risks of cosmetic surgery and consider implications for practice. Cosmetic surgery is a growing industry with a significant global phenomenon. Feminists have been critical of aesthetic surgery practice, offering a range of representations in regard to 'identity', 'normality', 'cultural and social pressures', 'agency' and 'self-enhancement'. Discourses around minimising risk information acknowledge deficits in not supplying patients with full risk information. The results are usually devastating and lead to serious health complications that incisively diminish well-being for patients and increase health costs. Critical review. This paper represents a critical review of risks associated with cosmetic surgery. A Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System online (Medline) and British Nursing Index (BNI) search with relevant key words were undertaken and selected exemplary articles and research describing and/or evaluating cosmetic surgery risk. Only papers in the English language from 1982-2009 were reviewed. The papers examined were mainly empirical studies; some opinion papers, policy documents, textbooks and websites were examined too. The literature revealed that several factors influence consumer risks including regulation vagaries, medicalisation processes, fear of ageing discrimination, wanting to avoid ethnic prejudice and media pressure. Government strategies in the United Kingdom (UK) have attempted to improve clinical standards; however, little attempt has been made globally to raise institutional and professional awareness of the huge impact of cultural and social pressures on consumers. Avoiding shattering complications by improving the provision of risk information for patients is a worthwhile goal. Therefore, health professionals need to consider consumer rights and autonomy more carefully, facilitate rigorous screening and develop knowledge in regard to

  16. Finding words in a language that allows words without vowels.

    Science.gov (United States)

    El Aissati, Abder; McQueen, James M; Cutler, Anne

    2012-07-01

    Across many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition from embedded words (e.g., in English, disfavoring win in twin because t cannot be a word). However, the constraint would be counter-productive in certain languages that allow stand-alone vowelless open-class words. One such language is Berber (where t is indeed a word). Berber listeners here detected words affixed to nonsense contexts with or without vowels. Length effects seen in other languages replicated in Berber, but in contrast to prior findings, word detection was not hindered by vowelless contexts. When words can be vowelless, otherwise universal constraints disfavoring vowelless words do not feature in spoken-word recognition. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Attention demands of spoken word planning: A review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ardi eRoelofs

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Attention and language are among the most intensively researched abilities in the cognitive neurosciences, but the relation between these abilities has largely been neglected. There is increasing evidence, however, that linguistic processes, such as those underlying the planning of words, cannot proceed without paying some form of attention. Here, we review evidence that word planning requires some but not full attention. The evidence comes from chronometric studies of word planning in picture naming and word reading under divided attention conditions. It is generally assumed that the central attention demands of a process are indexed by the extent that the process delays the performance of a concurrent unrelated task. The studies measured the speed and accuracy of linguistic and nonlinguistic responding as well as eye gaze durations reflecting the allocation of attention. First, empirical evidence indicates that in several task situations, processes up to and including phonological encoding in word planning delay, or are delayed by, the performance of concurrent unrelated nonlinguistic tasks. These findings suggest that word planning requires central attention. Second, empirical evidence indicates that conflicts in word planning may be resolved while concurrently performing an unrelated nonlinguistic task, making a task decision, or making a go/no-go decision. These findings suggest that word planning does not require full central attention. We outline a computationally implemented theory of attention and word planning, and describe at various points the outcomes of computer simulations that demonstrate the utility of the theory in accounting for the key findings. Finally, we indicate how attention deficits may contribute to impaired language performance, such as in individuals with specific language impairment.

  18. Relative speed of processing determines color-word contingency learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forrin, Noah D; MacLeod, Colin M

    2017-10-01

    In three experiments, we tested a relative-speed-of-processing account of color-word contingency learning, a phenomenon in which color identification responses to high-contingency stimuli (words that appear most often in particular colors) are faster than those to low-contingency stimuli. Experiment 1 showed equally large contingency-learning effects whether responding was to the colors or to the words, likely due to slow responding to both dimensions because of the unfamiliar mapping required by the key press responses. For Experiment 2, participants switched to vocal responding, in which reading words is considerably faster than naming colors, and we obtained a contingency-learning effect only for color naming, the slower dimension. In Experiment 3, previewing the color information resulted in a reduced contingency-learning effect for color naming, but it enhanced the contingency-learning effect for word reading. These results are all consistent with contingency learning influencing performance only when the nominally irrelevant feature is faster to process than the relevant feature, and therefore are entirely in accord with a relative-speed-of-processing explanation.

  19. Social interaction facilitates word learning in preverbal infants: Word-object mapping and word segmentation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hakuno, Yoko; Omori, Takahide; Yamamoto, Jun-Ichi; Minagawa, Yasuyo

    2017-08-01

    In natural settings, infants learn spoken language with the aid of a caregiver who explicitly provides social signals. Although previous studies have demonstrated that young infants are sensitive to these signals that facilitate language development, the impact of real-life interactions on early word segmentation and word-object mapping remains elusive. We tested whether infants aged 5-6 months and 9-10 months could segment a word from continuous speech and acquire a word-object relation in an ecologically valid setting. In Experiment 1, infants were exposed to a live tutor, while in Experiment 2, another group of infants were exposed to a televised tutor. Results indicate that both younger and older infants were capable of segmenting a word and learning a word-object association only when the stimuli were derived from a live tutor in a natural manner, suggesting that real-life interaction enhances the learning of spoken words in preverbal infants. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. FACTORS INLFUENCING THE ADOPTION OF ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mihaela ABĂLĂESEI

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Web-based technologies have been in a continuous state of growth, especially in the last decade, which also brought better and higher Internet speed. This has led to an increased number of opportunities for people to get involved in electronic word of mouth (e-WOM communication. E-WOM is a new means of information sharing, allowing users to be inter-connected constantly, regardless of their time zone. Because of this unique quality, e-WOM has been identified as one of the key factors affecting online sales. However, there is little known about this phenomenon. Even if the literature has approached this topic from various angles, there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding electronic word of mouth. One of the key research questions is targeted at factors which influence people in actively engaging in creating or receiving e-WOM. With this in mind, this article provides a general overview of the key factors analyzed in the literature, which determine adoption of e-WOM by online consumers.

  1. Distributional and Knowledge-Based Approaches for Computing Portuguese Word Similarity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hugo Gonçalo Oliveira

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Identifying similar and related words is not only key in natural language understanding but also a suitable task for assessing the quality of computational resources that organise words and meanings of a language, compiled by different means. This paper, which aims to be a reference for those interested in computing word similarity in Portuguese, presents several approaches for this task and is motivated by the recent availability of state-of-the-art distributional models of Portuguese words, which add to several lexical knowledge bases (LKBs for this language, available for a longer time. The previous resources were exploited to answer word similarity tests, which also became recently available for Portuguese. We conclude that there are several valid approaches for this task, but not one that outperforms all the others in every single test. Distributional models seem to capture relatedness better, while LKBs are better suited for computing genuine similarity, but, in general, better results are obtained when knowledge from different sources is combined.

  2. P2-13: Location word Cues' Effect on Location Discrimination Task: Cross-Modal Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Satoko Ohtsuka

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available As is well known, participants are slower and make more errors in responding to the display color of an incongruent color word than a congruent one. This traditional stroop effect is often accounted for with relatively automatic and dominant word processing. Although the word dominance account has been widely supported, it is not clear in what extent of perceptual tasks it is valid. Here we aimed to examine whether the word dominance effect is observed in location stroop tasks and in audio-visual situations. The participants were required to press a key according to the location of visual (Experiment 1 and audio (Experiment 2 targets, left or right, as soon as possible. A cue of written (Experiments 1a and 2a or spoken (Experiments 1b and 2b location words, “left” or “right”, was presented on the left or right side of the fixation with cue lead times (CLT of 200 ms and 1200 ms. Reaction time from target presentation to key press was recorded as a dependent variable. The results were that the location validity effect was marked in within-modality but less so in cross-modality trials. The word validity effect was strong in within- but not in cross-modality trials. The CLT gave some effect of inhibition of return. So the word dominance could be less effective in location tasks and in cross-modal situations. The spatial correspondence seems to overcome the word effect.

  3. A Few Words about Words | Poster

    Science.gov (United States)

    By Ken Michaels, Guest Writer In Shakepeare’s play “Hamlet,” Polonius inquires of the prince, “What do you read, my lord?” Not at all pleased with what he’s reading, Hamlet replies, “Words, words, words.”1 I have previously described the communication model in which a sender encodes a message and then sends it via some channel (or medium) to a receiver, who decodes the message

  4. Textual Analysis of General Surgery Residency Personal Statements: Topics and Gender Differences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ostapenko, Laura; Schonhardt-Bailey, Cheryl; Sublette, Jessica Walling; Smink, Douglas S; Osman, Nora Y

    2017-10-25

    Applicants to US general surgery residency training programs submit standardized applications. Applicants use the personal statement to express their individual rationale for a career in surgery. Our research explores common topics and gender differences within the personal statements of general surgery applicants. We analyzed the electronic residency application service personal statements of 578 applicants (containing 3,82,405 words) from Liaison Committee on Medical Education-accredited medical schools to a single ACGME-accredited general surgery program using an automated textual analysis program to identify common topics and gender differences. Using a recursive algorithm, the program identified common words and clusters, grouping them into topic classes, which are internally validated. We identified and labeled 8 statistically significant topic classes through independent review: "my story," "the art of surgery," "clinical vignettes," "why I love surgery," "residency program characteristics," "working as a team," "academics and research," and "global health and policy." Although some classes were common to all applications, we also identified gender-specific differences. Notably, women were significantly more likely than men to be represented within the class of "working as a team." (p differences between the statements of men and women. Women were more likely to discuss surgery as a team endeavor while men were more likely to focus on the details of their surgical experiences. Our work mirrors what has been found in social psychology research on gender-based differences in how men and women communicate their career goals and aspirations in other competitive professional situations. Copyright © 2017 Association of Program Directors in Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. The comprehensive therapeutic effects of rectal surgery are better in laparoscopy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheng, Jiabin; Feng, Xingyu; Yang, Zifeng; Hu, Weixian; Luo, Yuwen; Li, Yong

    2017-02-21

    Laparoscopic-assisted radical resection of rectal cancer was reported as advantageous compared to laparotomy resection. However, this finding remains controversial, especially given the two recent randomized controlled trials published on The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). To perform a meta-analysis that compares the short-term and long-term outcomes of laparoscopic and open surgery for rectal cancer. To identify clinical trials comparing laparoscopic and open surgery for rectal cancer published by August 2016, we searched the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Springer Link and Clinicaltrials.gov databases by combining various key words. Data were extracted from every identified study to perform a meta-analysis using the Review Manager 5.3 software. A total of 43 articles from 38 studies with a total of 13408 patients were included. Although laparoscopic radical rectectomy increased operation time (MD = 37.23, 95% CI: 28.88 to 45.57, P CRM positive rate (OR = 0.64, 95% CI: 0.55 to 0.75, P benefits in short-term outcomes and trending benefits in long-term outcomes that were observed, we recommend laparoscopic surgery be used for rectal cancer resection.

  6. Words and possible words in early language acquisition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marchetto, Erika; Bonatti, Luca L

    2013-11-01

    In order to acquire language, infants must extract its building blocks-words-and master the rules governing their legal combinations from speech. These two problems are not independent, however: words also have internal structure. Thus, infants must extract two kinds of information from the same speech input. They must find the actual words of their language. Furthermore, they must identify its possible words, that is, the sequences of sounds that, being morphologically well formed, could be words. Here, we show that infants' sensitivity to possible words appears to be more primitive and fundamental than their ability to find actual words. We expose 12- and 18-month-old infants to an artificial language containing a conflict between statistically coherent and structurally coherent items. We show that 18-month-olds can extract possible words when the familiarization stream contains marks of segmentation, but cannot do so when the stream is continuous. Yet, they can find actual words from a continuous stream by computing statistical relationships among syllables. By contrast, 12-month-olds can find possible words when familiarized with a segmented stream, but seem unable to extract statistically coherent items from a continuous stream that contains minimal conflicts between statistical and structural information. These results suggest that sensitivity to word structure is in place earlier than the ability to analyze distributional information. The ability to compute nontrivial statistical relationships becomes fully effective relatively late in development, when infants have already acquired a considerable amount of linguistic knowledge. Thus, mechanisms for structure extraction that do not rely on extensive sampling of the input are likely to have a much larger role in language acquisition than general-purpose statistical abilities. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  7. Periscopic Spine Surgery

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Cleary, Kevin R

    2000-01-01

    .... Key research accomplishments for the first year are: ̂Demonstrated the value of intraoperative CT for visualization and verification of the anatomy in complex spine surgeries in the neurosurgery operating room...

  8. Preemptive Analgesia with Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen in Pediatric Lower Abdominal Surgery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    P Kashefi

    2005-07-01

    Full Text Available Background: Postoperative pain is a significant problem in pediatrics. Preemptive administration of analgesics has recently emerged as a method to enhance pain management associated with surgery. The objective of this study was to compare the analgesic efficacy of a single-dose of preoperative oral ibuprofen versus acetaminophen in preventing pain after lower abdominal surgery in pediatrics. Methods: In this randomized, double-blind study, following lower abdominal surgery, 75 children, aging 3 to 12 years, were assigned to receive either ibuprofen 20 mg /kg (n=25 or acetaminophen 35 mg/kg (n=25 or placebo (n=25 2 hours before surgery. Agitation in recovery was measured and postoperative pain was quantified 3 and 24 hours after surgery by Oucher’s scale. The amount of postoperative analgesic needed in the ward was also assessed. Results: It was found that preoperative administration of ibuprofen and acetaminophen can reduce agitation in recovery but there was no difference in the agitation score between ibuprofen and acetaminophen groups (P=0.145. Agitation score was significantly lower in ibuprofen group compared to placebo (P>0.005. Similarly, patients in the acetaminophen group were considerably less agitated than those in the placebo group (P=0.002. No significant difference was observed in pain intensity 3 and 24 hours after operation between the three groups [(P=0.495 and (P=0.582 respectively]. The amount of postoperative analgesic needed during ward hospitalization was not significantly different among the three groups (P>0.005. Conclusion: These results provide evidence that preemptive acetaminophen and ibuprofen may reduce agitation during recovery but they neither improve the postoperative pain nor reduce analgesics consumption in ward Key words: Postoperative analgesia, Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, Preemptive analgesia

  9. Recurrent Partial Words

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Francine Blanchet-Sadri

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available Partial words are sequences over a finite alphabet that may contain wildcard symbols, called holes, which match or are compatible with all letters; partial words without holes are said to be full words (or simply words. Given an infinite partial word w, the number of distinct full words over the alphabet that are compatible with factors of w of length n, called subwords of w, refers to a measure of complexity of infinite partial words so-called subword complexity. This measure is of particular interest because we can construct partial words with subword complexities not achievable by full words. In this paper, we consider the notion of recurrence over infinite partial words, that is, we study whether all of the finite subwords of a given infinite partial word appear infinitely often, and we establish connections between subword complexity and recurrence in this more general framework.

  10. Effects of Word Width and Word Length on Optimal Character Size for Reading of Horizontally Scrolling Japanese Words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teramoto, Wataru; Nakazaki, Takuyuki; Sekiyama, Kaoru; Mori, Shuji

    2016-01-01

    The present study investigated, whether word width and length affect the optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words, using reading speed as a measure. In Experiment 1, three Japanese words, each consisting of four Hiragana characters, sequentially scrolled on a display screen from right to left. Participants, all Japanese native speakers, were instructed to read the words aloud as accurately as possible, irrespective of their order within the sequence. To quantitatively measure their reading performance, we used rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, where the scrolling rate was increased until the participants began to make mistakes. Thus, the highest scrolling rate at which the participants' performance exceeded 88.9% correct rate was calculated for each character size (0.3°, 0.6°, 1.0°, and 3.0°) and scroll window size (5 or 10 character spaces). Results showed that the reading performance was highest in the range of 0.6° to 1.0°, irrespective of the scroll window size. Experiment 2 investigated whether the optimal character size observed in Experiment 1 was applicable for any word width and word length (i.e., the number of characters in a word). Results showed that reading speeds were slower for longer than shorter words and the word width of 3.6° was optimal among the word lengths tested (three, four, and six character words). Considering that character size varied depending on word width and word length in the present study, this means that the optimal character size can be changed by word width and word length in scrolling Japanese words.

  11. Abelian primitive words

    OpenAIRE

    Domaratzki, Michael; Rampersad, Narad

    2011-01-01

    We investigate Abelian primitive words, which are words that are not Abelian powers. We show that unlike classical primitive words, the set of Abelian primitive words is not context-free. We can determine whether a word is Abelian primitive in linear time. Also different from classical primitive words, we find that a word may have more than one Abelian root. We also consider enumeration problems and the relation to the theory of codes. Peer reviewed

  12. Effects of word width and word length on optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wataru eTeramoto

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available The present study investigated whether word width and length affect the optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words, using reading speed as a measure. In Experiment 1, three Japanese words, each consisting of 4 Hiragana characters, sequentially scrolled on a display screen from right to left. Participants, all Japanese native speakers, were instructed to read the words aloud as accurately as possible, irrespective of their order within the sequence. To quantitatively measure their reading performance, we used rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, where the scrolling rate was increased until the participants began to make mistakes. Thus, the highest scrolling rate at which the participants’ performance exceeded 88.9% correct rate was calculated for each character size (0.3, 0.6, 1.0, and 3.0° and scroll window size (5 or 10 character spaces. Results showed that the reading performance was highest in the range of 0.6° to 1.0°, irrespective of the scroll window size. Experiment 2 investigated whether the optimal character size observed in Experiment 1 was applicable for any word width and word length (i.e., the number of characters in a word. Results showed that reading speeds were slower for longer than shorter words and the word width of 3.6° was optimal among the word lengths tested (3, 4, and 6 character words. Considering that character size varied depending on word width and word length in the present study, this means that the optimal character size can be changed by word width and word length.

  13. Evaluation of orthognathic surgery on articular disc position and temporomandibular joint symptoms in skeletal class II patients: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Firoozei, Gholamreza; Shahnaseri, Shirin; Momeni, Hasan

    2017-01-01

    Background The purpose of orthognathic surgery is to correct facial deformity and dental malocclusion and to obtain normal orofacial function. However, there are controversies of whether orthognathic surgery might have any negative influence on temporomandibular (TM) joint. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of orthognathic surgery on articular disc position and temporomandibular joint symptoms of skeletal CI II patients by means of magnetic resonance imaging. Material and Methods For this purpose, fifteen patients with skeletal CI II malocclusion, aged 19-32 years (mean 23 years), 10 women and 5 men, from the Isfahan Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery were studied. All received LeFort I and bilateral sagittal split osteotomy (BSSO) osteotomies and all patients received pre- and post-surgical orthodontic treatment. Magnetic resonance imaging was performed 1 day preoperatively and 3 month postoperatively. Descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon and Mc-Nemar tests were used for statistical analysis. Psurgery (mean=5.74±1.21). After surgery disc position range was 4.36 to 7.40 (mean=5.65±1.06). Statistical analysis proved that although TM disc tended to move anteriorly after BSSO surgery, this difference was not statistically significant (p valueorthognathic surgery does not alter the disc and condyle relationship. Therefore, it has minimal effects on intact and functional TM joint. Key words:Orthognathic surgery, skeletal class 2, magnetic resonance imaging, temporomandibular disc. PMID:28936287

  14. Verbal Reports of Proficient Readers In Coping With Unfamiliar Words

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kusumarasdyati Kusumarasdyati

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available The present study reports the actual strategy use of good readers when they face hindrance in the form of unfamiliar words. Eight undergraduates majoring in English at Surabaya State University performed think-aloud while reading two texts to find out how they coped with such difficulties. The verbal protocol indicated that half of the participants mainly relied on a bilingual (English-Indonesian dictionary to attack unfamiliar words, and only one of them preferred to use a monolingual (English-English one. Two of them employed context cues to infer the meaning of the words, while one participant combined the use of context cues and a monolingual dictionary as the major strategy. All but one of the participants skipped some of lexical items whose meaning was unknown to them, especially when these words did not have a key contribution to the meaning of the whole text.

  15. Universal Lyndon Words

    OpenAIRE

    Carpi, Arturo; Fici, Gabriele; Holub, Stepan; Oprsal, Jakub; Sciortino, Marinella

    2014-01-01

    A word $w$ over an alphabet $\\Sigma$ is a Lyndon word if there exists an order defined on $\\Sigma$ for which $w$ is lexicographically smaller than all of its conjugates (other than itself). We introduce and study \\emph{universal Lyndon words}, which are words over an $n$-letter alphabet that have length $n!$ and such that all the conjugates are Lyndon words. We show that universal Lyndon words exist for every $n$ and exhibit combinatorial and structural properties of these words. We then defi...

  16. Word skipping: effects of word length, predictability, spelling and reading skill.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Slattery, Timothy J; Yates, Mark

    2017-08-31

    Readers eyes often skip over words as they read. Skipping rates are largely determined by word length; short words are skipped more than long words. However, the predictability of a word in context also impacts skipping rates. Rayner, Slattery, Drieghe and Liversedge (2011) reported an effect of predictability on word skipping for even long words (10-13 characters) that extend beyond the word identification span. Recent research suggests that better readers and spellers have an enhanced perceptual span (Veldre & Andrews, 2014). We explored whether reading and spelling skill interact with word length and predictability to impact word skipping rates in a large sample (N=92) of average and poor adult readers. Participants read the items from Rayner et al. (2011) while their eye movements were recorded. Spelling skill (zSpell) was assessed using the dictation and recognition tasks developed by Sally Andrews and colleagues. Reading skill (zRead) was assessed from reading speed (words per minute) and accuracy of three 120 word passages each with 10 comprehension questions. We fit linear mixed models to the target gaze duration data and generalized linear mixed models to the target word skipping data. Target word gaze durations were significantly predicted by zRead while, the skipping likelihoods were significantly predicted by zSpell. Additionally, for gaze durations, zRead significantly interacted with word predictability as better readers relied less on context to support word processing. These effects are discussed in relation to the lexical quality hypothesis and eye movement models of reading.

  17. Comparing different kinds of words and word-word relations to test an habituation model of priming.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rieth, Cory A; Huber, David E

    2017-06-01

    Huber and O'Reilly (2003) proposed that neural habituation exists to solve a temporal parsing problem, minimizing blending between one word and the next when words are visually presented in rapid succession. They developed a neural dynamics habituation model, explaining the finding that short duration primes produce positive priming whereas long duration primes produce negative repetition priming. The model contains three layers of processing, including a visual input layer, an orthographic layer, and a lexical-semantic layer. The predicted effect of prime duration depends both on this assumed representational hierarchy and the assumption that synaptic depression underlies habituation. The current study tested these assumptions by comparing different kinds of words (e.g., words versus non-words) and different kinds of word-word relations (e.g., associative versus repetition). For each experiment, the predictions of the original model were compared to an alternative model with different representational assumptions. Experiment 1 confirmed the prediction that non-words and inverted words require longer prime durations to eliminate positive repetition priming (i.e., a slower transition from positive to negative priming). Experiment 2 confirmed the prediction that associative priming increases and then decreases with increasing prime duration, but remains positive even with long duration primes. Experiment 3 replicated the effects of repetition and associative priming using a within-subjects design and combined these effects by examining target words that were expected to repeat (e.g., viewing the target word 'BACK' after the prime phrase 'back to'). These results support the originally assumed representational hierarchy and more generally the role of habituation in temporal parsing and priming. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. Signal Words

    Science.gov (United States)

    SIGNAL WORDS TOPIC FACT SHEET NPIC fact sheets are designed to answer questions that are commonly asked by the ... making decisions about pesticide use. What are Signal Words? Signal words are found on pesticide product labels, ...

  19. Processing negative valence of word pairs that include a positive word.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Itkes, Oksana; Mashal, Nira

    2016-09-01

    Previous research has suggested that cognitive performance is interrupted by negative relative to neutral or positive stimuli. We examined whether negative valence affects performance at the word or phrase level. Participants performed a semantic decision task on word pairs that included either a negative or a positive target word. In Experiment 1, the valence of the target word was congruent with the overall valence conveyed by the word pair (e.g., fat kid). As expected, response times were slower in the negative condition relative to the positive condition. Experiment 2 included target words that were incongruent with the overall valence of the word pair (e.g., fat salary). Response times were longer for word pairs whose overall valence was negative relative to positive, even though these word pairs included a positive word. Our findings support the Cognitive Primacy Hypothesis, according to which emotional valence is extracted after conceptual processing is complete.

  20. Finding words in a language that allows words without vowels

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    El Aissati, A.; McQueen, J.M.; Cutler, A.

    2012-01-01

    Across many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition from embedded words (e.g., in English, disfavoring win in twin because t cannot be a word). However, the

  1. Neuromagnetic correlates of audiovisual word processing in the developing brain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dinga, Samantha; Wu, Di; Huang, Shuyang; Wu, Caiyun; Wang, Xiaoshan; Shi, Jingping; Hu, Yue; Liang, Chun; Zhang, Fawen; Lu, Meng; Leiken, Kimberly; Xiang, Jing

    2018-06-01

    The brain undergoes enormous changes during childhood. Little is known about how the brain develops to serve word processing. The objective of the present study was to investigate the maturational changes of word processing in children and adolescents using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Responses to a word processing task were investigated in sixty healthy participants. Each participant was presented with simultaneous visual and auditory word pairs in "match" and "mismatch" conditions. The patterns of neuromagnetic activation from MEG recordings were analyzed at both sensor and source levels. Topography and source imaging revealed that word processing transitioned from bilateral connections to unilateral connections as age increased from 6 to 17 years old. Correlation analyses of language networks revealed that the path length of word processing networks negatively correlated with age (r = -0.833, p processing networks were positively correlated with age. In addition, males had more visual connections, whereas females had more auditory connections. The correlations between gender and path length, gender and connection strength, and gender and clustering coefficient demonstrated a developmental trend without reaching statistical significance. The results indicate that the developmental trajectory of word processing is gender specific. Since the neuromagnetic signatures of these gender-specific paths to adult word processing were determined using non-invasive, objective, and quantitative methods, the results may play a key role in understanding language impairments in pediatric patients in the future. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. Don’t words come easy?A psychophysical exploration of word superiority

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Randi eStarrfelt

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Words are made of letters, and yet sometimes it is easier to identify a word than a single letter. This word superiority effect (WSE has been observed when written stimuli are presented very briefly or degraded by visual noise. We compare performance with letters and words in three experiments, to explore the extents and limits of the WSE. Using a carefully controlled list of three letter words, we show that a word superiority effect can be revealed in vocal reaction times even to undegraded stimuli. With a novel combination of psychophysics and mathematical modelling, we further show that the typical WSE is specifically reflected in perceptual processing speed: single words are simply processed faster than single letters. Intriguingly, when multiple stimuli are presented simultaneously, letters are perceived more easily than words, and this is reflected both in perceptual processing speed and visual short term memory capacity. So, even if single words come easy, there is a limit to the word superiority effect.

  3. Don't words come easy? A psychophysical exploration of word superiority

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Starrfelt, Randi; Petersen, Anders; Vangkilde, Signe Allerup

    2013-01-01

    Words are made of letters, and yet sometimes it is easier to identify a word than a single letter. This word superiority effect (WSE) has been observed when written stimuli are presented very briefly or degraded by visual noise. We compare performance with letters and words in three experiments, ...... and visual short term memory capacity. So, even if single words come easy, there is a limit to the word superiority effect....

  4. Low and Expensive Bandwidth Remains Key Bottleneck for ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    PROF. O. E. OSUAGWU

    2013-06-01

    Jun 1, 2013 ... satellites in the orbit, aggressive deployment of broadband wireless technology, ... Key Words: ISPs, Quality of Service, Internet Diffusion, energy supply, bottlenecks, ..... then the transmission time for an IP packet of size LL3 ...

  5. Changing word usage predicts changing word durations in New Zealand English.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sóskuthy, Márton; Hay, Jennifer

    2017-09-01

    This paper investigates the emergence of lexicalized effects of word usage on word duration by looking at parallel changes in usage and duration over 130years in New Zealand English. Previous research has found that frequent words are shorter, informative words are longer, and words in utterance-final position are also longer. It has also been argued that some of these patterns are not simply online adjustments, but are incorporated into lexical representations. While these studies tend to focus on the synchronic aspects of such patterns, our corpus shows that word-usage patterns and word durations are not static over time. Many words change in duration and also change with respect to frequency, informativity and likelihood of occurring utterance-finally. Analysis of changing word durations over this time period shows substantial patterns of co-adaptation between word usage and word durations. Words that are increasing in frequency are becoming shorter. Words that are increasing/decreasing in informativity show a change in the same direction in duration (e.g. increasing informativity is associated with increasing duration). And words that are increasingly appearing utterance-finally are lengthening. These effects exist independently of the local effects of the predictors. For example, words that are increasing utterance-finally lengthen in all positions, including utterance-medially. We show that these results are compatible with a number of different views about lexical representations, but they cannot be explained without reference to a production-perception loop that allows speakers to update their representations dynamically on the basis of their experience. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. A WORD-OF-MOUSE APPROACH FOR WORD-OF-MOUTH MEASUREMENT

    OpenAIRE

    Andreia Gabriela ANDREI

    2012-01-01

    Despite of the fact that word-of-mouth phenomenon gained unseen dimensions, only few studies have focused on its measurement and only three of them developed a word-of-mouth construct. Our study develops a bi-dimensional scale which assigns usual word-of-mouth mechanisms available in online networking sites (eg: Recommend, Share, Like, Comment) into the WOM (+) - positive word-of-mouth valence dimension - respectively into the WOM (-) - negative word-of-mouth valence dimension. We adapted e-W...

  7. Key textbooks in the development of modern american plastic surgery: the first half of the twentieth century.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haddock, Nicholas T; McCarthy, Joseph G

    2013-07-01

    A number of historical texts published during the first half of the twentieth century played a pivotal role in shaping and defining modern plastic surgery in the United States. Blair's Surgery and Diseases of the Mouth and Jaws (1912), John Staige Davis's Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice (1919), Gillies's Plastic Surgery of the Face (1920), Fomon's Surgery of Injury and Plastic Repair (1939), Ivy's Manual of Standard Practice of Plastic and Maxillofacial Surgery, Military Surgery Manuals (1943), Padgett and Stephenson's Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (1948), and Kazanjian and Converse's The Surgical Treatment of Facial Injuries (1949) were reviewed. These texts were published at a time when plastic surgery was developing as a distinct specialty. Each work represents a different point in this evolution. All were not inclusive of all of plastic surgery, but all had a lasting impact. Four texts were based on clinical experience from World War I; one included experience from World War II; and two included experience from both. One text became a military surgical handbook in World Wars I and II, playing an important role in care for the wounded. History has demonstrated that times of war spark medical/surgical advancements, and these wars had a dramatic impact on the development of reconstructive plastic surgery. Each of these texts documented surgical advancements and provided an intellectual platform that helped shape and create the independent discipline of plastic surgery during peacetime. For many future leaders of plastic surgery, these books served as their introduction to this new field.

  8. Word/sub-word lattices decomposition and combination for speech recognition

    OpenAIRE

    Le , Viet-Bac; Seng , Sopheap; Besacier , Laurent; Bigi , Brigitte

    2008-01-01

    International audience; This paper presents the benefit of using multiple lexical units in the post-processing stage of an ASR system. Since the use of sub-word units can reduce the high out-of-vocabulary rate and improve the lack of text resources in statistical language modeling, we propose several methods to decompose, normalize and combine word and sub-word lattices generated from different ASR systems. By using a sub-word information table, every word in a lattice can be decomposed into ...

  9. Right word making sense of the words that confuse

    CERN Document Server

    Morrison, Elizabeth

    2012-01-01

    'Affect' or 'effect'? 'Right', 'write' or 'rite'? English can certainly be a confusing language, whether you're a native speaker or learning it as a second language. 'The Right Word' is the essential reference to help people master its subtleties and avoid making mistakes. Divided into three sections, it first examines homophones - those tricky words that sound the same but are spelled differently - then looks at words that often confuse before providing a list of commonly misspelled words.

  10. Cosmetic surgery: medicolegal considerations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Piras Mauro

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Cosmetic surgery is one of the two branches of plastic surgery. The characteristic of non-necessity of this surgical speciality implies an increased severity in the evaluation of the risk-benefit balance. Therefore, great care must be taken in providing all the information necessary in order to obtain valid consent to the intervention. We analyzed judgments concerning cosmetic surgery found in national legal databases. A document of National Bioethics Committee (CNB was also analyzed. Conclusion: The receipt of valid, informed consent is of absolute importance not only to legitimise the medical-surgical act, but it also represents the key element in the question concerning the existence of an obligation to achieve certain results/use of certain methods in the cosmetic surgery.

  11. Unique Assessment of Hand Surgery Knowledge by Specialty.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silvestre, Jason; Lin, Ines C; Chang, Benjamin; Levin, L Scott

    2016-03-01

    Orthopedic and plastic surgery residents receive unique training yet often compete for similar hand surgery fellowships. This study compared didactic hand surgery training during orthopedic and plastic surgery residency. The Plastic Surgery In-Service Training Exam and Orthopaedic In-Training Examination were analyzed for hand content for the years 2009 to 2013. Topics were categorized with the content outline for the Surgery of the Hand Examination. Differences were elucidated by means of Fisher's exact test. Relative to the Orthopaedic In-Training Examination, the Plastic Surgery In-Service Training Exam had greater hand representation (20.3 percent versus 8.1 percent; p < 0.001) with more annual hand questions (40 ± 3 versus 24 ± 2; p < 0.001). The Plastic Surgery Exam questions had more words, were less often level I-recall type, and were less often image-based. The questions focused more on finger and hand/palm anatomy, whereas the Orthopaedic examination was more wrist-focused. The Plastic Surgery Exam emphasized wound management and muscle/tendon injuries, but underemphasized fractures/dislocations. References differed, but Journal of Hand Surgery (American Volume) and Green's Operative Hand Surgery were common on both examinations. The Plastic Surgery Exam had a greater publication lag for journal references (10.7 ± 0.5 years versus 9.0 ± 0.6; p = 0.035). Differences in didactic hand surgery training are elucidated for plastic surgery and orthopedic residents. Deficiencies in the Plastic Surgery In-Service Training Exam hand curriculum relative to the Orthopaedic In-Training Examination may underprepare plastic surgeons for the Surgery of the Hand Examination. These data may assist future modifications to hand surgery training in the United States.

  12. An English-French-German-Spanish Word Frequency Dictionary: A Correlation of the First Six Thousand Words in Four Single-Language Frequency Lists.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eaton, Helen S., Comp.

    This semantic frequency list for English, French, German, and Spanish correlates 6,474 concepts represented by individual words in an order of diminishing occurrence. Designed as a research tool, the work is segmented into seven comparative "Thousand Concepts" lists with 115 sectional subdivisions, each of which begins with the key English word…

  13. Smashing WordPress Themes Making WordPress Beautiful

    CERN Document Server

    Hedengren, Thord Daniel

    2011-01-01

    The ultimate guide to WordPress Themes - one of the hottest topics on the web today WordPress is so much more than a blogging platform, and Smashing WordPress Themes teaches readers how to make it look any way they like - from a corporate site, to a photography gallery and moreWordPress is one of the hottest tools on the web today and is used by sites including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, flickr, CNN, NASA and of course Smashing MagazineBeautiful full colour throughout - web designers expect nothing lessSmashing Magazine will fully support this book by by promoting it through their webs

  14. "Like a trip to McDonalds": a grounded theory study of patient experiences of day surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mottram, Anne

    2011-02-01

    The amount and complexity of (ambulatory) day surgery is rapidly expanding internationally. Nurses have a responsibility to provide quality care for day surgery patients. To do this they must understand all aspects of the patient experience. There is dearth of research into day surgery using a sociological frame of reference. The study investigated patients' experiences of day surgery using a sociological frame of reference. A qualitative study using the grounded theory approach was used. The study was based in two day surgery units in two urban public hospitals in the United Kingdom. 145 patients aged 18-70 years and 100 carers were purposely selected from the orthopaedic, ear nose and throat and general surgical lists. They were all English speaking and were of varied socio-economic background. The data was collected from 2004 to 2006. Semi-structured interviews were conducted on three occasions: before surgery, 48 h following surgery and one month following discharge. Permission was received from the Local Research Ethics Committee. Analysis of the data involved line-by-line analysis, compilation of key words and phrases (codes) and constant comparison of the codes until categories emerged. Patients liked day surgery and placed it within the wider societal context of efficiency and speed. Time was a major issue for them. They wished surgery, like all other aspects of their life to be a speedy process. They likened it to a McDonald's experience with its emphasis on speed, predictability and control. This study throws new light on patient experiences and offers an understanding of day surgery against a western culture which emphasises the importance of speed and efficiency. It is a popular choice for patients but at times it can be seen to be a mechanistic way of providing care. The implications for nurses to provide education and information to add to the quality of the patient experience are discussed. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Procedural key steps in laparoscopic colorectal surgery, consensus through Delphi methodology

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dijkstra, Frederieke A.; Bosker, Robbert J. I.; Veeger, Nicolaas J. G. M.; van Det, Marc J.; Pierie, Jean Pierre E. N.

    While several procedural training curricula in laparoscopic colorectal surgery have been validated and published, none have focused on dividing surgical procedures into well-identified segments, which can be trained and assessed separately. This enables the surgeon and resident to focus on a

  16. Validity, Reliability, and the Questionable Role of Psychometrics in Plastic Surgery

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-01-01

    Summary: This report examines the meaning of validity and reliability and the role of psychometrics in plastic surgery. Study titles increasingly include the word “valid” to support the authors’ claims. Studies by other investigators may be labeled “not validated.” Validity simply refers to the ability of a device to measure what it intends to measure. Validity is not an intrinsic test property. It is a relative term most credibly assigned by the independent user. Similarly, the word “reliable” is subject to interpretation. In psychometrics, its meaning is synonymous with “reproducible.” The definitions of valid and reliable are analogous to accuracy and precision. Reliability (both the reliability of the data and the consistency of measurements) is a prerequisite for validity. Outcome measures in plastic surgery are intended to be surveys, not tests. The role of psychometric modeling in plastic surgery is unclear, and this discipline introduces difficult jargon that can discourage investigators. Standard statistical tests suffice. The unambiguous term “reproducible” is preferred when discussing data consistency. Study design and methodology are essential considerations when assessing a study’s validity. PMID:25289354

  17. Validity, Reliability, and the Questionable Role of Psychometrics in Plastic Surgery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eric Swanson, MD

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Summary: This report examines the meaning of validity and reliability and the role of psychometrics in plastic surgery. Study titles increasingly include the word “valid” to support the authors’ claims. Studies by other investigators may be labeled “not validated.” Validity simply refers to the ability of a device to measure what it intends to measure. Validity is not an intrinsic test property. It is a relative term most credibly assigned by the independent user. Similarly, the word “reliable” is subject to interpretation. In psychometrics, its meaning is synonymous with “reproducible.” The definitions of valid and reliable are analogous to accuracy and precision. Reliability (both the reliability of the data and the consistency of measurements is a prerequisite for validity. Outcome measures in plastic surgery are intended to be surveys, not tests. The role of psychometric modeling in plastic surgery is unclear, and this discipline introduces difficult jargon that can discourage investigators. Standard statistical tests suffice. The unambiguous term “reproducible” is preferred when discussing data consistency. Study design and methodology are essential considerations when assessing a study’s validity.

  18. Iranian Parents' Supportive Umbrella during their Children Surgery: a Qualitative Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fatemeh Valizadeh

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Background Being in a position of vulnerability, distress and uncertainty reduces the ability of the parents to protect their children and makes them need support from others. The first step to aid clients more is to identify their supportive sources. This study aimed to determine parents' experiences of supportive sources during their children surgery. Materials and Methods This is a descriptive qualitative research. Purposive and maximum variation sampling applied to select 21 parents of operated children in Ahvaz hospitals, Iran. Semi structured interviews, with open question were used to data collection. Audio recording interviews put into written form word by word and finally analyzed with qualitative content analysis approach.  Results Parents considered the personnel's beyond-task-orientation performance, family comprehensive support, mutual facilitating of peers and the elixir of connection to God as the sources that supported them as an umbrella during their children surgery.     Conclusion It is essential for the health service providers to check each family thoroughly in terms of other supportive sources while providing professional support, and to use the sources in an organized way for the successful transition of parents from the stress of their children surgery.

  19. The Model Method: Singapore Children's Tool for Representing and Solving Algebraic Word Problems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ng, Swee Fong; Lee, Kerry

    2009-01-01

    Solving arithmetic and algebraic word problems is a key component of the Singapore elementary mathematics curriculum. One heuristic taught, the model method, involves drawing a diagram to represent key information in the problem. We describe the model method and a three-phase theoretical framework supporting its use. We conducted 2 studies to…

  20. Auditory word recognition is not more sensitive to word-initial than to word-final stimulus information

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vlugt, van der M.J.; Nooteboom, S.G.

    1986-01-01

    Several accounts of human recognition of spoken words a.!!llign special importance to stimulus-word onsets. The experiment described here was d~igned to find out whether such a word-beginning superiority effect, which ill supported by experimental evidence of various kinds, is due to a special

  1. Effects of providing word sounds during printed word learning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Reitsma, P.; Dongen, van A.J.N.; Custers, E.

    1984-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of the availability of the spoken sound of words along with the printed forms during reading practice. Firstgrade children from two normal elementary schools practised reading several unfamiliar words in print. For half of the printed words the

  2. Aesthetic surgery of the male genitalia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alter, Gary J; Salgado, Christopher J; Chim, Harvey

    2011-08-01

    Appearance of the male genitalia is linked with self-esteem and sexual identity. Aesthetic surgery of the male genitalia serves to correct perceived deficiencies as well as physical deformities, which may cause psychological distress. Attention to patient motivation for surgery and to surgical technique is key to achieving optimal results. In this review, the authors describe aesthetic surgical techniques for treatment of penile and scrotal deficiencies. They also discuss techniques for revision in patients with previous surgery.

  3. Infants Track Word Forms in Early Word-Object Associations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zamuner, Tania S.; Fais, Laurel; Werker, Janet F.

    2014-01-01

    A central component of language development is word learning. One characterization of this process is that language learners discover objects and then look for word forms to associate with these objects (Mcnamara, 1984; Smith, 2000). Another possibility is that word forms themselves are also important, such that once learned, hearing a familiar…

  4. Jacques Joseph: Father of modern aesthetic surgery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bhattacharya Surajit

    2008-10-01

    Full Text Available When we review the history of modern aesthetic surgery, a name that stands out as bright as a beacon and precious as gold is undoubtedly that of Jacques Joseph. A surgeon, par excellence, far ahead of his time, who chose to think out of the box, Joseph, despite all odds set out to give respectability to Aesthetic Surgery without depriving it of any scientific core values. By his words and deeds proved beyond doubt that only the very best in the field of reconstructive surgery, can visualize the hidden perfection in imperfection and formulate a treatment plan and a surgical strategy to achieve that elusive perfection. The rich surgical literature that he has left behind, the wealth of surgical instruments that he had designed and above all a way of thinking that he propagated, that aesthetic surgery is not frivolous but very serious endeavor, and treating the psychology of the patient is as important as treating his disease, undoubtedly makes him the revered ′Father of Modern Aesthetic Surgery′.

  5. Positive words or negative words: whose valence strength are we more sensitive to?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Jiemin; Zeng, Jing; Meng, Xianxin; Zhu, Liping; Yuan, Jiajin; Li, Hong; Yusoff, Nasir

    2013-10-02

    The present study investigates the human brains' sensitivity to the valence strength of emotionally positive and negative chinese words. Event-Related Potentials were recorded, in two different experimental sessions, for Highly Positive (HP), Mildly Positive (MP) and neutral (NP) words and for Highly Negative (HN), Mildly Negative (MN) and neutral (NN) words, while subjects were required to count the number of words, irrespective of word meanings. The results showed a significant emotion effect in brain potentials for both HP and MP words, and the emotion effect occurred faster for HP words than MP words: HP words elicited more negative deflections than NP words in N2 (250-350 ms) and P3 (350-500 ms) amplitudes, while MP words elicited a significant emotion effect in P3, but not in N2, amplitudes. By contrast, HN words elicited larger amplitudes than NN words in N2 but not in P3 amplitudes, whereas MN words produced no significant emotion effect across N2 and P3 components. Moreover, the size of emotion-neutral differences in P3 amplitudes was significantly larger for MP compared to MN words. Thus, the human brain is reactive to both highly and mildly positive words, and this reactivity increased with the positive valence strength of the words. Conversely, the brain is less reactive to the valence of negative relative to positive words. These results suggest that human brains are equipped with increased sensitivity to the valence strength of positive compared to negative words, a type of emotional stimuli that are well known for reduced arousal. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Competition between multiple words for a referent in cross-situational word learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benitez, Viridiana L.; Yurovsky, Daniel; Smith, Linda B.

    2016-01-01

    Three experiments investigated competition between word-object pairings in a cross-situational word-learning paradigm. Adults were presented with One-Word pairings, where a single word labeled a single object, and Two-Word pairings, where two words labeled a single object. In addition to measuring learning of these two pairing types, we measured competition between words that refer to the same object. When the word-object co-occurrences were presented intermixed in training (Experiment 1), we found evidence for direct competition between words that label the same referent. Separating the two words for an object in time eliminated any evidence for this competition (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 demonstrated that adding a linguistic cue to the second label for a referent led to different competition effects between adults who self-reported different language learning histories, suggesting both distinctiveness and language learning history affect competition. Finally, in all experiments, competition effects were unrelated to participants’ explicit judgments of learning, suggesting that competition reflects the operating characteristics of implicit learning processes. Together, these results demonstrate that the role of competition between overlapping associations in statistical word-referent learning depends on time, the distinctiveness of word-object pairings, and language learning history. PMID:27087742

  7. BioWord: A sequence manipulation suite for Microsoft Word

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anzaldi Laura J

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The ability to manipulate, edit and process DNA and protein sequences has rapidly become a necessary skill for practicing biologists across a wide swath of disciplines. In spite of this, most everyday sequence manipulation tools are distributed across several programs and web servers, sometimes requiring installation and typically involving frequent switching between applications. To address this problem, here we have developed BioWord, a macro-enabled self-installing template for Microsoft Word documents that integrates an extensive suite of DNA and protein sequence manipulation tools. Results BioWord is distributed as a single macro-enabled template that self-installs with a single click. After installation, BioWord will open as a tab in the Office ribbon. Biologists can then easily manipulate DNA and protein sequences using a familiar interface and minimize the need to switch between applications. Beyond simple sequence manipulation, BioWord integrates functionality ranging from dyad search and consensus logos to motif discovery and pair-wise alignment. Written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA as an open source, object-oriented project, BioWord allows users with varying programming experience to expand and customize the program to better meet their own needs. Conclusions BioWord integrates a powerful set of tools for biological sequence manipulation within a handy, user-friendly tab in a widely used word processing software package. The use of a simple scripting language and an object-oriented scheme facilitates customization by users and provides a very accessible educational platform for introducing students to basic bioinformatics algorithms.

  8. BioWord: A sequence manipulation suite for Microsoft Word

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-01-01

    Background The ability to manipulate, edit and process DNA and protein sequences has rapidly become a necessary skill for practicing biologists across a wide swath of disciplines. In spite of this, most everyday sequence manipulation tools are distributed across several programs and web servers, sometimes requiring installation and typically involving frequent switching between applications. To address this problem, here we have developed BioWord, a macro-enabled self-installing template for Microsoft Word documents that integrates an extensive suite of DNA and protein sequence manipulation tools. Results BioWord is distributed as a single macro-enabled template that self-installs with a single click. After installation, BioWord will open as a tab in the Office ribbon. Biologists can then easily manipulate DNA and protein sequences using a familiar interface and minimize the need to switch between applications. Beyond simple sequence manipulation, BioWord integrates functionality ranging from dyad search and consensus logos to motif discovery and pair-wise alignment. Written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as an open source, object-oriented project, BioWord allows users with varying programming experience to expand and customize the program to better meet their own needs. Conclusions BioWord integrates a powerful set of tools for biological sequence manipulation within a handy, user-friendly tab in a widely used word processing software package. The use of a simple scripting language and an object-oriented scheme facilitates customization by users and provides a very accessible educational platform for introducing students to basic bioinformatics algorithms. PMID:22676326

  9. BioWord: a sequence manipulation suite for Microsoft Word.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anzaldi, Laura J; Muñoz-Fernández, Daniel; Erill, Ivan

    2012-06-07

    The ability to manipulate, edit and process DNA and protein sequences has rapidly become a necessary skill for practicing biologists across a wide swath of disciplines. In spite of this, most everyday sequence manipulation tools are distributed across several programs and web servers, sometimes requiring installation and typically involving frequent switching between applications. To address this problem, here we have developed BioWord, a macro-enabled self-installing template for Microsoft Word documents that integrates an extensive suite of DNA and protein sequence manipulation tools. BioWord is distributed as a single macro-enabled template that self-installs with a single click. After installation, BioWord will open as a tab in the Office ribbon. Biologists can then easily manipulate DNA and protein sequences using a familiar interface and minimize the need to switch between applications. Beyond simple sequence manipulation, BioWord integrates functionality ranging from dyad search and consensus logos to motif discovery and pair-wise alignment. Written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as an open source, object-oriented project, BioWord allows users with varying programming experience to expand and customize the program to better meet their own needs. BioWord integrates a powerful set of tools for biological sequence manipulation within a handy, user-friendly tab in a widely used word processing software package. The use of a simple scripting language and an object-oriented scheme facilitates customization by users and provides a very accessible educational platform for introducing students to basic bioinformatics algorithms.

  10. [Incidence and causes of early end in awake surgery for language mapping not directly related to eloquence].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Villalba, Gloria; Pacreu, Susana; Fernández-Candil, Juan Luis; León, Alba; Serrano, Laura; Conesa, Gerardo

    2016-01-01

    The incidence and causes that may lead to an early end (unfinished cortical/subcortical mapping) of awake surgery for language mapping are little known. A study was conducted on 41 patients with brain glioma located in the language area that had awake surgery under conscious sedation. Surgery was ended early in 6 patients. The causes were: tonic-clonic seizure (1), lack of cooperation due to fatigue/sleep (4), whether or not word articulation was involved, a decreased level of consciousness for ammonia encephalopathy that required endotracheal intubation (1). There are causes that could be expected and in some cases avoided. Tumour size, preoperative aphasia, valproate treatment, and type of anaesthesia used are variables to consider to avoid failure in awake surgery for language mapping. With these results, the following measures are proposed: l) If the tumour is large, perform surgery in two times to avoid fatigue, 2) if patient has a preoperative aphasia, do not use sedation during surgery to ensure that sleepiness does not cause worse word articulation, 3) if the patient is on valproate treatment, it is necessary to rule out the pre-operative symptoms that are not due to ammonia encephalopathy. Copyright © 2015 Sociedad Española de Neurocirugía. Published by Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

  11. Eye movements and word skipping during reading: Effects of word length and predictability

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rayner, Keith; Slattery, Timothy J.; Drieghe, Denis; Liversedge, Simon P.

    2012-01-01

    The extent to which target words were predictable from prior context was varied: half of the target words were predictable and the other half were unpredictable. In addition, the length of the target word varied: the target words were short (4–6 letters), medium (7–9 letters), or long (10–12 letters). Length and predictability both yielded strong effects on the probability of skipping the target words and on the amount of time readers fixated the target words (when they were not skipped). However, there was no interaction in any of the measures examined for either skipping or fixation time. The results demonstrate that word predictability (due to contextual constraint) and word length have strong and independent influences on word skipping and fixation durations. Furthermore, since the long words extended beyond the word identification span, the data indicate that skipping can occur on the basis of partial information in relation to word identity. PMID:21463086

  12. Word Pocket Guide

    CERN Document Server

    Glenn, Walter

    2004-01-01

    Millions of people use Microsoft Word every day and, chances are, you're one of them. Like most Word users, you've attained a certain level of proficiency--enough to get by, with a few extra tricks and tips--but don't get the opportunity to probe much further into the real power of Word. And Word is so rich in features that regardless of your level of expertise, there's always more to master. If you've ever wanted a quick answer to a nagging question or had the thought that there must be a better way, then this second edition of Word Pocket Guide is just what you need. Updated for Word 2003

  13. Robotic surgery of the pancreas

    Science.gov (United States)

    Joyce, Daniel; Morris-Stiff, Gareth; Falk, Gavin A; El-Hayek, Kevin; Chalikonda, Sricharan; Walsh, R Matthew

    2014-01-01

    Pancreatic surgery is one of the most challenging and complex fields in general surgery. While minimally invasive surgery has become the standard of care for many intra-abdominal pathologies the overwhelming majority of pancreatic surgery is performed in an open fashion. This is attributed to the retroperitoneal location of the pancreas, its intimate relationship to major vasculature and the complexity of reconstruction in the case of pancreatoduodenectomy. Herein, we describe the application of robotic technology to minimally invasive pancreatic surgery. The unique capabilities of the robotic platform have made the minimally invasive approach feasible and safe with equivalent if not better outcomes (e.g., decreased length of stay, less surgical site infections) to conventional open surgery. However, it is unclear whether the robotic approach is truly superior to traditional laparoscopy; this is a key point given the substantial costs associated with procuring and maintaining robotic capabilities. PMID:25356035

  14. Does "a picture is worth 1000 words" apply to iconic Chinese words? Relationship of Chinese words and pictures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lo, Shih-Yu; Yeh, Su-Ling

    2018-05-29

    The meaning of a picture can be extracted rapidly, but the form-to-meaning relationship is less obvious for printed words. In contrast to English words that follow grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence rule, the iconic nature of Chinese words might predispose them to activate their semantic representations more directly from their orthographies. By using the paradigm of repetition blindness (RB) that taps into the early level of word processing, we examined whether Chinese words activate their semantic representations as directly as pictures do. RB refers to the failure to detect the second occurrence of an item when it is presented twice in temporal proximity. Previous studies showed RB for semantically related pictures, suggesting that pictures activate their semantic representations directly from their shapes and thus two semantically related pictures are represented as repeated. However, this does not apply to English words since no RB was found for English synonyms. In this study, we replicated the semantic RB effect for pictures, and further showed the absence of semantic RB for Chinese synonyms. Based on our findings, it is suggested that Chinese words are processed like English words, which do not activate their semantic representations as directly as pictures do.

  15. WordPress Bible

    CERN Document Server

    Brazell, Aaron

    2010-01-01

    The WordPress Bible provides a complete and thorough guide to the largest self hosted blogging tool. This guide starts by covering the basics of WordPress such as installing and the principles of blogging, marketing and social media interaction, but then quickly ramps the reader up to more intermediate to advanced level topics such as plugins, WordPress Loop, themes and templates, custom fields, caching, security and more. The WordPress Bible is the only complete resource one needs to learning WordPress from beginning to end.

  16. Object words modulate the activity of the mirror neuron system during action imitation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Haiyan; Tang, Honghong; Ge, Yue; Yang, Suyong; Mai, Xiaoqin; Luo, Yue-Jia; Liu, Chao

    2017-11-01

    Although research has demonstrated that the mirror neuron system (MNS) plays a crucial role in both action imitation and action-related semantic processing, whether action-related words can inversely modulate the MNS activity remains unclear. Here, three types of task-irrelevant words (body parts, verbs, and manufactured objects) were presented to examine the modulation effect of these words on the MNS activity during action observation and imitation. Twenty-two participants were recruited for the fMRI scanning and remaining data from 19 subjects were reported here. Brain activity results showed that word types elicited different modulation effects over nodes of the MNS (i.e., the right inferior frontal gyrus, premotor cortex, inferior parietal lobule, and STS), especially during the imitation stage. Compared with other word conditions, action imitation following manufactured objects words induced stronger activation in these brain regions during the imitation stage. These results were consistent in both task-dependent and -independent ROI analysis. Our findings thus provide evidence for the unique effect of object words on the MNS during imitation of action, which may also confirm the key role of goal inference in action imitation.

  17. Unfavourable outcomes in orthognathic surgery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonanthaya, Krishnamurthy; Anantanarayanan, P.

    2013-01-01

    Unfavourable outcomes are part and parcel of performing surgeries of any kind. Unfavourable outcomes are results of such work, which the patient and or the clinician does not like. This is an attempt to review various causes for unfavorable outcomes in orthognathic surgery and discuss them in detail. All causes for unfavorable outcomes may be classified as belonging to one of the following periods A) Pre- Treatment B) During treatment Pre-Treatment: In orthognathic surgery- as in any other discipline of surgery- which involves changes in both aesthetics and function, the patient motivation for seeking treatment is a very important input which may decide, whether the outcome is going to be favorable or not. Also, inputs in diagnosis and plan for treatment and its sequencing, involving the team of the surgeon and the orthodontist, will play a very important role in determining whether the outcome will be favorable. In other words, an unfavorable outcome may be predetermined even before the actual treatment process starts. During Treatment: Good treatment planning itself does not guarantee favorable results. The execution of the correct plan could go wrong at various stages which include, Pre-Surgical orthodontics, Intra and Post-Operative periods. A large number of these unfavorable outcomes are preventable, if attention is paid to detail while carrying out the treatment plan itself. Unfavorable outcomes in orthognathic surgery may be minimized If pitfalls are avoided both, at the time of treatment planning and execution. PMID:24501454

  18. Unfavourable outcomes in orthognathic surgery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Krishnamurthy Bonanthaya

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Unfavourable outcomes are part and parcel of performing surgeries of any kind. Unfavourable outcomes are results of such work, which the patient and or the clinician does not like. This is an attempt to review various causes for unfavorable outcomes in orthognathic surgery and discuss them in detail. All causes for unfavorable outcomes may be classified as belonging to one of the following periods A Pre- Treatment B During treatment Pre-Treatment: In orthognathic surgery- as in any other discipline of surgery- which involves changes in both aesthetics and function, the patient motivation for seeking treatment is a very important input which may decide, whether the outcome is going to be favorable or not. Also, inputs in diagnosis and plan for treatment and its sequencing, involving the team of the surgeon and the orthodontist, will play a very important role in determining whether the outcome will be favorable. In other words, an unfavorable outcome may be predetermined even before the actual treatment process starts. During Treatment: Good treatment planning itself does not guarantee favorable results. The execution of the correct plan could go wrong at various stages which include, Pre-Surgical orthodontics, Intra and Post-Operative periods. A large number of these unfavorable outcomes are preventable, if attention is paid to detail while carrying out the treatment plan itself. Unfavorable outcomes in orthognathic surgery may be minimized If pitfalls are avoided both, at the time of treatment planning and execution.

  19. Unfavourable outcomes in orthognathic surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonanthaya, Krishnamurthy; Anantanarayanan, P

    2013-05-01

    Unfavourable outcomes are part and parcel of performing surgeries of any kind. Unfavourable outcomes are results of such work, which the patient and or the clinician does not like. This is an attempt to review various causes for unfavorable outcomes in orthognathic surgery and discuss them in detail. All causes for unfavorable outcomes may be classified as belonging to one of the following periods A) Pre- Treatment B) During treatment Pre-Treatment: In orthognathic surgery- as in any other discipline of surgery- which involves changes in both aesthetics and function, the patient motivation for seeking treatment is a very important input which may decide, whether the outcome is going to be favorable or not. Also, inputs in diagnosis and plan for treatment and its sequencing, involving the team of the surgeon and the orthodontist, will play a very important role in determining whether the outcome will be favorable. In other words, an unfavorable outcome may be predetermined even before the actual treatment process starts. During Treatment: Good treatment planning itself does not guarantee favorable results. The execution of the correct plan could go wrong at various stages which include, Pre-Surgical orthodontics, Intra and Post-Operative periods. A large number of these unfavorable outcomes are preventable, if attention is paid to detail while carrying out the treatment plan itself. Unfavorable outcomes in orthognathic surgery may be minimized If pitfalls are avoided both, at the time of treatment planning and execution.

  20. Survival benefit of surgery in recurrent glioblastoma multiforme.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Choudry, Usama Khalid; Khan, Saad Akhtar; Shamim, Muhammad Shahzad

    2017-12-01

    There is an ongoing debate regarding role of surgery for recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Older literature hinted at only modest survival benefits with surgery and a high rate of morbidity. However, more recent literature suggests better survival that may be attributed to better surgical techniques and better options in adjuvant treatment. Herein the authors review recent literature with regards to the possible role of surgery in recurrent GBM and also look into the key factors impacting second surgery. .

  1. Pre- and postoperative memory of dichotically presented words in patients with complex partial seizures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christianson, S A; Nilsson, L G; Silfvenius, H

    1989-01-01

    Dichotic listening tests were used to determine cerebral hemisphere memory functions in patients with complex partial seizures before, 10 days after, and 1-3 yr after right (RTE) or left (LTE) temporal-lobe excisions. Control subjects were also tested on two occasions. The tests consisted of presenting a series of 12-word lists and 7-word lists alternately to the two ears while backward speech was presented to the other ear. Measures of immediate free recall, final free recall, final cued recall, and serial recall were employed. The results revealed: (a) that both groups of patients were inferior the control group in tests tapping long-term memory functions rather than short-term memory functions, (b) a right-ear advantage for RTE patients at postoperative testing, (c) that the LTE group was more affected by surgery than the RTE group, and (d) a general improvement in recall performance from early to late postoperative testing. Taken together, these results indicate that the present dichotic test can be used as a non-invasive hemisphere memory test to complement invasive techniques for diagnosis of patients considered for epilepsy surgery.

  2. Applications of piezoelectric surgery in endodontic surgery: a literature review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abella, Francesc; de Ribot, Joan; Doria, Guillermo; Duran-Sindreu, Fernando; Roig, Miguel

    2014-03-01

    Piezosurgery (piezoelectric bone surgery) devices were developed to cut bone atraumatically using ultrasonic vibrations and to provide an alternative to the mechanical and electrical instruments used in conventional oral surgery. Indications for piezosurgery are increasing in oral and maxillofacial surgery, as in other disciplines, such as endodontic surgery. Key features of piezosurgery instruments include their ability to selectively cut bone without damaging adjacent soft tissue, to provide a clear operative field, and to cut without generating heat. Although piezosurgery instruments can be used at most stages of endodontic surgery (osteotomy, root-end resection, and root-end preparation), no published data are available on the effect of piezosurgery on the outcomes of endodontic surgery. To our knowledge, no study has evaluated the effect of piezosurgery on root-end resection, and only 1 has investigated root-end morphology after retrograde cavity preparation using piezosurgery. We conducted a search of the PubMed and Cochrane databases using appropriate terms and keywords related to the use and applications of piezoelectric surgery in endodontic surgery. A hand search also was conducted of issues published in the preceding 2 years of several journals. Two independent reviewers obtained and analyzed the full texts of the selected articles. A total of 121 articles published between January 2000 and December 2013 were identified. This review summarizes the operating principles of piezoelectric devices and outlines the applications of piezosurgery in endodontic surgery using clinical examples. Piezosurgery is a promising technical modality with applications in several aspects of endodontic surgery, but further studies are necessary to determine the influence of piezosurgery on root-end resection and root-end preparation. Copyright © 2014 American Association of Endodontists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. On avoided words, absent words, and their application to biological sequence analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Almirantis, Yannis; Charalampopoulos, Panagiotis; Gao, Jia; Iliopoulos, Costas S; Mohamed, Manal; Pissis, Solon P; Polychronopoulos, Dimitris

    2017-01-01

    The deviation of the observed frequency of a word w from its expected frequency in a given sequence x is used to determine whether or not the word is avoided . This concept is particularly useful in DNA linguistic analysis. The value of the deviation of w , denoted by [Formula: see text], effectively characterises the extent of a word by its edge contrast in the context in which it occurs. A word w of length [Formula: see text] is a [Formula: see text]-avoided word in x if [Formula: see text], for a given threshold [Formula: see text]. Notice that such a word may be completely absent from x . Hence, computing all such words naïvely can be a very time-consuming procedure, in particular for large k . In this article, we propose an [Formula: see text]-time and [Formula: see text]-space algorithm to compute all [Formula: see text]-avoided words of length k in a given sequence of length n over a fixed-sized alphabet. We also present a time-optimal [Formula: see text]-time algorithm to compute all [Formula: see text]-avoided words (of any length) in a sequence of length n over an integer alphabet of size [Formula: see text]. In addition, we provide a tight asymptotic upper bound for the number of [Formula: see text]-avoided words over an integer alphabet and the expected length of the longest one. We make available an implementation of our algorithm. Experimental results, using both real and synthetic data, show the efficiency and applicability of our implementation in biological sequence analysis. The systematic search for avoided words is particularly useful for biological sequence analysis. We present a linear-time and linear-space algorithm for the computation of avoided words of length k in a given sequence x . We suggest a modification to this algorithm so that it computes all avoided words of x , irrespective of their length, within the same time complexity. We also present combinatorial results with regards to avoided words and absent words.

  4. Auditory word recognition: extrinsic and intrinsic effects of word frequency.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Connine, C M; Titone, D; Wang, J

    1993-01-01

    Two experiments investigated the influence of word frequency in a phoneme identification task. Speech voicing continua were constructed so that one endpoint was a high-frequency word and the other endpoint was a low-frequency word (e.g., best-pest). Experiment 1 demonstrated that ambiguous tokens were labeled such that a high-frequency word was formed (intrinsic frequency effect). Experiment 2 manipulated the frequency composition of the list (extrinsic frequency effect). A high-frequency list bias produced an exaggerated influence of frequency; a low-frequency list bias showed a reverse frequency effect. Reaction time effects were discussed in terms of activation and postaccess decision models of frequency coding. The results support a late use of frequency in auditory word recognition.

  5. Brain activation during word identification and word recognition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jernigan, Terry L.; Ostergaard, Arne L.; Law, Ian

    1998-01-01

    Previous memory research has suggested that the effects of prior study observed in priming tasks are functionally, and neurobiologically, distinct phenomena from the kind of memory expressed in conventional (explicit) memory tests. Evidence for this position comes from observed dissociations...... between memory scores obtained with the two kinds of tasks. However, there is continuing controversy about the meaning of these dissociations. In recent studies, Ostergaard (1998a, Memory Cognit. 26:40-60; 1998b, J. Int. Neuropsychol. Soc., in press) showed that simply degrading visual word stimuli can...... dramatically alter the degree to which word priming shows a dissociation from word recognition; i.e., effects of a number of factors on priming paralleled their effects on recognition memory tests when the words were degraded at test. In the present study, cerebral blood flow changes were measured while...

  6. Assessing the Usefulness of Google Books’ Word Frequencies for Psycholinguistic Research on Word Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brysbaert, Marc; Keuleers, Emmanuel; New, Boris

    2011-01-01

    In this Perspective Article we assess the usefulness of Google's new word frequencies for word recognition research (lexical decision and word naming). We find that, despite the massive corpus on which the Google estimates are based (131 billion words from books published in the United States alone), the Google American English frequencies explain 11% less of the variance in the lexical decision times from the English Lexicon Project (Balota et al., 2007) than the SUBTLEX-US word frequencies, based on a corpus of 51 million words from film and television subtitles. Further analyses indicate that word frequencies derived from recent books (published after 2000) are better predictors of word processing times than frequencies based on the full corpus, and that word frequencies based on fiction books predict word processing times better than word frequencies based on the full corpus. The most predictive word frequencies from Google still do not explain more of the variance in word recognition times of undergraduate students and old adults than the subtitle-based word frequencies. PMID:21713191

  7. Chinese Learners of English See Chinese Words When Reading English Words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Fengyang; Ai, Haiyang

    2018-06-01

    The present study examines when second language (L2) learners read words in the L2, whether the orthography and/or phonology of the translation words in the first language (L1) is activated and whether the patterns would be modulated by the proficiency in the L2. In two experiments, two groups of Chinese learners of English immersed in the L1 environment, one less proficient and the other more proficient in English, performed a translation recognition task. In this task, participants judged whether pairs of words, with an L2 word preceding an L1 word, were translation words or not. The critical conditions compared the performance of learners to reject distractors that were related to the translation word (e.g., , pronounced as /bei 1/) of an L2 word (e.g., cup) in orthography (e.g., , bad in Chinese, pronounced as /huai 4/) or phonology (e.g., , sad in Chinese, pronounced as /bei 1/). Results of Experiment 1 showed less proficient learners were slower and less accurate to reject translation orthography distractors, as compared to unrelated controls, demonstrating a robust translation orthography interference effect. In contrast, their performance was not significantly different when rejecting translation phonology distractors, relative to unrelated controls, showing no translation phonology interference. The same patterns were observed in more proficient learners in Experiment 2. Together, these results suggest that when Chinese learners of English read English words, the orthographic information, but not the phonological information of the Chinese translation words is activated. In addition, this activation is not modulated by L2 proficiency.

  8. Sources of patient knowledge and financing of cataract surgery in rural China: the Sanrao Study of Cataract Outcomes and Up-Take of Services (SCOUTS), report 6.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Congdon, N; Rao, S K; Choi, K; Wang, W; Lin, S; Chen, S; Chen, L J; Liu, K; Hu, I C; Lam, D S C

    2008-05-01

    To study patient sources of knowledge about cataract surgical services, and strategies for financing surgery in rural China. Cross-sectional case series. Patients undergoing cataract surgery by local surgeons in a government, village-level facility in Sanrao, Guangdong between 8 August and 31 December 2005 were examined and had standardised interviews an average of 12 months after surgery. Of 313 eligible patients, 239 (76%) completed the questionnaire. Subjects had a mean (SD) age of 69.9 (10.2) years, 36.4% (87/239) were male, and 87.0% (208/239) had been blind (presenting visual acuity Word-of-mouth advertising was particularly important: 198 (85.0%) of the subjects knew a person who had undergone cataract surgery, of whom 191 (96.5%) had had cataract surgery at Sanrao itself. Over 70% of subjects (166/239) watched TV daily, whereas 80.0% (188/239) "never" read the newspaper. Nearly two-thirds of suggestions from participants (n = 211, 59.6%) favoured either TV advertisements or word-of-mouth to publicise the programme. While the son or daughter had paid for surgery in over 70% of cases (164/233), the patient's having paid without help was the sole predictor of undergoing second-eye surgery (OR 2.27 (95% CI 1.01 to 5.0, p = 0.04)). Strategies to increase uptake of cataract surgery in rural China may benefit from enhancing word-of-mouth advertising (such as with pseudophakic motivators), using television advertising where affordable, and micro-credit or other programmes to enable patients to pay their own fees, thus increasing uptake of second-eye surgery.

  9. DecreaseKeys are Expensive for External Memory Priority Queues

    OpenAIRE

    Eenberg, Kasper; Larsen, Kasper Green; Yu, Huacheng

    2016-01-01

    One of the biggest open problems in external memory data structures is the priority queue problem with DecreaseKey operations. If only Insert and ExtractMin operations need to be supported, one can design a comparison-based priority queue performing $O((N/B)\\lg_{M/B} N)$ I/Os over a sequence of $N$ operations, where $B$ is the disk block size in number of words and $M$ is the main memory size in number of words. This matches the lower bound for comparison-based sorting and is hence optimal fo...

  10. Word learning mechanisms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Angela Xiaoxue; Arunachalam, Sudha

    2017-07-01

    How do children acquire the meanings of words? Many word learning mechanisms have been proposed to guide learners through this challenging task. Despite the availability of rich information in the learner's linguistic and extralinguistic input, the word-learning task is insurmountable without such mechanisms for filtering through and utilizing that information. Different kinds of words, such as nouns denoting object concepts and verbs denoting event concepts, require to some extent different kinds of information and, therefore, access to different kinds of mechanisms. We review some of these mechanisms to examine the relationship between the input that is available to learners and learners' intake of that input-that is, the organized, interpreted, and stored representations they form. We discuss how learners segment individual words from the speech stream and identify their grammatical categories, how they identify the concepts denoted by these words, and how they refine their initial representations of word meanings. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1435. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1435 This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language Acquisition Psychology > Language. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  11. WordPress Bible

    CERN Document Server

    Brazell, Aaron

    2011-01-01

    Get the latest word on the biggest self-hosted blogging tool on the marketWithin a week of the announcement of WordPress 3.0, it had been downloaded over a million times. Now you can get on the bandwagon of this popular open-source blogging tool with WordPress Bible, 2nd Edition. Whether you're a casual blogger or programming pro, this comprehensive guide covers the latest version of WordPress, from the basics through advanced application development. If you want to thoroughly learn WordPress, this is the book you need to succeed.Explores the principles of blogging, marketing, and social media

  12. Phonotactics Constraints and the Spoken Word Recognition of Chinese Words in Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yip, Michael C.

    2016-01-01

    Two word-spotting experiments were conducted to examine the question of whether native Cantonese listeners are constrained by phonotactics information in spoken word recognition of Chinese words in speech. Because no legal consonant clusters occurred within an individual Chinese word, this kind of categorical phonotactics information of Chinese…

  13. WordPress for dummies

    CERN Document Server

    Sabin-Wilson, Lisa

    2014-01-01

    The bestselling WordPress guide, fully updated to cover the 2013 enhancements WordPress has millions of users, and this popular guide has sold more than 105,000 copies in its previous editions. With the newest releases of WordPress, author and WordPress expert Lisa Sabin-Wilson has completely updated the book to help you use and understand all the latest features. You'll learn about both the hosted WordPress.com version and the more flexible WordPress.org, which requires third-party hosting. Whether you're switching to WordPress from another blogging platform or just beginning to blog, you'll

  14. Different Neural Correlates of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An ERP Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Juan Zhang

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available It is well-documented that both emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, wedding can induce emotion activation. However, the neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words recognition have not been examined. The present study aimed to compare the underlying neural responses when processing the two kinds of words by employing event-related potential (ERP measurements. Fifteen Chinese native speakers were asked to perform a lexical decision task in which they should judge whether a two-character compound stimulus was a real word or not. Results showed that (1 emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicited similar P100 at the posteriors sites, (2 larger N170 was found for emotion-label words than for emotion-laden words at the occipital sites on the right hemisphere, and (3 negative emotion-label words elicited larger Late Positivity Complex (LPC on the right hemisphere than on the left hemisphere while such effect was not found for emotion-laden words and positive emotion-label words. The results indicate that emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicit different cortical responses at both early (N170 and late (LPC stages. In addition, right hemisphere advantage for emotion-label words over emotion-laden words can be observed in certain time windows (i.e., N170 and LPC while fails to be detected in some other time window (i.e., P100. The implications of the current findings for future emotion research were discussed.

  15. Different Neural Correlates of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An ERP Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Juan; Wu, Chenggang; Meng, Yaxuan; Yuan, Zhen

    2017-01-01

    It is well-documented that both emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, wedding) can induce emotion activation. However, the neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words recognition have not been examined. The present study aimed to compare the underlying neural responses when processing the two kinds of words by employing event-related potential (ERP) measurements. Fifteen Chinese native speakers were asked to perform a lexical decision task in which they should judge whether a two-character compound stimulus was a real word or not. Results showed that (1) emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicited similar P100 at the posteriors sites, (2) larger N170 was found for emotion-label words than for emotion-laden words at the occipital sites on the right hemisphere, and (3) negative emotion-label words elicited larger Late Positivity Complex (LPC) on the right hemisphere than on the left hemisphere while such effect was not found for emotion-laden words and positive emotion-label words. The results indicate that emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicit different cortical responses at both early (N170) and late (LPC) stages. In addition, right hemisphere advantage for emotion-label words over emotion-laden words can be observed in certain time windows (i.e., N170 and LPC) while fails to be detected in some other time window (i.e., P100). The implications of the current findings for future emotion research were discussed.

  16. The word concreteness effect occurs for positive, but not negative, emotion words in immediate serial recall.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tse, Chi-Shing; Altarriba, Jeanette

    2009-02-01

    The present study examined the roles of word concreteness and word valence in the immediate serial recall task. Emotion words (e.g. happy) were used to investigate these effects. Participants completed study-test trials with seven-item study lists consisting of positive or negative words with either high or low concreteness (Experiments 1 and 2) and neutral (i.e. non-emotion) words with either high or low concreteness (Experiment 2). For neutral words, the typical word concreteness effect (concrete words are better recalled than abstract words) was replicated. For emotion words, the effect occurred for positive words, but not for negative words. While the word concreteness effect was stronger for neutral words than for negative words, it was not different for the neutral words and the positive words. We conclude that both word valence and word concreteness simultaneously contribute to the item and order retention of emotion words and discuss how Hulme et al.'s (1997) item redintegration account can be modified to explain these findings.

  17. Mathematical Tasks without Words and Word Problems: Perceptions of Reluctant Problem Solvers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holbert, Sydney Margaret

    2013-01-01

    This qualitative research study used a multiple, holistic case study approach (Yin, 2009) to explore the perceptions of reluctant problem solvers related to mathematical tasks without words and word problems. Participants were given a choice of working a mathematical task without words or a word problem during four problem-solving sessions. Data…

  18. Consumers' use of HCAHPS ratings and word-of-mouth in hospital choice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huppertz, John W; Carlson, Jay P

    2010-12-01

    To investigate the impact of the HCAHPS report of patient experiences and word-of-mouth narratives on consumers' hospital choice. Online consumer research panel of U.S. adults ages 18 and older. In an experiment, 309 consumers were randomly assigned to see positive or negative information about a hospital in two modalities: HCAHPS graphs and a relative's narrative e-mail. Then they indicated their intentions to choose the hospital for elective surgery. A simple, one-paragraph e-mail and 10 HCAHPS graphs had similar impacts on consumers' hospital choice. When information was inconsistent between the HCAHPS data and e-mail narrative, one modality attenuated the other's effect on hospital choice. The findings illustrate the power of anecdotal narratives, suggesting that policy makers should consider how HCAHPS data can be affected by word-of-mouth communication. © Health Research and Educational Trust.

  19. Electrodermal responses to words in chronic low back pain patients: a comparison between pain descriptors, other emotional words, and neutral words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonnet, Adeline; Naveteur, Janick

    2006-10-01

    This study examines the electrodermal reactivity of chronic sufferers to emotional words. The hypothesis that patients are over-sensitive to pain descriptors is tested. Electrodermal activity was recorded in 12 chronic low back pain patients and 12 healthy controls during passive viewing of words on a video monitor. These words were pain descriptors, other emotional words, and neutral words, in a pseudo-randomized order. A jingle was associated with the word occurrence. In chronic low back pain patients, skin conductance responses (SCRs) induced by pain descriptors or other emotional words were larger than SCRs induced by neutral words but they did not differ from each other. Patients presented SCRs, which were both larger and faster than those of controls, including following neutral words. There was no significant effect of word type in controls. Skin conductance level and the number of nonspecific fluctuations were larger in patients as compared with controls. The present electrodermal study suggests that chronic pain is linked to an increased reactivity to a wide range of stimuli. Emotional load amplifies the effect. This leads to recommend broad therapeutic management in chronic sufferers. Contrary to expectation derived from classical conditioning, patients did not prove over-sensitive to pain descriptors. This negative finding is discussed at methodologic, physiologic, and psychologic levels.

  20. On universal partial words

    OpenAIRE

    Chen, Herman Z. Q.; Kitaev, Sergey; Mütze, Torsten; Sun, Brian Y.

    2016-01-01

    A universal word for a finite alphabet $A$ and some integer $n\\geq 1$ is a word over $A$ such that every word in $A^n$ appears exactly once as a subword (cyclically or linearly). It is well-known and easy to prove that universal words exist for any $A$ and $n$. In this work we initiate the systematic study of universal partial words. These are words that in addition to the letters from $A$ may contain an arbitrary number of occurrences of a special `joker' symbol $\\Diamond\

  1. Word type effects in false recall: concrete, abstract, and emotion word critical lures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bauer, Lisa M; Olheiser, Erik L; Altarriba, Jeanette; Landi, Nicole

    2009-01-01

    Previous research has demonstrated that definable qualities of verbal stimuli have implications for memory. For example, the distinction between concrete and abstract words has led to the finding that concrete words have an advantage in memory tasks (i.e., the concreteness effect). However, other word types, such as words that label specific human emotions, may also affect memory processes. This study examined the effects of word type on the production of false memories by using a list-learning false memory paradigm. Participants heard lists of words that were highly associated to nonpresented concrete, abstract, or emotion words (i.e., the critical lures) and then engaged in list recall. Emotion word critical lures were falsely recalled at a significantly higher rate (with the effect carried by the positively valenced critical lures) than concrete and abstract critical lures. These findings suggest that the word type variable has implications for our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie recall and false recall.

  2. Measuring Patient-Reported Outcomes: Key Metrics in Reconstructive Surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Voineskos, Sophocles H; Nelson, Jonas A; Klassen, Anne F; Pusic, Andrea L

    2018-01-29

    Satisfaction and improved quality of life are among the most important outcomes for patients undergoing plastic and reconstructive surgery for a variety of diseases and conditions. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are essential tools for evaluating the benefits of newly developed surgical techniques. Modern PROMs are being developed with new psychometric approaches, such as Rasch Measurement Theory, and their measurement properties (validity, reliability, responsiveness) are rigorously tested. These advances have resulted in the availability of PROMs that provide clinically meaningful data and effectively measure functional as well as psychosocial outcomes. This article guides the reader through the steps of creating a PROM and highlights the potential research and clinical uses of such instruments. Limitations of PROMs and anticipated future directions in this field are discussed.

  3. Searching for the right word: Hybrid visual and memory search for words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boettcher, Sage E P; Wolfe, Jeremy M

    2015-05-01

    In "hybrid search" (Wolfe Psychological Science, 23(7), 698-703, 2012), observers search through visual space for any of multiple targets held in memory. With photorealistic objects as the stimuli, response times (RTs) increase linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with the memory set size, even when over 100 items are committed to memory. It is well-established that pictures of objects are particularly easy to memorize (Brady, Konkle, Alvarez, & Oliva Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 14325-14329, 2008). Would hybrid-search performance be similar if the targets were words or phrases, in which word order can be important, so that the processes of memorization might be different? In Experiment 1, observers memorized 2, 4, 8, or 16 words in four different blocks. After passing a memory test, confirming their memorization of the list, the observers searched for these words in visual displays containing two to 16 words. Replicating Wolfe (Psychological Science, 23(7), 698-703, 2012), the RTs increased linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with the length of the word list. The word lists of Experiment 1 were random. In Experiment 2, words were drawn from phrases that observers reported knowing by heart (e.g., "London Bridge is falling down"). Observers were asked to provide four phrases, ranging in length from two words to no less than 20 words (range 21-86). All words longer than two characters from the phrase, constituted the target list. Distractor words were matched for length and frequency. Even with these strongly ordered lists, the results again replicated the curvilinear function of memory set size seen in hybrid search. One might expect to find serial position effects, perhaps reducing the RTs for the first (primacy) and/or the last (recency) members of a list (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; Murdock Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 482-488, 1962). Surprisingly, we showed no reliable effects of word order

  4. Recalling taboo and nontaboo words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jay, Timothy; Caldwell-Harris, Catherine; King, Krista

    2008-01-01

    People remember emotional and taboo words better than neutral words. It is well known that words that are processed at a deep (i.e., semantic) level are recalled better than words processed at a shallow (i.e., purely visual) level. To determine how depth of processing influences recall of emotional and taboo words, a levels of processing paradigm was used. Whether this effect holds for emotional and taboo words has not been previously investigated. Two experiments demonstrated that taboo and emotional words benefit less from deep processing than do neutral words. This is consistent with the proposal that memories for taboo and emotional words are a function of the arousal level they evoke, even under shallow encoding conditions. Recall was higher for taboo words, even when taboo words were cued to be recalled after neutral and emotional words. The superiority of taboo word recall is consistent with cognitive neuroscience and brain imaging research.

  5. Baby's first 10 words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tardif, Twila; Fletcher, Paul; Liang, Weilan; Zhang, Zhixiang; Kaciroti, Niko; Marchman, Virginia A

    2008-07-01

    Although there has been much debate over the content of children's first words, few large sample studies address this question for children at the very earliest stages of word learning. The authors report data from comparable samples of 265 English-, 336 Putonghua- (Mandarin), and 369 Cantonese-speaking 8- to 16-month-old infants whose caregivers completed MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories and reported them to produce between 1 and 10 words. Analyses of individual words indicated striking commonalities in the first words that children learn. However, substantive cross-linguistic differences appeared in the relative prevalence of common nouns, people terms, and verbs as well as in the probability that children produced even one of these word types when they had a total of 1-3, 4-6, or 7-10 words in their vocabularies. These data document cross-linguistic differences in the types of words produced even at the earliest stages of vocabulary learning and underscore the importance of parental input and cross-linguistic/cross-cultural variations in children's early word-learning.

  6. Do word associations assess word knowledge? A comparison of L1 and L2, child and adult word associations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Cremer, M.; Dingshoff, D.; de Beer, M.; Schoonen, R.

    2011-01-01

    Differences in word associations between monolingual and bilingual speakers of Dutch can reflect differences in how well seemingly familiar words are known. In this (exploratory) study mono-and bilingual, child and adult free word associations were compared. Responses of children and of monolingual

  7. Duodenal-jejunal bypass surgery up-regulates the expression of the hepatic insulin signaling proteins and the key regulatory enzymes of intestinal gluconeogenesis in diabetic Goto-Kakizaki rats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Dong; Wang, Kexin; Yan, Zhibo; Zhang, Guangyong; Liu, Shaozhuang; Liu, Fengjun; Hu, Chunxiao; Hu, Sanyuan

    2013-11-01

    Duodenal-jejunal bypass (DJB), which is not routinely applied in metabolic surgery, is an effective surgical procedure in terms of type 2 diabetes mellitus resolution. However, the underlying mechanisms are still undefined. Our aim was to investigate the diabetic improvement by DJB and to explore the changes in hepatic insulin signaling proteins and regulatory enzymes of gluconeogenesis after DJB in a non-obese diabetic rat model. Sixteen adult male Goto-Kakizaki rats were randomly divided into DJB and sham-operated groups. The body weight, food intake, hormone levels, and glucose metabolism were measured. The levels of protein expression and phosphorylation of insulin receptor-beta (IR-β) and insulin receptor substrate 2 (IRS-2) were evaluated in the liver. We also detected the expression of key regulatory enzymes of gluconeogenesis [phosphoenoylpyruvate carboxykinase-1 (PCK1), glucose-6-phosphatase-alpha (G6Pase-α)] in small intestine and liver. DJB induced significant diabetic improvement with higher postprandial glucagons-like peptide 1, peptide YY, and insulin levels, but without weight loss. The DJB group exhibited increased expression and phosphorylation of IR-β and IRS-2 in liver, up-regulated the expression of PCK1 and G6Pase-α in small intestine, and down-regulated the expression of these enzymes in liver. DJB is effective in up-regulating the expression of the key proteins in the hepatic insulin signaling pathway and the key regulatory enzymes of intestinal gluconeogenesis and down-regulating the expression of the key regulatory enzymes of hepatic gluconeogenesis without weight loss. Our study helps to reveal the potential role of hepatic insulin signaling pathway and intestinal gluconeogenesis in ameliorating insulin resistance after metabolic surgery.

  8. How new words (don't) become memories : Lexicalization in advanced L1 Dutch learners of L2 English

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Keijzer, Merel

    It is an undisputed fact that learning – and remembering – new words is key in successful second language acquisition. And yet researching how vocabulary acquisition takes place is one of the most difficult endeavors in second language acquisition. We can test how many L2 words a learner knows, but

  9. Word classes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rijkhoff, Jan

    2007-01-01

    in grammatical descriptions of some 50 languages, which together constitute a representative sample of the world’s languages (Hengeveld et al. 2004: 529). It appears that there are both quantitative and qualitative differences between word class systems of individual languages. Whereas some languages employ...... a parts-of-speech system that includes the categories Verb, Noun, Adjective and Adverb, other languages may use only a subset of these four lexical categories. Furthermore, quite a few languages have a major word class whose members cannot be classified in terms of the categories Verb – Noun – Adjective...... – Adverb, because they have properties that are strongly associated with at least two of these four traditional word classes (e.g. Adjective and Adverb). Finally, this article discusses some of the ways in which word class distinctions interact with other grammatical domains, such as syntax and morphology....

  10. Reading Big Words: Instructional Practices to Promote Multisyllabic Word Reading Fluency

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toste, Jessica R.; Williams, Kelly J.; Capin, Philip

    2017-01-01

    Poorly developed word recognition skills are the most pervasive and debilitating source of reading challenges for students with learning disabilities (LD). With a notable decrease in word reading instruction in the upper elementary grades, struggling readers receive fewer instructional opportunities to develop proficient word reading skills, yet…

  11. Anesthetic considerations in the patients of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease undergoing laparoscopic surgeries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khetarpal, Ranjana; Bali, Kusum; Chatrath, Veena; Bansal, Divya

    2016-01-01

    The aim of this study was to review the various anesthetic options which can be considered for laparoscopic surgeries in the patients with the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The literature search was performed in the Google, PubMed, and Medscape using key words "analgesia, anesthesia, general, laparoscopy, lung diseases, obstructive." More than thirty-five free full articles and books published from the year 1994 to 2014 were retrieved and studied. Retrospective data observed from various studies and case reports showed regional anesthesia (RA) to be valid and safer option in the patients who are not good candidates of general anesthesia like patients having obstructive pulmonary diseases. It showed better postoperative patient outcome with respect to safety, efficacy, postoperative pulmonary complications, and analgesia. So depending upon disease severity RA in various forms such as spinal anesthesia, paravertebral block, continuous epidural anesthesia, combined spinal epidural anesthesia (CSEA), and CSEA with bi-level positive airway pressure should be considered.

  12. An Anesthetist’s Experience and the Incidence of Critical Cases in Ambulatory Surgery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R. V. Bolshedvorov

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Objective: to evaluate the impact of experience on the quality of anesthesia in ambulatory surgery. Materials and methods. The authors undertook a study of the role of experience and specialization on the occurrence of complications in ambulatory anesthesia care. By using the internal audit and calculating the frequency of critical cases, they examined the results of the work of two groups of anesthetists: 1 medical beginners after 2-year adjunct practice and 2 one-day hospital specialists having an at least 7-year practice length. Results. In the beginner group, the number of critical cases per operation was twice higher than that in the experienced specialists. The paper shows the detrimental pattern of the residual principle in selecting anesthetists for work at a one-day hospital and provides evidence that specialization is required in the area under discussion. Key words: ambulatory anesthesiology, role of an anesthetist’s experience, critical cases.

  13. Spoken word recognition without a TRACE

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hannagan, Thomas; Magnuson, James S.; Grainger, Jonathan

    2013-01-01

    How do we map the rapid input of spoken language onto phonological and lexical representations over time? Attempts at psychologically-tractable computational models of spoken word recognition tend either to ignore time or to transform the temporal input into a spatial representation. TRACE, a connectionist model with broad and deep coverage of speech perception and spoken word recognition phenomena, takes the latter approach, using exclusively time-specific units at every level of representation. TRACE reduplicates featural, phonemic, and lexical inputs at every time step in a large memory trace, with rich interconnections (excitatory forward and backward connections between levels and inhibitory links within levels). As the length of the memory trace is increased, or as the phoneme and lexical inventory of the model is increased to a realistic size, this reduplication of time- (temporal position) specific units leads to a dramatic proliferation of units and connections, begging the question of whether a more efficient approach is possible. Our starting point is the observation that models of visual object recognition—including visual word recognition—have grappled with the problem of spatial invariance, and arrived at solutions other than a fully-reduplicative strategy like that of TRACE. This inspires a new model of spoken word recognition that combines time-specific phoneme representations similar to those in TRACE with higher-level representations based on string kernels: temporally independent (time invariant) diphone and lexical units. This reduces the number of necessary units and connections by several orders of magnitude relative to TRACE. Critically, we compare the new model to TRACE on a set of key phenomena, demonstrating that the new model inherits much of the behavior of TRACE and that the drastic computational savings do not come at the cost of explanatory power. PMID:24058349

  14. Creativity in English Writing Instruction : Tracing the Discursive History of the Key Word

    OpenAIRE

    Kita, Kazutake

    2014-01-01

    Since the 1970s the field of English writing instruction has given a broad welcome to the term creative/creativity, which has been used without any strict definition and has taken on the features of a cant word. Presented in this paper is an attempt to provide a comprehensive description and explanation of various uses of the term found in this specific context. A historical review of ELT Journal, TESOL Quarterly and The English Teachers’ Magazine reveals that the introduction of the term cre...

  15. Flexible Word Classes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    • First major publication on the phenomenon • Offers cross-linguistic, descriptive, and diverse theoretical approaches • Includes analysis of data from different language families and from lesser studied languages This book is the first major cross-linguistic study of 'flexible words', i.e. words...... that cannot be classified in terms of the traditional lexical categories Verb, Noun, Adjective or Adverb. Flexible words can - without special morphosyntactic marking - serve in functions for which other languages must employ members of two or more of the four traditional, 'specialised' word classes. Thus......, flexible words are underspecified for communicative functions like 'predicating' (verbal function), 'referring' (nominal function) or 'modifying' (a function typically associated with adjectives and e.g. manner adverbs). Even though linguists have been aware of flexible world classes for more than...

  16. From word superiority to word inferiority: Visual processing of letters and words in pure alexia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Habekost, Thomas; Petersen, Anders; Behrmann, Marlene

    2014-01-01

    Visual processing and naming of individual letters and short words were investigated in four patients with pure alexia. To test processing at different levels, the same stimuli were studied across a naming task and a visual perception task. The normal word superiority effect was eliminated in bot...

  17. Could the mechanisms of bariatric surgery hold the key for novel therapies?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tam, C S; Berthoud, H-R; Bueter, M

    2011-01-01

    Bariatric surgery is the most effective method for promoting dramatic and durable weight loss in morbidly obese subjects. Furthermore, type 2 diabetes is resolved in over 80% of patients. The mechanisms behind the amelioration in metabolic abnormalities are largely unknown but may be due to chang...

  18. WordPress For Dummies

    CERN Document Server

    Sabin-Wilson, Lisa

    2011-01-01

    The bestselling guide to WordPress, fully updated to help you get your blog going! Millions of bloggers rely on WordPress, the popular, free blogging platform. This guide covers all the features and improvements in the most up-to-date version of WordPress. Whether you are switching to WordPress from another blogging platform or just starting your first blog, you'll find the advice in this friendly guide gets you up to speed on both the free-hosted WordPress.com version and WordPress.org, which requires the purchase of web hosting services, and figure out which version is best for you. You'll b

  19. Word 2013 for dummies

    CERN Document Server

    Gookin, Dan

    2013-01-01

    This bestselling guide to Microsoft Word is the first and last word on Word 2013 It's a whole new Word, so jump right into this book and learn how to make the most of it. Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate the new features of Word 2013. Completely in tune with the needs of the beginning user, Gookin explains how to use Word 2013 quickly and efficiently so that you can spend more time working on your projects and less time trying to figure it all out. Walks you through the capabilit

  20. History of plastic surgery: Art, philosophy, and rhinoplasty.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Macionis, Valdas

    2018-03-23

    The 200th anniversary of K. F. Graefe's "Rhinoplasty," E. Zeis' naming of the specialty of plastic surgery in 1838, and the continuing discussion on what is plastic surgery have prompted this historical-conceptual review with a semantic insight into the meaning of the word "plastic." A literature search has revealed that this term contains dual aspects: artistic and philosophical. The progressive development of these two connotations can be traced from their origin in the ceramics and the myths of ancient Greeks to their metamorphoses in fine arts, science, and philosophy of plasticity of the modern day. Although the names of plastic procedures and the title of the specialty carry both the artistic and philosophical features, the philosophical notion is less evident. This article underlines the importance of etymology in the interpretation of the concept of plastic surgery. Copyright © 2018 British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Measurement errors in voice-key naming latency for Hiragana.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamada, Jun; Tamaoka, Katsuo

    2003-12-01

    This study makes explicit the limitations and possibilities of voice-key naming latency research on single hiragana symbols (a Japanese syllabic script) by examining three sets of voice-key naming data against Sakuma, Fushimi, and Tatsumi's 1997 speech-analyzer voice-waveform data. Analysis showed that voice-key measurement errors can be substantial in standard procedures as they may conceal the true effects of significant variables involved in hiragana-naming behavior. While one can avoid voice-key measurement errors to some extent by applying Sakuma, et al.'s deltas and by excluding initial phonemes which induce measurement errors, such errors may be ignored when test items are words and other higher-level linguistic materials.

  2. Interactive language learning by robots: the transition from babbling to word forms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lyon, Caroline; Nehaniv, Chrystopher L; Saunders, Joe

    2012-01-01

    The advent of humanoid robots has enabled a new approach to investigating the acquisition of language, and we report on the development of robots able to acquire rudimentary linguistic skills. Our work focuses on early stages analogous to some characteristics of a human child of about 6 to 14 months, the transition from babbling to first word forms. We investigate one mechanism among many that may contribute to this process, a key factor being the sensitivity of learners to the statistical distribution of linguistic elements. As well as being necessary for learning word meanings, the acquisition of anchor word forms facilitates the segmentation of an acoustic stream through other mechanisms. In our experiments some salient one-syllable word forms are learnt by a humanoid robot in real-time interactions with naive participants. Words emerge from random syllabic babble through a learning process based on a dialogue between the robot and the human participant, whose speech is perceived by the robot as a stream of phonemes. Numerous ways of representing the speech as syllabic segments are possible. Furthermore, the pronunciation of many words in spontaneous speech is variable. However, in line with research elsewhere, we observe that salient content words are more likely than function words to have consistent canonical representations; thus their relative frequency increases, as does their influence on the learner. Variable pronunciation may contribute to early word form acquisition. The importance of contingent interaction in real-time between teacher and learner is reflected by a reinforcement process, with variable success. The examination of individual cases may be more informative than group results. Nevertheless, word forms are usually produced by the robot after a few minutes of dialogue, employing a simple, real-time, frequency dependent mechanism. This work shows the potential of human-robot interaction systems in studies of the dynamics of early language

  3. Case report

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2012-11-20

    Nov 20, 2012 ... Key words: Laparoscopic adjustable gastric band, bariatric surgery, band migration, small bowel obstruction, access-port infection. Received: ... about reduction in weight in the few years after the surgery. ... weight regain, unspecific epigastric pain, vomiting, or port-associated infection .There are also more ...

  4. Word 2010 Bible

    CERN Document Server

    Tyson, Herb

    2010-01-01

    In-depth guidance on Word 2010 from a Microsoft MVP. Microsoft Word 2010 arrives with many changes and improvements, and this comprehensive guide from Microsoft MVP Herb Tyson is your expert, one-stop resource for it all. Master Word's new features such as a new interface and customized Ribbon, major new productivity-boosting collaboration tools, how to publish directly to blogs, how to work with XML, and much more. Follow step-by-step instructions and best practices, avoid pitfalls, discover practical workarounds, and get the very most out of your new Word 2010 with this packed guide. Coverag

  5. Words and melody are intertwined in perception of sung words: EEG and behavioral evidence.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reyna L Gordon

    Full Text Available Language and music, two of the most unique human cognitive abilities, are combined in song, rendering it an ecological model for comparing speech and music cognition. The present study was designed to determine whether words and melodies in song are processed interactively or independently, and to examine the influence of attention on the processing of words and melodies in song. Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs and behavioral data were recorded while non-musicians listened to pairs of sung words (prime and target presented in four experimental conditions: same word, same melody; same word, different melody; different word, same melody; different word, different melody. Participants were asked to attend to either the words or the melody, and to perform a same/different task. In both attentional tasks, different word targets elicited an N400 component, as predicted based on previous results. Most interestingly, different melodies (sung with the same word elicited an N400 component followed by a late positive component. Finally, ERP and behavioral data converged in showing interactions between the linguistic and melodic dimensions of sung words. The finding that the N400 effect, a well-established marker of semantic processing, was modulated by musical melody in song suggests that variations in musical features affect word processing in sung language. Implications of the interactions between words and melody are discussed in light of evidence for shared neural processing resources between the phonological/semantic aspects of language and the melodic/harmonic aspects of music.

  6. Partial Word Knowledge: Frontier Words in the L2 Mental Lexicon

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zareva, Alla

    2012-01-01

    The study set out to examine the partial word knowledge of native speakers, L2 advanced, and intermediate learners of English with regard to four word features from Richards' (1976) taxonomy of aspects describing what knowing a word entails. To capture partial familiarity, the participants completed in writing a test containing low and mid…

  7. Word Frequency As a Cue For Identifying Function Words In Infancy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hochmann, Jean-Remy; Endress, Ansgar D.; Mehler, Jacques

    2010-01-01

    While content words (e.g., 'dog') tend to carry meaning, function words (e.g., 'the') mainly serve syntactic purposes. Here, we ask whether 17-month old infants can use one language-universal cue to identify function word candidates: their high frequency of occurrence. In Experiment 1, infants listened to a series of short, naturally recorded…

  8. Reader, Word, and Character Attributes Contributing to Chinese Children's Concept of Word

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Jing; Lin, Tzu-Jung; Ku, Yu-Min; Zhang, Jie; O'Connell, Ann

    2018-01-01

    Concept of word--the awareness of how words differ from nonwords or other linguistic properties--is important to learning to read Chinese because words in Chinese texts are not separated by space, and most characters can be productively compounded with other characters to form new words. The current study examined the effects of reader, word, and…

  9. The Growth Dynamics of Words: How Historical Context Shapes the Competitive Linguistic Environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tenenbaum, Joel; Petersen, Alexander; Havlin, Shlomo; Stanley, H. Eugene

    2012-02-01

    Using the massive Google n-gram database of over 10^11 word uses in English, Hebrew, and Spanish, we explore the connection between the growth rates of relative word use and the observed growth rates of disparate competing actors in a common environment such as businesses, scientific journals, and universities, supporting the concept that a language's lexicon is a generic arena for competition, evolving according to selection laws. We find aggregate-level anomalies in the collective statistics corresponding to the time of key historical events such as World War II and the Balfour Declaration.

  10. Knowledge inhibition and N400: a study with words that look like common words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Debruille, J B

    1998-04-01

    In addition to their own representations, low frequency words, such as BRIBE, can covertly activate the representations of higher frequency words they look like (e.g., BRIDE). Hence, look-alike words can activate knowledge that is incompatible with the knowledge corresponding to accurate representations. Comparatively, eccentric words, that is, low frequency words that do not look as much like higher frequency words, are less likely to activate incompatible knowledge. This study focuses on the hypothesis that the N400 component of the event-related potential reflects the inhibition of incompatible knowledge. This hypothesis predicts that look-alike words elicit N400s of greater amplitudes than eccentric words in conditions where incompatible knowledge is inhibited. Results from a single item lexical decision experiment are reported which support the inhibition hypothesis. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

  11. Oral-diadochokinetic rates for Hebrew-speaking school-age children: real words vs. non-words repetition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Icht, Michal; Ben-David, Boaz M

    2015-02-01

    Oral-diadochokinesis (DDK) tasks are a common tool for evaluating speech disorders. Usually, these tasks involve repetitions of non-words. It has been suggested that repeating real words can be more suitable for preschool children. But, the impact of using real words with elementary school children has not been studied yet. This study evaluated oral-DDK rates for Hebrew-speaking elementary school children using non-words and real words. The participants were 60 children, 9-11 years old, with normal speech and language development, who were asked to repeat "pataka" (non-word) and "bodeket" (Hebrew real word). Data replicate the advantage generally found for real word repetition with preschoolers. Children produced real words faster than non-words for all age groups, and repetition rates were higher for the older children. The findings suggest that adding real words to the standard oral-DDK task with elementary school children may provide a more comprehensive picture of oro-motor function.

  12. Ins-Robust Primitive Words

    OpenAIRE

    Srivastava, Amit Kumar; Kapoor, Kalpesh

    2017-01-01

    Let Q be the set of primitive words over a finite alphabet with at least two symbols. We characterize a class of primitive words, Q_I, referred to as ins-robust primitive words, which remain primitive on insertion of any letter from the alphabet and present some properties that characterizes words in the set Q_I. It is shown that the language Q_I is dense. We prove that the language of primitive words that are not ins-robust is not context-free. We also present a linear time algorithm to reco...

  13. Second Language Learners' Contiguous and Discontiguous Multi-Word Unit Use Over Time

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Yuldashev, Aziz; Fernandez, Julieta; Thorne, Steven L.

    Research has described the key role of formulaic language use in both written and spoken communication (Schmitt, 2004; Wray, 2002), as well as in relation to L2 learning (Ellis, Simpson-Vlach, & Maynard, 2008). Relatively few studies have examined related fixed and semifixed multi-word units (MWUs),

  14. Starting off on the right foot: strong right-footers respond faster with the right foot to positive words and with the left foot to negative words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de la Vega, Irmgard; Graebe, Julia; Härtner, Leonie; Dudschig, Carolin; Kaup, Barbara

    2015-01-01

    Recent studies have provided evidence for an association between valence and left/right modulated by handedness, which is predicted by the body-specificity hypothesis (Casasanto, 2009) and also reflected in response times. We investigated whether such a response facilitation can also be observed with foot responses. Right-footed participants classified positive and negative words according to their valence by pressing a key with their left or right foot. A significant interaction between valence and foot only emerged in the by-items analysis. However, when dividing participants into two groups depending on the strength of their footedness, an interaction between valence and left/right was observed for strong right-footers, who responded faster with the right foot to positive words, and with the left foot to negative words. No interaction emerged for weak right-footers. The results strongly support the assumption that fluency lies at the core of the association between valence and left/right.

  15. Adequação dos descritores em Ciências da Saúde para a indexação de dissertações acadêmicas, na área de doenças respiratórias Suitability of Health Science key words for indexing master's degree theses and dissertations in the area of respiratory diseases

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Patrícia Rosas

    1999-12-01

    Full Text Available INTRODUÇÃO: O processo de indexação consiste em duas fases: primeira, identificar e representar o conteúdo intelectual de um documento; segunda, traduzir a análise do assunto para uma linguagem específica, utilizando descritores. Na biblioteca do Instituto de Doenças do Tórax da UFRJ, a indexação era realizada por meio de um vocabulário controlado - DeCS (Descritores em Ciências da Saúde. O objetivo deste trabalho foi verificar se são adequados, para indexação, os descritores empregados pelos autores de teses e dissertações de mestrado, na área de doenças respiratórias. MÉTODO: Os descritores de 29 teses e dissertações de mestrado em Tisiologia e Pneumologia, de 1990 a 1996, foram estudados. RESULTADOS: A coleta de dados evidenciou que 29 autores empregaram 101 descritores (3,48 descritores/autor. Dos 101 descritores, 47 (47% eram adequados. CONCLUSÃO: Quarenta e sete por cento dos descritores empregados, nas teses e dissertações do Curso de Mestrado em Tisiologia e Pneumologia do IDT-UFRJ (1990 a 1996, são adequados segundo o DeCS.INTRODUCTION: The process of indexing consisted of two phases: firstly, to identify and represent the intellectual contents of a document; and secondly, the translation of the subject analysis into a specified language, with the aid of key words. At the Instituto de Doenças do Tórax da UFRJ medical library, the indexing was performed through a controlled vocabulary - the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings. The purpose of this study was to identify if the authors' subject headings were adequate for indexing Master's degree theses and dissertations on respiratory diseases. METHOD: The key words of 29 Master theses and dissertations, from 1990 through 1996, were studied. RESULTS: The data collection showed that 29 authors employed 101 key words (3.48 headings/author. Among the 101 key words, 47 (47% were adequate. CONCLUSION: Forty-seven per cent of the key words employed, on Master's degree

  16. Remembering New Words: Integrating Early Memory Development into Word Learning

    OpenAIRE

    Wojcik, Erica H.

    2013-01-01

    In order to successfully acquire a new word, young children must learn the correct associations between labels and their referents. For decades, word-learning researchers have explored how young children are able to form these associations. However, in addition to learning label-referent mappings, children must also remember them. Despite the importance of memory processes in forming a stable lexicon, there has been little integration of early memory research into the study of early word lear...

  17. English words structure, history, usage

    CERN Document Server

    Katamba, Francis

    2015-01-01

    How do we find the right word for the job? Where does that word come from? Why do we spell it like that? And how do we know what it means? Words are all around us - we use them every day to communicate our joys, fears, hopes, opinions, wishes and demands - but we don't often think about them too deeply. In this highly accessible introduction to English words, the reader will discover what the study of words can tell them about the extraordinary richness and complexity of our daily vocabulary and about the nature of language in general. Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, the book covers a wide range of topics, including the structure of words, the meaning of words, how their spelling relates to pronunciation, how new words are manufactured or imported from other languages, and how the meaning of words changes with the passage of time. It also investigates how the mind deals with words by highlighting the amazing intellectual feat performed routinely when the right word is retrieved from the mental dic...

  18. Dissociating mere exposure and repetition priming as a function of word type.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Butler, Laurie T; Berry, Dianne C; Helman, Shaun

    2004-07-01

    The mere exposure effect is defined as enhanced attitude toward a stimulus that has been repeatedly exposed. Repetition priming is defined as facilitated processing of a previously exposed stimulus. We conducted a direct comparison between the two phenomena to test the assumption that the mere exposure effect represents an example of repetition priming. In two experiments, having studied a set of words or nonwords, participants were given a repetition priming task (perceptual identification) or one of two mere exposure (affective liking or preference judgment) tasks. Repetition priming was obtained for both words and nonwords, but only nonwords produced a mere exposure effect. This demonstrates a key boundary for observing the mere exposure effect, one not readily accommodated by a perceptual representation systems (Tulving & Schacter, 1990) account, which assumes that both phenomena should show some sensitivity to nonwords and words.

  19. Effect of low-dose dexketoprofen trometamol and paracetamol on postoperative complications after impacted third molar surgery on healthy volunteers: A pilot study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Durmus, Ercan; Kiresi, Demet

    2014-01-01

    Objectives: The aim of the present study was to investigate the analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects of dexketoprofen trometamol (DT) and paracetamol on deep acute somatic pain and inflammation in patients undergoing impacted third molar surgery. This study was planned to present benefits that we could obtain with low burden of drug. Study Design: Effects of drugs, which were administered preemptively before the procedure, on pain, mouth-opening limitation, and swelling were assessed by visual analogue scale (VAS), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and mouth-opening measurement. Following surgery, time intervals when the patients first need to receive the drug were measured. Results: The VAS scores of the patients were lower in the side treated with DT than that in the paracetamol treated side. There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of mouth-opening limitation. MRI recordings revealed that swelling was lower in the side treated with paracetamol than DT treated side. Conclusions: Administration of the drugs before surgery contributed to the postoperative patient comfort. The analgesic activity of 12.5 mg dose of DT was similar to, even better than, the analgesic activity of 500 mg dose of paracetamol; however, DT had insufficient anti-inflammatory efficacy. Key words:Dexketoprofen trometamol, paracetamol, magnetic resonance imaging. PMID:25129247

  20. The Effect of Colour-Word Interference on Children's Memory for Words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malliet, Gineva M.

    The Stroop color-word test involves a conflict situation in which subjects are asked to say aloud the ink color used to print a color word on a card. Interference occurs when the ink color is in conflict with the color word, such as 'red' printed in green ink. On the other hand, little interference occurs when asked to name the color words…

  1. Attention and gaze control in picture naming, word reading, and word categorizing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Roelofs, A.P.A.

    2007-01-01

    The trigger for shifting gaze between stimuli requiring vocal and manual responses was examined. Participants were presented with picture–word stimuli and left- or right-pointing arrows. They vocally named the picture (Experiment 1), read the word (Experiment 2), or categorized the word (Experiment

  2. Training in breast surgery in Spain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miguelena, José M; Domínguez Cunchillos, Fernando

    2016-01-01

    Breast surgery is a key part of training and competency in general surgery in Spain and is a "frontier area" that can be efficiently managed by general surgeons and gynecologists. The main objective of the training process consists of the surgical treatment of breast cancer, including conservative surgery, oncoplastic and reconstructive techniques. This article analyses the current status of breast surgery training in Spain and schematically proposes potential targets of the different training programs, to improve access and training for surgeons and residents in this area, taking into account the RD 639/2014 and European regulation. The priority is to specify the level of training that should be achieved, in relation to the group of professionals involved, considering their area of competency: surgery resident, educational programs, and surgeons with special dedication to this area. Copyright © 2016 AEC. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  3. Emotion Words: Adding Face Value.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fugate, Jennifer M B; Gendron, Maria; Nakashima, Satoshi F; Barrett, Lisa Feldman

    2017-06-12

    Despite a growing number of studies suggesting that emotion words affect perceptual judgments of emotional stimuli, little is known about how emotion words affect perceptual memory for emotional faces. In Experiments 1 and 2 we tested how emotion words (compared with control words) affected participants' abilities to select a target emotional face from among distractor faces. Participants were generally more likely to false alarm to distractor emotional faces when primed with an emotion word congruent with the face (compared with a control word). Moreover, participants showed both decreased sensitivity (d') to discriminate between target and distractor faces, as well as altered response biases (c; more likely to answer "yes") when primed with an emotion word (compared with a control word). In Experiment 3 we showed that emotion words had more of an effect on perceptual memory judgments when the structural information in the target face was limited, as well as when participants were only able to categorize the face with a partially congruent emotion word. The overall results are consistent with the idea that emotion words affect the encoding of emotional faces in perceptual memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  4. Word length, set size, and lexical factors: Re-examining what causes the word length effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guitard, Dominic; Gabel, Andrew J; Saint-Aubin, Jean; Surprenant, Aimée M; Neath, Ian

    2018-04-19

    The word length effect, better recall of lists of short (fewer syllables) than long (more syllables) words has been termed a benchmark effect of working memory. Despite this, experiments on the word length effect can yield quite different results depending on set size and stimulus properties. Seven experiments are reported that address these 2 issues. Experiment 1 replicated the finding of a preserved word length effect under concurrent articulation for large stimulus sets, which contrasts with the abolition of the word length effect by concurrent articulation for small stimulus sets. Experiment 2, however, demonstrated that when the short and long words are equated on more dimensions, concurrent articulation abolishes the word length effect for large stimulus sets. Experiment 3 shows a standard word length effect when output time is equated, but Experiments 4-6 show no word length effect when short and long words are equated on increasingly more dimensions that previous demonstrations have overlooked. Finally, Experiment 7 compared recall of a small and large neighborhood words that were equated on all the dimensions used in Experiment 6 (except for those directly related to neighborhood size) and a neighborhood size effect was still observed. We conclude that lexical factors, rather than word length per se, are better predictors of when the word length effect will occur. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  5. Promoting Word Consciousness to Close the Vocabulary Gap in Young Word Learners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neugebauer, Sabina Rak; Gámez, Perla B.; Coyne, Michael D.; McCoach, D. Betsy; Cólon, Ingrid T.; Ware, Sharon

    2017-01-01

    A proposed avenue for increasing students' vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension is instruction that promotes students' enthusiasm and attention to words, referred to as "word consciousness". This study seeks to investigate, at the utterance level, whether and how word consciousness talk is used in classrooms with young word…

  6. Reassessing word frequency as a determinant of word recognition for skilled and unskilled readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuperman, Victor; Van Dyke, Julie A

    2013-06-01

    The importance of vocabulary in reading comprehension emphasizes the need to accurately assess an individual's familiarity with words. The present article highlights problems with using occurrence counts in corpora as an index of word familiarity, especially when studying individuals varying in reading experience. We demonstrate via computational simulations and norming studies that corpus-based word frequencies systematically overestimate strengths of word representations, especially in the low-frequency range and in smaller-size vocabularies. Experience-driven differences in word familiarity prove to be faithfully captured by the subjective frequency ratings collected from responders at different experience levels. When matched on those levels, this lexical measure explains more variance than corpus-based frequencies in eye-movement and lexical decision latencies to English words, attested in populations with varied reading experience and skill. Furthermore, the use of subjective frequencies removes the widely reported (corpus) Frequency × Skill interaction, showing that more skilled readers are equally faster in processing any word than the less skilled readers, not disproportionally faster in processing lower frequency words. This finding challenges the view that the more skilled an individual is in generic mechanisms of word processing, the less reliant he or she will be on the actual lexical characteristics of that word. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

  7. Reassessing word frequency as a determinant of word recognition for skilled and unskilled readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuperman, Victor; Van Dyke, Julie A.

    2013-01-01

    The importance of vocabulary in reading comprehension emphasizes the need to accurately assess an individual’s familiarity with words. The present article highlights problems with using occurrence counts in corpora as an index of word familiarity, especially when studying individuals varying in reading experience. We demonstrate via computational simulations and norming studies that corpus-based word frequencies systematically overestimate strengths of word representations, especially in the low-frequency range and in smaller-size vocabularies. Experience-driven differences in word familiarity prove to be faithfully captured by the subjective frequency ratings collected from responders at different experience levels. When matched on those levels, this lexical measure explains more variance than corpus-based frequencies in eye-movement and lexical decision latencies to English words, attested in populations with varied reading experience and skill. Furthermore, the use of subjective frequencies removes the widely reported (corpus) frequency-by-skill interaction, showing that more skilled readers are equally faster in processing any word than the less skilled readers, not disproportionally faster in processing lower-frequency words. This finding challenges the view that the more skilled an individual is in generic mechanisms of word processing the less reliant he/she will be on the actual lexical characteristics of that word. PMID:23339352

  8. Enhanced Recovery in Thoracic Surgery: A Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vesna D. Dinic

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available The main goal of enhanced recovery program after thoracic surgery is to minimize stress response, reduce postoperative pulmonary complications, and improve patient outcome, which will in addition decrease hospital stay and reduce hospital costs. As minimally invasive technique, video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery represents an important element of enhanced recovery program in thoracic surgery. Anesthetic management during preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative period is essential for the enhanced recovery. In the era of enhanced recovery protocols, non-intubated thoracoscopic procedures present a step forward. This article focuses on the key elements of the enhanced recovery program in thoracic surgery. Having reviewed recent literature, the authors highlight potential procedures and techniques that might be incorporated into the program.

  9. Cultural Image of Animal Words

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    邓海燕

    2017-01-01

    This paper,after introducing the definition and forms of cultural image,focuses on the detailed comparison and analysis of cultural image of animal words both in English and in Chinese from four aspects,that is,same animal word,same cultural image;same animal word,different cultural images;different animal words,same cultural image;different animal words,different cultural images.

  10. L2 Word Recognition: Influence of L1 Orthography on Multi-syllabic Word Recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamada, Megumi

    2017-10-01

    L2 reading research suggests that L1 orthographic experience influences L2 word recognition. Nevertheless, the findings on multi-syllabic words in English are still limited despite the fact that a vast majority of words are multi-syllabic. The study investigated whether L1 orthography influences the recognition of multi-syllabic words, focusing on the position of an embedded word. The participants were Arabic ESL learners, Chinese ESL learners, and native speakers of English. The task was a word search task, in which the participants identified a target word embedded in a pseudoword at the initial, middle, or final position. The search accuracy and speed indicated that all groups showed a strong preference for the initial position. The accuracy data further indicated group differences. The Arabic group showed higher accuracy in the final than middle, while the Chinese group showed the opposite and the native speakers showed no difference between the two positions. The findings suggest that L2 multi-syllabic word recognition involves unique processes.

  11. Head First WordPress

    CERN Document Server

    Siarto, Jeff

    2010-01-01

    Whether you're promoting your business or writing about your travel adventures, Head First WordPress will teach you not only how to make your blog look unique and attention-grabbing, but also how to dig into the more complex features of WordPress 3.0 to make your website work well, too. You'll learn how to move beyond the standard WordPress look and feel by customizing your blog with your own URL, templates, plugin functionality, and more. As you learn, you'll be working with real WordPress files: The book's website provides pre-fab WordPress themes to download and work with as you follow al

  12. AARP Word 2010 for dummies

    CERN Document Server

    Gookin, Dan

    2011-01-01

    It's a whole new Word - make the most of it! Here's exactly what you need to know to get going with Word 2010. From firing up Word, using the spell checker, and working with templates to formatting documents, adding images, and saving your stuff, you'll get the first and last word on Word 2010 with this fun and easy mini guide. So get ready to channel your inner writer and start creating Word files that wow! Open the book and find:Tips for navigating Word with the keyboard and mouseAdvice on using the RibbonHow to edit text and undo mistakesThings to know

  13. WordPress multisite administration

    CERN Document Server

    Longren, Tyler

    2013-01-01

    This is a simple, concise guide with a step-by-step approach, packed with screenshots and examples to set up and manage a network blog using WordPress.WordPress Multisite Administration is ideal for anyone wanting to familiarize themselves with WordPress Multisite. You'll need to know the basics about WordPress, and having at least a broad understanding of HTML, CSS, and PHP will help, but isn't required.

  14. Interaction in Spoken Word Recognition Models: Feedback Helps

    Science.gov (United States)

    Magnuson, James S.; Mirman, Daniel; Luthra, Sahil; Strauss, Ted; Harris, Harlan D.

    2018-01-01

    Human perception, cognition, and action requires fast integration of bottom-up signals with top-down knowledge and context. A key theoretical perspective in cognitive science is the interactive activation hypothesis: forward and backward flow in bidirectionally connected neural networks allows humans and other biological systems to approximate optimal integration of bottom-up and top-down information under real-world constraints. An alternative view is that online feedback is neither necessary nor helpful; purely feed forward alternatives can be constructed for any feedback system, and online feedback could not improve processing and would preclude veridical perception. In the domain of spoken word recognition, the latter view was apparently supported by simulations using the interactive activation model, TRACE, with and without feedback: as many words were recognized more quickly without feedback as were recognized faster with feedback, However, these simulations used only a small set of words and did not address a primary motivation for interaction: making a model robust in noise. We conducted simulations using hundreds of words, and found that the majority were recognized more quickly with feedback than without. More importantly, as we added noise to inputs, accuracy and recognition times were better with feedback than without. We follow these simulations with a critical review of recent arguments that online feedback in interactive activation models like TRACE is distinct from other potentially helpful forms of feedback. We conclude that in addition to providing the benefits demonstrated in our simulations, online feedback provides a plausible means of implementing putatively distinct forms of feedback, supporting the interactive activation hypothesis. PMID:29666593

  15. Interaction in Spoken Word Recognition Models: Feedback Helps.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Magnuson, James S; Mirman, Daniel; Luthra, Sahil; Strauss, Ted; Harris, Harlan D

    2018-01-01

    Human perception, cognition, and action requires fast integration of bottom-up signals with top-down knowledge and context. A key theoretical perspective in cognitive science is the interactive activation hypothesis: forward and backward flow in bidirectionally connected neural networks allows humans and other biological systems to approximate optimal integration of bottom-up and top-down information under real-world constraints. An alternative view is that online feedback is neither necessary nor helpful; purely feed forward alternatives can be constructed for any feedback system, and online feedback could not improve processing and would preclude veridical perception. In the domain of spoken word recognition, the latter view was apparently supported by simulations using the interactive activation model, TRACE, with and without feedback: as many words were recognized more quickly without feedback as were recognized faster with feedback, However, these simulations used only a small set of words and did not address a primary motivation for interaction: making a model robust in noise. We conducted simulations using hundreds of words, and found that the majority were recognized more quickly with feedback than without. More importantly, as we added noise to inputs, accuracy and recognition times were better with feedback than without. We follow these simulations with a critical review of recent arguments that online feedback in interactive activation models like TRACE is distinct from other potentially helpful forms of feedback. We conclude that in addition to providing the benefits demonstrated in our simulations, online feedback provides a plausible means of implementing putatively distinct forms of feedback, supporting the interactive activation hypothesis.

  16. Interaction in Spoken Word Recognition Models: Feedback Helps

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    James S. Magnuson

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Human perception, cognition, and action requires fast integration of bottom-up signals with top-down knowledge and context. A key theoretical perspective in cognitive science is the interactive activation hypothesis: forward and backward flow in bidirectionally connected neural networks allows humans and other biological systems to approximate optimal integration of bottom-up and top-down information under real-world constraints. An alternative view is that online feedback is neither necessary nor helpful; purely feed forward alternatives can be constructed for any feedback system, and online feedback could not improve processing and would preclude veridical perception. In the domain of spoken word recognition, the latter view was apparently supported by simulations using the interactive activation model, TRACE, with and without feedback: as many words were recognized more quickly without feedback as were recognized faster with feedback, However, these simulations used only a small set of words and did not address a primary motivation for interaction: making a model robust in noise. We conducted simulations using hundreds of words, and found that the majority were recognized more quickly with feedback than without. More importantly, as we added noise to inputs, accuracy and recognition times were better with feedback than without. We follow these simulations with a critical review of recent arguments that online feedback in interactive activation models like TRACE is distinct from other potentially helpful forms of feedback. We conclude that in addition to providing the benefits demonstrated in our simulations, online feedback provides a plausible means of implementing putatively distinct forms of feedback, supporting the interactive activation hypothesis.

  17. Whole-Word Phonological Representations of Disyllabic Words in the Chinese Lexicon: Data From Acquired Dyslexia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sam-Po Law

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available This study addresses the issue of the existence of whole-word phonological representations of disyllabic and multisyllabic words in the Chinese mental lexicon. A Cantonese brain-injured dyslexic individual with semantic deficits, YKM, was assessed on his abilities to read aloud and to comprehend disyllabic words containing homographic heterophonous characters, the pronunciation of which can only be disambiguated in word context. Superior performance on reading to comprehension was found. YKM could produce the target phonological forms without understanding the words. The dissociation is taken as evidence for whole-word representations for these words at the phonological level. The claim is consistent with previous account for discrepancy of the frequencies of tonal errors between reading aloud and object naming in Cantonese reported of another case study of similar deficits. Theoretical arguments for whole-word form representations for all multisyllabic Chinese words are also discussed.

  18. Different Neural Correlates of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An ERP Study

    OpenAIRE

    Zhang, Juan; Wu, Chenggang; Meng, Yaxuan; Yuan, Zhen

    2017-01-01

    It is well-documented that both emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, wedding) can induce emotion activation. However, the neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words recognition have not been examined. The present study aimed to compare the underlying neural responses when processing the two kinds of words by employing event-related potential (ERP) measurements. Fifteen Chinese native speakers were asked to perform a lexical...

  19. Attention and Gaze Control in Picture Naming, Word Reading, and Word Categorizing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roelofs, Ardi

    2007-01-01

    The trigger for shifting gaze between stimuli requiring vocal and manual responses was examined. Participants were presented with picture-word stimuli and left- or right-pointing arrows. They vocally named the picture (Experiment 1), read the word (Experiment 2), or categorized the word (Experiment 3) and shifted their gaze to the arrow to…

  20. The impact of marketing language on patient preference for robot-assisted surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dixon, Peter R; Grant, Robert C; Urbach, David R

    2015-02-01

    Robot-assisted surgery is gaining momentum as a new trend in minimally invasive surgery. With limited evidence supporting its use in place of the far less expensive conventional laparoscopic surgery, it has been suggested that marketing pressure is partly responsible for its widespread adoption. The impact of phrases that promote the novelty of robot-assisted surgery on patient decision making has not been investigated. We conducted a discrete choice experiment to elicit preference of partial colectomy technique for a hypothetical diagnosis of colon cancer. A convenience sample of 38 participants in an ambulatory general surgery clinic consented to participate. Each participant made 2 treatment decisions between robot-assisted surgery and conventional laparoscopic surgery, with robot-assisted surgery described as "innovative" and "state-of-the-art" in one of the decisions (marketing frame), and by a disclosure of the uncertainty of available evidence in the other (evidence-based frame). The magnitude of the framing effect was large with 12 of 38 subjects (31.6%, P = .005) selecting robot-assisted surgery in the marketing frame and not the evidence-based frame. This is the first study to our knowledge to demonstrate that words that highlight novelty have an important influence on patient preference for robot-assisted surgery and that use of more neutral language can mitigate this effect. © The Author(s) 2014.

  1. Tracking the time course of word-frequency effects in auditory word recognition with event-related potentials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dufour, Sophie; Brunellière, Angèle; Frauenfelder, Ulrich H

    2013-04-01

    Although the word-frequency effect is one of the most established findings in spoken-word recognition, the precise processing locus of this effect is still a topic of debate. In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to track the time course of the word-frequency effect. In addition, the neighborhood density effect, which is known to reflect mechanisms involved in word identification, was also examined. The ERP data showed a clear frequency effect as early as 350 ms from word onset on the P350, followed by a later effect at word offset on the late N400. A neighborhood density effect was also found at an early stage of spoken-word processing on the PMN, and at word offset on the late N400. Overall, our ERP differences for word frequency suggest that frequency affects the core processes of word identification starting from the initial phase of lexical activation and including target word selection. They thus rule out any interpretation of the word frequency effect that is limited to a purely decisional locus after word identification has been completed. Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  2. Modeling within-word and cross-word pronunciation variation to improve the performance of a Dutch CSR

    OpenAIRE

    Kessens, J.M.; Wester, M.; Strik, H.

    1999-01-01

    This paper describes how the performance of a continuous speech recognizer for Dutch has been improved by modeling within-word and cross-word pronunciation variation. Within-word variants were automatically generated by applying five phonological rules to the words in the lexicon. For the within-word method, a significant improvement is found compared to the baseline. Cross-word pronunciation variation was modeled using two different methods: 1) adding cross-word variants directly to the lexi...

  3. Semantic Keys and Reading

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zev bar-Lev

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Semantic Keys are elements (word-parts of written language that give an iconic, general representation of the whole word’s meaning. In written Sino-Japanese the “radical” or semantic components play this role. For example, the character meaning ‘woman, female’ is the Semantic Key of the character for Ma ‘Mama’ (alongside the phonetic component Ma, which means ‘horse’ as a separate character. The theory of semantic Keys in both graphic and phonemic aspects is called qTheory or nanosemantics. The most innovative aspect of the present article is the hypothesis that, in languages using alphabetic writing systems, the role of Semantic Key is played by consonants, more specifically the first consonant. Thus, L meaning ‘LIFT’ is the Semantic Key of English Lift, Ladle, Lofty, aLps, eLevator, oLympus; Spanish Leva, Lecantarse, aLto, Lengua; Arabic aLLah, and Hebrew① ªeL-ºaL ‘upto-above’ (the Israeli airline, Polish Lot ‘flight’ (the Polish airline; Hebrew ªeL, ªeLohim ‘God’, and haLLeluyah ‘praise-ye God’ (using Parallels, ‘Lift up God’. Evidence for the universality of the theory is shown by many examples drawn from various languages, including Indo-European Semitic, Chinese and Japanese. The theory reveals hundreds of relationships within and between languages, related and unrelated, that have been “Hiding in Plain Sight”, to mention just one example: the Parallel between Spanish Pan ‘bread’ and Mandarin Fan ‘rice’.

  4. [Incremental cost effectiveness of multifocal cataract surgery].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pagel, N; Dick, H B; Krummenauer, F

    2007-02-01

    Supplementation of cataract patients with multifocal intraocular lenses involves an additional financial investment when compared to the corresponding monofocal supplementation, which usually is not funded by German health care insurers. In the context of recent resource allocation discussions, however, the cost effectiveness of multifocal cataract surgery could become an important rationale. Therefore an evidence-based estimation of its cost effectiveness was carried out. Three independent meta-analyses were implemented to estimate the gain in uncorrected near visual acuity and best corrected visual acuity (vision lines) as well as the predictability (fraction of patients without need for reading aids) of multifocal supplementation. Study reports published between 1995 and 2004 (English or German language) were screened for appropriate key words. Meta effects in visual gain and predictability were estimated by means and standard deviations of the reported effect measures. Cost data were estimated by German DRG rates and individual lens costs; the cost effectiveness of multifocal cataract surgery was then computed in terms of its marginal cost effectiveness ratio (MCER) for each clinical benefit endpoint; the incremental costs of multifocal versus monofocal cataract surgery were further estimated by means of their respective incremental cost effectiveness ratio (ICER). An independent meta-analysis estimated the complication profiles to be expected after monofocal and multifocal cataract surgery in order to evaluate expectable complication-associated additional costs of both procedures; the marginal and incremental cost effectiveness estimates were adjusted accordingly. A sensitivity analysis comprised cost variations of +/- 10 % and utility variations alongside the meta effect estimate's 95 % confidence intervals. Total direct costs from the health care insurer's perspective were estimated 3363 euro, associated with a visual meta benefit in best corrected visual

  5. Some Key Principles for Developing Grammar Skills

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    张威

    2008-01-01

    Grammar is sometimes defined aft"the way words are put together to make correct sentences"(Ur,2004,P.75).The aim of teaching grammar is to raise the rates of the correctness of language use and help the students transfer the isolated language points to apply language.In this essay,the author introduces two kinds of Conlnlon methods in English grammar class. And there are some key principles in grammar teaching.

  6. Acoustic-phonetic cues to word boundary location: Evidence from word spotting

    OpenAIRE

    Dumay, Nicolas; Content, Alain; Frauenfelder, Ulrich Hans

    1999-01-01

    This research examined acoustic-phonetic cues to word boundary location in French consonant clusters, and assessed their use in on-line lexical segmentation. Two word-spotting experiments manipulated the alignment between word targets and syllable boundaries. A perceptual cost of such misalignment was observed for obstruent-liquid clusters but not for /s/ + obstruent clusters. For the former clusters, the analysis of a corpus of utterances showed systematic variations in segment durations as ...

  7. Abstracts and Key Words

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2012-01-01

    Religion, State and Civil Religion: Assumption and Practice of Confucian Religion in the Course of Nation-state Construction CAN Chun-song Abstract: In late Qing Dynasty and the early years of the Republic of China, Kang You-wei made a proposal to set Confucian religion as state religion. After analyzing carefully Kang's related texts, however, it can be shown that Kang had unique understandings of "religion" and "state religion". Kang defined Confucianism as religion in the sense of cultivation, and emphasized that the function of Confucianism was moral education. Kang's understanding of "state religion" aims to conserve Chinese traditional cultures and customs, shape the identity of nation-state, and enhance the state's cohesion. In this sense, Kang's definition of "national religion" is similar to to Bellah's "civil religion".

  8. L2 Word Recognition: Influence of L1 Orthography on Multi-Syllabic Word Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamada, Megumi

    2017-01-01

    L2 reading research suggests that L1 orthographic experience influences L2 word recognition. Nevertheless, the findings on multi-syllabic words in English are still limited despite the fact that a vast majority of words are multi-syllabic. The study investigated whether L1 orthography influences the recognition of multi-syllabic words, focusing on…

  9. Analysis of the efficacy of marketing tools in facial plastic surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zavod, Matthew B; Adamson, Peter A

    2008-06-01

    To compare referral sources to a facial plastic surgery practice and to develop models correlating the referral source with the decision for surgery. Retrospective descriptive study. Well-established, metropolitan, private facial plastic surgery practice with training fellowship affiliated with an academic centre. One-thousand eighty-nine new consecutive patients presenting between January 2001 and December 2005 recorded intake data including age, gender, and chief complaint. Final data input was their decision for or against surgery. Main outcome measures included differences in referral sources based on data collected and how those sources related to decision for surgery. A 50% conversion rate was found. Women and older patients were more likely to be referred from magazines, television, and newspapers and for facial rejuvenation. Men and younger patients were more likely to be referred from the website and for rhinoplasty. For facial rejuvenation, both the number of patients interested in and the probability that they agreed to the procedure increased with age. For rhinoplasty, the converse was true. The most likely patients to schedule surgery were those who were referred from other patients, friends, or family members in our practice. The data confirm that word-of-mouth referrals are the most important source for predicting which patients will elect to proceed with surgery in this established facial cosmetic surgery practice.

  10. [52th Commemoration of French Journal of Plastic Aesthetic Surgery (1956-2007). Fifty-four years of editorial; five Editors-in-chief].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cariou, J-L

    2007-08-01

    The french Society of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery (SOF.CPRE) is born December 3th 1952. Initially without "aesthetic", this "key-word" is agreed in 1983 and the symbols are advanced since: SFCPR, SFCPRE, SOF.CPRE. Its official organ, formerly included in Annales de chirurgie (1954-1955), become Annales de chirurgie plastique in 1956, Annales de chirurgie plastique et esthétique in 1983 and finally Annales de chirurgie plastique esthétique (ACPE) in 1992. Since the origin, five Editors-in-chief succeded: Claude Dufourmentel, Raymond Vilain, Jean-Pierre Lalardrie, Claude Lê-Quang, Jean-Luc Cariou. Four of them are alive, Raymond Vilain is dead. The author relate here the natural story of these five editors who had all a triple route: personnal, surgical and editorial.

  11. Effects of Word Recognition Training in a Picture-Word Interference Task: Automaticity vs. Speed.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ehri, Linnea C.

    First and second graders were taught to recognize a set of written words either more accurately or more rapidly. Both before and after word training, they named pictures printed with and without these words as distractors. Of interest was whether training would enhance or diminish the interference created by these words in the picture naming task.…

  12. Network Alterations Supporting Word Retrieval in Patients with Medial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Protzner, Andrea B.; McAndrews, Mary Pat

    2011-01-01

    Although the hippocampus is not considered a key structure in semantic memory, patients with medial-temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE) have deficits in semantic access on some word retrieval tasks. We hypothesized that these deficits reflect the negative impact of focal epilepsy on remote cerebral structures. Thus, we expected that the networks that…

  13. Understanding Medical Words

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Bar Home Current Issue Past Issues Understanding Medical Words Past Issues / Summer 2009 Table of Contents For ... Medicine that teaches you about many of the words related to your health care Do you have ...

  14. [Perioperative nursing of internal sinus floor elevation surgery with piezosurgery].

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Jing; Lei, Yiling; Wang, Liqiong

    2013-12-01

    This study aims to summarize the nursing experience in the internal sinus floor elevation surgery with piezosurgery. The medical records of 48 patients who underwent sinus floor elevation surgery with piezosurgery in the Department of Implantation, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, were reviewed. The preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative nursing methods were summarized. All 48 patients underwent smooth surgeries and did not encounter complications. Careful preoperative preparation, careful and meticulous intraoperative nursing cooperation, and provision of sufficient health education after surgery to the patients are the key factors that ensure the success of internal sinus floor elevation surgery with piezosurgery.

  15. Finding Rising and Falling Words

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tjong Kim Sang, E.

    2016-01-01

    We examine two different methods for finding rising words (among which neologisms) and falling words (among which archaisms) in decades of magazine texts (millions of words) and in years of tweets (billions of words): one based on correlation coefficients of relative frequencies and time, and one

  16. Lexical availability of young Spanish EFL learners: emotion words versus non-emotion words

    OpenAIRE

    Jiménez Catalán, R.; Dewaele, Jean-Marc

    2017-01-01

    This study intends to contribute to L2 emotion vocabulary research by looking at the words that primary school EFL learners produce in response to prompts in a lexical availability task. Specifically, it aims to ascertain whether emotion prompts (Love, Hate, Happy and Sad) generate a greater number of words than non-emotion prompts (School and Animals). It also seeks to identify the words learners associate with each semantic category to determine whether the words produced in response to emo...

  17. Reduplication Facilitates Early Word Segmentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ota, Mitsuhiko; Skarabela, Barbora

    2018-01-01

    This study explores the possibility that early word segmentation is aided by infants' tendency to segment words with repeated syllables ("reduplication"). Twenty-four nine-month-olds were familiarized with passages containing one novel reduplicated word and one novel non-reduplicated word. Their central fixation times in response to…

  18. Frequency Analysis of the Words in the Academic Word List (AWL) and Non-AWL Content Words in Applied Linguistics Research Papers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vongpumivitch, Viphavee; Huang, Ju-yu; Chang, Yu-Chia

    2009-01-01

    This study is a corpus-based lexical study that aims to explore the use of words in Coxhead's (2000) Academic Word List (AWL) in journal articles in the field of applied linguistics. A 1.5 million-word corpus called the Applied Linguistics Research Articles Corpus (ALC) was created for this study. The corpus consists of 200 research articles that…

  19. Hearing taboo words can result in early talker effects in word recognition for female listeners.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tuft, Samantha E; MᶜLennan, Conor T; Krestar, Maura L

    2018-02-01

    Previous spoken word recognition research using the long-term repetition-priming paradigm found performance costs for stimuli mismatching in talker identity. That is, when words were repeated across the two blocks, and the identity of the talker changed reaction times (RTs) were slower than when the repeated words were spoken by the same talker. Such performance costs, or talker effects, followed a time course, occurring only when processing was relatively slow. More recent research suggests that increased explicit and implicit attention towards the talkers can result in talker effects even during relatively fast processing. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether word meaning would influence the pattern of talker effects in an easy lexical decision task and, if so, whether results would differ depending on whether the presentation of neutral and taboo words was mixed or blocked. Regardless of presentation, participants responded to taboo words faster than neutral words. Furthermore, talker effects for the female talker emerged when participants heard both taboo and neutral words (consistent with an attention-based hypothesis), but not for participants that heard only taboo or only neutral words (consistent with the time-course hypothesis). These findings have important implications for theoretical models of spoken word recognition.

  20. Semantic Change Type in Old Javanese Word and Sanskrit Loan Word to Modern Javanese

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hendy Yuniarto

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This research aims to describe type classifier of semantic change and to explain the factors causing semantic change. This research was conducted with a qualitative-descriptive approach. The research method is conducted by comparing the meaning of words from the Old Javanese and Sanskrit loan wordto Modern Javanese. The collection data is done by looking for words that the meaning suspected change in Old Javanese dictionary. Words meaning determined precisely by tracing to the Old Javanese text. Furthermore, words meaning are compared to present time meaning through Modern Javanese dictionary. In addition, searching Modern Javanese meaning are also using Javanese news on the internet pages. The analysis of this research is to classify Old Javanese words and Sanskrit loan words meaning that undergo change to Modern Javanese. It’s also explained why the change in the word meaning can occur. The result shows that, semantic change of Old Javanese words and Sanskrit loan words to Modern Javanese can be classified into seven types, involving widening, narrowing, shifting, metaphor, metonymy, pejoration, and euphemism. In addition, the result shows that semantic change can occur because of some factors. Psychological factor concerning emotive and taboo, and polysemy. religion spreading, the growth of science and technology, the socio-political development, and the needs of a new name.   DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2013.160101

  1. Teach yourself visually WordPress

    CERN Document Server

    Majure, Janet

    2012-01-01

    Get your blog up and running with the latest version of WordPress WordPress is one of the most popular, easy-to-use blogging platforms and allows you to create a dynamic and engaging blog, even if you have no programming skills or experience. Ideal for the visual learner, Teach Yourself VISUALLY WordPress, Second Edition introduces you to the exciting possibilities of the newest version of WordPress and helps you get started, step by step, with creating and setting up a WordPress site. Author and experienced WordPress user Janet Majure shares advice, insight, and best practices for taking full

  2. Orthodontic-orthognathic interventions in orthognathic surgical cases: "Paper surgery" and "model surgery" concepts in surgical orthodontics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Narayan H Gandedkar

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Thorough planning and execution is the key for successful treatment of dentofacial deformity involving surgical orthodontics. Presurgical planning (paper surgery and model surgery are the most essential prerequisites of orthognathic surgery, and orthodontist is the one who carries out this procedure by evaluating diagnostic aids such as crucial clinical findings and radiographic assessments. However, literature pertaining to step-by-step orthognathic surgical guidelines is limited. Hence, this article makes an attempt to provide an insight and nuances involved in the planning and execution. The diagnostic information revealed from clinical findings and radiographic assessments is integrated in the "paper surgery" to establish "surgical-plan." Furthermore, the "paper surgery" is emulated in "model surgery" such that surgical bite-wafers are created, which aid surgeon to preview the final outcome and make surgical movements that are deemed essential for the desired skeletal and dental outcomes. Skeletal complexities are corrected by performing "paper surgery" and an occlusion is set up during "model surgery" for the fabrication of surgical bite-wafers. Further, orthodontics is carried out for the proper settling and finishing of occlusion. Article describes the nuances involved in the treatment of Class III skeletal deformity individuals treated with orthognathic surgical approach and illustrates orthodontic-orthognathic step-by-step procedures from "treatment planning" to "execution" for successful management of aforementioned dentofacial deformity.

  3. Meaningful Words and Non-Words Repetitive Articulatory Rate (Oral Diadochokinesis) in Persian Speaking Children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zamani, Peyman; Rezai, Hossein; Garmatani, Neda Tahmasebi

    2017-08-01

    Repetitive articulatory rate or Oral Diadochokinesis (oral-DDK) shows a guideline for appraisal and diagnosis of subjects with oral-motor disorder. Traditionally, meaningless words repetition has been utilized in this task and preschool children have challenges with them. Therefore, we aimed to determine some meaningful words in order to test oral-DDK in Persian speaking preschool children. Participants were 142 normally developing children, (age range 4-6 years), who were asked to produce /motæka, golabi/ as two meaningful Persian words and /pa-ta-ka/ as non-word in conventional oral-DDK task. We compared the time taken for 10-times fast repetitions of two meaningful Persian words and the tri-syllabic nonsense word /pa-ta-ka/. Praat software was used to calculate the average time that subjects took to produce the target items. In 4-5 year old children, [Formula: see text] of time taken for 10-times repetitions of /pa-ta-ka, motæka, golabi/ were [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] seconds respectively, and in 5-6 year old children were [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] seconds respectively. Findings showed that the main effect of type of words on oral diadochokinesis was significant ([Formula: see text]). Children repeated meaningful words /motæka, golabi/ faster than the non-word /pa-ta-ka/. Sex and age factors had no effect on time taken for repetition of oral-DDK test. It is suggested that Speech Therapists can use meaningful words to facilitate oral-DDK test for children.

  4. Model of the Dynamic Construction Process of Texts and Scaling Laws of Words Organization in Language Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Shan; Lin, Ruokuang; Bian, Chunhua; Ma, Qianli D Y; Ivanov, Plamen Ch

    2016-01-01

    Scaling laws characterize diverse complex systems in a broad range of fields, including physics, biology, finance, and social science. The human language is another example of a complex system of words organization. Studies on written texts have shown that scaling laws characterize the occurrence frequency of words, words rank, and the growth of distinct words with increasing text length. However, these studies have mainly concentrated on the western linguistic systems, and the laws that govern the lexical organization, structure and dynamics of the Chinese language remain not well understood. Here we study a database of Chinese and English language books. We report that three distinct scaling laws characterize words organization in the Chinese language. We find that these scaling laws have different exponents and crossover behaviors compared to English texts, indicating different words organization and dynamics of words in the process of text growth. We propose a stochastic feedback model of words organization and text growth, which successfully accounts for the empirically observed scaling laws with their corresponding scaling exponents and characteristic crossover regimes. Further, by varying key model parameters, we reproduce differences in the organization and scaling laws of words between the Chinese and English language. We also identify functional relationships between model parameters and the empirically observed scaling exponents, thus providing new insights into the words organization and growth dynamics in the Chinese and English language.

  5. Model of the Dynamic Construction Process of Texts and Scaling Laws of Words Organization in Language Systems.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shan Li

    Full Text Available Scaling laws characterize diverse complex systems in a broad range of fields, including physics, biology, finance, and social science. The human language is another example of a complex system of words organization. Studies on written texts have shown that scaling laws characterize the occurrence frequency of words, words rank, and the growth of distinct words with increasing text length. However, these studies have mainly concentrated on the western linguistic systems, and the laws that govern the lexical organization, structure and dynamics of the Chinese language remain not well understood. Here we study a database of Chinese and English language books. We report that three distinct scaling laws characterize words organization in the Chinese language. We find that these scaling laws have different exponents and crossover behaviors compared to English texts, indicating different words organization and dynamics of words in the process of text growth. We propose a stochastic feedback model of words organization and text growth, which successfully accounts for the empirically observed scaling laws with their corresponding scaling exponents and characteristic crossover regimes. Further, by varying key model parameters, we reproduce differences in the organization and scaling laws of words between the Chinese and English language. We also identify functional relationships between model parameters and the empirically observed scaling exponents, thus providing new insights into the words organization and growth dynamics in the Chinese and English language.

  6. Second Language Learners' Contiguous and Discontiguous Multi-Word Unit Use over Time

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yuldashev, Aziz; Fernandez, Julieta; Thorne, Steven L.

    2013-01-01

    Research has described the key role of formulaic language use in both written and spoken communication (Schmitt, 2004; Wray, 2002), as well as in relation to L2 learning (Ellis, Simpson--Vlach, & Maynard, 2008). Relatively few studies have examined related fixed and semi-fixed multi-word units (MWUs), which comprise fixed parts with the potential…

  7. Interdisciplinary European Guidelines on Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fried, Martin; Yumuk, Volkan; Oppert, Jean-Michel; Scopinaro, Nicola; Torres, Antonio J.; Weiner, Rudolf; Yashkov, Yuri; Frühbeck, Gema

    2013-01-01

    In 2012, an outstanding expert panel derived from IFSO-EC (International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity - European Chapter) and EASO (European Association for the Study of Obesity), composed by key representatives of both Societies including past and present presidents together with EASO's OMTF (Obesity Management Task Force) chair, agreed to devote the joint Medico-Surgical Workshop of both institutions to the topic of metabolic surgery as a pre-satellite of the 2013 European Congress on Obesity (ECO) to be held in Liverpool given the extraordinarily advancement made specifically in this field during the past years. It was further agreed to revise and update the 2008 Interdisciplinary European Guidelines on Surgery of Severe Obesity produced in cooperation of both Societies by focusing in particular on the evidence gathered in relation to the effects on diabetes during this lustrum and the subsequent changes that have taken place in patient eligibility criteria. The expert panel composition allowed the coverage of key disciplines in the comprehensive management of obesity and obesity-associated diseases, aimed specifically at updating the clinical guidelines to reflect current knowledge, expertise and evidence-based data on metabolic and bariatric surgery. PMID:24135948

  8. Clusters of word properties as predictors of elementary school children's performance on two word tasks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tellings, A.E.J.M.; Coppens, K.M.; Gelissen, J.P.T.M.; Schreuder, R.

    2013-01-01

    Often, the classification of words does not go beyond "difficult" (i.e., infrequent, late-learned, nonimageable, etc.) or "easy" (i.e., frequent, early-learned, imageable, etc.) words. In the present study, we used a latent cluster analysis to divide 703 Dutch words with scores for eight word

  9. Words can slow down category learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brojde, Chandra L; Porter, Chelsea; Colunga, Eliana

    2011-08-01

    Words have been shown to influence many cognitive tasks, including category learning. Most demonstrations of these effects have focused on instances in which words facilitate performance. One possibility is that words augment representations, predicting an across the-board benefit of words during category learning. We propose that words shift attention to dimensions that have been historically predictive in similar contexts. Under this account, there should be cases in which words are detrimental to performance. The results from two experiments show that words impair learning of object categories under some conditions. Experiment 1 shows that words hurt performance when learning to categorize by texture. Experiment 2 shows that words also hurt when learning to categorize by brightness, leading to selectively attending to shape when both shape and hue could be used to correctly categorize stimuli. We suggest that both the positive and negative effects of words have developmental origins in the history of word usage while learning categories. [corrected

  10. Grounding word learning in space.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Larissa K Samuelson

    Full Text Available Humans and objects, and thus social interactions about objects, exist within space. Words direct listeners' attention to specific regions of space. Thus, a strong correspondence exists between where one looks, one's bodily orientation, and what one sees. This leads to further correspondence with what one remembers. Here, we present data suggesting that children use associations between space and objects and space and words to link words and objects--space binds labels to their referents. We tested this claim in four experiments, showing that the spatial consistency of where objects are presented affects children's word learning. Next, we demonstrate that a process model that grounds word learning in the known neural dynamics of spatial attention, spatial memory, and associative learning can capture the suite of results reported here. This model also predicts that space is special, a prediction supported in a fifth experiment that shows children do not use color as a cue to bind words and objects. In a final experiment, we ask whether spatial consistency affects word learning in naturalistic word learning contexts. Children of parents who spontaneously keep objects in a consistent spatial location during naming interactions learn words more effectively. Together, the model and data show that space is a powerful tool that can effectively ground word learning in social contexts.

  11. Manipulating Objects and Telling Words: A Study on Concrete and Abstract Words Acquisition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Borghi, Anna M.; Flumini, Andrea; Cimatti, Felice; Marocco, Davide; Scorolli, Claudia

    2011-01-01

    Four experiments (E1–E2–E3–E4) investigated whether different acquisition modalities lead to the emergence of differences typically found between concrete and abstract words, as argued by the words as tools (WAT) proposal. To mimic the acquisition of concrete and abstract concepts, participants either manipulated novel objects or observed groups of objects interacting in novel ways (Training 1). In TEST 1 participants decided whether two elements belonged to the same category. Later they read the category labels (Training 2); labels could be accompanied by an explanation of their meaning. Then participants observed previously seen exemplars and other elements, and were asked which of them could be named with a given label (TEST 2). Across the experiments, it was more difficult to form abstract than concrete categories (TEST 1); even when adding labels, abstract words remained more difficult than concrete words (TEST 2). TEST 3 differed across the experiments. In E1 participants performed a feature production task. Crucially, the associations produced with the novel words reflected the pattern evoked by existing concrete and abstract words, as the first evoked more perceptual properties. In E2–E3–E4, TEST 3 consisted of a color verification task with manual/verbal (keyboard–microphone) responses. Results showed the microphone use to have an advantage over keyboard use for abstract words, especially in the explanation condition. This supports WAT: due to their acquisition modality, concrete words evoke more manual information; abstract words elicit more verbal information. This advantage was not present when linguistic information contrasted with perceptual one. Implications for theories and computational models of language grounding are discussed. PMID:21716582

  12. Computational Modeling in Liver Surgery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bruno Christ

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available The need for extended liver resection is increasing due to the growing incidence of liver tumors in aging societies. Individualized surgical planning is the key for identifying the optimal resection strategy and to minimize the risk of postoperative liver failure and tumor recurrence. Current computational tools provide virtual planning of liver resection by taking into account the spatial relationship between the tumor and the hepatic vascular trees, as well as the size of the future liver remnant. However, size and function of the liver are not necessarily equivalent. Hence, determining the future liver volume might misestimate the future liver function, especially in cases of hepatic comorbidities such as hepatic steatosis. A systems medicine approach could be applied, including biological, medical, and surgical aspects, by integrating all available anatomical and functional information of the individual patient. Such an approach holds promise for better prediction of postoperative liver function and hence improved risk assessment. This review provides an overview of mathematical models related to the liver and its function and explores their potential relevance for computational liver surgery. We first summarize key facts of hepatic anatomy, physiology, and pathology relevant for hepatic surgery, followed by a description of the computational tools currently used in liver surgical planning. Then we present selected state-of-the-art computational liver models potentially useful to support liver surgery. Finally, we discuss the main challenges that will need to be addressed when developing advanced computational planning tools in the context of liver surgery.

  13. Activation of extrastriate and frontal cortical areas by visual words and word-like stimuli

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Petersen, S.E.; Fox, P.T.; Snyder, A.Z.; Raichle, M.E.

    1990-01-01

    Visual presentation of words activates extrastriate regions of the occipital lobes of the brain. When analyzed by positron emission tomography (PET), certain areas in the left, medial extrastriate visual cortex were activated by visually presented pseudowords that obey English spelling rules, as well as by actual words. These areas were not activated by nonsense strings of letters or letter-like forms. Thus visual word form computations are based on learned distinctions between words and nonwords. In addition, during passive presentation of words, but not pseudowords, activation occurred in a left frontal area that is related to semantic processing. These findings support distinctions made in cognitive psychology and computational modeling between high-level visual and semantic computations on single words and describe the anatomy that may underlie these distinctions

  14. The influence of spelling on phonological encoding in word reading, object naming, and word generation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Roelofs, A.P.A.

    2006-01-01

    Does the spelling of a word mandatorily constrain spoken word production, or does it do so only when spelling is relevant for the production task at hand? Damian and Bowers (2003) reported spelling effects in spoken word production in English using a prompt–response word generation task. Preparation

  15. Body dysmorphic disorder: prevalence and outcomes in an oculofacial plastic surgery practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woolley, Austin J; Perry, Julian D

    2015-06-01

    To determine the prevalence, associated factors, and surgical outcomes of patients with body dysmorphic disorder in an oculofacial surgery practice. Retrospective cross-sectional analysis of a consecutive case series. Participants consisted of a consecutive series of 728 patients who completed the Dysmorphic Concern Questionnaire in an oculofacial surgery practice at The Cole Eye Institute between November 2013 and June 2014. A questionnaire score ≥9 was used as a positive screen for body dysmorphic disorder. Three control patients scoring ≤8 in the same month were randomly selected for each positive-screening patient. Main outcome measures included number of reoperations, surgical complications, and follow-up visits; preoperative and postoperative pain scores; and the technician word count. Categorical variables were analyzed with Pearson χ(2) tests or Fisher exact tests, while continuous variables were analyzed with Wilcoxon rank sum tests or t tests. A total of 728 patients completed the questionnaire and 50 (6.9%) scored 9 or more. Using a confidence interval of 95%, patients in the positive questionnaire screen group were younger (P = .004), had more eyelid surgeries (P = .007), experienced higher rates of complications after surgery (P = .002), reported higher postoperative pain scores (P = .034), required more reoperations (P = .050), and had a higher technician word count compared to the control group (P = .003). The prevalence of body dysmorphic disorder in an oculofacial surgical setting matches reports from other surgical specialties, and is significantly higher than in the general population. Patients screening positively for body dysmorphic disorder tend to have higher postoperative pain scores and more postoperative complications. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Situated Word Learning: Words of the Year (WsOY) and Social Studies Inquiry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heafner, Tina L.; Triplett, Nicholas; Handler, Laura; Massey, Dixie

    2018-01-01

    Current events influence public interest and drive Internet word searches. For over a decade, linguists and dictionary publishers have analyzed big data from Internet word searches to designate "Words of the Year" (WsOY). In this study, we examine how WsOY can foster critical digital literacy and illuminate essential aspects of inquiry…

  17. Risk Factors For Wound Infections After Implant Surgery | Onche ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    OBJECTIVE: Post-operative wound infection (POWI) rates for implant surgery are in the range of 0.08 to 13% in spite of the many advances in surgery in the past decades. It is therefore imperative that we develop a system of predicting the occurrence of POWI as a key to effective prevention. One approach is for each ...

  18. Word segmentation in children’s literacy: a study about word awareness

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Débora Mattos Marques

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available The present research aimed to investigate how linguistic awareness regarding the concept of “word” may influence some mistakes on segmenting words in children’s writing in the Elementary School. The observed data comprised those of hyper and hyposegmentation which were then related to word awareness. For the analysis of linguistic awareness data, the Representational Redescription, proposed by Karmillof-Smith (1986-1992, has been used. It postulates four levels where knowledge is redescribed in the human mind, becoming accessible for awareness and verbalization along with the time. The research methodology consisted of six tests, out of which four were applied in order to verify word awareness, and, the other two tests, to obtain samples of writing data. Thus, it was noticed that a great part of the segmentation mistakes identified in the collected writings are related to the informants' ability to distinguish between different words until the moment they were observed. As a result, the uncommon segmentation mistakes found in the analyzed data evidenced that not only are they motivated by prosodic or phonological matters, but they are also influenced by linguistic awareness issues involving the informants’ understanding of word.

  19. The Multisyllabic Word Dilemma: Helping Students Build Meaning, Spell, and Read "Big" Words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cunningham, Patricia M.

    1998-01-01

    Looks at what is known about multisyllabic words, which is a lot more than educators knew when the previous generation of multisyllabic word instruction was created. Reviews the few studies that have carried out instructional approaches to increase students' ability to decode big words. Outlines a program of instruction, based on what is currently…

  20. Gesture en route to words

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen de López, Kristine M.

    2010-01-01

    This study explores the communicative production of gestrural and vocal modalities by 8 normally developing children in two different cultures (Danish and Zapotec: Mexican indigenous) 16 to 20 months). We analyzed spontaneous production of gestrures and words in children's transition to the two-word...... the children showed an early preference for the gestural or vocal modality. Through Analyzes of two-element combinations of words and/or gestures, we observd a relative increase in cross-modal (gesture-word and two-word) combinations. The results are discussed in terms understanding gestures as a transition...

  1. Word-of-mouth dynamics with information seeking: Information is not (only) epidemics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thiriot, Samuel

    2018-02-01

    Word-of-mouth is known to determine the success or failure of innovations (Rogers, 2003) and facilitate the diffusion of products (Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955). Word-of-mouth is made of both individuals seeking out information and/or pro-actively spreading information (Gilly et al., 1998; Rogers, 2003). Information seeking is considered as a step mandatory for individuals to retrieve the expert knowledge necessary for them to understand the benefits of an innovation or decide to buy a product (Arndt, 1967; Rogers, 2003). Yet the role of information seeking in the word-of-mouth dynamics was not investigated in computational models. Here we study in which conditions word-of-mouth enables the population to retrieve the initial expertise scattered in the population. We design a computational model in which awareness and expert knowledge are both represented, and study the joint dynamics of information seeking and proactive transmission of information. Simulation experiments highlight the apparition of cascades of awareness, cascades of expertise and chains of information retrieval. We find that different strategies should be used depending on the initial proportion of expertise (disruptive innovations, incremental innovations or products belonging to well-known categories). Surprisingly, when there is too much expertise in the population prior the advertisement campaign, word-of-mouth is less efficient in the retrieval of this expertise than when less expertise is initially present. Our results suggest that information seeking plays a key role in the dynamics of word-of-mouth, which can therefore not be reduced solely to the epidemic aspect.

  2. Blending Words Found In Social Media

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giyatmi Giyatmi

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available There are many new words from the social media such as Netizen, Trentop, and Delcon. Those words include in blending. Blending is one of word formations combining two clipped words to form a brand new word. The researchers are interested in analyzing blend words used in the social media such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Blackberry Messenger. This research aims at (1 finding blend words used in the social media (2 describing kinds of blend words used in social media (3 describing the process of blend word formation used in the social media. This research uses some theories dealing with definition of blending and kinds of blending. This research belongs to descriptive qualitative research. Data of the research are English blend words used in social media. Data sources of this research are websites consisting of some English words used in social media and some social media users as the informant. Techniques of data collecting in this research are observation and simak catat. Observation is by observing some websites consisting of some English words used in social media. Simak catat is done by taking some notes on the data and encoding in symbols such as No/Blend words/Kinds of Blending. The researchers use source triangulation to check the data from the researchers with the informant and theory triangulation to determine kinds of blending and blend word formation in social media. There are115 data of blend words. Those data consists of 65 data of Instagram, 47 data of Twitter, 1 datum of Facebook, and 2 data of Blackberry Messenger. There are 2 types of blending used in social media;108 data of blending with clipping and 7 data of blending with overlapping. There are 10 ways of blend word formation found in this research.

  3. Key concepts in social pedagogy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Harbo, Lotte Junker

    2011-01-01

    and activities around key social pedagogical concepts, such as the Common Third, the 3 P’s, the Zone of Proximal Development and the Learning Zone model. In the article we explore how a joint activity, for example playing soccer, can be seen as a pedagogical activity and with what intentions it is undertaken......“Now I can actually play soccer with the young people without fearing that my colleagues think I am escaping the paper work.” These were the words from a participant in a social pedagogy training course in England a few years ago. This understanding emerged through in-depth discussions...

  4. Experience with compound words influences their processing: An eye movement investigation with English compound words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Juhasz, Barbara J

    2016-11-14

    Recording eye movements provides information on the time-course of word recognition during reading. Juhasz and Rayner [Juhasz, B. J., & Rayner, K. (2003). Investigating the effects of a set of intercorrelated variables on eye fixation durations in reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 29, 1312-1318] examined the impact of five word recognition variables, including familiarity and age-of-acquisition (AoA), on fixation durations. All variables impacted fixation durations, but the time-course differed. However, the study focused on relatively short, morphologically simple words. Eye movements are also informative for examining the processing of morphologically complex words such as compound words. The present study further examined the time-course of lexical and semantic variables during morphological processing. A total of 120 English compound words that varied in familiarity, AoA, semantic transparency, lexeme meaning dominance, sensory experience rating (SER), and imageability were selected. The impact of these variables on fixation durations was examined when length, word frequency, and lexeme frequencies were controlled in a regression model. The most robust effects were found for familiarity and AoA, indicating that a reader's experience with compound words significantly impacts compound recognition. These results provide insight into semantic processing of morphologically complex words during reading.

  5. Representation Learning of Logic Words by an RNN: From Word Sequences to Robot Actions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatsuro Yamada

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available An important characteristic of human language is compositionality. We can efficiently express a wide variety of real-world situations, events, and behaviors by compositionally constructing the meaning of a complex expression from a finite number of elements. Previous studies have analyzed how machine-learning models, particularly neural networks, can learn from experience to represent compositional relationships between language and robot actions with the aim of understanding the symbol grounding structure and achieving intelligent communicative agents. Such studies have mainly dealt with the words (nouns, adjectives, and verbs that directly refer to real-world matters. In addition to these words, the current study deals with logic words, such as “not,” “and,” and “or” simultaneously. These words are not directly referring to the real world, but are logical operators that contribute to the construction of meaning in sentences. In human–robot communication, these words may be used often. The current study builds a recurrent neural network model with long short-term memory units and trains it to learn to translate sentences including logic words into robot actions. We investigate what kind of compositional representations, which mediate sentences and robot actions, emerge as the network's internal states via the learning process. Analysis after learning shows that referential words are merged with visual information and the robot's own current state, and the logical words are represented by the model in accordance with their functions as logical operators. Words such as “true,” “false,” and “not” work as non-linear transformations to encode orthogonal phrases into the same area in a memory cell state space. The word “and,” which required a robot to lift up both its hands, worked as if it was a universal quantifier. The word “or,” which required action generation that looked apparently random, was represented as an

  6. Visual word form familiarity and attention in lateral difference during processing Japanese Kana words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nakagawa, A; Sukigara, M

    2000-09-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between familiarity and laterality in reading Japanese Kana words. In two divided-visual-field experiments, three- or four-character Hiragana or Katakana words were presented in both familiar and unfamiliar scripts, to which subjects performed lexical decisions. Experiment 1, using three stimulus durations (40, 100, 160 ms), suggested that only in the unfamiliar script condition was increased stimulus presentation time differently affected in each visual field. To examine this lateral difference during the processing of unfamiliar scripts as related to attentional laterality, a concurrent auditory shadowing task was added in Experiment 2. The results suggested that processing words in an unfamiliar script requires attention, which could be left-hemisphere lateralized, while orthographically familiar kana words can be processed automatically on the basis of their word-level orthographic representations or visual word form. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

  7. Posture affects how robots and infants map words to objects.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anthony F Morse

    Full Text Available For infants, the first problem in learning a word is to map the word to its referent; a second problem is to remember that mapping when the word and/or referent are again encountered. Recent infant studies suggest that spatial location plays a key role in how infants solve both problems. Here we provide a new theoretical model and new empirical evidence on how the body - and its momentary posture - may be central to these processes. The present study uses a name-object mapping task in which names are either encountered in the absence of their target (experiments 1-3, 6 & 7, or when their target is present but in a location previously associated with a foil (experiments 4, 5, 8 & 9. A humanoid robot model (experiments 1-5 is used to instantiate and test the hypothesis that body-centric spatial location, and thus the bodies' momentary posture, is used to centrally bind the multimodal features of heard names and visual objects. The robot model is shown to replicate existing infant data and then to generate novel predictions, which are tested in new infant studies (experiments 6-9. Despite spatial location being task-irrelevant in this second set of experiments, infants use body-centric spatial contingency over temporal contingency to map the name to object. Both infants and the robot remember the name-object mapping even in new spatial locations. However, the robot model shows how this memory can emerge -not from separating bodily information from the word-object mapping as proposed in previous models of the role of space in word-object mapping - but through the body's momentary disposition in space.

  8. Abdominal Compartment Syndrome in Surgical Patients

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    abdominal hypertension and abdominal compartment syndrome, affect ... timely surgical intervention is crucial. Key words: .... On the second postoperative day, he was noted to be restless ... Although surgery is very effective in managing ACS.

  9. WordPress Top Plugins

    CERN Document Server

    Corbin, Brandon

    2010-01-01

    Time flies when you're having fun. This is the right way to describe this WordPress Top Plugins book by Brandon Corbin. With real world examples and by showing you the perks of having these plugins installed on your websites, the author is all set to captivate your interest from start to end. Regardless of whether this is your first time working with WordPress, or you're a seasoned WordPress coding ninja, WordPress Top Plugins will walk you through finding and installing the best plugins for generating and sharing content, building communities and reader base, and generating real advertising r

  10. Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    McQueen, J.M.; Hüttig, F.

    2014-01-01

    Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of preexposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase

  11. Large-corpus phoneme and word recognition and the generality of lexical context in CVC word perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gelfand, Jessica T; Christie, Robert E; Gelfand, Stanley A

    2014-02-01

    Speech recognition may be analyzed in terms of recognition probabilities for perceptual wholes (e.g., words) and parts (e.g., phonemes), where j or the j-factor reveals the number of independent perceptual units required for recognition of the whole (Boothroyd, 1968b; Boothroyd & Nittrouer, 1988; Nittrouer & Boothroyd, 1990). For consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) nonsense syllables, j ∼ 3 because all 3 phonemes are needed to identify the syllable, but j ∼ 2.5 for real-word CVCs (revealing ∼2.5 independent perceptual units) because higher level contributions such as lexical knowledge enable word recognition even if less than 3 phonemes are accurately received. These findings were almost exclusively determined with the 120-word corpus of the isophonemic word lists (Boothroyd, 1968a; Boothroyd & Nittrouer, 1988), presented one word at a time. It is therefore possible that its generality or applicability may be limited. This study thus determined j by using a much larger and less restricted corpus of real-word CVCs presented in 3-word groups as well as whether j is influenced by test size. The j-factor for real-word CVCs was derived from the recognition performance of 223 individuals with a broad range of hearing sensitivity by using the Tri-Word Test (Gelfand, 1998), which involves 50 three-word presentations and a corpus of 450 words. The influence of test size was determined from a subsample of 96 participants with separate scores for the first 10, 20, and 25 (and all 50) presentation sets of the full test. The mean value of j was 2.48 with a 95% confidence interval of 2.44-2.53, which is in good agreement with values obtained with isophonemic word lists, although its value varies among individuals. A significant correlation was found between percent-correct scores and j, but it was small and accounted for only 12.4% of the variance in j for phoneme scores ≥60%. Mean j-factors for the 10-, 20-, 25-, and 50-set test sizes were between 2.49 and 2.53 and were not

  12. Repair of large palatal fistula using tongue flap | Nawfal | African ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Large palatal fi stulas are a challenging problem in cleft surgery. Many techniques are used to close the defect. The tongue fl ap is an easy and reproductible procedure for managing this complication. The authors report a case of a large palatal fi stula closure with anteriorly based tongue fl ap. Key words: Cleft surgery, ...

  13. Communicating Emotion through Haptic Design: A Study Using Physical Keys

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kjellerup, Marie Kjær; Larsen, Anne Cathrine; Maier, Anja

    2014-01-01

    This paper explores how designers may communicate with the users of their products through haptic design. More specifically, how tactile properties of materials evoke emotions such as satisfaction, joy, or disgust. A research through design approach has been followed; mood- and material boards...... and prototypes of four ‘haptically enhanced’ (physical) keys were created. Types of keys selected include home, bicycle, hobby, and basement. An experiment with ten participants was conducted, using word association and a software to elicit product emotions (PrEmo). Results show a mapping between the designer...

  14. Subsequent publication of oral and maxillofacial surgery meeting abstracts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rodriguez, Joseph L; Laskin, Daniel M

    2012-05-01

    Previous studies in various medical specialties have shown that fewer than 50% of abstracts presented at meetings are subsequently published. The purpose of the present study was to determine the publication rate of abstracts presented at the annual meetings of the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. The titles and authors of the abstracts from all oral abstract session presentations and posters by American contributors were collected from the Final Programs of the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons annual meetings for 2006 to 2009. A PubMed search for published articles through December 2010 was then performed using the authors' names, abstract titles, and key words. A total of 311 abstract presentations were done at the 4 annual meetings. Of these, only 85 (24%) were subsequently published. No difference was found between abstracts from oral or poster presentations. Most of the articles were published in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. Because of deficiencies that can occur in abstracts and the need to disseminate the information they contain, it is important to take the appropriate measures to ensure that full articles are subsequently published. Copyright © 2012 American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Word Durations in Non-Native English

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baker, Rachel E.; Baese-Berk, Melissa; Bonnasse-Gahot, Laurent; Kim, Midam; Van Engen, Kristin J.; Bradlow, Ann R.

    2010-01-01

    In this study, we compare the effects of English lexical features on word duration for native and non-native English speakers and for non-native speakers with different L1s and a range of L2 experience. We also examine whether non-native word durations lead to judgments of a stronger foreign accent. We measured word durations in English paragraphs read by 12 American English (AE), 20 Korean, and 20 Chinese speakers. We also had AE listeners rate the `accentedness' of these non-native speakers. AE speech had shorter durations, greater within-speaker word duration variance, greater reduction of function words, and less between-speaker variance than non-native speech. However, both AE and non-native speakers showed sensitivity to lexical predictability by reducing second mentions and high frequency words. Non-native speakers with more native-like word durations, greater within-speaker word duration variance, and greater function word reduction were perceived as less accented. Overall, these findings identify word duration as an important and complex feature of foreign-accented English. PMID:21516172

  16. Learning words

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jaswal, Vikram K.; Hansen, Mikkel

    2006-01-01

    Children tend to infer that when a speaker uses a new label, the label refers to an unlabeled object rather than one they already know the label for. Does this inference reflect a default assumption that words are mutually exclusive? Or does it instead reflect the result of a pragmatic reasoning...... process about what the speaker intended? In two studies, we distinguish between these possibilities. Preschoolers watched as a speaker pointed toward (Study 1) or looked at (Study 2) a familiar object while requesting the referent for a new word (e.g. 'Can you give me the blicket?'). In both studies......, despite the speaker's unambiguous behavioral cue indicating an intent to refer to a familiar object, children inferred that the novel label referred to an unfamiliar object. These results suggest that children expect words to be mutually exclusive even when a speaker provides some kinds of pragmatic...

  17. Sex reassignment surgery in Thailand.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chokrungvaranont, Prayuth; Tiewtranon, Preecha

    2004-11-01

    Many years ago Thai society considered transsexualism (Gender identity disorder or Gender dysphoria) which is commonly known as Kathoey (a word originally used to denote hermaphrodites), Sao Prapet Song or Tut (as in 'Tootsie') were low class citizens, dirty dressing and had to hide in a dark corner selling their services as prostitutes. This made us unwilling to do sex reassignment surgery for this group of people because the idea of eradicating normal sexual organs for the purpose that was not accepted by the society. Consequently the authors have experience in cases where these people wandered seeking doctors who had no competency nor enough experience to do the surgery. The authors could not inhibit the desire of these people who usually suffer from gender identity disorder from strongly wishing to change their genital sex to the sex they want. The outcome of the surgery was not satisfactory for the patients. There were complications and sequelae which caused the authors to correct them later which might be more difficult than doing the original surgery. In addition there were more studies about the etiology and affect of the disorder on these people that changed the social point of view. The women who wanted to be a him and men who would like to be a her should be considered as patients who need to be cured to set the harmony about their genetic sex and the desire to be the opposite sex and also to be regarded by others as a member of that other sex. The treatments of transsexualism usually begin with conventional psychiatric and endocrinological treatment to adjust the mind to the body. For those who failed conservative treatment in adjusting the mind to the body then sex reassignment surgery will be the only way to transform their body to their mind and give the best result in properly selected patients. Preecha Tiewtranon, the pioneer in sex reassignment surgery in Thailand, did his transsexualism case in 1975 together with Dr. Prakob Thongpeaw. Sex

  18. Effect of an unrelated fluent action on word recognition: A case of motor discrepancy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brouillet, Denis; Milhau, Audrey; Brouillet, Thibaut; Servajean, Philippe

    2017-06-01

    It is now well established that motor fluency affects cognitive processes, including memory. In two experiments participants learned a list of words and then performed a recognition task. The original feature of our procedure is that before judging the words they had to perform a fluent gesture (i.e., typing a letter dyad). The dyads comprised letters located on either the right or left side of the keyboard. Participants typed dyads with their right or left index finger; the required movement was either very small (dyad composed of adjacent letters, Experiment 1) or slightly larger (dyad composed of letters separated by one key, experiment 2). The results show that when the gesture was performed in the ipsilateral space the probability of recognizing a word increased (to a lesser extent it is the same with the dominant hand, experiment 2). Moreover, a binary regression logistic highlighted that the probability of recognizing a word was proportional to the speed by which the gesture was performed. These results are discussed in terms of a feeling of familiarity emerging from motor discrepancy.

  19. Bariatric surgery: assessing opportunities for value innovation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tarantino, David P; Smith, Darlene B

    2005-03-01

    Obesity has been increasing over the past two decades, and the amount of medical and media attention given to bariatric surgery as a promising option for morbidly obese individuals is growing. The growth of bariatric surgery also has been attributed to improved surgical technique, the increase in surgeons trained in laparoscopic procedures, as well increased public awareness with celebrities having successfully undergone surgery. The number of surgeons and hospitals offering bariatric services is increasing. How then does a surgeon or a hospital develop a competitive strategy? The first step is to understand the health-care industry. The key forces are rivalry among present competitors, and the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers. While bariatric surgery currently is in a growth phase, time and competition will force practitioners to compete on the basis of price, unless they find true competitive advantage. Value innovation, is a means of creating new marketing space by looking across the conventionally defined boundaries of business--across substitute industries, across strategic groups, across buyer groups, across complementary product and service offerings, and across the functional-emotional orientation of an industry. One can compete by offering similar services focusing primarily on cost efficiencies as the key to profitability. Alternatively, one can break free from the pack by innovating and focusing on delivering superior value to the customer. As the market for bariatric surgery becomes increasingly overcrowded, profitable growth is not sustainable without developing a clear differential advantage in the market. Value innovation allows you to develop that advantage.

  20. Return of the cadaver: Key role of anatomic dissection for plastic surgery resident training.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krähenbühl, Swenn Maxence; Čvančara, Paul; Stieglitz, Thomas; Bonvin, Raphaël; Michetti, Murielle; Flahaut, Marjorie; Durand, Sébastien; Deghayli, Lina; Applegate, Lee Ann; Raffoul, Wassim

    2017-07-01

    Successful Plastic Surgery Residency training is subjected to evolving society pressure of lower hourly work weeks imposed by external committees, labor laws, and increased public awareness of patient care quality. Although innovative measures for simulation training of surgery are appearing, there is also the realization that basic anatomy training should be re-enforced and cadaver dissection is of utmost importance for surgical techniques.In the development of new technology for implantable neurostimulatory electrodes for the management of phantom limb pain in amputee patients, a design of a cadaveric model has been developed with detailed steps for innovative transfascicular insertion of electrodes. Overall design for electrode and cable implantation transcutaneous was established and an operating protocol devised.Microsurgery of the nerves of the upper extremities for interfascicular electrode implantation is described for the first time. Design of electrode implantation in cadaver specimens was adapted with a trocar delivery of cables and electrodes transcutaneous and stabilization of the electrode by suturing along the nerve. In addition, the overall operating arena environment with specific positions of the multidisciplinary team necessary for implantable electrodes was elaborated to assure optimal operating conditions and procedures during the organization of a first-in-man implantation study.Overall importance of plastic surgery training for new and highly technical procedures is of importance and particularly there is a real need to continue actual cadaveric training due to patient variability for nerve anatomic structures.

  1. Secrets of safe laparoscopic surgery: Anaesthetic and surgical considerations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Srivastava Arati

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, laparoscopic surgery has gained popularity in clinical practice. The key element in laparoscopic surgery is creation of pneumoperitoneum and carbon dioxide is commonly used for insufflation. This pneumoperitoneum perils the normal cardiopulmonary system to a considerable extent. Every laparoscopic surgeon should understand the consequences of pneumoperitoneum; so that its untoward effects can be averted. Pneumoperitoneum increases pressure on diaphragm, leading to its cephalic displacement and thereby decreasing venous return, which can be aggravated by the position of patient during surgery. There is no absolute contraindication of laparoscopic surgery, though we can anticipate some problems in conditions like obesity, pregnancy and previous abdominal surgery. This review discusses some aspects of the pathophysiology of carbon dioxide induced pneumoperitoneum, its consequences as well as strategies to counteract them. Also, we propose certain guidelines for safe laparoscopic surgery.

  2. The course of language functions after temporal lobe epilepsy surgery: a prospective study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giovagnoli, A R; Parente, A; Didato, G; Manfredi, V; Deleo, F; Tringali, G; Villani, F

    2016-12-01

    Anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) within the language-dominant hemisphere can impair naming. This prospective study examined the pre-operative to post-operative course of different language components, clarifying which changes are relevant within the short-term and long-term outcome of language. Patients with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) were evaluated using the Token, Boston Naming and Word Fluency tests assessing sentence comprehension and word-finding on visual, semantic or phonemic cues. A total of 106 patients were evaluated before and 6 months, 1 and 2 years after ATL; 60 patients were also evaluated after 5 years and 38 controls were assessed at baseline. Seizure outcome was comparable between the left and right TLE patients. Before surgery, naming and word fluency were impaired in the left and right TLE patients, whereas sentence comprehension was normal. After left or right ATL, word fluency progressively improved, naming showed early worsening and late improvement after left ATL and progressive improvement after right ATL, and sentence comprehension did not change. At the 5-year follow-up, naming improvement was clinically significant in 31% and 71% of the left and right TLE patients, respectively. Pre-operative naming, ATL laterality, schooling, and post-operative seizure frequency and number of antiepileptic drugs predicted post-operative naming. Pre-operative word fluency and schooling predicted post-operative word fluency. Left or right TLE can impair word-finding but not sentence comprehension. After ATL, word-finding may improve for a long time, depending on TLE laterality, seizure control and mental reserve. These findings may clarify prognosis prior to treatment. © 2016 EAN.

  3. Successful Laparoscopic Removal of an Ingested Toothbrush

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Key words: Foreign body, gastronintestinal, laparoscopic, surgery ... light diet the following day. ... Figure 1: Intraoperative image: Outline of the toothbrush visible on .... China. Gastrointest Endosc 2006;64:485-92. 12. Garrido J, Barkin JS.

  4. Ontological Annotation with WordNet

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Tratz, Stephen C.; Gregory, Michelle L.; Chappell, Alan R.; Whitney, Paul D.; Posse, Christian; Paulson, Patrick R.; Baddeley, Bob; Hohimer, Ryan E.; White, Amanda M.

    2006-06-06

    Semantic Web applications require robust and accurate annotation tools that are capable of automating the assignment of ontological classes to words in naturally occurring text (ontological annotation). Most current ontologies do not include rich lexical databases and are therefore not easily integrated with word sense disambiguation algorithms that are needed to automate ontological annotation. WordNet provides a potentially ideal solution to this problem as it offers a highly structured lexical conceptual representation that has been extensively used to develop word sense disambiguation algorithms. However, WordNet has not been designed as an ontology, and while it can be easily turned into one, the result of doing this would present users with serious practical limitations due to the great number of concepts (synonym sets) it contains. Moreover, mapping WordNet to an existing ontology may be difficult and requires substantial labor. We propose to overcome these limitations by developing an analytical platform that (1) provides a WordNet-based ontology offering a manageable and yet comprehensive set of concept classes, (2) leverages the lexical richness of WordNet to give an extensive characterization of concept class in terms of lexical instances, and (3) integrates a class recognition algorithm that automates the assignment of concept classes to words in naturally occurring text. The ensuing framework makes available an ontological annotation platform that can be effectively integrated with intelligence analysis systems to facilitate evidence marshaling and sustain the creation and validation of inference models.

  5. Word Translation Entropy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schaeffer, Moritz; Dragsted, Barbara; Hvelplund, Kristian Tangsgaard

    This study reports on an investigation into the relationship between the number of translation alternatives for a single word and eye movements on the source text. In addition, the effect of word order differences between source and target text on eye movements on the source text is studied. In p...

  6. Clusters of word properties as predictors of elementary school children’s performance on two word tasks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tellings, A.E.J.M.; Coppens, K.; Gelissen, J.P.T.M.; Schreuder, R.

    2013-01-01

    Often, the classification of words does not go beyond “difficult” (i.e., infrequent, late-learned, nonimageable, etc.) or “easy” (i.e., frequent, early-learned, imageable, etc.) words. In the present study, we used a latent cluster analysis to divide 703 Dutch words with scores for eight word

  7. Image-guided cancer surgery using near-infrared fluorescence

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vahrmeijer, Alexander L.; Hutteman, Merlijn; van der Vorst, Joost R.; van de Velde, C.J.H.; Frangioni, John V.

    2013-01-01

    Paradigm shifts in surgery arise when surgeons are empowered to perform surgery faster, better, and/or less expensively. Optical imaging that exploits invisible near-infrared fluorescent light has the potential to improve cancer surgery outcomes while minimizing anesthesia time and lowering healthcare costs. Because of this, the last few years have witnessed an explosion of proof-of-concept clinical trials in the field. In this review, we introduce the concept of near-infrared fluorescence imaging for cancer surgery, review the clinical trial literature to date, outline the key issues pertaining to imaging system and contrast agent optimization, discuss limitations and leverage, and provide a framework for making the technology available for the routine care of cancer patients in the near future. PMID:23881033

  8. Source memory enhancement for emotional words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doerksen, S; Shimamura, A P

    2001-03-01

    The influence of emotional stimuli on source memory was investigated by using emotionally valenced words. The words were colored blue or yellow (Experiment 1) or surrounded by a blue or yellow frame (Experiment 2). Participants were asked to associate the words with the colors. In both experiments, emotionally valenced words elicited enhanced free recall compared with nonvalenced words; however, recognition memory was not affected. Source memory for the associated color was also enhanced for emotional words, suggesting that even memory for contextual information is benefited by emotional stimuli. This effect was not due to the ease of semantic clustering of emotional words because semantically related words were not associated with enhanced source memory, despite enhanced recall (Experiment 3). It is suggested that enhancement resulted from facilitated arousal or attention, which may act to increase organization processes important for source memory.

  9. Concreteness norms for 1,659 French words: Relationships with other psycholinguistic variables and word recognition times.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonin, Patrick; Méot, Alain; Bugaiska, Aurélia

    2018-02-12

    Words that correspond to a potential sensory experience-concrete words-have long been found to possess a processing advantage over abstract words in various lexical tasks. We collected norms of concreteness for a set of 1,659 French words, together with other psycholinguistic norms that were not available for these words-context availability, emotional valence, and arousal-but which are important if we are to achieve a better understanding of the meaning of concreteness effects. We then investigated the relationships of concreteness with these newly collected variables, together with other psycholinguistic variables that were already available for this set of words (e.g., imageability, age of acquisition, and sensory experience ratings). Finally, thanks to the variety of psychological norms available for this set of words, we decided to test further the embodied account of concreteness effects in visual-word recognition, championed by Kousta, Vigliocco, Vinson, Andrews, and Del Campo (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140, 14-34, 2011). Similarly, we investigated the influences of concreteness in three word recognition tasks-lexical decision, progressive demasking, and word naming-using a multiple regression approach, based on the reaction times available in Chronolex (Ferrand, Brysbaert, Keuleers, New, Bonin, Méot, Pallier, Frontiers in Psychology, 2; 306, 2011). The norms can be downloaded as supplementary material provided with this article.

  10. Implicit and explicit attention to pictures and words: An fMRI-study of concurrent emotional stimulus processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tobias eFlaisch

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The present study utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI to examine the neural processing of concurrently presented emotional stimuli under varying explicit and implicit attention demands. Specifically, in separate trials, participants indicated the category of either pictures or words. The words were placed over the center of the pictures and the picture-word compound-stimuli were presented for 1500 ms in a rapid event-related design. The results reveal pronounced main effects of task and emotion: the picture categorization task prompted strong activations in visual, parietal, temporal, frontal, and subcortical regions; the word categorization task evoked increased activation only in left extrastriate cortex. Furthermore, beyond replicating key findings regarding emotional picture and word processing, the results point to a dissociation of semantic-affective and sensory-perceptual processes for words: while emotional words engaged semantic-affective networks of the left hemisphere regardless of task, the increased activity in left extrastriate cortex associated with explicitly attending to words was diminished when the word was overlaid over an erotic image. Finally, we observed a significant interaction between Picture Category and Task within dorsal visual-associative regions, inferior parietal, and dorsolateral and medial prefrontal cortices: during the word categorization task, activation was increased in these regions when the words were overlaid over erotic as compared to romantic pictures. During the picture categorization task, activity in these areas was relatively decreased when categorizing erotic as compared to romantic pictures. Thus, the emotional intensity of the pictures strongly affected brain regions devoted to the control of task-related word or picture processing. These findings are discussed with respect to the interplay of obligatory stimulus processing with task-related attentional control mechanisms.

  11. Implicit and Explicit Attention to Pictures and Words: An fMRI-Study of Concurrent Emotional Stimulus Processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flaisch, Tobias; Imhof, Martin; Schmälzle, Ralf; Wentz, Klaus-Ulrich; Ibach, Bernd; Schupp, Harald T

    2015-01-01

    The present study utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural processing of concurrently presented emotional stimuli under varying explicit and implicit attention demands. Specifically, in separate trials, participants indicated the category of either pictures or words. The words were placed over the center of the pictures and the picture-word compound-stimuli were presented for 1500 ms in a rapid event-related design. The results reveal pronounced main effects of task and emotion: the picture categorization task prompted strong activations in visual, parietal, temporal, frontal, and subcortical regions; the word categorization task evoked increased activation only in left extrastriate cortex. Furthermore, beyond replicating key findings regarding emotional picture and word processing, the results point to a dissociation of semantic-affective and sensory-perceptual processes for words: while emotional words engaged semantic-affective networks of the left hemisphere regardless of task, the increased activity in left extrastriate cortex associated with explicitly attending to words was diminished when the word was overlaid over an erotic image. Finally, we observed a significant interaction between Picture Category and Task within dorsal visual-associative regions, inferior parietal, and dorsolateral, and medial prefrontal cortices: during the word categorization task, activation was increased in these regions when the words were overlaid over erotic as compared to romantic pictures. During the picture categorization task, activity in these areas was relatively decreased when categorizing erotic as compared to romantic pictures. Thus, the emotional intensity of the pictures strongly affected brain regions devoted to the control of task-related word or picture processing. These findings are discussed with respect to the interplay of obligatory stimulus processing with task-related attentional control mechanisms.

  12. Implicit and Explicit Attention to Pictures and Words: An fMRI-Study of Concurrent Emotional Stimulus Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flaisch, Tobias; Imhof, Martin; Schmälzle, Ralf; Wentz, Klaus-Ulrich; Ibach, Bernd; Schupp, Harald T.

    2015-01-01

    The present study utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural processing of concurrently presented emotional stimuli under varying explicit and implicit attention demands. Specifically, in separate trials, participants indicated the category of either pictures or words. The words were placed over the center of the pictures and the picture-word compound-stimuli were presented for 1500 ms in a rapid event-related design. The results reveal pronounced main effects of task and emotion: the picture categorization task prompted strong activations in visual, parietal, temporal, frontal, and subcortical regions; the word categorization task evoked increased activation only in left extrastriate cortex. Furthermore, beyond replicating key findings regarding emotional picture and word processing, the results point to a dissociation of semantic-affective and sensory-perceptual processes for words: while emotional words engaged semantic-affective networks of the left hemisphere regardless of task, the increased activity in left extrastriate cortex associated with explicitly attending to words was diminished when the word was overlaid over an erotic image. Finally, we observed a significant interaction between Picture Category and Task within dorsal visual-associative regions, inferior parietal, and dorsolateral, and medial prefrontal cortices: during the word categorization task, activation was increased in these regions when the words were overlaid over erotic as compared to romantic pictures. During the picture categorization task, activity in these areas was relatively decreased when categorizing erotic as compared to romantic pictures. Thus, the emotional intensity of the pictures strongly affected brain regions devoted to the control of task-related word or picture processing. These findings are discussed with respect to the interplay of obligatory stimulus processing with task-related attentional control mechanisms. PMID:26733895

  13. KAJIAN LITERATUR: MANAKAH YANG LEBIH EFEKTIF? TRADITIONAL WORD OF MOUTH ATAU ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Putu Adriani Prayustika

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Word of Mouth telah diakui sebagai salah satu strategi komunikasi yang paling efektif dalam transisi informasi perusahaan kepada konsumen. Perusahaan memanfaatkan komunikasi word of mouth untuk kepentingan pemasaran produk dan layanan. Namun, komunikasi WOM konvensional hanya efektif dalam batasan kontak sosial terbatas. Kemajuan teknologi informasi dan munculnya situs jaringan sosial online telah mengubah cara informasi ditransmisikan dan telah melampaui keterbatasan tradisional WOM. Komunikasi word of mouth dengan memanfaatkan teknologi ini sering disebut electronic word of mouth (eWOM, dimana komunikasi ini memanfaatkan media baru, seperti misalnya media sosial. Makalah ini akan membahas kajian literatur dari beberapa penelitian yang telah dilakukan sebelumnya dalam membandingkan efektivitas traditional word of mouth dan electronic word of mouth. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa secara umum dapat dikatakan dengan perkembangan teknologi seperti sekarang, eWOM jauh lebih efektif daripada traditional WOM.

  14. Scientific word, Version 1.0

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Semen Köksal

    1993-01-01

    Full Text Available Scientific Word is the first fully integrated mathematical word processor in the Windows 3.1 environment, which uses the TEX typesetting language for output. It runs as a Microsoft Windows application program and has two-way interface to TEX. The Scientific Word is an object-oriented WYSIWYG word processor for virtually all users who need typesetting scientific books, manuals and papers. It includes automatic equation numbering, spell checking, and LATEX and DVI previewer.

  15. operative treatment of primary bone tumours of the femur and the tibia

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    can cause infection, pseudoarthrosis and pathological fracture. Objective: The purpose of ... after several re-surgeries. Key words: Bone tumour, Femur, Tibia, Resection, Allograft .... stress, the length of the graft, the realization of an arthrodesis ...

  16. Delayed Recall and Working Memory MMSE Domains Predict Delirium following Cardiac Surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Price, Catherine C; Garvan, Cynthia; Hizel, Loren P; Lopez, Marcos G; Billings, Frederic T

    2017-01-01

    Reduced preoperative cognition is a risk factor for postoperative delirium. The significance for type of preoperative cognitive deficit, however, has yet to be explored and could provide important insights into mechanisms and prediction of delirium. Our goal was to determine if certain cognitive domains from the general cognitive screener, the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), predict delirium after cardiac surgery. Patients completed a preoperative MMSE prior to undergoing elective cardiac surgery. Following surgery, delirium was assessed throughout ICU stay using the Confusion Assessment Method for ICU delirium and the Richmond Agitation and Sedation Scale. Cardiac surgery patients who developed delirium (n = 137) had lower total MMSE scores than patients who did not develop delirium (n = 457). In particular, orientation to place, working memory, delayed recall, and language domain scores were lower. Of these, only the working memory and delayed recall domains predicted delirium in a regression model adjusting for history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, age, sex, and duration of cardiopulmonary bypass. For each word not recalled on the three-word delayed recall assessment, the odds of delirium increased by 50%. For each item missed on the working memory index, the odds of delirium increased by 36%. Of the patients who developed delirium, 47% had a primary impairment in memory, 21% in working memory, and 33% in both domains. The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve using only the working memory and delayed recall domains was 0.75, compared to 0.76 for total MMSE score. Delirium risk is greater for individuals with reduced MMSE scores on the delayed recall and working memory domains. Research should address why patients with memory and executive vulnerabilities are more prone to postoperative delirium than those with other cognitive limitations.

  17. Appraisal of space words and allocation of emotion words in bodily space.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando; Elosúa, María Rosa; Yamada, Yuki; Hamm, Nicholas Francis; Noguchi, Kimihiro

    2013-01-01

    The body-specificity hypothesis (BSH) predicts that right-handers and left-handers allocate positive and negative concepts differently on the horizontal plane, i.e., while left-handers allocate negative concepts on the right-hand side of their bodily space, right-handers allocate such concepts to the left-hand side. Similar research shows that people, in general, tend to allocate positive and negative concepts in upper and lower areas, respectively, in relation to the vertical plane. Further research shows a higher salience of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the performance of sensorimotor tasks. The aim of the paper is to examine whether there should be a dominance of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane, not only at a sensorimotor level but also at a conceptual level. In Experiment 1, various participants from diverse linguistic backgrounds were asked to rate the words "up", "down", "left", and "right". In Experiment 2, right-handed participants from two linguistic backgrounds were asked to allocate emotion words into a square grid divided into four boxes of equal areas. Results suggest that the vertical plane is more salient than the horizontal plane regarding the allocation of emotion words and positively-valenced words were placed in upper locations whereas negatively-valenced words were placed in lower locations. Together, the results lend support to the BSH while also suggesting a higher saliency of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the allocation of valenced words.

  18. Information properties of morphologically complex words modulate brain activity during word reading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hakala, Tero; Hultén, Annika; Lehtonen, Minna; Lagus, Krista; Salmelin, Riitta

    2018-06-01

    Neuroimaging studies of the reading process point to functionally distinct stages in word recognition. Yet, current understanding of the operations linked to those various stages is mainly descriptive in nature. Approaches developed in the field of computational linguistics may offer a more quantitative approach for understanding brain dynamics. Our aim was to evaluate whether a statistical model of morphology, with well-defined computational principles, can capture the neural dynamics of reading, using the concept of surprisal from information theory as the common measure. The Morfessor model, created for unsupervised discovery of morphemes, is based on the minimum description length principle and attempts to find optimal units of representation for complex words. In a word recognition task, we correlated brain responses to word surprisal values derived from Morfessor and from other psycholinguistic variables that have been linked with various levels of linguistic abstraction. The magnetoencephalography data analysis focused on spatially, temporally and functionally distinct components of cortical activation observed in reading tasks. The early occipital and occipito-temporal responses were correlated with parameters relating to visual complexity and orthographic properties, whereas the later bilateral superior temporal activation was correlated with whole-word based and morphological models. The results show that the word processing costs estimated by the statistical Morfessor model are relevant for brain dynamics of reading during late processing stages. © 2018 The Authors Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  19. Appraisal of space words and allocation of emotion words in bodily space.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos

    Full Text Available The body-specificity hypothesis (BSH predicts that right-handers and left-handers allocate positive and negative concepts differently on the horizontal plane, i.e., while left-handers allocate negative concepts on the right-hand side of their bodily space, right-handers allocate such concepts to the left-hand side. Similar research shows that people, in general, tend to allocate positive and negative concepts in upper and lower areas, respectively, in relation to the vertical plane. Further research shows a higher salience of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the performance of sensorimotor tasks. The aim of the paper is to examine whether there should be a dominance of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane, not only at a sensorimotor level but also at a conceptual level. In Experiment 1, various participants from diverse linguistic backgrounds were asked to rate the words "up", "down", "left", and "right". In Experiment 2, right-handed participants from two linguistic backgrounds were asked to allocate emotion words into a square grid divided into four boxes of equal areas. Results suggest that the vertical plane is more salient than the horizontal plane regarding the allocation of emotion words and positively-valenced words were placed in upper locations whereas negatively-valenced words were placed in lower locations. Together, the results lend support to the BSH while also suggesting a higher saliency of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the allocation of valenced words.

  20. Appraisal of Space Words and Allocation of Emotion Words in Bodily Space

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando; Elosúa, María Rosa; Yamada, Yuki; Hamm, Nicholas Francis; Noguchi, Kimihiro

    2013-01-01

    The body-specificity hypothesis (BSH) predicts that right-handers and left-handers allocate positive and negative concepts differently on the horizontal plane, i.e., while left-handers allocate negative concepts on the right-hand side of their bodily space, right-handers allocate such concepts to the left-hand side. Similar research shows that people, in general, tend to allocate positive and negative concepts in upper and lower areas, respectively, in relation to the vertical plane. Further research shows a higher salience of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the performance of sensorimotor tasks. The aim of the paper is to examine whether there should be a dominance of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane, not only at a sensorimotor level but also at a conceptual level. In Experiment 1, various participants from diverse linguistic backgrounds were asked to rate the words “up”, “down”, “left”, and “right”. In Experiment 2, right-handed participants from two linguistic backgrounds were asked to allocate emotion words into a square grid divided into four boxes of equal areas. Results suggest that the vertical plane is more salient than the horizontal plane regarding the allocation of emotion words and positively-valenced words were placed in upper locations whereas negatively-valenced words were placed in lower locations. Together, the results lend support to the BSH while also suggesting a higher saliency of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the allocation of valenced words. PMID:24349112

  1. Intraoperative maintenance of normoglycemia with insulin and glucose preserves verbal learning after cardiac surgery.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thomas Schricker

    Full Text Available The hyperglycemic response to surgery may be a risk factor for cognitive dysfunction. We hypothesize that strict maintenance of normoglycemia during cardiac surgery preserves postoperative cognitive function.As part of a larger randomized, single-blind, interventional efficacy study on the effects of hyperinsulinemic glucose control in cardiac surgery (NCT00524472, consenting patients were randomly assigned to receive combined administration of insulin and glucose, titrated to preserve normoglycemia (3.5-6.1 mmol L(-1; experimental group, or standard metabolic care (blood glucose 3.5-10 mmol L(-1; control group, during open heart surgery. The patients' cognitive function was assessed during three home visits, approximately two weeks before the operation, and two months and seven months after surgery. The following tests were performed: Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Task (RAVLT for verbal learning and memory, Digit Span Task (working memory, Trail Making A & B (visuomotor tracking and attention, and the Word Pair Task (implicit memory. Questionnaires measuring specific traits known to affect cognitive performance, such as self-esteem, depression, chronic stress and social support, were also administered. The primary outcome was to assess the effect of hyperinsulinemic-normoglycemic clamp therapy versus standard therapy on specific cognitive parameters in patients receiving normoglycemic clamp, or standard metabolic care.Twenty-six patients completed the study with 14 patients in the normoglycemia and 12 patients in the control group. Multiple analysis of covariance (MANCOVA for the RAVLT showed a significant effect for the interaction of group by visit (F = 4.07, p = 0.035, and group by visit by recall (F = 2.21, p = 0.04. The differences occurred at the second and third visit. MANCOVA for the digit span task, trail making and word pair association test showed no significant effect.Preserving intraoperative normoglycemia by

  2. Intraoperative maintenance of normoglycemia with insulin and glucose preserves verbal learning after cardiac surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schricker, Thomas; Sato, Hiroaki; Beaudry, Thomas; Codere, Takumi; Hatzakorzian, Roupen; Pruessner, Jens C

    2014-01-01

    The hyperglycemic response to surgery may be a risk factor for cognitive dysfunction. We hypothesize that strict maintenance of normoglycemia during cardiac surgery preserves postoperative cognitive function. As part of a larger randomized, single-blind, interventional efficacy study on the effects of hyperinsulinemic glucose control in cardiac surgery (NCT00524472), consenting patients were randomly assigned to receive combined administration of insulin and glucose, titrated to preserve normoglycemia (3.5-6.1 mmol L(-1); experimental group), or standard metabolic care (blood glucose 3.5-10 mmol L(-1); control group), during open heart surgery. The patients' cognitive function was assessed during three home visits, approximately two weeks before the operation, and two months and seven months after surgery. The following tests were performed: Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Task (RAVLT for verbal learning and memory), Digit Span Task (working memory), Trail Making A & B (visuomotor tracking and attention), and the Word Pair Task (implicit memory). Questionnaires measuring specific traits known to affect cognitive performance, such as self-esteem, depression, chronic stress and social support, were also administered. The primary outcome was to assess the effect of hyperinsulinemic-normoglycemic clamp therapy versus standard therapy on specific cognitive parameters in patients receiving normoglycemic clamp, or standard metabolic care. Twenty-six patients completed the study with 14 patients in the normoglycemia and 12 patients in the control group. Multiple analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) for the RAVLT showed a significant effect for the interaction of group by visit (F = 4.07, p = 0.035), and group by visit by recall (F = 2.21, p = 0.04). The differences occurred at the second and third visit. MANCOVA for the digit span task, trail making and word pair association test showed no significant effect. Preserving intraoperative normoglycemia by intravenous

  3. Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McQueen, James M; Huettig, Falk

    2014-01-01

    Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of preexposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase (Experiment 3). Auditory stimuli were preceded by primes, which were pictures (Experiments 1 and 3) or those pictures' printed names (Experiment 2). Prime-target pairs were phonologically onset related (e.g., pijl-pijn, arrow-pain), were from the same semantic category (e.g., pijl-zwaard, arrow-sword), or were unrelated on both dimensions. Phonological interference and semantic facilitation were observed in all experiments. Priming magnitude was similar for pictures and printed words and did not vary with picture viewing time or number of pictures in the display (either one or four). These effects arose even though participants were not explicitly instructed to name the pictures and where strategic naming would interfere with lexical decision making. This suggests that, by default, processing of related pictures and printed words influences how quickly we recognize spoken words.

  4. Gaussian elimination in split unitary groups with an application to public-key cryptography

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ayan Mahalanobis

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Gaussian elimination is used in special linear groups to solve the word problem. In this paper, we extend Gaussian elimination to split unitary groups. These algorithms have an application in building a public-key cryptosystem, we demonstrate that.

  5. 1100 words you must know

    CERN Document Server

    Bromberg, Murray

    2018-01-01

    A Barron's best-seller for more than four decades! This brand-new edition has been expanded and updated with word lists and definitions, analogy exercises, words-in-context exercises, idiom indexes, a pronunciation guide, and more. It's the ideal way to strengthen word power!.

  6. Effects of Word Frequency and Transitional Probability on Word Reading Durations of Younger and Older Speakers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moers, Cornelia; Meyer, Antje; Janse, Esther

    2017-06-01

    High-frequency units are usually processed faster than low-frequency units in language comprehension and language production. Frequency effects have been shown for words as well as word combinations. Word co-occurrence effects can be operationalized in terms of transitional probability (TP). TPs reflect how probable a word is, conditioned by its right or left neighbouring word. This corpus study investigates whether three different age groups-younger children (8-12 years), adolescents (12-18 years) and older (62-95 years) Dutch speakers-show frequency and TP context effects on spoken word durations in reading aloud, and whether age groups differ in the size of these effects. Results show consistent effects of TP on word durations for all age groups. Thus, TP seems to influence the processing of words in context, beyond the well-established effect of word frequency, across the entire age range. However, the study also indicates that age groups differ in the size of TP effects, with older adults having smaller TP effects than adolescent readers. Our results show that probabilistic reduction effects in reading aloud may at least partly stem from contextual facilitation that leads to faster reading times in skilled readers, as well as in young language learners.

  7. Word encoding during sleep is suggested by correlations between word-evoked up-states and post-sleep semantic priming

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Simon eRuch

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available To test whether humans can encode words during sleep we played everyday words to men while they were napping and assessed priming from sleep-played words following waking. Words were presented during non-rapid eye movement (NREM sleep. Priming was assessed using a semantic and a perceptual priming test. These tests measured differences in the processing of words that had been or had not been played during sleep. Synonyms to sleep-played words were the targets in the semantic priming test that tapped the meaning of sleep-played words. All men responded to sleep-played words by producing up-states in their electroencephalogram. Up-states are NREM sleep-specific phases of briefly increased neuronal excitability. The word-evoked up-states might have promoted word processing during sleep. Yet, the mean performance in the priming tests administered following sleep was at chance level, which suggests that participants as a group failed to show priming following sleep. However, performance in the two priming tests was positively correlated to each other and to the magnitude of the word-evoked up-states. Hence, the larger a participant’s word-evoked up-states, the larger his perceptual and semantic priming. Those participants who scored high on all variables must have encoded words during sleep. We conclude that some humans are able to encode words during sleep, but more research is needed to pin down the factors that modulate this ability.

  8. Novel Blind Recognition Algorithm of Frame Synchronization Words Based on Soft-Decision in Digital Communication Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qin, Jiangyi; Huang, Zhiping; Liu, Chunwu; Su, Shaojing; Zhou, Jing

    2015-01-01

    A novel blind recognition algorithm of frame synchronization words is proposed to recognize the frame synchronization words parameters in digital communication systems. In this paper, a blind recognition method of frame synchronization words based on the hard-decision is deduced in detail. And the standards of parameter recognition are given. Comparing with the blind recognition based on the hard-decision, utilizing the soft-decision can improve the accuracy of blind recognition. Therefore, combining with the characteristics of Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) signal, an improved blind recognition algorithm based on the soft-decision is proposed. Meanwhile, the improved algorithm can be extended to other signal modulation forms. Then, the complete blind recognition steps of the hard-decision algorithm and the soft-decision algorithm are given in detail. Finally, the simulation results show that both the hard-decision algorithm and the soft-decision algorithm can recognize the parameters of frame synchronization words blindly. What's more, the improved algorithm can enhance the accuracy of blind recognition obviously.

  9. Characteristics of Hemorrhagic Stroke following Spine and Joint Surgeries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Fei; Zhao, Jianning; Xu, Haidong

    2017-01-01

    Hemorrhagic stroke can occur after spine and joint surgeries such as laminectomy, lumbar spinal fusion, tumor resection, and total joint arthroplasty. Although this kind of stroke rarely happens, it may cause severe consequences and high mortality rates. Typical clinical symptoms of hemorrhagic stroke after spine and joint surgeries include headache, vomiting, consciousness disturbance, and mental disorders. It can happen several hours after surgeries. Most bleeding sites are located in cerebellar hemisphere and temporal lobe. A cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage caused by surgeries may be the key to intracranial hemorrhages happening. Early diagnosis and treatments are very important for patients to prevent the further progression of intracranial hemorrhages. Several patients need a hematoma evacuation and their prognosis is not optimistic.

  10. Does "Word Coach" Coach Words?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cobb, Tom; Horst, Marlise

    2011-01-01

    This study reports on the design and testing of an integrated suite of vocabulary training games for Nintendo[TM] collectively designated "My Word Coach" (Ubisoft, 2008). The games' design is based on a wide range of learning research, from classic studies on recycling patterns to frequency studies of modern corpora. Its general usage…

  11. Word Recognition in Auditory Cortex

    Science.gov (United States)

    DeWitt, Iain D. J.

    2013-01-01

    Although spoken word recognition is more fundamental to human communication than text recognition, knowledge of word-processing in auditory cortex is comparatively impoverished. This dissertation synthesizes current models of auditory cortex, models of cortical pattern recognition, models of single-word reading, results in phonetics and results in…

  12. Syllabic Length Effect in Visual Word Recognition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roya Ranjbar Mohammadi

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Studies on visual word recognition have resulted in different and sometimes contradictory proposals as Multi-Trace Memory Model (MTM, Dual-Route Cascaded Model (DRC, and Parallel Distribution Processing Model (PDP. The role of the number of syllables in word recognition was examined by the use of five groups of English words and non-words. The reaction time of the participants to these words was measured using reaction time measuring software. The results indicated that there was syllabic effect on recognition of both high and low frequency words. The pattern was incremental in terms of syllable number. This pattern prevailed in high and low frequency words and non-words except in one syllable words. In general, the results are in line with the PDP model which claims that a single processing mechanism is used in both words and non-words recognition. In other words, the findings suggest that lexical items are mainly processed via a lexical route.  A pedagogical implication of the findings would be that reading in English as a foreign language involves analytical processing of the syllable of the words.

  13. Cluster analysis of word frequency dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maslennikova, Yu S.; Bochkarev, V. V.; Belashova, I. A.

    2015-01-01

    This paper describes the analysis and modelling of word usage frequency time series. During one of previous studies, an assumption was put forward that all word usage frequencies have uniform dynamics approaching the shape of a Gaussian function. This assumption can be checked using the frequency dictionaries of the Google Books Ngram database. This database includes 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008. The corpus contains over 500 billion words in American English, British English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, and Chinese. We clustered time series of word usage frequencies using a Kohonen neural network. The similarity between input vectors was estimated using several algorithms. As a result of the neural network training procedure, more than ten different forms of time series were found. They describe the dynamics of word usage frequencies from birth to death of individual words. Different groups of word forms were found to have different dynamics of word usage frequency variations.

  14. The compressed word problem for groups

    CERN Document Server

    Lohrey, Markus

    2014-01-01

    The Compressed Word Problem for Groups provides a detailed exposition of known results on the compressed word problem, emphasizing efficient algorithms for the compressed word problem in various groups. The author presents the necessary background along with the most recent results on the compressed word problem to create a cohesive self-contained book accessible to computer scientists as well as mathematicians. Readers will quickly reach the frontier of current research which makes the book especially appealing for students looking for a currently active research topic at the intersection of group theory and computer science. The word problem introduced in 1910 by Max Dehn is one of the most important decision problems in group theory. For many groups, highly efficient algorithms for the word problem exist. In recent years, a new technique based on data compression for providing more efficient algorithms for word problems, has been developed, by representing long words over group generators in a compres...

  15. Cluster analysis of word frequency dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maslennikova, Yu S; Bochkarev, V V; Belashova, I A

    2015-01-01

    This paper describes the analysis and modelling of word usage frequency time series. During one of previous studies, an assumption was put forward that all word usage frequencies have uniform dynamics approaching the shape of a Gaussian function. This assumption can be checked using the frequency dictionaries of the Google Books Ngram database. This database includes 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008. The corpus contains over 500 billion words in American English, British English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, and Chinese. We clustered time series of word usage frequencies using a Kohonen neural network. The similarity between input vectors was estimated using several algorithms. As a result of the neural network training procedure, more than ten different forms of time series were found. They describe the dynamics of word usage frequencies from birth to death of individual words. Different groups of word forms were found to have different dynamics of word usage frequency variations

  16. Every Word Is on Trial: Six-Word Memoirs in the Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saunders, Jane M.; Smith, Emily E.

    2014-01-01

    Six-word memoirs are readily available through books, magazine articles, and on the Internet. This teaching tip explores how to use six-word memoirs to guide students through the writing process steps from developing and revising a concise memoir, to employing technology and imagery, to publishing final versions of their work online. Included in…

  17. An efficient word typing P300-BCI system using a modified T9 interface and random forest classifier.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akram, Faraz; Han, Seung Moo; Kim, Tae-Seong

    2015-01-01

    A typical P300-based spelling brain computer interface (BCI) system types a single character with a character presentation paradigm and a P300 classification system. Lately, a few attempts have been made to type a whole word with the help of a smart dictionary that suggests some candidate words with the input of a few initial characters. In this paper, we propose a novel paradigm utilizing initial character typing with word suggestions and a novel P300 classifier to increase word typing speed and accuracy. The novel paradigm involves modifying the Text on 9 keys (T9) interface, which is similar to the keypad of a mobile phone used for text messaging. Users can type the initial characters using a 3×3 matrix interface and an integrated custom-built dictionary that suggests candidate words as the user types the initials. Then the user can select one of the given suggestions to complete word typing. We have adopted a random forest classifier, which significantly improves P300 classification accuracy by combining multiple decision trees. We conducted experiments with 10 subjects using the proposed BCI system. Our proposed paradigms significantly reduced word typing time and made word typing more convenient by outputting complete words with only a few initial character inputs. The conventional spelling system required an average time of 3.47 min per word while typing 10 random words, whereas our proposed system took an average time of 1.67 min per word, a 51.87% improvement, for the same words under the same conditions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. WordPress 3.7 complete

    CERN Document Server

    Król, Karol

    2013-01-01

    WordPress 3.5 Complete: Third Edition is a comprehensive and step-by-step tutorial packed with screenshots and examples to make it easy and quick to pick it up.This WordPress book is a guide to WordPress for online publishers and web developers. If you are new to blogging and want to create your own blog or website from scratch, then ""WordPress 3.5 Complete: Third Edition"" is for you. No prior knowledge of HTML/CSS or PHP is required.

  19. Rapid interactions between lexical semantic and word form analysis during word recognition in context: evidence from ERPs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Albert; Lai, Vicky

    2012-05-01

    We used ERPs to investigate the time course of interactions between lexical semantic and sublexical visual word form processing during word recognition. Participants read sentence-embedded pseudowords that orthographically resembled a contextually supported real word (e.g., "She measured the flour so she could bake a ceke…") or did not (e.g., "She measured the flour so she could bake a tont…") along with nonword consonant strings (e.g., "She measured the flour so she could bake a srdt…"). Pseudowords that resembled a contextually supported real word ("ceke") elicited an enhanced positivity at 130 msec (P130), relative to real words (e.g., "She measured the flour so she could bake a cake…"). Pseudowords that did not resemble a plausible real word ("tont") enhanced the N170 component, as did nonword consonant strings ("srdt"). The effect pattern shows that the visual word recognition system is, perhaps, counterintuitively, more rapidly sensitive to minor than to flagrant deviations from contextually predicted inputs. The findings are consistent with rapid interactions between lexical and sublexical representations during word recognition, in which rapid lexical access of a contextually supported word (CAKE) provides top-down excitation of form features ("cake"), highlighting the anomaly of an unexpected word "ceke."

  20. ERP correlates of unexpected word forms in a picture–word study of infants and adults

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duta, M.D.; Styles, S.J.; Plunkett, K.

    2012-01-01

    We tested 14-month-olds and adults in an event-related potentials (ERPs) study in which pictures of familiar objects generated expectations about upcoming word forms. Expected word forms labelled the picture (word condition), while unexpected word forms mismatched by either a small deviation in word medial vowel height (mispronunciation condition) or a large deviation from the onset of the first speech segment (pseudoword condition). Both infants and adults showed sensitivity to both types of unexpected word form. Adults showed a chain of discrete effects: positivity over the N1 wave, negativity over the P2 wave (PMN effect) and negativity over the N2 wave (N400 effect). Infants showed a similar pattern, including a robust effect similar to the adult P2 effect. These observations were underpinned by a novel visualisation method which shows the dynamics of the ERP within bands of the scalp over time. The results demonstrate shared processing mechanisms across development, as even subtle deviations from expected word forms were indexed in both age groups by a reduction in the amplitude of characteristic waves in the early auditory evoked potential. PMID:22483072

  1. Smashing WordPress Beyond the Blog

    CERN Document Server

    Hedengren, Thord Daniel

    2011-01-01

    Smashing WordPress shows you how to utilize the power of the WordPress platform, and provides a creative spark to help you build WordPress-powered sites that go beyond the obvious. The second edition of Smashing WordPress has been updated for WordPress 3.1+, which includes internal, custom post types, the admin bar, and lots of other useful new features. You will learn the core concepts used to post types, the admin bar, and lots of other useful new features. You will learn the core concepts used to build just about anything in WordPress, resulting in fast deployments and greater design flexib

  2. Smashing WordPress Beyond the Blog

    CERN Document Server

    Hedengren, Thord Daniel

    2012-01-01

    The ultimate guide to WordPress, from the world's most popular resource for web designers and developers As one of the hottest tools on the web today for creating a blog, WordPress has evolved to be much more that just a blogging platform and has been pushed beyond its original purpose. With this new edition of a perennially popular WordPress resource, Smashing Magazine offers you the information you need so you can maximize the potential and power of WordPress. WordPress expert Thord Daniel Hedengren takes you beyond the basic blog to show you how to leverage the capabilities of WordPress to

  3. Build an Interactive Word Wall

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jackson, Julie

    2018-01-01

    Word walls visually display important vocabulary covered during class. Although teachers have often been encouraged to post word walls in their classrooms, little information is available to guide them. This article describes steps science teachers can follow to transform traditional word walls into interactive teaching tools. It also describes a…

  4. [Emotional valence of words in schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jalenques, I; Enjolras, J; Izaute, M

    2013-06-01

    Emotion recognition is a domain in which deficits have been reported in schizophrenia. A number of emotion classification studies have indicated that emotion processing deficits in schizophrenia are more pronounced for negative affects. Given the difficulty of developing material suitable for the study of these emotional deficits, it would be interesting to examine whether patients suffering from schizophrenia are responsive to positively and negatively charged emotion-related words that could be used within the context of remediation strategies. The emotional perception of words was examined in a clinical experiment involving schizophrenia patients. This emotional perception was expressed by the patients in terms of the valence associated with the words. In the present study, we investigated whether schizophrenia patients would assign the same negative and positive valences to words as healthy individuals. Twenty volunteer, clinically stable, outpatients from the Psychiatric Service of the University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand were recruited. Diagnoses were based on DSM-IV criteria. Global psychiatric symptoms were assessed using the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS). The patients had to evaluate the emotional valence of a set of 300 words on a 5-point scale ranging from "very unpleasant" to "very pleasant". . The collected results were compared with those obtained by Bonin et al. (2003) [13] from 97 University students. Correlational analyses of the two studies revealed that the emotional valences were highly correlated, i.e. the schizophrenia patients estimated very similar emotional valences. More precisely, it was possible to examine three separate sets of 100 words each (positive words, neutral words and negative words). The positive words that were evaluated were the more positive words from the norms collected by Bonin et al. (2003) [13], and the negative words were the more negative examples taken from these norms. The neutral words

  5. Augmented Input Reveals Word Deafness in a Man with Frontotemporal Dementia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chris Gibbons

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available We describe a 57 year old, right handed, English speaking man initially diagnosed with progressive aphasia. Language assessment revealed inconsistent performance in key areas. Expressive language was reduced to a few short, perseverative phrases. Speech was severely apraxic. Primary modes of communication included gesture, pointing, gaze, physical touch and leading. Responses were 100% accurate when he was provided with written words, with random or inaccurate responses for strictly auditory/verbal input. When instructions to subsequent neuropsychological tests were written instead of spoken, performance improved markedly. A comprehensive audiology assessment revealed no hearing impairment. Neuroimaging was unremarkable. Neurobehavioral evaluation utilizing written input led to diagnoses of word deafness and frontotemporal dementia, resulting in very different management. We highlight the need for alternative modes of language input for assessment and treatment of patients with language comprehension symptoms.

  6. The effects of intravenous aminoacid infusion on myocardial functions and postoperative analgesia during abdominal aortic surgery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mustafa Turhan

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available Objective: Effects of intravenous aminoacid infusion onmyocardial functions and postoperative analgesia in abdominalaortic surgery were investigated.Materials and methods: Forty patients were randomlydivided into groups of general anaesthesia with or withoutaminoacid infusion (Group 1 and 2, n=10, combinedgeneral+epidural with or without amino acid infusion (Group3 and 4, n=10. Cardiac risk was evaluated using 2007 AHA/ACC and modified Goldman classifications. Intravenousaminoacid solution of 80 g/L was infused at 2.5 ml/kg/h for atotal of 8 hours. General anaesthesia included intravenousremifentanil, rocuronium, sevoflurane. The lumbar epiduralinclude; 10 mL of 0.25% bupivacaine; bolus dose, an infusionof 0.25% bupivacaine; 4 ml/h for 24 hours. Heart rate,arterial blood pressures were collected intraoperative every10 minute, 1, 24 hour postoperatively. Plasma creatinekinase MB fraction, troponin levels, pain assessment withnumeric analog scale were collected preoperatively, 1, 24hour postoperatively. Postoperative 24 hour analgesic usage,complications were recorded.Results: Patients with mild and severe cardiac risk werehigher in 2007 AHA/ACC classification (26/40, 65% thanmodified Goldman risk classification (5/40, 12.5% (p=0.04.In comparison between groups, myocardial enzyme levelsand complications showed no difference (p>0.05. The useof analgesics were lower in group 3 and 4 in comparison togroup 1 and 2 (p=0.002.Conclusion: During abdominal aortic surgery, intravenousinfusion of amino acid did not show significant changes onintraoperative and postoperative hemodynamic parametersand myocardial enzymes. The patients received combinedgeneral plus epidural anaesthesia showed more successfulpostoperative analgesia.Key words: Amino acid, abdominal aorta, vascular surgery,epidural anesthesia, general anesthesia, keratin kinase,troponin, postoperative analgesia

  7. Words Do Come Easy (Sometimes)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Starrfelt, Randi; Petersen, Anders; Vangkilde, Signe Allerup

    multiple stimuli are presented simultaneously: Are words treated as units or wholes in visual short term memory? Using methods based on a Theory of Visual Attention (TVA), we measured perceptual threshold, visual processing speed and visual short term memory capacity for words and letters, in two simple...... a different pattern: Letters are perceived more easily than words, and this is reflected both in perceptual processing speed and short term memory capacity. So even if single words do come easy, they seem to enjoy no advantage in visual short term memory....

  8. Identification of the Key Fields and Their Key Technical Points of Oncology by Patent Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Ting; Chen, Juan; Jia, Xiaofeng

    2015-01-01

    This paper aims to identify the key fields and their key technical points of oncology by patent analysis. Patents of oncology applied from 2006 to 2012 were searched in the Thomson Innovation database. The key fields and their key technical points were determined by analyzing the Derwent Classification (DC) and the International Patent Classification (IPC), respectively. Patent applications in the top ten DC occupied 80% of all the patent applications of oncology, which were the ten fields of oncology to be analyzed. The number of patent applications in these ten fields of oncology was standardized based on patent applications of oncology from 2006 to 2012. For each field, standardization was conducted separately for each of the seven years (2006-2012) and the mean of the seven standardized values was calculated to reflect the relative amount of patent applications in that field; meanwhile, regression analysis using time (year) and the standardized values of patent applications in seven years (2006-2012) was conducted so as to evaluate the trend of patent applications in each field. Two-dimensional quadrant analysis, together with the professional knowledge of oncology, was taken into consideration in determining the key fields of oncology. The fields located in the quadrant with high relative amount or increasing trend of patent applications are identified as key ones. By using the same method, the key technical points in each key field were identified. Altogether 116,820 patents of oncology applied from 2006 to 2012 were retrieved, and four key fields with twenty-nine key technical points were identified, including "natural products and polymers" with nine key technical points, "fermentation industry" with twelve ones, "electrical medical equipment" with four ones, and "diagnosis, surgery" with four ones. The results of this study could provide guidance on the development direction of oncology, and also help researchers broaden innovative ideas and discover new

  9. Assessing neglect dyslexia with compound words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reinhart, Stefan; Schunck, Alexander; Schaadt, Anna Katharina; Adams, Michaela; Simon, Alexandra; Kerkhoff, Georg

    2016-10-01

    The neglect syndrome is frequently associated with neglect dyslexia (ND), which is characterized by omissions or misread initial letters of single words. ND is usually assessed with standardized reading texts in clinical settings. However, particularly in the chronic phase of ND, patients often report reading deficits in everyday situations but show (nearly) normal performances in test situations that are commonly well-structured. To date, sensitive and standardized tests to assess the severity and characteristics of ND are lacking, although reading is of high relevance for daily life and vocational settings. Several studies found modulating effects of different word features on ND. We combined those features in a novel test to enhance test sensitivity in the assessment of ND. Low-frequency words of different length that contain residual pronounceable words when the initial letter strings are neglected were selected. We compared these words in a group of 12 ND-patients suffering from right-hemispheric first-ever stroke with word stimuli containing no existing residual words. Finally, we tested whether the serially presented words are more sensitive for the diagnosis of ND than text reading. The severity of ND was modulated strongly by the ND-test words and error frequencies in single word reading of ND words were on average more than 10 times higher than in a standardized text reading test (19.8% vs. 1.8%). The novel ND-test maximizes the frequency of specific ND-errors and is therefore more sensitive for the assessment of ND than conventional text reading tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  10. Voice congruency facilitates word recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campeanu, Sandra; Craik, Fergus I M; Alain, Claude

    2013-01-01

    Behavioral studies of spoken word memory have shown that context congruency facilitates both word and source recognition, though the level at which context exerts its influence remains equivocal. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) while participants performed both types of recognition task with words spoken in four voices. Two voice parameters (i.e., gender and accent) varied between speakers, with the possibility that none, one or two of these parameters was congruent between study and test. Results indicated that reinstating the study voice at test facilitated both word and source recognition, compared to similar or no context congruency at test. Behavioral effects were paralleled by two ERP modulations. First, in the word recognition test, the left parietal old/new effect showed a positive deflection reflective of context congruency between study and test words. Namely, the same speaker condition provided the most positive deflection of all correctly identified old words. In the source recognition test, a right frontal positivity was found for the same speaker condition compared to the different speaker conditions, regardless of response success. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that the benefit of context congruency is reflected behaviorally and in ERP modulations traditionally associated with recognition memory.

  11. Voice congruency facilitates word recognition.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sandra Campeanu

    Full Text Available Behavioral studies of spoken word memory have shown that context congruency facilitates both word and source recognition, though the level at which context exerts its influence remains equivocal. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs while participants performed both types of recognition task with words spoken in four voices. Two voice parameters (i.e., gender and accent varied between speakers, with the possibility that none, one or two of these parameters was congruent between study and test. Results indicated that reinstating the study voice at test facilitated both word and source recognition, compared to similar or no context congruency at test. Behavioral effects were paralleled by two ERP modulations. First, in the word recognition test, the left parietal old/new effect showed a positive deflection reflective of context congruency between study and test words. Namely, the same speaker condition provided the most positive deflection of all correctly identified old words. In the source recognition test, a right frontal positivity was found for the same speaker condition compared to the different speaker conditions, regardless of response success. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that the benefit of context congruency is reflected behaviorally and in ERP modulations traditionally associated with recognition memory.

  12. Examining the central and peripheral processes of written word production through meta-analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeremy ePurcell

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Producing written words requires central cognitive processes (such as orthographic long-term and working memory as well as more peripheral processes responsible for generating the motor actions needed for producing written words in a variety of formats (handwriting, typing, etc.. In recent years, various functional neuroimaging studies have examined the neural substrates underlying the central and peripheral processes of written word production. This study provides the first quantitative meta-analysis of these studies by applying Activation Likelihood Estimation methods (Turkeltaub et al., 2002. For alphabet languages, we identified 11 studies (with a total of 17 experimental contrasts that had been designed to isolate central and/or peripheral processes of word spelling (total number of participants = 146. Three ALE meta-analyses were carried out. One involved the complete set of 17 contrasts; two others were applied to subsets of contrasts to distinguish the neural substrates of central from peripheral processes. These analyses identified a network of brain regions reliably associated with the central and peripheral processes of word spelling. Among the many significant results, is the finding that the regions with the greatest correspondence across studies were in the left inferior temporal/fusiform gyri and left inferior frontal gyrus. Furthermore, although the angular gyrus has traditionally been identified as a key site within the written word production network, none of the meta-analyses found it to be a consistent site of activation, identifying instead a region just superior/medial to the left angular gyrus in the left posterior intraparietal sulcus. In general these meta-analyses and the discussion of results provide a valuable foundation upon which future studies that examine the neural basis of written word production can build.

  13. Multi-word Lexical Units in English and Slovak Linguistics Terminology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Магдалена Била

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The research issue discussed in the paper falls within pragmatics, lexicographic and translation studies. It is part of the research grant project entitled “Virtual interactive English-Slovak bilingual encyclopedic linguistics dictionary”. One of the key tasks is to deal with the linguistics term as a concept. This presupposes understanding not only the surface structure but also the deep structure of the term. In preparing the inventory of the prospective dictionary, conceptualization has to take place and defining and translating of the term has to be done accordingly. The ongoing research has shown that one of the most problematic terms is “multi-word lexical unit” (in Slovak “viacslovné pomenovanie”. The problem lies in the different conceptualization of the terms in the two languages. Straightforwardly, in Slovak, the term implies examples that in English would be mostly considered compounds (Ološtiak, Ivanová 2015; in other words word-formation is the case here. In English, the term is more heterogeneous and encompasses categories like collocation, phrasal verb, idioms, speech formulas (on the term, see Sonomura 1996, situation bound utterances (on the term, see Kecskes 2010, and paremiological expressions (Moon 2015. In these categories, pragmatics rather than word-formation and syntax is the case (Erman and Warren 2000; Gibbs Jr. 2002, Kecskes 2014. The paper offers the analysis of the deep structure of the term in question, explores the role of figurativeness, exemplifies the differences, proposes the translation equivalents, and justifies the different nature of the seemingly corresponding terms, often making an impression of being a calque.

  14. A collective theory of happiness: words related to the word "happiness" in Swedish online newspapers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garcia, Danilo; Sikström, Sverker

    2013-06-01

    It may be suggested that the representation of happiness in online media is collective in nature because it is a picture of happiness communicated by relatively few individuals to the masses. The present study is based on articles published in Swedish daily online newspapers in 2010; the data corpus comprises 1.5 million words. We investigated which words were most (un)common in articles containing the word "happiness" as compared with articles not containing this word. The results show that words related to people (by use of all relevant pronouns: you/me and us/them); important others (e.g., grandmother, mother); the Swedish royal wedding (e.g., Prince Daniel, Princess Victoria); and the FIFA World Cup (e.g., Zlatan, Argentina, Drogba) were highly recurrent in articles containing the word happiness. In contrast, words related to objects, such as money (e.g., millions, billions), bestselling gadgets (e.g., iPad, iPhone), and companies (e.g., Google, Windows), were predictive of contexts not recurrent with the word happiness. The results presented here are in accordance with findings in the happiness literature showing that relationships, not material things, are what make people happy. We suggest that our findings mirror a collective theory of happiness, that is, a shared picture or agreement, among members of a community, concerning what makes people happy. The fact that this representation is made public on such a large scale makes it collective in nature.

  15. Usage of the word 'ether'

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Duffy, M.C.

    1980-01-01

    Confusion has been caused by scientists using the one word 'ether' to classify models differing from each other in important respects. Major roles assigned to the word are examined, and the nature of modern ether theories surveyed. The part played by the several meanings attached to the word, in the ether concept, is outlined. (author)

  16. WORD-MAKING IN PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH.

    Science.gov (United States)

    SIMONINI, R.C., JR.

    WORDS CAN BE STUDIED BY DESCRIBING THEIR ORIGIN INDUCTIVELY OR DEDUCTIVELY. EITHER WAY, A PRECISE DEFINITION OF ETYMOLOGICAL CLASSES WHICH ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE IS NEEDED. PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH IS CLASSIFIED INTO--(1) NATIVE WORDS WHICH CAN BE TRACED BACK TO THE WORD STOCK OF OLD ENGLISH, (2) LOAN WORDS NEW TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE WHICH HAD…

  17. Encoding in the visual word form area: an fMRI adaptation study of words versus handwriting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barton, Jason J S; Fox, Christopher J; Sekunova, Alla; Iaria, Giuseppe

    2010-08-01

    Written texts are not just words but complex multidimensional stimuli, including aspects such as case, font, and handwriting style, for example. Neuropsychological reports suggest that left fusiform lesions can impair the reading of text for word (lexical) content, being associated with alexia, whereas right-sided lesions may impair handwriting recognition. We used fMRI adaptation in 13 healthy participants to determine if repetition-suppression occurred for words but not handwriting in the left visual word form area (VWFA) and the reverse in the right fusiform gyrus. Contrary to these expectations, we found adaptation for handwriting but not for words in both the left VWFA and the right VWFA homologue. A trend to adaptation for words but not handwriting was seen only in the left middle temporal gyrus. An analysis of anterior and posterior subdivisions of the left VWFA also failed to show any adaptation for words. We conclude that the right and the left fusiform gyri show similar patterns of adaptation for handwriting, consistent with a predominantly perceptual contribution to text processing.

  18. Dynamics of Semantic and Word-Formation Subsystems of the Russian Language: Historical Dynamics of the Word Family

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olga Ivanovna Dmitrieva

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available The article provides comprehensive justification of the principles and methods of the synchronic and diachronic research of word-formation subsystems of the Russian language. The authors also study the ways of analyzing historical dynamics of word family as the main macro-unit of word-formation system. In the field of analysis there is a family of words with the stem 'ход-' (the meaning of 'motion', word-formation of which is investigated in different periods of the Russian literary language. Significance of motion-verbs in the process of forming a language picture of the world determined the character and the structure of this word family as one of the biggest in the history of the Russian language. In the article a structural and semantic dynamics of the word family 'ход-' is depicted. The results of the study show that in the ancient period the prefixes of verbal derivatives were formed, which became the apex-branched derivational paradigms existing in modern Russian. The old Russian period of language development is characterized by the appearance of words with connotative meaning (with suffixes -ishk-, -ichn-, as well as the words with possessive semantics (with suffixes –ev-, -sk-. In this period the verbs with the postfix -cz also supplement the analyzed word family. The period of formation of the National Russian language was marked by the loss of a large number of abstract nouns and the appearance of neologisms from some old Russian abstract nouns. The studied family in the modern Russian language is characterized by the following processes: the appearance of terms, the active semantic derivation, the weakening of word-formation variability, the semantic differentiation of duplicate units, the development of subsystem of words with connotative meanings, and the preservation of derivatives in all functional styles.

  19. Differential cognitive processing of Kanji and Kana words: do orthographic and semantic codes function in parallel in word matching task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kawakami, A; Hatta, T; Kogure, T

    2001-12-01

    Relative engagements of the orthographic and semantic codes in Kanji and Hiragana word recognition were investigated. In Exp. 1, subjects judged whether the pairs of Kanji words (prime and target) presented sequentially were physically identical to each other in the word condition. In the sentence condition, subjects decided whether the target word was valid for the prime sentence presented in advance. The results showed that the response times to the target swords orthographically similar (to the prime) were significantly slower than to semantically related target words in the word condition and that this was also the case in the sentence condition. In Exp. 2, subjects judged whether the target word written in Hiragana was physically identical to the prime word in the word condition. In the sentence condition, subjects decided if the target word was valid for the previously presented prime sentence. Analysis indicated that response times to orthographically similar words were slower than to semantically related words in the word condition but not in the sentence condition wherein the response times to the semantically and orthographically similar words were largely the same. Based on these results, differential contributions of orthographic and semantic codes in cognitive processing of Japanese Kanji and Hiragana words was discussed.

  20. Characteristics of Hemorrhagic Stroke following Spine and Joint Surgeries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fei Yang

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Hemorrhagic stroke can occur after spine and joint surgeries such as laminectomy, lumbar spinal fusion, tumor resection, and total joint arthroplasty. Although this kind of stroke rarely happens, it may cause severe consequences and high mortality rates. Typical clinical symptoms of hemorrhagic stroke after spine and joint surgeries include headache, vomiting, consciousness disturbance, and mental disorders. It can happen several hours after surgeries. Most bleeding sites are located in cerebellar hemisphere and temporal lobe. A cerebrospinal fluid (CSF leakage caused by surgeries may be the key to intracranial hemorrhages happening. Early diagnosis and treatments are very important for patients to prevent the further progression of intracranial hemorrhages. Several patients need a hematoma evacuation and their prognosis is not optimistic.

  1. Robotic laparoendoscopic single-site surgery: From present to future

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ayhan Verit

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available The continued effort of improving cosmesis and reducing morbidity in urologic surgery has given rise to novel alternatives to traditional minimally invasive techniques: Laparoendoscopic Single-site Surgery (LESS and Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES. Despite the development of specialized access devices and instruments, the performance of complex procedures using LESS has been challenging due to loss of triangulation and instrument clashing. A robotic interface may represent the key factor in overcoming the critical restrictions related to NOTES and LESS. Although encouraging, current clinical evidence related to R-LESS remains limited as the current da Vinci® robotic platform has not been specifically designed for LESS. Robotic innovations are imminent and are likely to govern major changes to the current landscape of scarless surgery.

  2. WordPress web application development

    CERN Document Server

    Ratnayake, Rakhitha Nimesh

    2013-01-01

    An extensive, practical guide that explains how to adapt WordPress features, both conventional and trending, for web applications.This book is intended for WordPress developers and designers who have the desire to go beyond conventional website development to develop quality web applications within a limited time frame and for maximum profit. Experienced web developers who are looking for a framework for rapid application development will also find this to be a useful resource. Prior knowledge with of WordPress is preferable as the main focus will be on explaining methods for adapting WordPres

  3. Emotion words and categories: evidence from lexical decision.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scott, Graham G; O'Donnell, Patrick J; Sereno, Sara C

    2014-05-01

    We examined the categorical nature of emotion word recognition. Positive, negative, and neutral words were presented in lexical decision tasks. Word frequency was additionally manipulated. In Experiment 1, "positive" and "negative" categories of words were implicitly indicated by the blocked design employed. A significant emotion-frequency interaction was obtained, replicating past research. While positive words consistently elicited faster responses than neutral words, only low frequency negative words demonstrated a similar advantage. In Experiments 2a and 2b, explicit categories ("positive," "negative," and "household" items) were specified to participants. Positive words again elicited faster responses than did neutral words. Responses to negative words, however, were no different than those to neutral words, regardless of their frequency. The overall pattern of effects indicates that positive words are always facilitated, frequency plays a greater role in the recognition of negative words, and a "negative" category represents a somewhat disparate set of emotions. These results support the notion that emotion word processing may be moderated by distinct systems.

  4. Planning Strabismus Surgery: How to Avoid Pitfalls and Complications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aroichane, Maryam

    2016-01-01

    Good surgical results following strabismus surgery depend on several factors. In this article, detailed steps for planning strabismus surgery will be reviewed for basic horizontal strabismus surgery, vertical, and oblique muscle surgeries. The thought process behind each case will be presented to help in selecting the best surgical approach to optimize postoperative results. The surgical planning for strabismus will be developed with clinical examples from easy cases to more complex ones. Preoperative pictures of the ocular alignment are an integral part of planning surgery and help in documenting the strabismus before and after surgery. Three cases of strabismus cases will be reviewed with several key factors for planning surgery, including visual acuity, refractive error, potential for stereovision, and risk of postoperative diplopia. The most important factor is accurate orthoptic measurements. The surgical planning for each patient is detailed along with preoperative pictures. Strabismus surgery results can be improved by careful preoperative planning. The surgeon has the ability to discern potential pitfalls that can alter the surgical outcome. Surgical planning allows a dedicated time of reflection before surgery, foreseeing potential problems, and avoiding them during the surgery. © 2016 Board of regents of the University of Wisconsin System, American Orthoptic Journal, Volume 66, 2016, ISSN 0065-955X, E-ISSN 1553-4448.

  5. Effects of word frequency and transitional probability on word reading durations of younger and older speakers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Moers, C.; Meyer, A.S.; Janse, E.

    2017-01-01

    High-frequency units are usually processed faster than low-frequency units in language comprehension and language production. Frequency effects have been shown for words as well as word combinations. Word co-occurrence effects can be operationalized in terms of transitional probability (TP). TPs

  6. Word of Jeremiah - Word of God

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Holt, Else Kragelund

    2007-01-01

    The article examines the relationship between God, prophet and the people in the Book of Jeremiah. The analysis shows a close connection, almost an identification, between the divine word (and consequently God himself) and the prophet, so that the prophet becomes a metaphor for God. This is done...

  7. Gesturing more diminishes recall of abstract words when gesture is allowed and concrete words when it is taboo.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matthews-Saugstad, Krista M; Raymakers, Erik P; Kelty-Stephen, Damian G

    2017-07-01

    Gesture during speech can promote or diminish recall for conversation content. We explored effects of cognitive load on this relationship, manipulating it at two scales: individual-word abstractness and social constraints to prohibit gestures. Prohibited gestures can diminish recall but more so for abstract-word recall. Insofar as movement planning adds to cognitive load, movement amplitude may moderate gesture effects on memory, with greater permitted- and prohibited-gesture movements reducing abstract-word recall and concrete-word recall, respectively. We tested these effects in a dyadic game in which 39 adult participants described words to confederates without naming the word or five related words. Results supported our expectations and indicated that memory effects of gesturing depend on social, cognitive, and motoric aspects of discourse.

  8. Interference Effects on the Recall of Pictures, Printed Words, and Spoken Words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burton, John K.; Bruning, Roger H.

    1982-01-01

    Nouns were presented in triads as pictures, printed words, or spoken words and followed by various types of interference. Measures of short- and long-term memory were obtained. In short-term memory, pictorial superiority occurred with acoustic, and visual and acoustic, but not visual interference. Long-term memory showed superior recall for…

  9. Interference Effects on the Recall of Pictures, Printed Words and Spoken Words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burton, John K.; Bruning, Roger H.

    Thirty college undergraduates participated in a study of the effects of acoustic and visual interference on the recall of word and picture triads in both short-term and long-term memory. The subjects were presented 24 triads of monosyllabic nouns representing all of the possible combinations of presentation types: pictures, printed words, and…

  10. Professional WordPress design and development

    CERN Document Server

    Williams, Brad; Stern, Hal

    2014-01-01

    The highest rated WordPress development and design book on the market is back with an all new third edition. Professional WordPress is the only WordPress book targeted to developers, with advanced content that exploits the full functionality of the most popular CMS in the world. Fully updated to align with WordPress 4.1, this edition has updated examples with all new screenshots, and full exploration of additional tasks made possible by the latest tools and features. You will gain insight into real projects that currently use WordPress as an application framework, as well as the basic usage a

  11. Buzz words in the upstream

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Knoll, B.

    1998-01-01

    Examples of misleading or misunderstood 'buzz' words that are prevalent in modern upstream technology are illustrated. The terms underbalanced drilling, horizontal wells, and geo-steering, which were unheard of in the early 1980s, have become key 'buzz' words in modern exploitation terminology. The terms are not only misused, but the technologies themselves are frequently mis-applied as shown by the frequency of economic failures, or less than optimal technical successes which have occurred when these technologies have been employed. Two examples, 'horizontal drilling' and 'geosteering', are used to illustrate the point. With regard to horizontal drilling, many oil field professionals consider it as merely a more advanced method of directional drilling. This represents a serious, yet common, misconception. In truth, horizontal wells are not just an altered drilling process, but a fundamental change in exploitation technology. A more appropriate definition would be that a horizontal well is an enhanced oil recovery process, clearly implying a relationship to the exploitation benefit potential of horizontal wells. The other term, 'geo-steering' refers to defining, generating and monitoring a wellpath on geology rather than geometry. It, too, is frequently misused in the technical media. The term is also misrepresented by implying that it is applicable only to the horizontal section of a well, which in fact is far from the truth. To counter these misconceptions, the paper provides appropriate definitions for each of these terms, and defines the conditions under which the techniques themselves are most appropriately used. 7 figs

  12. Recall of short word lists presented visually at fast rates: effects of phonological similarity and word length.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coltheart, V; Langdon, R

    1998-03-01

    Phonological similarity of visually presented list items impairs short-term serial recall. Lists of long words are also recalled less accurately than are lists of short words. These results have been attributed to phonological recoding and rehearsal. If subjects articulate irrelevant words during list presentation, both phonological similarity and word length effects are abolished. Experiments 1 and 2 examined effects of phonological similarity and recall instructions on recall of lists shown at fast rates (from one item per 0.114-0.50 sec), which might not permit phonological encoding and rehearsal. In Experiment 3, recall instructions and word length were manipulated using fast presentation rates. Both phonological similarity and word length effects were observed, and they were not dependent on recall instructions. Experiments 4 and 5 investigated the effects of irrelevant concurrent articulation on lists shown at fast rates. Both phonological similarity and word length effects were removed by concurrent articulation, as they were with slow presentation rates.

  13. Understanding the power of word-of-mouth.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Suzana Z. Gildin

    2003-06-01

    Full Text Available Word-of-mouth has been considered one of the most powerful forms of communication in the market today. Understanding what makes word-of-mouth such a persuasive and powerful communication tool is important to organizations that intend to build strong relationships with consumers. For this reason, organizations are concerned about promoting positive word-of-mouth and retarding negative word-of-mouth, which can be harmful to the image of the company or a brand. This work focuses on the major aspects involving word-of-mouth communication. Recommendations to generate positive word-of-mouth and retard negative word-of-mouth are also highlighted.

  14. Forbidden word entropy of cerebral oximetric values predicts postoperative neurocognitive decline in patients undergoing aortic arch surgery under deep hypothermic circulatory arrest

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna Dubovoy

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: Up to 53% of cardiac surgery patients experience postoperative neurocognitive decline. Cerebral oximetry is designed to detect changes in cerebral tissue saturation and therefore may be useful to predict which patients are at risk of developing neurocognitive decline. Methods: This is a retrospective analysis of a prospective study originally designed to determine if treatment of cerebral oximetry desaturation is associated with improvement in postoperative cognitive dysfunction in patients undergoing aortic reconstruction under deep hypothermic circulatory arrest. Cognitive function was measured, preoperatively and 3 months postoperatively, with 15 neuropsychologic tests administered by a psychologist; the individual test scores were summed and normalized. Bilateral cerebral oximetry data were stored and analyzed using measures of entropy. Cognitive decline was defined as any decrease in the summed normalized score from baseline to 3 months. Results: Seven of 17 (41% patients suffered cognitive decline. There was no association between baseline cerebral oximetry and postoperative cognitive dysfunction. Nor were changes in oximetry values associated with cognitive decline. However, cognitive decline was associated with loss of forbidden word entropy (FwEn (correlation: Rho ρ = 0.51, P = 0.037 for left cerebral oximetry FwEn and ρ = 0.54, P = 0.025 for right cerebral oximetry FwEn. Conclusion: Postoperative cognitive decline was associated with loss of complexity of the time series as shown by a decrease in FwEn from beginning to end of the case. This suggests that regulation of cerebral oximetry is different between those who do and those who do not develop cognitive decline.

  15. Visual attention shift to printed words during spoken word recognition in Chinese: The role of phonological information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Wei; Qu, Qingqing; Tong, Xiuhong

    2018-05-01

    The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which phonological information mediates the visual attention shift to printed Chinese words in spoken word recognition by using an eye-movement technique with a printed-word paradigm. In this paradigm, participants are visually presented with four printed words on a computer screen, which include a target word, a phonological competitor, and two distractors. Participants are then required to select the target word using a computer mouse, and the eye movements are recorded. In Experiment 1, phonological information was manipulated at the full-phonological overlap; in Experiment 2, phonological information at the partial-phonological overlap was manipulated; and in Experiment 3, the phonological competitors were manipulated to share either fulloverlap or partial-overlap with targets directly. Results of the three experiments showed that the phonological competitor effects were observed at both the full-phonological overlap and partial-phonological overlap conditions. That is, phonological competitors attracted more fixations than distractors, which suggested that phonological information mediates the visual attention shift during spoken word recognition. More importantly, we found that the mediating role of phonological information varies as a function of the phonological similarity between target words and phonological competitors.

  16. Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words

    OpenAIRE

    McQueen, J.; Huettig, F.

    2014-01-01

    Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of pre-exposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase (Experiment 3). Auditory stimuli were preceded by primes which were pictures (Experiments 1 and 3) or those pictures’ printed names (Experiment 2). Prime-target pairs were phonologically onsetrelated (e.g...

  17. Reevaluating split-fovea processing in word recognition: hemispheric dominance, retinal location, and the word-nonword effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jordan, Timothy R; Paterson, Kevin B; Kurtev, Stoyan

    2009-03-01

    Many studies have claimed that hemispheric projections are split precisely at the foveal midline and so hemispheric asymmetry affects word recognition right up to the point of fixation. To investigate this claim, four-letter words and nonwords were presented to the left or right of fixation, either close to fixation in foveal vision or farther from fixation in extrafoveal vision. Presentation accuracy was controlled using an eyetracker linked to a fixation-contingent display. Words presented foveally produced identical performance on each side of fixation, but words presented extrafoveally showed a clear left-hemisphere (LH) advantage. Nonwords produced no evidence of hemispheric asymmetry in any location. Foveal stimuli also produced an identical word-nonword effect on each side of fixation, whereas extrafoveal stimuli produced a word-nonword effect only for LH (not right-hemisphere) displays. These findings indicate that functional unilateral projections to contralateral hemispheres exist in extrafoveal locations but provide no evidence of a functional division in hemispheric processing at fixation.

  18. Word Processing for All.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abbott, Chris

    1991-01-01

    Pupils with special educational needs are finding that the use of word processors can give them a new confidence and pride in their own abilities. This article describes the use of such devices as the "mouse," on-screen word lists, spell checkers, and overlay keyboards. (JDD)

  19. Novel Blind Recognition Algorithm of Frame Synchronization Words Based on Soft-Decision in Digital Communication Systems.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jiangyi Qin

    Full Text Available A novel blind recognition algorithm of frame synchronization words is proposed to recognize the frame synchronization words parameters in digital communication systems. In this paper, a blind recognition method of frame synchronization words based on the hard-decision is deduced in detail. And the standards of parameter recognition are given. Comparing with the blind recognition based on the hard-decision, utilizing the soft-decision can improve the accuracy of blind recognition. Therefore, combining with the characteristics of Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK signal, an improved blind recognition algorithm based on the soft-decision is proposed. Meanwhile, the improved algorithm can be extended to other signal modulation forms. Then, the complete blind recognition steps of the hard-decision algorithm and the soft-decision algorithm are given in detail. Finally, the simulation results show that both the hard-decision algorithm and the soft-decision algorithm can recognize the parameters of frame synchronization words blindly. What's more, the improved algorithm can enhance the accuracy of blind recognition obviously.

  20. Automating Ontological Annotation with WordNet

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Tratz, Stephen C.; Gregory, Michelle L.; Chappell, Alan R.; Whitney, Paul D.; Posse, Christian; Paulson, Patrick R.; Baddeley, Bob L.; Hohimer, Ryan E.; White, Amanda M.

    2006-01-22

    Semantic Web applications require robust and accurate annotation tools that are capable of automating the assignment of ontological classes to words in naturally occurring text (ontological annotation). Most current ontologies do not include rich lexical databases and are therefore not easily integrated with word sense disambiguation algorithms that are needed to automate ontological annotation. WordNet provides a potentially ideal solution to this problem as it offers a highly structured lexical conceptual representation that has been extensively used to develop word sense disambiguation algorithms. However, WordNet has not been designed as an ontology, and while it can be easily turned into one, the result of doing this would present users with serious practical limitations due to the great number of concepts (synonym sets) it contains. Moreover, mapping WordNet to an existing ontology may be difficult and requires substantial labor. We propose to overcome these limitations by developing an analytical platform that (1) provides a WordNet-based ontology offering a manageable and yet comprehensive set of concept classes, (2) leverages the lexical richness of WordNet to give an extensive characterization of concept class in terms of lexical instances, and (3) integrates a class recognition algorithm that automates the assignment of concept classes to words in naturally occurring text. The ensuing framework makes available an ontological annotation platform that can be effectively integrated with intelligence analysis systems to facilitate evidence marshaling and sustain the creation and validation of inference models.

  1. The Influence of Orthographic Neighborhood Density and Word Frequency on Visual Word Recognition: Insights from RT Distributional Analyses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stephen Wee Hun eLim

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available The effects of orthographic neighborhood density and word frequency in visual word recognition were investigated using distributional analyses of response latencies in visual lexical decision. Main effects of density and frequency were observed in mean latencies. Distributional analyses, in addition, revealed a density x frequency interaction: for low-frequency words, density effects were mediated predominantly by distributional shifting whereas for high-frequency words, density effects were absent except at the slower RTs, implicating distributional skewing. The present findings suggest that density effects in low-frequency words reflect processes involved in early lexical access, while the effects observed in high-frequency words reflect late postlexical checking processes.

  2. Exploring the word superiority effect using TVA

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Starrfelt, Randi

    Words are made of letters, and yet sometimes it is easier to identify a word than a single letter. This word superiority effect (WSE) has been observed when written stimuli are presented very briefly or degraded by visual noise. It is unclear, however, if this is due to a lower threshold for perc...... simultaneously we find a different pattern: In a whole report experiment with six stimuli (letters or words), letters are perceived more easily than words, and this is reflected both in perceptual processing speed and short term memory capacity....... for perception of words, or a higher speed of processing for words than letters. We have investigated the WSE using methods based on a Theory of Visual Attention. In an experiment using single stimuli (words or letters) presented centrally, we show that the classical WSE is specifically reflected in perceptual...

  3. Eye movements when reading sentences with handwritten words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perea, Manuel; Marcet, Ana; Uixera, Beatriz; Vergara-Martínez, Marta

    2016-10-17

    The examination of how we read handwritten words (i.e., the original form of writing) has typically been disregarded in the literature on reading. Previous research using word recognition tasks has shown that lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) are magnified when reading difficult handwritten words. To examine this issue in a more ecological scenario, we registered the participants' eye movements when reading handwritten sentences that varied in the degree of legibility (i.e., sentences composed of words in easy vs. difficult handwritten style). For comparison purposes, we included a condition with printed sentences. Results showed a larger reading cost for sentences with difficult handwritten words than for sentences with easy handwritten words, which in turn showed a reading cost relative to the sentences with printed words. Critically, the effect of word frequency was greater for difficult handwritten words than for easy handwritten words or printed words in the total times on a target word, but not on first-fixation durations or gaze durations. We examine the implications of these findings for models of eye movement control in reading.

  4. The Birth of Words: Ten-Month-Olds Learn Words through Perceptual Salience

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pruden, Shannon M.; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy; Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick; Hennon, Elizabeth A.

    2006-01-01

    A core task in language acquisition is mapping words onto objects, actions, and events. Two studies investigated how children learn to map novel labels onto novel objects. Study 1 investigated whether 10-month-olds use both perceptual and social cues to learn a word. Study 2, a control study, tested whether infants paired the label with a…

  5. Bariatric Surgery, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, and Infertility

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    James Butterworth

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Background. Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS is the commonest cause of female infertility. Visceral obesity and insulin resistance are key pathophysiological mechanisms behind PCOS. Women suffering from this syndrome and infertility often seek bariatric surgery hoping that they would be able to conceive postoperatively. Objective. At present, there is no consensus on the role of bariatric surgery in the management of PCOS-associated infertility within the medical community, making it difficult to give specific advice to these women, so a review of the literature was necessary. Results. A detailed review of the literature was performed. Only 6 manuscripts were relevant and contained quantitative data. They demonstrated that bariatric surgery results in postoperative conception rates varying from 33% to 100%. Surgery is also associated with amelioration of menstrual irregularities, hormonal abnormalities, and hirsutism that are associated with PCOS. These studies were retrospective and only had a small number of participants with infertility. Conclusions. Bariatric surgery has been shown to conclusively improve life expectancy, quality of life, and comorbidities like type 2 diabetes and obstructive sleep apnea. However, further research is required to identify whether weight loss surgery results in significant improvement in fertility of women with PCOS and to investigate which operation has the best results.

  6. Validation of virtual reality simulators: Key to the successful integration of a novel teaching technology into minimal access surgery

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Schijven, Marlies P.; Jakimowicz, Jack J.

    2005-01-01

    Minimal access surgery (MAS) requires additional training in the surgical curriculum, as skills needed to perform MAS are quite different from those used in open surgery. Moreover, residents do not seem to experience ample opportunity to gain such skills in the current surgical curriculum. Virtual

  7. Case report

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    ebutamanya

    2013-07-03

    Jul 3, 2013 ... Key words: Appendiceal GIST, peritonitis, surgery, CD34. Received: ... The Pan African Medical Journal - ISSN 1937-8688. This is an Open ... A 75-year-old man was brought to the emergency department with a 48-hour ...

  8. Approach and Withdrawal Tendencies during Written Word Processing: Effects of Task, Emotional Valence, and Emotional Arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Citron, Francesca M M; Abugaber, David; Herbert, Cornelia

    2015-01-01

    The affective dimensions of emotional valence and emotional arousal affect processing of verbal and pictorial stimuli. Traditional emotional theories assume a linear relationship between these dimensions, with valence determining the direction of a behavior (approach vs. withdrawal) and arousal its intensity or strength. In contrast, according to the valence-arousal conflict theory, both dimensions are interactively related: positive valence and low arousal (PL) are associated with an implicit tendency to approach a stimulus, whereas negative valence and high arousal (NH) are associated with withdrawal. Hence, positive, high-arousal (PH) and negative, low-arousal (NL) stimuli elicit conflicting action tendencies. By extending previous research that used several tasks and methods, the present study investigated whether and how emotional valence and arousal affect subjective approach vs. withdrawal tendencies toward emotional words during two novel tasks. In Study 1, participants had to decide whether they would approach or withdraw from concepts expressed by written words. In Studies 2 and 3 participants had to respond to each word by pressing one of two keys labeled with an arrow pointing upward or downward. Across experiments, positive and negative words, high or low in arousal, were presented. In Study 1 (explicit task), in line with the valence-arousal conflict theory, PH and NL words were responded to more slowly than PL and NH words. In addition, participants decided to approach positive words more often than negative words. In Studies 2 and 3, participants responded faster to positive than negative words, irrespective of their level of arousal. Furthermore, positive words were significantly more often associated with "up" responses than negative words, thus supporting the existence of implicit associations between stimulus valence and response coding (positive is up and negative is down). Hence, in contexts in which participants' spontaneous responses are

  9. Towards new information resources for public health--from WordNet to MedicalWordNet.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fellbaum, Christiane; Hahn, Udo; Smith, Barry

    2006-06-01

    In the last two decades, WordNet has evolved as the most comprehensive computational lexicon of general English. In this article, we discuss its potential for supporting the creation of an entirely new kind of information resource for public health, viz. MedicalWordNet. This resource is not to be conceived merely as a lexical extension of the original WordNet to medical terminology; indeed, there is already a considerable degree of overlap between WordNet and the vocabulary of medicine. Instead, we propose a new type of repository, consisting of three large collections of (1) medically relevant word forms, structured along the lines of the existing Princeton WordNet; (2) medically validated propositions, referred to here as medical facts, which will constitute what we shall call MedicalFactNet; and (3) propositions reflecting laypersons' medical beliefs, which will constitute what we shall call the MedicalBeliefNet. We introduce a methodology for setting up the MedicalWordNet. We then turn to the discussion of research challenges that have to be met to build this new type of information resource. We build a database of sentences relevant to the medical domain. The sentences are generated from WordNet via its relations as well as from medical statements broken down into elementary propositions. Two subcorpora of sentences are distinguished, MedicalBeliefNet and MedicalFactNet. The former is rated for assent by laypersons; the latter for correctness by medical experts. The sentence corpora will be valuable for a variety of applications in information retrieval as well as in research in linguistics and psychology with respect to the study of expert and non-expert beliefs and their linguistic expressions. Our work has to meet several considerable challenges. These include accounting for the distinction between medical experts and laypersons, the social issues of expert-layperson communication in different media, the linguistic aspects of encoding medical knowledge, and

  10. Nine Words - Nine Columns

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Trempe Jr., Robert B.; Buthke, Jan

    2016-01-01

    of computational and mechanical processes towards an anesthetic. Each team received a single word, translating and evolving that word first into a double-curved computational surface, next a ruled computational surface, and then a physically shaped foam mold via a 6-axis robot. The foam molds then operated...

  11. The effect of word concreteness on recognition memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fliessbach, K; Weis, S; Klaver, P; Elger, C E; Weber, B

    2006-09-01

    Concrete words that are readily imagined are better remembered than abstract words. Theoretical explanations for this effect either claim a dual coding of concrete words in the form of both a verbal and a sensory code (dual-coding theory), or a more accessible semantic network for concrete words than for abstract words (context-availability theory). However, the neural mechanisms of improved memory for concrete versus abstract words are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the processing of concrete and abstract words during encoding and retrieval in a recognition memory task using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). As predicted, memory performance was significantly better for concrete words than for abstract words. Abstract words elicited stronger activations of the left inferior frontal cortex both during encoding and recognition than did concrete words. Stronger activation of this area was also associated with successful encoding for both abstract and concrete words. Concrete words elicited stronger activations bilaterally in the posterior inferior parietal lobe during recognition. The left parietal activation was associated with correct identification of old stimuli. The anterior precuneus, left cerebellar hemisphere and the posterior and anterior cingulate cortex showed activations both for successful recognition of concrete words and for online processing of concrete words during encoding. Additionally, we observed a correlation across subjects between brain activity in the left anterior fusiform gyrus and hippocampus during recognition of learned words and the strength of the concreteness effect. These findings support the idea of specific brain processes for concrete words, which are reactivated during successful recognition.

  12. Semantic tagging of and semantic enhancements to systematics papers: ZooKeys working examples

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Penev, L.; Agosti, D.; Georgiev, T.; Catapano, T.; Miller, J.; Blagoderov, V.; Roberts, D.; Smith, V.S.; Brake, I.; Ryrcroft, S.; Scott, B.; Johnson, N.F.; Morris, R.A.; Sautter, G.; Chavan, V.; Robertson, T.; Remsen, D.; Stoev, P.; Parr, C.; Knapp, S.; Kress, W.J.; Thompson, F.C.; Erwin, T.

    2010-01-01

    The concept of semantic tagging and its potential for semantic enhancements to taxonomic papers is outlined and illustrated by four exemplar papers published in the present issue of ZooKeys. The four papers were created in different ways: (i) written in Microsoft Word and submitted as non-tagged

  13. Glioma surgery in eloquent areas: can we preserve cognition?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Satoer, Djaina; Visch-Brink, Evy; Dirven, Clemens; Vincent, Arnaud

    2016-01-01

    Cognitive preservation is crucial in glioma surgery, as it is an important aspect of daily life functioning. Several studies claimed that surgery in eloquent areas is possible without causing severe cognitive damage. However, this conclusion was relatively ungrounded due to the lack of extensive neuropsychological testing in homogenous patient groups. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the short-term and long-term effects of glioma surgery on cognition by identifying all studies who conducted neuropsychological tests preoperatively and postoperatively in glioma patients. We systematically searched the electronical databases Embase, Medline OvidSP, Web of Science, PsychINFO OvidSP, PubMed, Cochrane, Google Scholar, Scirius and Proquest aimed at cognitive performance in glioma patients preoperatively and postoperatively. We included 17 studies with tests assessing the cognitive domains: language, memory, attention, executive functions and/or visuospatial abilities. Language was the domain most frequently examined. Immediately postoperatively, all studies except one, found deterioration in one or more cognitive domains. In the longer term (3-6/6-12 months postoperatively), the following tests showed both recovery and deterioration compared with the preoperative level: naming and verbal fluency (language), verbal word learning (memory) and Trailmaking B (executive functions). Cognitive recovery to the preoperative level after surgery is possible to a certain extent; however, the results are too arbitrary to draw definite conclusions and not all studies investigated all cognitive domains. More studies with longer postoperative follow-up with tests for cognitive change are necessary for a better understanding of the conclusive effects of glioma surgery on cognition.

  14. Virtual reality in surgery and medicine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chinnock, C

    1994-01-01

    . Surgical robots are likely to be deployed for specific tasks in the operating room (OR) and to support telesurgery applications. Technical developments in robotics and motion control are key components of many virtual reality systems. Since almost all of the virtual reality and enhanced reality systems will be digitally based, they are also capable of being put "on-line" for tele-training, consulting, and even surgery. Advancements in virtual and enhanced reality systems will be driven in part by consumer applications of this technology. Many of the companies that will supply systems for medical applications are also working on commercial products. A big consumer hit can benefit the entire industry by increasing volumes and bringing down costs.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

  15. How new L2 words (don't) become memories : Lexicalization in advanced L1 Dutch learners of L2 English as part of a longitudinal study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Keijzer, Merel

    It is an undisputed fact that learning – and remembering – new words is key in successful second language acquisition. And yet researching how vocabulary acquisition takes place is one of the most difficult endeavors in second language acquisition. We can test how many L2 words a learner knows, but

  16. Word segmentation in children’s literacy: a study about word awareness

    OpenAIRE

    Débora Mattos Marques; Aline Lorandi

    2016-01-01

    The present research aimed to investigate how linguistic awareness regarding the concept of “word” may influence some mistakes on segmenting words in children’s writing in the Elementary School. The observed data comprised those of hyper and hyposegmentation which were then related to word awareness. For the analysis of linguistic awareness data, the Representational Redescription, proposed by Karmillof-Smith (1986-1992), has been used. It postulates four levels where knowledge is redescri...

  17. How Objective a Neutral Word Is? A Neutrosophic Approach for the Objectivity Degrees of Neutral Words

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mihaela Colhon

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available In the latest studies concerning the sentiment polarity of words, the authors mostly consider the positive and negative constructions, without paying too much attention to the neutral words, which can have, in fact, significant sentiment degrees. More precisely, not all the neutral words have zero positivity or negativity scores, some of them having quite important nonzero scores for these polarities. At this moment, in the literature, a word is considered neutral if its positive and negative scores are equal, which implies two possibilities: (1 zero positive and negative scores; (2 nonzero, but equal positive and negative scores. It is obvious that these cases represent two different categories of neutral words that must be treated separately by a sentiment analysis task. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study about the neutral words applied to English as is developed with the aid of SentiWordNet 3.0: the publicly available lexical resource for opinion mining. We designed our study in order to provide an accurate classification of the so-called “neutral words” described in terms of sentiment scores and using measures from neutrosophy theory. The intended scope is to fill the gap concerning the neutrality aspect by giving precise measurements for the words’ objectivity.

  18. Finding Words and Word Structure in Artificial Speech: The Development of Infants' Sensitivity to Morphosyntactic Regularities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marchetto, Erika; Bonatti, Luca L.

    2015-01-01

    To achieve language proficiency, infants must find the building blocks of speech and master the rules governing their legal combinations. However, these problems are linked: words are also built according to rules. Here, we explored early morphosyntactic sensitivity by testing when and how infants could find either words or within-word structure…

  19. Visual recognition of permuted words

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rashid, Sheikh Faisal; Shafait, Faisal; Breuel, Thomas M.

    2010-02-01

    In current study we examine how letter permutation affects in visual recognition of words for two orthographically dissimilar languages, Urdu and German. We present the hypothesis that recognition or reading of permuted and non-permuted words are two distinct mental level processes, and that people use different strategies in handling permuted words as compared to normal words. A comparison between reading behavior of people in these languages is also presented. We present our study in context of dual route theories of reading and it is observed that the dual-route theory is consistent with explanation of our hypothesis of distinction in underlying cognitive behavior for reading permuted and non-permuted words. We conducted three experiments in lexical decision tasks to analyze how reading is degraded or affected by letter permutation. We performed analysis of variance (ANOVA), distribution free rank test, and t-test to determine the significance differences in response time latencies for two classes of data. Results showed that the recognition accuracy for permuted words is decreased 31% in case of Urdu and 11% in case of German language. We also found a considerable difference in reading behavior for cursive and alphabetic languages and it is observed that reading of Urdu is comparatively slower than reading of German due to characteristics of cursive script.

  20. Entrepreneurship in the Area of Activity of Key ICT Clusters in Poland

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-03-05

    Mar 5, 2018 ... Key words- cluster organization, entrepreneurship, ICT clusters, ICT sector ... In the next part of the article on the basis of own studies based on data from public .... pointed to the lack of such structures in Poland [17], while in. 2006 as many as 43 .... Manufacture of computers and peripheral equipment. 2630.

  1. Corticospinal excitability during the processing of handwritten and typed words and non-words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gordon, Chelsea L; Spivey, Michael J; Balasubramaniam, Ramesh

    2017-06-09

    A number of studies have suggested that perception of actions is accompanied by motor simulation of those actions. To further explore this proposal, we applied Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the left primary motor cortex during the observation of handwritten and typed language stimuli, including words and non-word consonant clusters. We recorded motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) from the right first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscle to measure cortico-spinal excitability during written text perception. We observed a facilitation in MEPs for handwritten stimuli, regardless of whether the stimuli were words or non-words, suggesting potential motor simulation during observation. We did not observe a similar facilitation for the typed stimuli, suggesting that motor simulation was not occurring during observation of typed text. By demonstrating potential simulation of written language text during observation, these findings add to a growing literature suggesting that the motor system plays a strong role in the perception of written language. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. The Study of Synonymous Word "Mistake"

    OpenAIRE

    Suwardi, Albertus

    2016-01-01

    This article discusses the synonymous word "mistake*.The discussion will also cover the meaning of 'word' itself. Words can be considered as form whether spoken or written, or alternatively as composite expression, which combine and meaning. Synonymous are different phonological words which have the same or very similar meanings. The synonyms of mistake are error, fault, blunder, slip, slipup, gaffe and inaccuracy. The data is taken from a computer program. The procedure of data collection is...

  3. Filaments of Meaning in Word Space

    OpenAIRE

    Karlgren, Jussi; Holst, Anders; Sahlgren, Magnus

    2008-01-01

    Word space models, in the sense of vector space models built on distributional data taken from texts, are used to model semantic relations between words. We argue that the high dimensionality of typical vector space models lead to unintuitive effects on modeling likeness of meaning and that the local structure of word spaces is where interesting semantic relations reside. We show that the local structure of word spaces has substantially different dimensionality and character than the global s...

  4. Electric Symbols: Internet Words And Culture

    OpenAIRE

    Fraim, John

    2002-01-01

    The famous Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis posits a linguistic determinism arguing language plays a central role in creation of a worldview. In the sense that language is a product of words, one can say that a culture's worldview is affected and influenced by the words of its particular language. Words both create and communicate worldviews. The greatest potential in history for the observation and analysis of words exists on the Internet. Indeed, the Internet can be considered history's greatest obse...

  5. Directed forgetting: Comparing pictures and words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quinlan, Chelsea K; Taylor, Tracy L; Fawcett, Jonathan M

    2010-03-01

    The authors investigated directed forgetting as a function of the stimulus type (picture, word) presented at study and test. In an item-method directed forgetting task, study items were presented 1 at a time, each followed with equal probability by an instruction to remember or forget. Participants exhibited greater yes-no recognition of remember than forget items for each of the 4 study-test conditions (picture-picture, picture-word, word-word, word-picture). However, this difference was significantly smaller when pictures were studied than when words were studied. This finding demonstrates that the magnitude of the directed forgetting effect can be reduced by high item memorability, such as when the picture superiority effect is operating. This suggests caution in using pictures at study when the goal of an experiment is to examine potential group differences in the magnitude of the directed forgetting effect. 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

  6. Pictures Improve Memory of SAT Vocabulary Words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Price, Melva; Finkelstein, Arleen

    1994-01-01

    Suggests that students can improve their memory of Scholastic Aptitude Test vocabulary words by associating the words with corresponding pictures taken from magazines. Finds that long-term recall of words associated with pictures was higher than recall of words not associated with pictures. (RS)

  7. WordPress all-in-one for dummies

    CERN Document Server

    Sabin-Wilson, Lisa

    2013-01-01

    Top WordPress guide, now fully updated for the latest WordPress release! This updated new edition comprises one of the largest collections of practical intermediate to advanced information on WordPress. Fully updated for the latest WordPress release, this in-depth book covers it all, from setting up your software to publishing your site, using SEO and social media, developing and using plug-ins, running multiple sites with WordPress, and more. Veteran author Lisa Sabin-Wilson is a top authority on WordPress, and she and her co-authors pack this book with essential and easy-to-follo

  8. Does bariatric surgery improve adipose tissue function?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frikke-Schmidt, H.; O’Rourke, R. W.; Lumeng, C. N.; Sandoval, D. A.; Seeley, R. J.

    2017-01-01

    Summary Bariatric surgery is currently the most effective treatment for obesity. Not only do these types of surgeries produce significant weight loss but also they improve insulin sensitivity and whole body metabolic function. The aim of this review is to explore how altered physiology of adipose tissue may contribute to the potent metabolic effects of some of these procedures. This includes specific effects on various fat depots, the function of individual adipocytes and the interaction between adipose tissue and other key metabolic tissues. Besides a dramatic loss of fat mass, bariatric surgery shifts the distribution of fat from visceral to the subcutaneous compartment favoring metabolic improvement. The sensitivity towards lipolysis controlled by insulin and catecholamines is improved, adipokine secretion is altered and local adipose inflammation as well as systemic inflammatory markers decreases. Some of these changes have been shown to be weight loss independent, and novel hypothesis for these effects includes include changes in bile acid metabolism, gut microbiota and central regulation of metabolism. In conclusion bariatric surgery is capable of improving aspects of adipose tissue function and do so in some cases in ways that are not entirely explained by the potent effect of surgery. PMID:27272117

  9. Learning to Read Words: Theory, Findings, and Issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ehri, Linnea C.

    2005-01-01

    Reading words may take several forms. Readers may utilize decoding, analogizing, or predicting to read unfamiliar words. Readers read familiar words by accessing them in memory, called sight word reading. With practice, all words come to be read automatically by sight, which is the most efficient, unobtrusive way to read words in text. The process…

  10. Sensory experience ratings (SERs) for 1,659 French words: Relationships with other psycholinguistic variables and visual word recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonin, Patrick; Méot, Alain; Ferrand, Ludovic; Bugaïska, Aurélia

    2015-09-01

    We collected sensory experience ratings (SERs) for 1,659 French words in adults. Sensory experience for words is a recently introduced variable that corresponds to the degree to which words elicit sensory and perceptual experiences (Juhasz & Yap Behavior Research Methods, 45, 160-168, 2013; Juhasz, Yap, Dicke, Taylor, & Gullick Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 1683-1691, 2011). The relationships of the sensory experience norms with other psycholinguistic variables (e.g., imageability and age of acquisition) were analyzed. We also investigated the degree to which SER predicted performance in visual word recognition tasks (lexical decision, word naming, and progressive demasking). The analyses indicated that SER reliably predicted response times in lexical decision, but not in word naming or progressive demasking. The findings are discussed in relation to the status of SER, the role of semantic code activation in visual word recognition, and the embodied view of cognition.

  11. Arabic word recognizer for mobile applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khanna, Nitin; Abdollahian, Golnaz; Brame, Ben; Boutin, Mireille; Delp, Edward J.

    2011-03-01

    When traveling in a region where the local language is not written using a "Roman alphabet," translating written text (e.g., documents, road signs, or placards) is a particularly difficult problem since the text cannot be easily entered into a translation device or searched using a dictionary. To address this problem, we are developing the "Rosetta Phone," a handheld device (e.g., PDA or mobile telephone) capable of acquiring an image of the text, locating the region (word) of interest within the image, and producing both an audio and a visual English interpretation of the text. This paper presents a system targeted for interpreting words written in Arabic script. The goal of this work is to develop an autonomous, segmentation-free Arabic phrase recognizer, with computational complexity low enough to deploy on a mobile device. A prototype of the proposed system has been deployed on an iPhone with a suitable user interface. The system was tested on a number of noisy images, in addition to the images acquired from the iPhone's camera. It identifies Arabic words or phrases by extracting appropriate features and assigning "codewords" to each word or phrase. On a dictionary of 5,000 words, the system uniquely mapped (word-image to codeword) 99.9% of the words. The system has a 82% recognition accuracy on images of words captured using the iPhone's built-in camera.

  12. Promoting Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM to Develop Students’ Writing Skill

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fitri Novia

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: The objective of this study was to find out whether or not there was significant difference between students who were taught using picture word inductive model (PWIM and that of those who were not. The experimental method was used to conduct the study. The population of this study was the eighth grade students in SMP N 1 Sirah Pulau Padang.  Out of this pouplation, 68 students were taken as a sample and were divided  equally into two groups by using purposive sampling method. Therefore, class VIII 1 was the experimental group whereas VIII 3 as the control group, each of them consists of 34 students. The data were collected by asking students to write descriptive paragraph. To find out the validity, content validity was used. Inter-rater reliability was used to find out the reliability. T-test was used to analyze the data. Based on the result, the value of t-obtained was 3.155, at the significant level p<0.05 in two tailed testing with do = 66, the critical value of t-table = 1.9966. Since the value of t-obtained was higher than t-table, the Null Hypotheses (Ho was rejected and Alternative Analysis (Ha was accepted. It meant that there was significant difference between students who were taught using picture word inductive model (PWIM and that of those who were not. In conclusion, PWIM could help students to develop writing skill.   Key Word: Writing skill, Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM.

  13. The Minho Word Pool: Norms for imageability, concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 Portuguese words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soares, Ana Paula; Costa, Ana Santos; Machado, João; Comesaña, Montserrat; Oliveira, Helena Mendes

    2017-06-01

    Words are widely used as stimuli in cognitive research. Because of their complexity, using words requires strict control of their objective (lexical and sublexical) and subjective properties. In this work, we present the Minho Word Pool (MWP), a dataset that provides normative values of imageability, concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 (European) Portuguese words-three subjective measures that, in spite of being used extensively in research, have been scarce for Portuguese. Data were collected with 2,357 college students who were native speakers of European Portuguese. The participants rated 100 words drawn randomly from the full set for each of the three subjective indices, using a Web survey procedure (via a URL link). Analyses comparing the MWP ratings with those obtained for the same words from other national and international databases showed that the MWP norms are reliable and valid, thus providing researchers with a useful tool to support research in all neuroscientific areas using verbal stimuli. The MWP norms can be downloaded along with this article or from http://p-pal.di.uminho.pt/about/databases .

  14. Remembering episodic memories is not necessary for forgetting of negative words: Semantic retrieval can cause forgetting of negative words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kobayashi, Masanori; Tanno, Yoshihiko

    2015-06-01

    Retrieval of a memory can induce forgetting of other related memories, which is known as retrieval-induced forgetting. Although most studies have investigated retrieval-induced forgetting by remembering episodic memories, this also can occur by remembering semantic memories. The present study shows that retrieval of semantic memories can lead to forgetting of negative words. In two experiments, participants learned words and then engaged in retrieval practice where they were asked to recall words related to the learned words from semantic memory. Finally, participants completed a stem-cued recall test for the learned words. The results showed forgetting of neutral and negative words, which was characteristic of semantic retrieval-induced forgetting. A certain degree of overlapping features, except same learning episode, is sufficient to cause retrieval-induced forgetting of negative words. Given the present results, we conclude that retrieval-induced forgetting of negative words does not require recollection of episodic memories.

  15. WORD FORMATION ON DRAGON NEST CHAT LANGUAGE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shavitri Cecillia Harsono

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Word formation is creation of new words, which sometimes changes a word’s meaning. Words can be formed from multi word phrases as well. In many cases vocabularies in language are formed from combination of words (Haspelmath 2010: 102. Word formation does not only involve changing physical form of the word itself, but also changing the meaning of said word. There are also instances where the physical form retain its original form while the meaning changes. The phenomenon is called semantic change (Stockwell-Minkova 2001:149. In this thesis the research proposed that the said phenomenon occur in virtual environment, such as in MMORPG. Multiplayer online games that feature fantasy setting virtual environment. For the purpose of this research, Dragon Nest South East Asia server was chosen as data source. The samples are taken from players perusing [World] communication channel. The result of the data analysis has shown that the phenomenon of word formation could occur in a virtual environment of MMORPG, specifcally in Dragon Nest SEA. There are two word formation processes found: processes that involve physical changes and processes that do not involve physical changes but rather innate meaning. It is done by both processing daily language vocabulary both physically and changing its innate meaning to create new words that suits the said virtual environment context. This fnding may influence future research on a fresh perspective and untilled feld.

  16. Prefixes versus suffixes: a search for a word-beginning superiority effect in word recognition from degraded speech

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nooteboom, S.G.; Vlugt, van der M.J.

    1985-01-01

    This paper reports on a word recognition experiment in search of evidence for a word- beginning superiority effect in recognition from low-quality speech . In the experiment, lexical redundancy was controlled by combining monosyllable word stems with strongly constraining or weakly constraining

  17. Femtosecond laser cataract surgery: technology and clinical practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Timothy V; Lawless, Michael; Chan, Colin Ck; Jacobs, Mark; Ng, David; Bali, Shveta J; Hodge, Chris; Sutton, Gerard

    2013-03-01

    The recent introduction of femtosecond lasers to cataract surgery has generated much interest among ophthalmologists around the world. Laser cataract surgery integrates high-resolution anterior segment imaging systems with a femtosecond laser, allowing key steps of the procedure, including the primary and side-port corneal incisions, the anterior capsulotomy and fragmentation of the lens nucleus, to be performed with computer-guided laser precision. There is emerging evidence of reduced phacoemulsification time, better wound architecture and a more stable refractive result with femtosecond cataract surgery, as well as reports documenting an initial learning curve. This article will review the current state of technology and discuss our clinical experience. © 2012 The Authors. Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology © 2012 Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists.

  18. [Comparative analysis of efficiency indicators in ambulatory surgery].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rodríguez Ortega, María; Porrero Carro, José Luis; Aranaz Andrés, Jesús María; Castillo Fe, María José; Alonso García, María Teresa; Sánchez-Cabezudo Díaz-Guerra, Carlos

    2017-05-25

    To find comparative elements for quality control in major ambulatory surgery (MAS) units. Descriptive and comparative study of the Ambulatory Care Index (AI) and Substitution Index (SI) in the Santa Cristina Hospital Surgery Service (Madrid, Spain) compared to Key Indicators (KI) of the National Health Service (NHS). 7,817 MAS procedures (between 2006 and 2014) were analysed. The average annual AI was 54%, higher (p <0.0001) than «ambulatory surgery» KI. The hernia outpatient procedures (average 72%) were also superior to the national KI (p <0.0001), but ambulatory haemorrhoidectomy (average 33.6%) was clearly lower (p <0.0001). KI of the NHS are useful and allow to establish a proper development in the global AI and hernia outpatient surgery with opportunities for improvement in haemorrhoidectomy. Their collection should be careful, not including minor surgeries. Also, their usefulness could be increased if data was broken down by speciality and by complexity. Copyright © 2017 SESPAS. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  19. Anticipatory coarticulation facilitates word recognition in toddlers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mahr, Tristan; McMillan, Brianna T M; Saffran, Jenny R; Ellis Weismer, Susan; Edwards, Jan

    2015-09-01

    Children learn from their environments and their caregivers. To capitalize on learning opportunities, young children have to recognize familiar words efficiently by integrating contextual cues across word boundaries. Previous research has shown that adults can use phonetic cues from anticipatory coarticulation during word recognition. We asked whether 18-24 month-olds (n=29) used coarticulatory cues on the word "the" when recognizing the following noun. We performed a looking-while-listening eyetracking experiment to examine word recognition in neutral vs. facilitating coarticulatory conditions. Participants looked to the target image significantly sooner when the determiner contained facilitating coarticulatory cues. These results provide the first evidence that novice word-learners can take advantage of anticipatory sub-phonemic cues during word recognition. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Surgery of the Trachea

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mark S. Allen

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Surgical procedures on the trachea have only been undertaken within the past 50 years. Knowing the unique blood supply of the trachea and how to reduce tension on any anastomosis are key to a successful outcome. Tracheal conditions requiring surgery usually present with shortness of breath on exertion, and preoperative evaluation involves computed tomography and rigid bronchoscopy. Tracheal resection and reconstruction can be safely performed with excellent outcomes by following a well-described technique.

  1. Processing of Color Words Activates Color Representations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Richter, Tobias; Zwaan, Rolf A.

    2009-01-01

    Two experiments were conducted to investigate whether color representations are routinely activated when color words are processed. Congruency effects of colors and color words were observed in both directions. Lexical decisions on color words were faster when preceding colors matched the color named by the word. Color-discrimination responses…

  2. Professional Music Training and Novel Word Learning: From Faster Semantic Encoding to Longer-lasting Word Representations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dittinger, Eva; Barbaroux, Mylène; D'Imperio, Mariapaola; Jäncke, Lutz; Elmer, Stefan; Besson, Mireille

    2016-10-01

    On the basis of previous results showing that music training positively influences different aspects of speech perception and cognition, the aim of this series of experiments was to test the hypothesis that adult professional musicians would learn the meaning of novel words through picture-word associations more efficiently than controls without music training (i.e., fewer errors and faster RTs). We also expected musicians to show faster changes in brain electrical activity than controls, in particular regarding the N400 component that develops with word learning. In line with these hypotheses, musicians outperformed controls in the most difficult semantic task. Moreover, although a frontally distributed N400 component developed in both groups of participants after only a few minutes of novel word learning, in musicians this frontal distribution rapidly shifted to parietal scalp sites, as typically found for the N400 elicited by known words. Finally, musicians showed evidence for better long-term memory for novel words 5 months after the main experimental session. Results are discussed in terms of cascading effects from enhanced perception to memory as well as in terms of multifaceted improvements of cognitive processing due to music training. To our knowledge, this is the first report showing that music training influences semantic aspects of language processing in adults. These results open new perspectives for education in showing that early music training can facilitate later foreign language learning. Moreover, the design used in the present experiment can help to specify the stages of word learning that are impaired in children and adults with word learning difficulties.

  3. Borrowed beauty? Understanding identity in Asian facial cosmetic surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aquino, Yves Saint James; Steinkamp, Norbert

    2016-09-01

    This review aims to identify (1) sources of knowledge and (2) important themes of the ethical debate related to surgical alteration of facial features in East Asians. This article integrates narrative and systematic review methods. In March 2014, we searched databases including PubMed, Philosopher's Index, Web of Science, Sociological Abstracts, and Communication Abstracts using key terms "cosmetic surgery," "ethnic*," "ethics," "Asia*," and "Western*." The study included all types of papers written in English that discuss the debate on rhinoplasty and blepharoplasty in East Asians. No limit was put on date of publication. Combining both narrative and systematic review methods, a total of 31 articles were critically appraised on their contribution to ethical reflection founded on the debates regarding the surgical alteration of Asian features. Sources of knowledge were drawn from four main disciplines, including the humanities, medicine or surgery, communications, and economics. Focusing on cosmetic surgery perceived as a westernising practice, the key debate themes included authenticity of identity, interpersonal relationships and socio-economic utility in the context of Asian culture. The study shows how cosmetic surgery of ethnic features plays an important role in understanding female identity in the Asian context. Based on the debate themes authenticity of identity, interpersonal relationships, and socio-economic utility, this article argues that identity should be understood as less individualistic and more as relational and transformational in the Asian context. In addition, this article also proposes to consider cosmetic surgery of Asian features as an interplay of cultural imperialism and cultural nationalism, which can both be a source of social pressure to modify one's appearance.

  4. Prophetic sensing of Yahweh’s word

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wilhelm J. Wessels

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available This article focuses on Jeremiah 23:18, which implies that the prophet stood in the council of Yahweh (sôd to see and hear the word of Yahweh. In this verse, it seems that the senses of the prophet played a role in receiving Yahweh’s words. Verse 18 forms part of 23:16–22 in which Jeremiah warned the people of Judah not to listen to prophets who mislead them with optimistic messages. In this article, attention is given to the question whether standing in the council of Yahweh is a deciding criterion for receiving true words from Yahweh. The motif of the divine council is also investigated. An argument is presented that ‘sensing’ should be understood in the double sense of the word, namely sensory experience as well as the intellectual activity of understanding. It is argued that both meanings of the word sensing are necessary to determine the truth of Yahweh’s word.

  5. The medical Doppler in hand surgery: its scientific basis, applications, and the history of its namesake, Christian Johann Doppler.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghori, Ahmer K; Chung, Kevin C

    2007-12-01

    The word Doppler is used synonymously in hand surgery for evaluating patency of vascular structures; however, the science and history behind the Doppler effect are not as well-known. We will present the theories behind the Doppler effect and the history of the person who made this discovery.

  6. Bariatric surgery for diabetes: the International Diabetes Federation takes a position.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dixon, John B; Zimmet, Paul; Alberti, K George; Mbanya, Jean Claude; Rubino, Francesco

    2011-12-01

    Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and obesity are both complex and chronic medical disorders, each with an escalating worldwide prevalence. When obesity is severe, and/or available medical therapies fail to control the diabetes, bariatric surgery becomes a cost-effective therapy for T2D. When there are other major comorbidities and cardiovascular risk, the option of bariatric surgery becomes even more worthy of consideration. National guidelines for bariatric surgery need to be developed and implemented for people with T2D. With this in mind, the International Diabetes Federation convened a multidisciplinary working group to develop a position statement. The key recommendations cover describing those eligible for surgery and who should be prioritized, incorporating bariatric surgery into T2D treatment algorithms, performing surgery in centers with multidisciplinary teams that are experienced in the management of both obesity and diabetes, and developing bariatric surgery registries and reporting standards. © 2011 Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

  7. [Systematic analysis of the readability of patient information on the websites of clinics for plastic surgery].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Esfahani, B Janghorban; Faron, A; Roth, K S; Schaller, H-E; Medved, F; Lüers, J-C

    2014-12-01

    The Internet is becoming increasing-ly important as a source of information for patients in medical issues. However, many patients have problems to adequately understand texts, especially with medical content. A basic requirement to understand a written text is the read-ability of a text. The aim of the present study was to examine texts on the websites of German -plastic-surgical hospitals with patient information regarding their readability. In this study, the read-ability of texts of 27 major departments of plastic and Hand surgery in Germany was systematically analysed using 5 recognised readability indices. First, texts were searched based on 20 representative key words and themes. Thereafter, texts were assigned to one of 3 major themes in order to enable statistical analysis. In addition to the 5 readability indices, further objective text parameters were also recorded. Overall, 288 texts were found for analyzation. Most articles were found on the topic of "handsurgery" (n=124), less were found for "facial plastic surgery" (n=80) and "flaps, breast and reconstructive surgery" (n=84). Consistently, all readability indices showed a poor readability for the vast majority of analysed texts with the text appearing readable only for readers with a higher educational level. No significant differences in readability were found between the 3 major themes. Especially in the communication of medical information, it is important to consider the knowledge and education of the addressee. The texts studied consistently showed a readability that is understandable only for academics. Thus, a large part of the intended target group is probably not reached. In order to adequately deliver online information material, a revision of the analysed internet texts appears to be recommendable. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

  8. Relationship Between Cerebral Oxygenation and Hemodynamic and Oxygen Transport Parameters in Surgery for Acquired Heart Diseases

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. I. Lenkin

    2012-01-01

    heart defects both during perfusion and in the postop erative period. Key words: oxygen te^pOT^ cerebral oxygenation, cerebral oximetry, acquired heart diseases, cardiac surgery.

  9. Sound specificity effects in spoken word recognition: The effect of integrality between words and sounds.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Strori, Dorina; Zaar, Johannes; Cooke, Martin; Mattys, Sven L

    2018-01-01

    Recent evidence has shown that nonlinguistic sounds co-occurring with spoken words may be retained in memory and affect later retrieval of the words. This sound-specificity effect shares many characteristics with the classic voice-specificity effect. In this study, we argue that the sound-specificity effect is conditional upon the context in which the word and sound coexist. Specifically, we argue that, besides co-occurrence, integrality between words and sounds is a crucial factor in the emergence of the effect. In two recognition-memory experiments, we compared the emergence of voice and sound specificity effects. In Experiment 1 , we examined two conditions where integrality is high. Namely, the classic voice-specificity effect (Exp. 1a) was compared with a condition in which the intensity envelope of a background sound was modulated along the intensity envelope of the accompanying spoken word (Exp. 1b). Results revealed a robust voice-specificity effect and, critically, a comparable sound-specificity effect: A change in the paired sound from exposure to test led to a decrease in word-recognition performance. In the second experiment, we sought to disentangle the contribution of integrality from a mere co-occurrence context effect by removing the intensity modulation. The absence of integrality led to the disappearance of the sound-specificity effect. Taken together, the results suggest that the assimilation of background sounds into memory cannot be reduced to a simple context effect. Rather, it is conditioned by the extent to which words and sounds are perceived as integral as opposed to distinct auditory objects.

  10. Is non-operative management still justified in the treatment of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Abstract. Background: Adhesive small bowel obstruction (ASBO) is a feared complication after abdominal operations in both children and adults. The optimal ... Followup data were available for 29 patients. Demographic ... required surgery. Key words: Adhesive small bowel obstruction, children, non-operative management ...

  11. Emotion words and categories: evidence from lexical decision

    OpenAIRE

    Scott, Graham; O'Donnell, Patrick; Sereno, Sara C.

    2014-01-01

    We examined the categorical nature of emotion word recognition. Positive, negative, and neutral words were presented in lexical decision tasks. Word frequency was additionally manipulated. In Experiment 1, "positive" and "negative" categories of words were implicitly indicated by the blocked design employed. A significant emotion–frequency interaction was obtained, replicating past research. While positive words consistently elicited faster responses than neutral words, only low frequency nega...

  12. AUTOMATIC RETRIEVAL AND THE FORMALIZATION OF MULTI WORDS EXPRESSIONS WITH F-WORDS IN THE CORPUS OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ENGLISH

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Prihantoro Prihantoro

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The research problems in this research are 1 how lexicogrammar takes role in determining polarity of F-Word1 and 2 how to formalize it for corpus processing. The data is obtained from the Contemporary American English Corpus (COCA. In this corpus, F-word is proven to be highest in frequency as compared to its distribution across corpora. Corpus methodology is applied by sending queries to retrieve F-Words to COCA interface. Tokens combination surrounding F-words resulted in the phrase and clause unit accompanying F-words, which are significant cues to determine F-word polarity. The polarity is later proven to be not necessarily negative. I also designed a computational resource to allow the retrieval of F-words offline so that users might apply it to any digital text collections.

  13. Word Learning Deficits in Children with Dyslexia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alt, Mary; Hogan, Tiffany; Green, Samuel; Gray, Shelley; Cabbage, Kathryn; Cowan, Nelson

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate word learning in children with dyslexia to ascertain their strengths and weaknesses during the configuration stage of word learning. Method: Children with typical development (N = 116) and dyslexia (N = 68) participated in computer-based word learning games that assessed word learning in 4 sets…

  14. Emotion Words Affect Eye Fixations during Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scott, Graham G.; O'Donnell, Patrick J.; Sereno, Sara C.

    2012-01-01

    Emotion words are generally characterized as possessing high arousal and extreme valence and have typically been investigated in paradigms in which they are presented and measured as single words. This study examined whether a word's emotional qualities influenced the time spent viewing that word in the context of normal reading. Eye movements…

  15. Word-Form Familiarity Bootstraps Infant Speech Segmentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Altvater-Mackensen, Nicole; Mani, Nivedita

    2013-01-01

    At about 7 months of age, infants listen longer to sentences containing familiar words--but not deviant pronunciations of familiar words (Jusczyk & Aslin, 1995). This finding suggests that infants are able to segment familiar words from fluent speech and that they store words in sufficient phonological detail to recognize deviations from a…

  16. The Role of Geminates in Infants' Early Word Production and Word-Form Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vihman, Marilyn; Majoran, Marinella

    2017-01-01

    Infants learning languages with long consonants, or geminates, have been found to "overselect" and "overproduce" these consonants in early words and also to commonly omit the word-initial consonant. A production study with thirty Italian children recorded at 1;3 and 1;9 strongly confirmed both of these tendencies. To test the…

  17. Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wen, Yun; van Heuven, Walter J B

    2017-06-01

    We present Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words. Chinese-English bilinguals (N = 28) were asked to provide the first Chinese translation that came to mind for 1,429 English words. The results revealed that 71 % of the English words received more than one correct translation indicating the large amount of translation ambiguity when translating from English to Chinese. The relationship between translation ambiguity and word frequency, concreteness and language proficiency was investigated. Although the significant correlations were not strong, results revealed that English word frequency was positively correlated with the number of alternative translations, whereas English word concreteness was negatively correlated with the number of translations. Importantly, regression analyses showed that the number of Chinese translations was predicted by word frequency and concreteness. Furthermore, an interaction between these predictors revealed that the number of translations was more affected by word frequency for more concrete words than for less concrete words. In addition, mixed-effects modelling showed that word frequency, concreteness and English language proficiency were all significant predictors of whether or not a dominant translation was provided. Finally, correlations between the word frequencies of English words and their Chinese dominant translations were higher for translation-unambiguous pairs than for translation-ambiguous pairs. The translation norms are made available in a database together with lexical information about the words, which will be a useful resource for researchers investigating Chinese-English bilingual language processing.

  18. 40 CFR 156.64 - Signal word.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 40 Protection of Environment 23 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Signal word. 156.64 Section 156.64... REQUIREMENTS FOR PESTICIDES AND DEVICES Human Hazard and Precautionary Statements § 156.64 Signal word. (a... signal word, reflecting the highest Toxicity Category (Category I is the highest toxicity category) to...

  19. Functional Anatomy of Recognition of Chinese Multi-Character Words: Convergent Evidence from Effects of Transposable Nonwords, Lexicality, and Word Frequency.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Nan; Yu, Xi; Zhao, Ying; Zhang, Mingxia

    2016-01-01

    This fMRI study aimed to identify the neural mechanisms underlying the recognition of Chinese multi-character words by partialling out the confounding effect of reaction time (RT). For this purpose, a special type of nonword-transposable nonword-was created by reversing the character orders of real words. These nonwords were included in a lexical decision task along with regular (non-transposable) nonwords and real words. Through conjunction analysis on the contrasts of transposable nonwords versus regular nonwords and words versus regular nonwords, the confounding effect of RT was eliminated, and the regions involved in word recognition were reliably identified. The word-frequency effect was also examined in emerged regions to further assess their functional roles in word processing. Results showed significant conjunctional effect and positive word-frequency effect in the bilateral inferior parietal lobules and posterior cingulate cortex, whereas only conjunctional effect was found in the anterior cingulate cortex. The roles of these brain regions in recognition of Chinese multi-character words were discussed.

  20. Automatic Prompt System in the Process of Mapping plWordNet on Princeton WordNet

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paweł Kędzia

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Automatic Prompt System in the Process of Mapping plWordNet on Princeton WordNet The paper offers a critical evaluation of the power and usefulness of an automatic prompt system based on the extended Relaxation Labelling algorithm in the process of (manual mapping plWordNet on Princeton WordNet. To this end the results of manual mapping – that is inter-lingual relations between plWN and PWN synsets – are juxtaposed with the automatic prompts that were generated for the source language synsets to be mapped. We check the number and type of inter-lingual relations introduced on the basis of automatic prompts and the distance of the respective prompt synsets from the actual target language synsets.

  1. Increase in posterior alpha activity during rehearsal predicts successful long-term memory formation of word sequences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meeuwissen, Esther B; Takashima, Atsuko; Fernández, Guillén; Jensen, Ole

    2011-12-01

    It is becoming increasingly clear that demanding cognitive tasks rely on an extended network engaging task-relevant areas and, importantly, disengaging task-irrelevant areas. Given that alpha activity (8-12 Hz) has been shown to reflect the disengagement of task-irrelevant regions in attention and working memory tasks, we here ask if alpha activity plays a related role for long-term memory formation. Subjects were instructed to encode and maintain the order of word sequences while the ongoing brain activity was recorded using magnetoencephalography (MEG). In each trial, three words were presented followed by a 3.4 s rehearsal interval. Considering the good temporal resolution of MEG this allowed us to investigate the word presentation and rehearsal interval separately. The sequences were grouped in trials where word order either could be tested immediately (working memory trials; WM) or later (LTM trials) according to instructions. Subjects were tested on their ability to retrieve the order of the three words. The data revealed that alpha power in parieto-occipital regions was lower during word presentation compared to rehearsal. Our key finding was that parieto-occipital alpha power during the rehearsal period was markedly stronger for successfully than unsuccessfully encoded LTM sequences. This subsequent memory effect demonstrates that high posterior alpha activity creates an optimal brain state for successful LTM formation possibly by actively reducing parieto-occipital activity that might interfere with sequence encoding. Copyright © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  2. DOES THE ADDITION OF DEXAMETHASON TO LOCAL ANESTHETIC PROLONG THE ANALGESIA OF INTERSCALEN PLEXUS BRACHIALIS BLOCK IN PATIENTS WITH SHOULDER SURGERY?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nancheva Jasminka

    2016-07-01

    postoperative analgesia. Key words: regional anesthesia, interscalene plexus block, adjuvants, dexamethasone.

  3. Sight Word Recognition among Young Children At-Risk: Picture-Supported vs. Word-Only

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meadan, Hedda; Stoner, Julia B.; Parette, Howard P.

    2008-01-01

    A quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the impact of Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) on sight word recognition by young children identified as "at risk" for academic and social-behavior difficulties. Ten pre-primer and 10 primer Dolch words were presented to 23 students in the intervention group and 8 students in the…

  4. Three Dirty Words Are Killing Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jensen, Deb

    2010-01-01

    Three words used frequently in debates about education actually cloud the issues. Those words are standardization, rigor, and reform. Standardization is often confused with standards, though they are not the same thing. Similarly, rigor is confused with relevance, and reform with renaissance. Those three words are used because they sound tough and…

  5. Key to successful vesico vaginal fistula repair, an experience of urogenital fistula surgeries and outcome at gynaecological surgical camp 2005

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jatoi, N.; Jatoi, N.M.; Sirichand, P.

    2008-01-01

    Vesico-vaginal fistula is not life threatening medical problem, but the woman face demoralization, social boycott and even divorce and separation. The aetiology of the condition has been changed over the years and in developed countries obstetrical fistula are rare and they are usually result of gynaecological surgeries or radiotherapy. Urogenital fistula surgery doesn't require special or advance technology but needs experienced urogynaecologist with trained team and post operative care which can restore health, hope and sense of dignity to women. This prospective study was carried out to analyze the success rate in patients attending the referral hospital and sent from free gynaecological surgery camps held at interior of Sindh, and included preoperative evaluation for route of surgery, operative techniques and postoperative care. Total 70 patients were admitted from the patients attending the camp. Out of these, 29 patients had uro-genital fistula. Surgical repair of the fistula was done through vaginal route on 27 patients while 2 required abdominal approach. Out of 29 surgical repairs performed, 27 proved successful. Difficult and complicated fistulae need experienced surgeon. Establishment of separate fistula surgery unit along with appropriate care and expertise accounts for the desired results. (author)

  6. Learning during processing Word learning doesn’t wait for word recognition to finish

    Science.gov (United States)

    Apfelbaum, Keith S.; McMurray, Bob

    2017-01-01

    Previous research on associative learning has uncovered detailed aspects of the process, including what types of things are learned, how they are learned, and where in the brain such learning occurs. However, perceptual processes, such as stimulus recognition and identification, take time to unfold. Previous studies of learning have not addressed when, during the course of these dynamic recognition processes, learned representations are formed and updated. If learned representations are formed and updated while recognition is ongoing, the result of learning may incorporate spurious, partial information. For example, during word recognition, words take time to be identified, and competing words are often active in parallel. If learning proceeds before this competition resolves, representations may be influenced by the preliminary activations present at the time of learning. In three experiments using word learning as a model domain, we provide evidence that learning reflects the ongoing dynamics of auditory and visual processing during a learning event. These results show that learning can occur before stimulus recognition processes are complete; learning does not wait for ongoing perceptual processing to complete. PMID:27471082

  7. Word Length Effects in Long-Term Memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tehan, Gerald; Tolan, Georgina Anne

    2007-01-01

    The word length effect has been a central feature of theorising about immediate memory. The notion that short-term memory traces rapidly decay unless refreshed by rehearsal is based primarily upon the finding that serial recall for short words is better than that for long words. The decay account of the word length effect has come under pressure…

  8. [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.

  9. Review of fluorescence guided surgery systems: identification of key performance capabilities beyond indocyanine green imaging

    Science.gov (United States)

    DSouza, Alisha V.; Lin, Huiyun; Henderson, Eric R.; Samkoe, Kimberley S.; Pogue, Brian W.

    2016-01-01

    Abstract. There is growing interest in using fluorescence imaging instruments to guide surgery, and the leading options for open-field imaging are reviewed here. While the clinical fluorescence-guided surgery (FGS) field has been focused predominantly on indocyanine green (ICG) imaging, there is accelerated development of more specific molecular tracers. These agents should help advance new indications for which FGS presents a paradigm shift in how molecular information is provided for resection decisions. There has been a steady growth in commercially marketed FGS systems, each with their own differentiated performance characteristics and specifications. A set of desirable criteria is presented to guide the evaluation of instruments, including: (i) real-time overlay of white-light and fluorescence images, (ii) operation within ambient room lighting, (iii) nanomolar-level sensitivity, (iv) quantitative capabilities, (v) simultaneous multiple fluorophore imaging, and (vi) ergonomic utility for open surgery. In this review, United States Food and Drug Administration 510(k) cleared commercial systems and some leading premarket FGS research systems were evaluated to illustrate the continual increase in this performance feature base. Generally, the systems designed for ICG-only imaging have sufficient sensitivity to ICG, but a fraction of the other desired features listed above, with both lower sensitivity and dynamic range. In comparison, the emerging research systems targeted for use with molecular agents have unique capabilities that will be essential for successful clinical imaging studies with low-concentration agents or where superior rejection of ambient light is needed. There is no perfect imaging system, but the feature differences among them are important differentiators in their utility, as outlined in the data and tables here. PMID:27533438

  10. Review of fluorescence guided surgery systems: identification of key performance capabilities beyond indocyanine green imaging

    Science.gov (United States)

    DSouza, Alisha V.; Lin, Huiyun; Henderson, Eric R.; Samkoe, Kimberley S.; Pogue, Brian W.

    2016-08-01

    There is growing interest in using fluorescence imaging instruments to guide surgery, and the leading options for open-field imaging are reviewed here. While the clinical fluorescence-guided surgery (FGS) field has been focused predominantly on indocyanine green (ICG) imaging, there is accelerated development of more specific molecular tracers. These agents should help advance new indications for which FGS presents a paradigm shift in how molecular information is provided for resection decisions. There has been a steady growth in commercially marketed FGS systems, each with their own differentiated performance characteristics and specifications. A set of desirable criteria is presented to guide the evaluation of instruments, including: (i) real-time overlay of white-light and fluorescence images, (ii) operation within ambient room lighting, (iii) nanomolar-level sensitivity, (iv) quantitative capabilities, (v) simultaneous multiple fluorophore imaging, and (vi) ergonomic utility for open surgery. In this review, United States Food and Drug Administration 510(k) cleared commercial systems and some leading premarket FGS research systems were evaluated to illustrate the continual increase in this performance feature base. Generally, the systems designed for ICG-only imaging have sufficient sensitivity to ICG, but a fraction of the other desired features listed above, with both lower sensitivity and dynamic range. In comparison, the emerging research systems targeted for use with molecular agents have unique capabilities that will be essential for successful clinical imaging studies with low-concentration agents or where superior rejection of ambient light is needed. There is no perfect imaging system, but the feature differences among them are important differentiators in their utility, as outlined in the data and tables here.

  11. WORD-ATTACK SKILLS FOR INDONESIAN LEARNERS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joko Pranowo

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available The typical drawbacks that affect most Indonesian learners studying English as the target language concern the strategies in dealing with new dictions. The rule of thumb is that the learners are usually tempted to directly look up the meaning in a dictionary when other ways such as guessing the meaning from the context or by dissecting the words into smaller units so that they are able to get a hint from the base word cannot be engineered. As a result of this activity then, they miss crucial points in the realm of word enrichment. This article will shed some light on how to deal with new words and claim that it is not the meaning of a new word that should be the first priority.

  12. Mojibake - The rehearsal of word fragments in verbal recall.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lange-Küttner, Christiane; Sykorova, Eva

    2015-01-01

    Theories of verbal rehearsal usually assume that whole words are being rehearsed. However, words consist of letter sequences, or syllables, or word onset-vowel-coda, amongst many other conceptualizations of word structure. A more general term is the 'grain size' of word units (Ziegler and Goswami, 2005). In the current study, a new method measured the quantitative percentage of correctly remembered word structure. The amount of letters in the correct letter sequence as per cent of word length was calculated, disregarding missing or added letters. A forced rehearsal was tested by repeating each memory list four times. We tested low frequency (LF) English words versus geographical (UK) town names to control for content. We also tested unfamiliar international (INT) non-words and names of international (INT) European towns to control for familiarity. An immediate versus distributed repetition was tested with a between-subject design. Participants responded with word fragments in their written recall especially when they had to remember unfamiliar words. While memory of whole words was sensitive to content, presentation distribution and individual sex and language differences, recall of word fragments was not. There was no trade-off between memory of word fragments with whole word recall during the repetition, instead also word fragments significantly increased. Moreover, while whole word responses correlated with each other during repetition, and word fragment responses correlated with each other during repetition, these two types of word recall responses were not correlated with each other. Thus there may be a lower layer consisting of free, sparse word fragments and an upper layer that consists of language-specific, orthographically and semantically constrained words.

  13. Bodily Reactions to Emotional Words Referring to Own versus Other People's Emotions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weis, Patrick P; Herbert, Cornelia

    2017-01-01

    According to embodiment theories, language and emotion affect each other. In line with this, several previous studies investigated changes in bodily responses including facial expressions, heart rate or skin conductance during affective evaluation of emotional words and sentences. This study investigates the embodiment of emotional word processing from a social perspective by experimentally manipulating the emotional valence of a word and its personal reference. Stimuli consisted of pronoun-noun pairs, i.e., positive, negative, and neutral nouns paired with possessive pronouns of the first or the third person ("my," "his") or the non-referential negation term ("no") as controls. Participants had to quickly evaluate the word pairs by key presses as either positive, negative, or neutral, depending on the subjective feelings they elicit. Hereafter, they elaborated the intensity of the feeling on a non-verbal scale from 1 (very unpleasant) to 9 (very pleasant). Facial expressions ( M. Zygomaticus , M. Corrugator ), heart rate, and, for exploratory purposes, skin conductance were recorded continuously during the spontaneous and elaborate evaluation tasks. Positive pronoun-noun phrases were responded to the quickest and judged more often as positive when they were self-related, i.e., related to the reader's self (e.g., "my happiness," "my joy") than when related to the self of a virtual other (e.g., "his happiness," "his joy"), suggesting a self-positivity bias in the emotional evaluation of word stimuli. Physiologically, evaluation of emotional, unlike neutral pronoun-noun pairs initially elicited an increase in mean heart rate irrespective of stimulus reference. Changes in facial muscle activity, M. Zygomaticus in particular, were most pronounced during spontaneous evaluation of positive other-related pronoun-noun phrases in line with theoretical assumptions that facial expressions are socially embedded even in situation where no real communication partner is present

  14. Fast-track surgery-an update on physiological care principles to enhance recovery

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kehlet, Henrik

    2011-01-01

    INTRODUCTION: The concept of fast-track surgery (enhanced recovery programs) has been evolved and been documented to be successful by decreasing length of stay, morbidity and convalescence across procedures. FUTURE STRATEGIES: However, there are several possibilities for further improvement of mo...... of the components of fast-track surgery, where surgical stress, fluid and pain management are key factors. There is an urgent need for better design of studies, especially in minimal invasive surgery to achieve maximal outcome effects when integrated into the fast-track methodology....

  15. Word embeddings and recurrent neural networks based on Long-Short Term Memory nodes in supervised biomedical word sense disambiguation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jimeno Yepes, Antonio

    2017-09-01

    Word sense disambiguation helps identifying the proper sense of ambiguous words in text. With large terminologies such as the UMLS Metathesaurus ambiguities appear and highly effective disambiguation methods are required. Supervised learning algorithm methods are used as one of the approaches to perform disambiguation. Features extracted from the context of an ambiguous word are used to identify the proper sense of such a word. The type of features have an impact on machine learning methods, thus affect disambiguation performance. In this work, we have evaluated several types of features derived from the context of the ambiguous word and we have explored as well more global features derived from MEDLINE using word embeddings. Results show that word embeddings improve the performance of more traditional features and allow as well using recurrent neural network classifiers based on Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) nodes. The combination of unigrams and word embeddings with an SVM sets a new state of the art performance with a macro accuracy of 95.97 in the MSH WSD data set. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Lexical Availability of Young Spanish EFL Learners: Emotion Words versus Non-Emotion Words

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiménez Catalán, Rosa M.; Dewaele, Jean-Marc

    2017-01-01

    This study intends to contribute to L2 emotion vocabulary research by looking at the words that primary-school English as foreign language learners produce in response to prompts in a lexical availability task. Specifically, it aims to ascertain whether emotion prompts (Love, Hate, Happy and Sad) generate a greater number of words than non-emotion…

  17. Personality correlates of reporting Chinese words from the Deutsch “high-low” word illusion by Chinese-speaking people

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    You Xu; Junpeng Zhu; Wanzhen Chen; Hao Chai; Wei He; Wei Wang

    2012-01-01

    [Objective] When English-speaking people listen to the Deutseh “high-low” word illusion,they report hearing English words.Whether Chinese-speaking people report Chinese words when listening to the illusion,or whether any reported words might be correlated with personality traits as previous investigations have demonstrated for listening to music in other cultures,is open to question.The present study aimed to address this.[Methods] A total of 308 right-handed,healthy volunteers (177 women and 131 men) were given the illusion test and asked to answer the Zuckerman-Kuhlman personality questionnaire (ZKPQ).Their depressive tendency was measured by the Plutchik-van Praag depression inventory (PVP).[Results] There was no gender effect regarding either the PVP score or the number of reported Chinese words from the illusion.Women scored higher on ZKPQ neuroticism-anxiety than men.The number of meaningful Chinese words reported was correlated with the ZKPQ impulsive sensation-seeking,aggression-hostility,and activity scores.Some words reported by participants who scored higher on these three traits were related in meaning to those scales.[[Conclusion

  18. Is there still a role for experimental surgery in the surgical sciences?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Di Cataldo, Antonio

    2006-01-01

    The firm opposition of public opinion and the reduction in public funding have remarkably curtailed the role of experimental surgery which several years ago was a key aspect of the activity of a surgical department. Experimental surgery in large animals has been virtually banned and experimental research in small animals requires the use of complex microsurgical techniques. In our opinion, experimental surgery is still useful in order to test new surgical devices and new drugs, especially in the field of transplant surgery. Another important function of experimental surgery is to facilitate the training of surgical residents in order to speed up the process of acquiring experience and expertise. Public opinion can be reassured because the legislation is very strict and safeguards the well-being of animals.

  19. The Magic of Words Reconsidered: Investigating the Automaticity of Reading Color-Neutral Words in the Stroop Task

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kinoshita, Sachiko; De Wit, Bianca; Norris, Dennis

    2017-01-01

    In 2 variants of the color-word Stroop task, we compared 5 types of color-neutral distractors--real words (e.g., "HAT"), pseudowords (e.g., "HIX"), consonant strings (e.g., "HDK"), symbol strings (e.g., #$%), and a row of Xs (e.g., "XXX")--as well as incongruent color words (e.g., "GREEN" displayed…

  20. "Daddy, Where Did the Words Go?" How Teachers Can Help Emergent Readers Develop a Concept of Word in Text

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flanigan, Kevin

    2006-01-01

    This article focuses on a concept that has rarely been studied in beginning reading research--a child's concept of word in text. Recent examinations of this phenomenon suggest that a child's ability to match spoken words to written words while reading--a concept of word in text--plays a pivotal role in early reading development. In this article,…

  1. Time course of syllabic and sub-syllabic processing in Mandarin word production: Evidence from the picture-word interference paradigm.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jie; Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen; Chen, Hsuan-Chih

    2017-06-05

    The time course of phonological encoding in Mandarin monosyllabic word production was investigated by using the picture-word interference paradigm. Participants were asked to name pictures in Mandarin while visual distractor words were presented before, at, or after picture onset (i.e., stimulus-onset asynchrony/SOA = -100, 0, or +100 ms, respectively). Compared with the unrelated control, the distractors sharing atonal syllables with the picture names significantly facilitated the naming responses at -100- and 0-ms SOAs. In addition, the facilitation effect of sharing word-initial segments only appeared at 0-ms SOA, and null effects were found for sharing word-final segments. These results indicate that both syllables and subsyllabic units play important roles in Mandarin spoken word production and more critically that syllabic processing precedes subsyllabic processing. The current results lend strong support to the proximate units principle (O'Seaghdha, Chen, & Chen, 2010), which holds that the phonological structure of spoken word production is language-specific and that atonal syllables are the proximate phonological units in Mandarin Chinese. On the other hand, the significance of word-initial segments over word-final segments suggests that serial processing of segmental information seems to be universal across Germanic languages and Chinese, which remains to be verified in future studies.

  2. Noise Hampers Children's Expressive Word Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riley, Kristine Grohne; McGregor, Karla K.

    2012-01-01

    Purpose: To determine the effects of noise and speech style on word learning in typically developing school-age children. Method: Thirty-one participants ages 9;0 (years;months) to 10;11 attempted to learn 2 sets of 8 novel words and their referents. They heard all of the words 13 times each within meaningful narrative discourse. Signal-to-noise…

  3. Word Sorts for General Music Classes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cardany, Audrey Berger

    2015-01-01

    Word sorts are standard practice for aiding children in acquiring skills in English language arts. When included in the general music classroom, word sorts may aid students in acquiring a working knowledge of music vocabulary. The author shares a word sort activity drawn from vocabulary in John Lithgow's children's book "Never Play…

  4. Semantic processing of unattended parafoveal words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Di Pace, E; Longoni, A M; Zoccolotti, P

    1991-08-01

    The influence that a context word presented either foveally or parafoveally, may exert on the processing of a subsequent target word was studied in a semantic decision task. Fourteen subjects participated in the experiment. They were presented with word-nonword pairs (prime). One member of the pair (which the subjects had to attend to) appeared centrally, the other parafoveally. The prime was followed by a target at two inter-stimulus intervals (ISI; 200 and 2000 msec). The word stimulus of the pair could be semantically related or unrelated to the target. The subjects' task was to classify the target as animal or not animal by pressing one of two buttons as quickly as possible. When the target word was semantically associated with the foveal (attended) word the reaction times were faster for both ISIs; when it was associated with the parafoveal (unattended) word in the prime pair, there were facilitatory effects only in the short ISI condition. A second experiment was run in order to evaluate the possibility that the obtained results were due to identification of the parafoveal stimulus. The same prime-target pairs of experiment 1 (without the target stimuli) were used. The prime-target pairs were presented to fourteen subjects who were requested to name the foveal (attended) stimulus and subsequently, if possible, the parafoveal (unattended) one. Even in this condition, percentage of identification of the unattended word was only 15%, suggesting that previous findings were not due to identification of unattended stimuli. Results are discussed in relation to Posner and Snyder's (1975) dual coding theory.

  5. Affective Norms for 362 Persian Words

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mahdi Bagheri

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Background: During the past two decades, a great deal of research has been conducted on developing affective norms for words in various languages, showing that there is an urgent need to create such norms in Persian language, too. The present study intended to develop a set of 362 Persian words rated according to their emotional valence, arousal, imageability, and familiarity so as to prepare the ground for further research on emotional word processing. This was the first attempt to set affective norms for Persian words in the realm of emotion.  Methods: Prior to the study, a multitude of words were selected from Persian dictionary and academic books in Persian literature. Secondly, three independent proficient experts in the Persian literature were asked to extract the suitable words from the list and to choose the best (defined as grammatically correct and most often used. The database normalization process was based on the ratings by a total of 88 participants using a 9-point Likert scale. Each participant evaluated about 120 words on four different scales.  Results: There were significant relationships between affective dimensions and some psycholinguistic variables. Also, further analyses were carried out to investigate the possible relationship between different features of valences (positive, negative, and neutral and other variables included in the dataset.  Conclusion: These affective norms for Persian words create a useful and valid dataset which will provide researchers with applying standard verbal materials as well as materials applied in other languages, e.g. English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, etc.

  6. Learning word order at birth: A NIRS study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Silvia Benavides-Varela

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available In language, the relative order of words in sentences carries important grammatical functions. However, the developmental origins and the neural correlates of the ability to track word order are to date poorly understood. The current study therefore investigates the origins of infants’ ability to learn about the sequential order of words, using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS with newborn infants. We have conducted two experiments: one in which a word order change was implemented in 4-word sequences recorded with a list intonation (as if each word was a separate item in a list; list prosody condition, Experiment 1 and one in which the same 4-word sequences were recorded with a well-formed utterance-level prosodic contour (utterance prosody condition, Experiment 2. We found that newborns could detect the violation of the word order in the list prosody condition, but not in the utterance prosody condition. These results suggest that while newborns are already sensitive to word order in linguistic sequences, prosody appears to be a stronger cue than word order for the identification of linguistic units at birth.

  7. Macrostructural Treatment of Multi-word Lexical Items

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alenka Vrbinc

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available The paper discusses the macrostructural treatment of multi-word lexical items in mono- and bilingual dictionaries. First, the classification of multi-word lexical items is presented, and special attention is paid to the discussion of compounds – a specific group of multi-word lexical items that is most commonly afforded headword status but whose inclusion in the headword list may also depend on spelling. Then the inclusion of multi-word lexical items in monolingual dictionaries is dealt with in greater detail, while the results of a short survey on the inclusion of five randomly chosen multi-word lexical items in seven English monolingual dictionaries are presented. The proposals as to how to treat these five multi-word lexical items in bilingual dictionaries are presented in the section about the inclusion of multi-word lexical items in bilingual dictionaries. The conclusion is that it is most important to take the users’ needs into consideration and to make any dictionary as user friendly as possible.

  8. Global Surgery System Strengthening: It Is All About the Right Metrics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watters, David A; Guest, Glenn D; Tangi, Viliami; Shrime, Mark G; Meara, John G

    2018-04-01

    Progress in achieving "universal access to safe, affordable surgery, and anesthesia care when needed" is dependent on consensus not only about the key messages but also on what metrics should be used to set goals and measure progress. The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery not only achieved consensus on key messages but also recommended 6 key metrics to inform national surgical plans and monitor scale-up toward 2030. These metrics measure access to surgery, as well as its timeliness, safety, and affordability: (1) Two-hour access to the 3 Bellwether procedures (cesarean delivery, emergency laparotomy, and management of an open fracture); (2) Surgeon, Anesthetist, and Obstetrician workforce >20/100,000; (3) Surgical volume of 5000 procedures/100,000; (4) Reporting of perioperative mortality rate; and (5 and 6) Risk rates of catastrophic expenditure and impoverishment when requiring surgery. This article discusses the definition, validity, feasibility, relevance, and progress with each of these metrics. The authors share their experience of introducing the metrics in the Pacific and sub-Saharan Africa. We identify appropriate messages for each potential stakeholder-the patients, practitioners, providers (health services and hospitals), public (community), politicians, policymakers, and payers. We discuss progress toward the metrics being included in core indicator lists by the World Health Organization and the World Bank and how they have been, or may be, used to inform National Surgical Plans in low- and middle-income countries to scale-up the delivery of safe, affordable, and timely surgical and anesthesia care to all who need it.

  9. Infinite permutations vs. infinite words

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna E. Frid

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available I am going to compare well-known properties of infinite words with those of infinite permutations, a new object studied since middle 2000s. Basically, it was Sergey Avgustinovich who invented this notion, although in an early study by Davis et al. permutations appear in a very similar framework as early as in 1977. I am going to tell about periodicity of permutations, their complexity according to several definitions and their automatic properties, that is, about usual parameters of words, now extended to permutations and behaving sometimes similarly to those for words, sometimes not. Another series of results concerns permutations generated by infinite words and their properties. Although this direction of research is young, many people, including two other speakers of this meeting, have participated in it, and I believe that several more topics for further study are really promising.

  10. Reading faces and Facing words

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Robotham, Julia Emma; Lindegaard, Martin Weis; Delfi, Tzvetelina Shentova

    unilateral lesions, we found no patient with a selective deficit in either reading or face processing. Rather, the patients showing a deficit in processing either words or faces were also impaired with the other category. One patient performed within the normal range on all tasks. In addition, all patients......It has long been argued that perceptual processing of faces and words is largely independent, highly specialised and strongly lateralised. Studies of patients with either pure alexia or prosopagnosia have strongly contributed to this view. The aim of our study was to investigate how visual...... perception of faces and words is affected by unilateral posterior stroke. Two patients with lesions in their dominant hemisphere and two with lesions in their non-dominant hemisphere were tested on sensitive tests of face and word perception during the stable phase of recovery. Despite all patients having...

  11. Quality criteria in bariatric surgery: Consensus review and recommendations of the Spanish Association of Surgeons and the Spanish Society of Bariatric Surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sabench Pereferrer, Fátima; Domínguez-Adame Lanuza, Eduardo; Ibarzabal, Ainitze; Socas Macias, María; Valentí Azcárate, Víctor; García Ruiz de Gordejuela, Amador; García-Moreno Nisa, Francisca; González Fernández, Jesús; Vilallonga Puy, Ramón; Vilarrasa García, Nuria; Sánchez Santos, Raquel

    2017-01-01

    Bariatric surgery has proven to be highly effective in controlling obesity and metabolic syndrome; the results of this surgery are not only expressed in terms of weight loss, but also in terms of resolution of comorbidities, improved quality of life and complications. The different parameters used to measure these outcomes require uniformity and reference patterns. Therefore, it is essential to identify those indicators and quality criteria that are helpful in defining the «best practice» principles in bariatric surgery. In this regard, the Section of Obesity of the Spanish Association of Surgeons, in collaboration with the Spanish Society for Bariatric Surgery (SECO), present as an objective to identify the key points that define «quality» in this type of surgery. We describe the main indicators based on the published literature as well as the criteria for referral of the main comorbidities according to the evidence found and grades of recommendation. Copyright © 2016 AEC. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  12. How Justice Can Affect Jury Training Abstract Words Promotes Generalization to Concrete Words in Patients with Aphasia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sandberg, Chaleece; Kiran, Swathi

    2014-01-01

    Developing language treatments that not only improve trained items but also promote generalization to untrained items is a major focus in aphasia research. This study is a replication and extension of previous work that found that training abstract words in a particular context-category promotes generalization to concrete words but not vice versa (Kiran, Sandberg, & Abbott, 2009). Twelve persons with aphasia (5 female) with varying types and degrees of severity participated in a generative naming treatment based on the complexity account of treatment efficacy (CATE; Thompson, Shapiro, Kiran, & Sobecks, 2003). All participants were trained to generate abstract words in a particular context-category by analyzing the semantic features of the target words. Two other context-categories were used as controls. Ten of the twelve participants improved on the trained abstract words in the trained context-category. Eight of the ten participants who responded to treatment also generalized to concrete words in the same context-category. These results suggest that this treatment is both efficacious and efficient. We discuss possible mechanisms of training and generalization effects. PMID:24805853

  13. Timing of discharge: a key to understanding the reason for readmission after colorectal surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, Kristin N; Iannuzzi, James C; Aquina, Christopher T; Probst, Christian P; Noyes, Katia; Monson, John R T; Fleming, Fergal J

    2015-03-01

    There is a growing interest in surgery regarding the balance between appropriate hospital length of stay (LOS) and prevention of unnecessary readmissions. This study examines the relationship between postoperative LOS and unplanned readmission after colorectal resection, exploring whether patients discharged earlier have different readmission risk profiles. Patients undergoing colorectal resection were selected by Common Procedural Terminology (CPT) code from the 2012 ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database. Patients were stratified by LOS quartile. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to examine characteristics associated with 30-day unplanned readmission. Factors with a p rate was 11 %. After adjusting for patient and perioperative factors, a postoperative LOS ≥8 days was associated with a 55 % increase in the relative hazard of readmission. Patients with a ≤3-day LOS were more likely to be readmitted with ileus/obstruction (odds ratio (OR): 1.8, p = 0.001) and pain (OR: 2.2, p = 0.007). LOS was not significantly associated with readmission for intraabdominal infection or medical complications. Patients with longer LOS and complicated hospital courses continue to be high risk post-discharge, while straightforward early discharges have a different readmission risk profile. More targeted readmission prevention strategies are critical to focusing resource utilization for colorectal surgery patients.

  14. Lower limb amputation - Part 2 : Rehabilitation - a 10 year literature review

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Geertzen, JHB; Martina, JD; Rietman, HS

    Ten years after the ISPO consensus conference on amputation surgery, a search of relevant publications in the Rehabilitation-prosthetics-literature over the years 1990-2000 was performed. The main key-words in this research were: "lower limb, amputation, human and rehabilitation". One hundred and

  15. Approach and withdrawal tendencies during written word processing: effects of task, emotional valence and emotional arousal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Francesca M. M. Citron

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The affective dimensions of emotional valence and emotional arousal affect processing of verbal and pictorial stimuli. Traditional emotional theories assume a linear relationship between these dimensions, with valence determining the direction of a behaviour (approach vs. withdrawal and arousal its intensity or strength. In contrast, according to the valence-arousal conflict theory, both dimensions are interactively related: positive valence and low arousal (PL are associated with an implicit tendency to approach a stimulus, whereas negative valence and high arousal (NH are associated with withdrawal. Hence, positive, high-arousal (PH and negative, low-arousal (NL stimuli elicit conflicting action tendencies. By extending previous research that used several tasks and methods, the present study investigated whether and how emotional valence and arousal affect subjective approach vs. withdrawal tendencies towards emotional words during two novel tasks. In Study 1, participants had to decide whether they would approach or withdraw from concepts expressed by written words. In Studies 2 and 3 participants had to respond to each word by pressing one of two keys labelled with an arrow pointing upward or downward. Across experiments, positive and negative words, high or low in arousal, were presented. In Study 1 (explicit task, in line with the valence-arousal conflict theory, PH and NL words were responded to more slowly than PL and NH words. In addition, participants decided to approach positive words more often than negative words. In Studies 2 and 3, participants responded faster to positive than negative words, irrespective of their level of arousal. Furthermore, positive words were significantly more often associated with up responses than negative words, thus supporting the existence of implicit associations between stimulus valence and response coding (positive is up and negative is down. Hence, in contexts in which participants’ spontaneous

  16. Transcript for Understanding Medical Words: A Tutorial

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... medlineplus.gov/medicalwordstranscript.html Transcript for Understanding Medical Words: A Tutorial To use the sharing features on ... get to what those mean in a minute. Word Roots Word Roots. Let's begin with body parts. ...

  17. Making Your Music Word Wall Work

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leonhardt, Angela

    2011-01-01

    This article looks at what a word wall is and its use in the music classroom. The author outlines steps for creation of a word wall within the music classroom as well as the importance of such a resource. The author encourages the creation and consistent use of the word wall as leading to the development of stronger musicians and also independent,…

  18. The role of native-language phonology in the auditory word identification and visual word recognition of Russian-English bilinguals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shafiro, Valeriy; Kharkhurin, Anatoliy V

    2009-03-01

    Does native language phonology influence visual word processing in a second language? This question was investigated in two experiments with two groups of Russian-English bilinguals, differing in their English experience, and a monolingual English control group. Experiment 1 tested visual word recognition following semantic categorization of words containing four phonological vowel contrasts (/i/-/u/,/I/-/A/,/i/-/I/,/epsilon/-/ae/). Experiment 2 assessed auditory identification accuracy of words containing these four contrasts. Both bilingual groups demonstrated reduced accuracy in auditory identification of two English vowel contrasts absent in their native phonology (/i/-/I/,epsilon/-/ae/). For late- bilinguals, auditory identification difficulty was accompanied by poor visual word recognition for one difficult contrast (/i/-/I/). Bilinguals' visual word recognition moderately correlated with their auditory identification of difficult contrasts. These results indicate that native language phonology can play a role in visual processing of second language words. However, this effect may be considerably constrained by orthographic systems of specific languages.

  19. Semantic richness and word learning in children with autism spectrum disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gladfelter, Allison; Goffman, Lisa

    2018-03-01

    Semantically rich learning contexts facilitate semantic, phonological, and articulatory aspects of word learning in children with typical development (TD). However, because children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show differences at each of these processing levels, it is unclear whether they will benefit from semantic cues in the same manner as their typical peers. The goal of this study was to track how the inclusion of rich, sparse, or no semantic cues influences semantic, phonological, and articulatory aspects of word learning in children with ASD and TD over time. Twenty-four school-aged children (12 in each group), matched on expressive vocabulary, participated in an extended word learning paradigm. Performance on five measures of learning (referent identification, confrontation naming, defining, phonetic accuracy, and speech motor stability) were tracked across three sessions approximately one week apart to assess the influence of semantic richness on extended learning. Results indicate that children with ASD benefit from semantically rich learning contexts similarly to their peers with TD; however, one key difference between the two groups emerged - the children with ASD showed heightened shifts in speech motor stability. These findings offer insights into common learning mechanisms in children with ASD and TD, as well as pointing to a potentially distinct speech motor learning trajectory in children with ASD, providing a window into the emergence of stereotypic vocalizations in these children. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  20. Physical Feature Encoding and Word Recognition Abilities Are Altered in Children with Intractable Epilepsy: Preliminary Neuromagnetic Evidence

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pardos, Maria; Korostenskaja, Milena; Xiang, Jing; Fujiwara, Hisako; Lee, Ki H.; Horn, Paul S.; Byars, Anna; Vannest, Jennifer; Wang, Yingying; Hemasilpin, Nat; Rose, Douglas F.

    2015-01-01

    Objective evaluation of language function is critical for children with intractable epilepsy under consideration for epilepsy surgery. The purpose of this preliminary study was to evaluate word recognition in children with intractable epilepsy by using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Ten children with intractable epilepsy (M/F 6/4, mean ± SD 13.4 ± 2.2 years) were matched on age and sex to healthy controls. Common nouns were presented simultaneously from visual and auditory sensory inputs in “match” and “mismatch” conditions. Neuromagnetic responses M1, M2, M3, M4, and M5 with latencies of ~100 ms, ~150 ms, ~250 ms, ~350 ms, and ~450 ms, respectively, elicited during the “match” condition were identified. Compared to healthy children, epilepsy patients had both significantly delayed latency of the M1 and reduced amplitudes of M3 and M5 responses. These results provide neurophysiologic evidence of altered word recognition in children with intractable epilepsy. PMID:26146459

  1. Sound specificity effects in spoken word recognition: The effect of integrality between words and sounds

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Strori, Dorina; Zaar, Johannes; Cooke, Martin

    2017-01-01

    Recent evidence has shown that nonlinguistic sounds co-occurring with spoken words may be retained in memory and affect later retrieval of the words. This sound-specificity effect shares many characteristics with the classic voice-specificity effect. In this study, we argue that the sound......-specificity effect is conditional upon the context in which the word and sound coexist. Specifically, we argue that, besides co-occurrence, integrality between words and sounds is a crucial factor in the emergence of the effect. In two recognition-memory experiments, we compared the emergence of voice and sound...... from a mere co-occurrence context effect by removing the intensity modulation. The absence of integrality led to the disappearance of the sound-specificity effect. Taken together, the results suggest that the assimilation of background sounds into memory cannot be reduced to a simple context effect...

  2. Comparison Adenoidectomy and Adenotonsillectomy’ effect on Changes in Symptoms of Chronic Rhinosinusitis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    F Behnoud

    2013-08-01

    Also the mean change in VAS before and after surgery in adenotonsillectomy adenoidectomy was significant (p.>0.5. In this study, reduction of clinical signs and symptoms of rhinosinusitis after adenoidectomy surgery was 100%, but the improvement of Waters X-ray findings was 53%. Reduction of signs and symptoms of rhinosinusitis after adenotonsillectomy surgery was 100%, but recovery process of waters radiographic of rhinosinusitis findings was 80%. Conclusion: Adenotonsillectomy and adenoidectomy surgery were effective in improving of the process of sign and symptoms and radiologic findings in children with chronic rhinosinusitis moreover adenotonsillectomy surgery was more effective in improving symptoms and waters radiological findings. Key words: Adenoidectomy, Adenotonsillectomy, Rhinosinusitis

  3. Novel word retention in bilingual and monolingual speakers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pui Fong eKan

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available The goal of this research was to examine word retention in bilinguals and monolinguals. Long-term word retention is an essential part of vocabulary learning. Previous studies have documented that bilinguals outperform monolinguals in terms of retrieving newly-exposed words. Yet, little is known about whether or to what extent bilinguals are different from monolinguals in word retention. Participants were 30 English-speaking monolingual adults and 30 bilingual adults who speak Spanish as a home language and learned English as a second language during childhood. In a previous study (Kan, Sadagopan, Janich, & Andrade, 2014, the participants were exposed to the target novel words in English, Spanish, and Cantonese. In this current study, word retention was measured a week after the fast mapping task. No exposures were given during the one-week interval. Results showed that bilinguals and monolinguals retain a similar number of words. However, participants produced more words in English than in either Spanish or Cantonese. Correlation analyses revealed that language knowledge plays a role in the relationships between fast mapping and word retention. Specifically, within- and across-language relationships between bilinguals’ fast mapping and word retention were found in Spanish and English, by contrast, within-language relationships between monolinguals’ fast mapping and word retention were found in English and across-language relationships between their fast mapping and word retention performance in English and Cantonese. Similarly, bilinguals differed from monolinguals in the relationships among the word retention scores in three languages. Significant correlations were found among bilinguals’ retention scores. However, no such correlations were found among monolinguals’ retention scores. The overall findings suggest that bilinguals’ language experience and language knowledge most likely contribute to how they learn and retain new words.

  4. Novel word retention in bilingual and monolingual speakers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kan, Pui Fong; Sadagopan, Neeraja

    2014-01-01

    The goal of this research was to examine word retention in bilinguals and monolinguals. Long-term word retention is an essential part of vocabulary learning. Previous studies have documented that bilinguals outperform monolinguals in terms of retrieving newly-exposed words. Yet, little is known about whether or to what extent bilinguals are different from monolinguals in word retention. Participants were 30 English-speaking monolingual adults and 30 bilingual adults who speak Spanish as a home language and learned English as a second language during childhood. In a previous study (Kan et al., 2014), the participants were exposed to the target novel words in English, Spanish, and Cantonese. In this current study, word retention was measured a week after the fast mapping task. No exposures were given during the one-week interval. Results showed that bilinguals and monolinguals retain a similar number of words. However, participants produced more words in English than in either Spanish or Cantonese. Correlation analyses revealed that language knowledge plays a role in the relationships between fast mapping and word retention. Specifically, within- and across-language relationships between bilinguals' fast mapping and word retention were found in Spanish and English, by contrast, within-language relationships between monolinguals' fast mapping and word retention were found in English and across-language relationships between their fast mapping and word retention performance in English and Cantonese. Similarly, bilinguals differed from monolinguals in the relationships among the word retention scores in three languages. Significant correlations were found among bilinguals' retention scores. However, no such correlations were found among monolinguals' retention scores. The overall findings suggest that bilinguals' language experience and language knowledge most likely contribute to how they learn and retain new words.

  5. Learning word order at birth: A NIRS study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benavides-Varela, Silvia; Gervain, Judit

    2017-06-01

    In language, the relative order of words in sentences carries important grammatical functions. However, the developmental origins and the neural correlates of the ability to track word order are to date poorly understood. The current study therefore investigates the origins of infants' ability to learn about the sequential order of words, using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) with newborn infants. We have conducted two experiments: one in which a word order change was implemented in 4-word sequences recorded with a list intonation (as if each word was a separate item in a list; list prosody condition, Experiment 1) and one in which the same 4-word sequences were recorded with a well-formed utterance-level prosodic contour (utterance prosody condition, Experiment 2). We found that newborns could detect the violation of the word order in the list prosody condition, but not in the utterance prosody condition. These results suggest that while newborns are already sensitive to word order in linguistic sequences, prosody appears to be a stronger cue than word order for the identification of linguistic units at birth. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  6. The emotional carryover effect in memory for words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schmidt, Stephen R; Schmidt, Constance R

    2016-08-01

    Emotional material rarely occurs in isolation; rather it is experienced in the spatial and temporal proximity of less emotional items. Some previous researchers have found that emotional stimuli impair memory for surrounding information, whereas others have reported evidence for memory facilitation. Researchers have not determined which types of emotional items or memory tests produce effects that carry over to surrounding items. Six experiments are reported that measured carryover from emotional words varying in arousal to temporally adjacent neutral words. Taboo, non-taboo emotional, and neutral words were compared using different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), recognition and recall tests, and intentional and incidental memory instructions. Strong emotional memory effects were obtained in all six experiments. However, emotional items influenced memory for temporally adjacent words under limited conditions. Words following taboo words were more poorly remembered than words following neutral words when relatively short SOAs were employed. Words preceding taboo words were affected only when recall tests and relatively short retention intervals were used. These results suggest that increased attention to the emotional items sometimes produces emotional carryover effects; however, retrieval processes also contribute to retrograde amnesia and may extend the conditions under which anterograde amnesia is observed.

  7. Is there pain in champagne? Semantic involvement of words within words during sense-making

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Alphen, P.M.; van Berkum, J.J.A.

    2010-01-01

    In an ERP experiment, we examined whether listeners, when making sense of spoken utterances, take into account the meaning of spurious words that are embedded in longer words, either at their onsets (e.g., pie in pirate) or at their offsets (e.g., pain in champagne). In the experiment, Dutch

  8. Word Reading Aloud Skills: Their Positive Redefinition through Ageing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chapleau, Marianne; Wilson, Maximiliano A.; Potvin, Karel; Harvey-Langton, Alexandra; Montembeault, Maxime; Brambati, Simona M.

    2017-01-01

    Background: Successful reading can be achieved by means of two different procedures: sub-word processes for the pronunciation of words without semantics or pseudowords (PW) and whole-word processes that recruit word-specific information regarding the pronunciation of words with atypical orthography-to-phonology mappings (exception words, EW).…

  9. Electronic Word of Behavior

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kunst, Katrine

    It is widely recognized that the transition from Word-of-mouth (WOM) to electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) allows for a wider and faster spread of information. However, little attention has been given to how digital channels expand the types of information consumers share. In this paper, we argue...... that recent years have seen a social media-facilitated move from opinion-centric eWOM (e.g. reviews) to behavior-centric (e.g. information about friends’ music consumption on Spotify). A review of the concepts of WOM and eWOM and a netnographic study reveal that the current definitions and understandings...... of the concepts do not capture this new kind of consumer-to-consumer information transfer about products and services. Consequently, we suggest an extension of those concepts: Electronic Word of Behavior....

  10. Proceedings of resources for optimal care of acute care and emergency surgery consensus summit Donegal Ireland

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sugrue, M.; Maier, R.; Moore, E. E.; Boermeester, M.; Catena, F.; Coccolini, F.; Leppaniemi, A.; Peitzman, A.; Velmahos, G.; Ansaloni, L.; Abu-Zidan, F.; Balfe, P.; Bendinelli, C.; Biffl, W.; Bowyer, M.; DeMoya, M.; de Waele, J.; di Saverio, S.; Drake, A.; Fraga, G. P.; Hallal, A.; Henry, C.; Hodgetts, T.; Hsee, L.; Huddart, S.; Kirkpatrick, A. W.; Kluger, Y.; Lawler, L.; Malangoni, M. A.; Malbrain, M.; MacMahon, P.; Mealy, K.; O'Kane, M.; Loughlin, P.; Paduraru, M.; Pearce, L.; Pereira, B. M.; Priyantha, A.; Sartelli, M.; Soreide, K.; Steele, C.; Thomas, S.; Vincent, J. L.; Woods, L.

    2017-01-01

    Background: Opportunities to improve emergency surgery outcomes exist through guided better practice and reduced variability. Few attempts have been made to define optimal care in emergency surgery, and few clinically derived key performance indicators (KPIs) have been published. A summit was

  11. Wording effects in moral judgments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ross E. O'Hara

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available As the study of moral judgments grows, it becomes imperative to compare results across studies in order to create unified theories within the field. These efforts are potentially undermined, however, by variations in wording used by different researchers. The current study sought to determine whether, when, and how variations in wording influence moral judgments. Online participants responded to 15 different moral vignettes (e.g., the trolley problem using 1 of 4 adjectives: ``wrong'', ``inappropriate'', ``forbidden'', or ``blameworthy''. For half of the sample, these adjectives were preceded by the adverb ``morally''. Results indicated that people were more apt to judge an act as wrong or inappropriate than forbidden or blameworthy, and that disgusting acts were rated as more acceptable when ``morally'' was included. Although some wording differences emerged, effects sizes were small and suggest that studies of moral judgment with different wordings can legitimately be compared.

  12. Theology of Jesus’ words from the cross

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bogdan Zbroja

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available The article presents a theological message of the last words that Jesus spoke from the height of the cross. Layout content is conveyed in three kinds of Christ’s relations: the words addressed to God the Father; the words addressed to the good people standing by the cross; the so-called declarations that the Master had spoken to anyone but uttered them in general. All these words speak of the Master’s love. They express His full awareness of what is being done and of His decision voluntarily taken. Above all, it is revealed in the Lord’s statements His obedience to the will of God expressed in the inspired words of the Holy Scriptures. Jesus fulfills all the prophecies of the Old Testament by pronounced words and accomplished works that will become content of the New Testament.

  13. Question Word in the Mandarin Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xu Yunyu

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available In an interrogative sentence in Mandarin language, a question word can be placed in the beginning, middle or end of a sentence. Because of the different nation and culture, when a foreign student learns Mandarin, they find it difficult to understand the question words and the position of the question words in that language. Because of that, the writer proposes to explain such problems. This research aims to find out what are the types of question words in Mandarin, and also to explain the function and usage of question words in the Mandarin interrogative sentence. An interrogative sentence is a very important sentence. In Mandarin, the following question words: 谁(shuí “Who”,在哪里(zài nǎli “where”, 在哪儿(zài nǎ’er “where”,为什么(wèi shénme “why”, 怎么(zěnme “why”,多少(duō shǎo) “how many”,多久(duō jiǔ “how long”,什么时候 (shénme shíhòu “when”,什么(shénme “what”,做什么(zuò shénme “why”,干 什么(gàn shénme “why”,干嘛(gànma “why” and so on are used to ask “who”, “where”, “what”, “how much”, “when”, “what time”, and “why”. Those words have different functions and usage. Each sentence has a certain structure and word order. A question word can be placed in the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence. When the place is changed, there is a possibility of miscommunication.   DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2013.160106

  14. Sociophonetics: The Role of Words, the Role of Context, and the Role of Words in Context.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hay, Jennifer

    2018-03-02

    This paper synthesizes a wide range of literature from sociolinguistics and cognitive psychology, to argue for a central role for the "word" as a vehicle of language variation and change. Three crucially interlinked strands of research are reviewed-the role of context in associative learning, the word-level storage of phonetic and contextual detail, and the phonetic consequences of skewed distributions of words across different contexts. I argue that the human capacity for associative learning, combined with attention to fine-phonetic detail at the level of the word, plays a significant role in predicting a range of subtle but systematically robust observed socioindexical patterns in speech production and perception. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Topics in Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  15. Decorporation: officially a word.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fisher, D R

    2000-05-01

    This note is the brief history of a word. Decorporation is a scientific term known to health physicists who have an interest in the removal of internally deposited radionuclides from the body after an accidental or inadvertent intake. Although the word decorporation appears many times in the radiation protection literature, it was only recently accepted by the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary as an entry for their latest edition.

  16. Decorporation: Officially a word

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fisher, D.R.

    2000-01-01

    This note is the brief history of a word. Decorporation is a scientific term known to health physicists who have an interest in the removal of internally deposited radionuclides from the body after an accidental or inadvertent intake. Although the word decorporation appears many times in the radiation protection literature, it was only recently accepted by the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary as an entry for their latest edition

  17. Decorporation: Officially a word

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Fisher, D.R.

    2000-05-01

    This note is the brief history of a word. Decorporation is a scientific term known to health physicists who have an interest in the removal of internally deposited radionuclides from the body after an accidental or inadvertent intake. Although the word decorporation appears many times in the radiation protection literature, it was only recently accepted by the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary as an entry for their latest edition.

  18. Decorporation: Officially a word

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fisher, Darrell R.

    1999-01-01

    This note is the brief history of a word. Decorporation is a scientific term known to health physicists who have an interest in the removal of internally deposited radionuclides from the body after an accidental or inadvertent intake. Although the word decorporation appears many times in the radiation protection literature, it was only recently accepted by the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary as an entry for their latest edition

  19. Word segmentation with universal prosodic cues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Endress, Ansgar D; Hauser, Marc D

    2010-09-01

    When listening to speech from one's native language, words seem to be well separated from one another, like beads on a string. When listening to a foreign language, in contrast, words seem almost impossible to extract, as if there was only one bead on the same string. This contrast reveals that there are language-specific cues to segmentation. The puzzle, however, is that infants must be endowed with a language-independent mechanism for segmentation, as they ultimately solve the segmentation problem for any native language. Here, we approach the acquisition problem by asking whether there are language-independent cues to segmentation that might be available to even adult learners who have already acquired a native language. We show that adult learners recognize words in connected speech when only prosodic cues to word-boundaries are given from languages unfamiliar to the participants. In both artificial and natural speech, adult English speakers, with no prior exposure to the test languages, readily recognized words in natural languages with critically different prosodic patterns, including French, Turkish and Hungarian. We suggest that, even though languages differ in their sound structures, they carry universal prosodic characteristics. Further, these language-invariant prosodic cues provide a universally accessible mechanism for finding words in connected speech. These cues may enable infants to start acquiring words in any language even before they are fine-tuned to the sound structure of their native language. Copyright © 2010. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  20. Teach yourself visually Word 2013

    CERN Document Server

    Marmel, Elaine

    2013-01-01

    Get up to speed on the newest version of Word with visual instruction Microsoft Word is the standard for word processing programs, and the newest version offers additional functionality you'll want to use. Get up to speed quickly and easily with the step-by-step instructions and full-color screen shots in this popular guide! You'll see how to perform dozens of tasks, including how to set up and format documents and text; work with diagrams, charts, and pictures; use Mail Merge; post documents online; and much more. Easy-to-follow, two-page lessons make learning a snap.Full-