Errors in inflectional morphemes as an index of linguistic competence of Korean Heritage language learners and American learners of Korean

This study examined the linguistic competence in Korean of Korean heritage language learners (HLLs), compared to English-speaking non-heritage language learners (NHLLs) of Korean. It is unclear and controversial as to whether heritage languages learners are exposed to early but are interrupted manifest as L1 competence or share more characteristics with development in L2/FL competence. However, a common misconception is that HLLs outperform NHLLs in overall language skills even though Korean HLLs in Korean as a Foreign Language (KFL) classes do not make better progress than NHLLs despite their comparatively stronger aural interpretive abilities. This study was designed to investigate whether HLLs have an advantage over NHLLs in learning distinctive parametric values in Korean language, through comparing occurrences and sources of grammatical errors exhibited by two groups taking university-level KFL classes. This study addresses Korean inflectional morphemes, with a focus on case and postposition markers and affixal connectives. Data was collected from error analysis (EA) of inflectional morpheme errors and its source on semi-guided and self-generated writing samples, and grammaticality judgment in a word completion (GJWC) test using the same inflectional morphemes used for the EA. Schlyter's Weak language (WL) as L2, Montrul's WL as L1, and the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH) provided theoretical frameworks. The EA data was coded using the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcript program. The EA and GJWC data were analyzed using a 2-way ANOVA and, when there was a significant interaction effect between heritage status and language proficiency level, a 1-way ANOVA. This study's results confirmed Schlyter's hypothesis, but did not support Montrul's hypothesis from either the EA or GJWC. MSIH failed in explaining underlying linguistic competence of HLLs. Significantly higher error rates caused by omitting necessary subject and object markers among HLLs imply their Korean morphological data stays at the level of Korean child's morphology. Significantly higher error rates in instrument marker in the GJWC test by advanced level of HLLs imply impaired Korean morphology of HLLs. Linguistic variation is more prominent among HLL group. Findings are further discussed in relation to their theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical implications. Differentiated instructional and curricular approaches for HLL and NHLL groups are suggested

Why Are Computational Neuroscience and Systems Biology So Separate?

Despite similar computational approaches, there is surprisingly little interaction between the computational neuroscience and the systems biology research communities. In this review I reconstruct the history of the two disciplines and show that this may explain why they grew up apart. The separation is a pity, as both fields can learn quite a bit from each other. Several examples are given, covering sociological, software technical, and methodological aspects. Systems biology is a better organized community which is very effective at sharing resources, while computational neuroscience has more experience in multiscale modeling and the analysis of information processing by biological systems. Finally, I speculate about how the relationship between the two fields may evolve in the near future

A Stochastic Multi-scale Approach for Numerical Modeling of Complex Materials - Application to Uniaxial Cyclic Response of Concrete

In complex materials, numerous intertwined phenomena underlie the overall response at macroscale. These phenomena can pertain to different engineering fields (mechanical , chemical, electrical), occur at different scales, can appear as uncertain, and are nonlinear. Interacting with complex materials thus calls for developing nonlinear computational approaches where multi-scale techniques that grasp key phenomena at the relevant scale need to be mingled with stochastic methods accounting for uncertainties. In this chapter, we develop such a computational approach for modeling the mechanical response of a representative volume of concrete in uniaxial cyclic loading. A mesoscale is defined such that it represents an equivalent heterogeneous medium: nonlinear local response is modeled in the framework of Thermodynamics with Internal Variables; spatial variability of the local response is represented by correlated random vector fields generated with the Spectral Representation Method. Macroscale response is recovered through standard ho-mogenization procedure from Micromechanics and shows salient features of the uniaxial cyclic response of concrete that are not explicitly modeled at mesoscale.Comment: Computational Methods for Solids and Fluids, 41, Springer International Publishing, pp.123-160, 2016, Computational Methods in Applied Sciences, 978-3-319-27994-

Why isolated streamer discharges hardly exist above the breakdown field in atmospheric air

We investigate streamer formation in the troposphere, in electric fields above the breakdown threshold. With fully three-dimensional particle simulations, we study the combined effect of natural background ionization and of photoionization on the discharge morphology. In previous investigations based on deterministic fluid models without background ionization, so-called double-headed streamers emerged. But in our improved model, many electron avalanches start to grow at different locations. Eventually the avalanches collectively screen the electric field in the interior of the discharge. This happens after what we call the `ionization screening time', for which we give an analytical estimate. As this time is comparable to the streamer formation time, we conclude that isolated streamers are unlikely to exist in fields well above breakdown in atmospheric air.Comment: Changed citation information. 6 pages, 4 figures, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 40, 2417-2422, 201

The Morphology of N=6 Chern-Simons Theory

We tabulate various properties of the language of N=6 Chern-Simons Theory, in the sense of Polyakov. Specifically we enumerate and compute character formulas for all syllables of up to four letters, i.e. all irreducible representations of OSp(6|4) built from up to four fundamental fields of the ABJM theory. We also present all tensor product decompositions for up to four singletons and list the (cyclically invariant) four-letter words, which correspond to single-trace operators of length four. As an application of these results we use the two-loop dilatation operator to compute the leading correction to the Hagedorn temperature of the weakly-coupled planar ABJM theory on R \times S^2.Comment: 41 pages, 1 figure; v2: minor correction