Before Textuality: Orality and Interpretation

Walter J. Ong needs little introduction here. His many books and myriad shorter works - among them The Presence of the Word (1967), Interfaces of the Word (1977), and Orality and Literacy (1982) - have established whole new areas of investigation in the cultural and psychological aspects of comparative studies in oral tradition. His Festschrift was published as volume 2, number 1 of Oral Tradition

Relaxation in open one-dimensional systems

A new master equation to mimic the dynamics of a collection of interacting random walkers in an open system is proposed and solved numerically.In this model, the random walkers interact through excluded volume interaction (single-file system); and the total number of walkers in the lattice can fluctuate because of exchange with a bath.In addition, the movement of the random walkers is biased by an external perturbation. Two models for the latter are considered: (1) an inverse potential (V $\propto$ 1/r), where r is the distance between the center of the perturbation and the random walker and (2) an inverse of sixth power potential ($V \propto 1/r^6$). The calculated density of the walkers and the total energy show interesting dynamics. When the size of the system is comparable to the range of the perturbing field, the energy relaxation is found to be highly non-exponential. In this range, the system can show stretched exponential ($e^{-{(t/\tau_s)}^{\beta}}$) and even logarithmic time dependence of energy relaxation over a limited range of time. Introduction of density exchange in the lattice markedly weakens this non-exponentiality of the relaxation function, irrespective of the nature of perturbation

The D2-D6 System and a Fibered AdS Geometry

The system of D2 branes localized on or near D6 branes is considered. The world-volume theory on the D2 branes is investigated, using its conjectured relation to the near-horizon geometry. The results are in agreement with known facts and expectations for the corresponding field theory and a rich phase structure is obtained as a function of the energy scale and the number of branes. In particular, for an intermediate range of the number of D6 branes, the IR geometry is that of an AdS_4 space fibered over a compact space. This D2-D6 system is compared to other systems, related to it by compactification and duality and it is shown that the qualitative differences have compatible explanations in the geometric and field-theoretic descriptions. Another system -- that of NS5 branes located at D6 branes -- is also briefly studied, leading to a similar phase structure.Comment: 35 pages (Latex) and 2 figures (encapsulated postscript). Ver2: added discussion of the relation to the system without D6 branes (in the introduction and in figure 1); added description of the geometrical realization of the R symmetries (in section 3.1

Editorial: “Grammar wars” – Beyond a truce

Any special issue of a journal is an acknowledgement of a conversation that needs to be had. The conversation in this double issue of English Teaching: Practice and Critique has had a multiplicity of prompts, some of which I will refer to in this introduction, others of which will be referred to by the contributors to this issue (Part 1). In respect of this journal as a forum, the conversation will spill over into Volume 5, Number 1 (May, 2006). This editorial should be thought of as a work in progress; contributions to Part 2 have yet to arrive in my email basket and cannot be referred to here. Some of my own prompts in initiating this conversation have their origins close to home – in my experiences as a teacher, teacher educator and researcher in the New Zealand context. It is a context that has had its own share of social upheaval and educational “reform” in the last twenty years (Locke, 2000, 2001 and 2004). In the larger context of struggles over administrative, curriculum and assessment policy and practice, questions of “grammar” and “language” have not been prominent on the radar screen

An Analysis of Nominal Group and Lexical Density in ‘Introductions’ of the Articles Found in TEFLIN Journal Volume 23 Number 2 July 2012.

In English there are two kinds of language, they are spoken and written. In thisresearch, the writer focuses on nominal group and lexical density. The meaning of nominal group is a group of words, which has a noun (a word that names a person, place, or thing) as its headword and includes all additional information related to that noun. The meaning of lexical density is calculated by the number of content words dividing by the number per clauses. Nominal group and Lexical Density which are most interesting and include in one of material for students in English Education Department. The objectives of this research are to find out the elements of nominal group in ‘introductions’ of the articles found in TEFLIN Journal Volume 23 Number 2 July 2012 , and to describe the lexical density in ‘introductions’ of the articles found in TEFLIN Journal Volume 23 Number 2 July 2012 . The kind of this research is descriptive qualitative. The writer uses nominal group and lexical density as the data that taken from introductions of the articles found in TEFLIN Journal Volume 23 Number 2 July 2012 as the data source. The result of this research are; firstly, the elements of nominal group. From the introductions of the articles found in TEFLIN Journal Volume 23 Number 2 July 2012, the writer concludes that there are 401 nominal groups which have their own elements. They are; (Deictic and Thing)= 134, (Deictic and Qualifier)= 2, (Post deictic and Thing)= 1, (Numerative and Thing)= 4, (Numerative and Qualifier)= 8, ( Epithet and Thing)= 2, (Classifier and Qualifier)= 2, (Deictic and Classifier)= 1, (Thing and Qualifier)= 24, (Deictic, Epithet, and Thing)= 5, (Deictic, Numerative, and Thing)= 1, (Deictic, Epithet, and Qualifier)= 1, (Deictic, Thing, and Qualifier)= 181, (Deictic, Numerative, and Qualifier)= 1, (Deictic, Post deictic, and Thing)= 1, (Post deictic, Thing, and Qualifier)= 4, (Epithet, Thing, and Qualifier)= 6, (Numerative, Classifier, and Qualifier)= 1, (Numerative, Thing, and Qualifier)= 6, (Deictic, Post deictic, Thing, and Qualifier)= 6, (Deictic, Numerative, Thing, and Qualifier)= 3, (Deictic, Epithet, Thingand Qualifier)= 6, (Numerative, Epithet, Thing, and Qualifier)= 1. Based on the analysis result, the dominant element of nominal group in Introductions of the articles found in TEFLIN Journal Volume 23 Number 2 July 2012 is Deictic, Thing, and Qualifier which has the function to specify the thing and circumstantial information about the thing. So, the readers understand about the context of sentence itself. Secondly, The lexical densities in Introductions of the articles found in TEFLIN Journal Volume 23 Number 2 July 2012, are; introduction of the first article is 7.8 (less dense), introduction of the second article is 7.4 (less dense), introduction of the third article is 7.2 (less dense), introduction of the fourth article is 9.4 (less dense), introduction of the fifth article is 8.8 (less dense), introduction of the sixth article is 6.7 (quite dense), and introduction of the seventh article is 7.4 (less dense). Based on the result above, the writer concludes that the introduction of the sixth article found in TEFLIN Journal Volume 23 Number 2 July 2012 is the easiest text to be understood because it has lowest lexical density. While the hardest text to be understood is the introduction of the fourth article because it has highest lexical density. The writer suggests that this research can help the lecturers increase their knowledge about nominal group and lexical density well when they teach those material, can help the students get information about the way to analyze nominal group also lexical density in the sentence, and help the students understand about nominal group also lexical density clearly, also can help the next researchers give contribution to inform other researchers who want to conduct about nominal group and lexical density, actually analyzing the elements and the patterns of nominal group also measure the lexical density in the sentence

The impact of different doses of indocyanine green on the sentinel lymph-node mapping in early stage endometrial cancer.

INTRODUCTION Aim of the study is to evaluate the impact of different doses of indocyanine green (ICG) on the sentinel lymph-node (SLN) mapping in endometrial cancer (EC). MATERIALS AND METHODS A retrospective analysis of EC patients undergoing a laparoscopic SLN mapping at two institutions was performed. Two different injection protocols were used (protocol # 1: 5 mg/ml and a volume of 8 ml; protocol # 2: 1.25 mg/ml and a volume of 4 ml). In every case, the injection was intracervical. The laparoscopic equipment adopted was the same among both institutions. Overall and bilateral detection rates (DR) and median number of retrieved SLNs were calculated. At uni- and multivariate analysis factors (including ICG dose) associated with DR and number of detected SLNs were investigated. RESULTS Overall, 168 patients were included. The overall and bilateral DR were 96.3 and 84.5%. Median number of removed SLNs was 3 (0-18). In 56% of the patients, a median number of 6 (1-93) non-SLNs (NSLNs) were removed. Seventeen (10.1%) patients had metastatic SLNs. At multivariate analysis, no factors were associated with bilateral DR. ICG dose was the only factor associated with number of removed SLNs at multivariate analysis. CONCLUSION A larger dose of ICG is associated with a higher number of retrieved SLNs but not with an increased bilateral DR

Shockwaves and deep inelastic scattering within the gauge/gravity duality

Within the gauge/gravity correspondence, we discuss the general formulation of the shockwave metric which is dual to a 'nucleus' described by the strongly-coupled N=4 SYM theory in the limit where the number of colors Nc is arbitrarily large. We emphasize that the 'nucleus' must possess Nc^2 degrees of freedom per unit volume, so like a finite-temperature plasma, in order for a supergravity description to exist. We critically reassess previous proposals for introducing transverse inhomogeneity in the shockwave and formulate a new proposal in that sense, which involves no external source but requires the introduction of an 'infrared' cutoff which mimics confinement. This cutoff however plays no role when the shockwave is probed by a highly virtual projectile, so like in deep inelastic scattering. We consider two such projectiles, the dilaton and the R-current, and compute the respective structure functions including unitarity corrections. We find that there are no leading-twist contributions to the structure functions at high virtuality, meaning that there are no point-like constituents in the strongly coupled 'nucleus'. In the black-disk regime at low virtuality, the structure functions are suggestive of parton saturation with occupation numbers of order one. The saturation momentum Qs grows with the energy like Qs^2 ~ 1/x (with x the Bjorken variable), which is the hallmark of graviton exchanges and is also necessary for the fulfillment of the energy-momentum sum rules.Comment: 43 page

Abnormal electrocardiographic findings in athletes: Correlation with intensity of sport and level of competition.

INTRODUCTION: Athletes can exhibit abnormal electrocardiogram (ECG) phenotypes that require further evaluation prior to competition. These are apparently more prevalent in high-intensity endurance sports. The purpose of this study was to assess the association between ECG findings in athletes and intensity of sport and level of competition. METHODS: A cohort of 3423 competitive athletes had their ECGs assessed according to the Seattle criteria (SC). The presence of abnormal ECGs was correlated with: (1) intensity of sport (low/moderate vs. at least one high static or dynamic component); (2) competitive level (regional vs. national/international); (3) training volume (≤20 vs. >20 hours/week); (4) type of sport (high dynamic vs. high static component). The same endpoints were studied according to the 'Refined Criteria' (RC). RESULTS: Abnormal ECGs according to the SC were present in 225 (6.6%) athletes, more frequently in those involved in high-intensity sports (8.0% vs. 5.4%; p=0.002), particularly in dynamic sports, and competing at national/international level (7.1% vs. 4.9%; p=0.028). Training volume was not significantly associated with abnormal ECGs. By multivariate analysis, high-intensity sport (OR 1.55, 1.18-2.03; p=0.002) and national/international level (OR 1.50, 95% CI 1.04-2.14; p=0.027) were independent predictors of abnormal ECGs, and these variables, when combined, doubled the prevalence of this finding. According to the RC, abnormal ECGs decreased to 103 (3.0%), but were also more frequent in high-intensity sports (4.2% vs. 2.0%; p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: There is a positive correlation between higher intensity of sports and increased prevalence of ECG abnormalities. This relationship persists with the use of more restrictive criteria for ECG interpretation, although the number of abnormal ECGs is lower