Sociolinguistic Features for Author Gender Identification: From Qualitative Evidence to Quantitative Analysis

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Quantitative Linguistics on 7 October 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09296174.2016.1226430. The Accepted Manuscript is under embargo. Embargo end date: 7 April 2018.Theoretical and empirical studies prove the strong relationship between social factors and the individual linguistic attitudes. Different social categories, such as gender, age, education, profession and social status, are strongly related with the linguistic diversity of people’s everyday spoken and written interaction. In this paper, sociolinguistic studies addressed to gender differentiation are overviewed in order to identify how various linguistic characteristics differ between women and men. Thereafter, it is examined if and how these qualitative features can become quantitative metrics for the task of gender identification from texts on web blogs. The evaluation results showed that the “syntactic complexity”, the “tag questions”, the “period length”, the “adjectives” and the “vocabulary richness” characteristics seem to be significantly distinctive with respect to the author’s gender.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

High‐resolution GC/MS studies of a light crude oil fraction

The continuous development in analytical instrumentation has brought the newly developed Orbitrap‐based gas chromatography / mass spectrometry (GC/MS) instrument into the forefront for the analysis of complex mixtures such as crude oil. Traditional instrumentation usually requires a choice to be made between mass resolving power or an efficient chromatographic separation, which ideally enables the distinction of structural isomers that is not possible by mass spectrometry alone. Now, these features can be combined, thus enabling a deeper understanding of the constituents of volatile samples on a molecular level. Although electron ionization is the most popular ionization method employed in GC/MS analysis, the need for softer ionization methods has led to the utilization of atmospheric pressure ionization sources. The last arrival to this family is the atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI), which was originally developed for liquid chromatography / mass spectrometry (LC/MS). With a newly developed commercial GC‐APPI interface, it is possible to extend the characterization of unknown compounds. Here, first results about the capabilities of the GC/MS instrument under high or low energy EI or APPI are reported on a volatile gas condensate. The use of different ionization energies helps matching the low abundant molecular ions to the structurally important fragment ions. A broad range of compounds from polar to medium polar were successfully detected and complementary information regarding the analyte was obtained

Evaluation of the combination of different atmospheric pressure ionization sources for the analysis of extremely complex mixtures

Characterization of complex samples remains a challenging task due to the high number of compounds present. Matrix effects, ion discrimination and suppression are limiting factors which force the use of different methods for the same sample to gain a broad understanding of complex mixtures

Understanding “Fouling” in Extremely Complex Petroleum Mixtures

“Fouling”, the unwanted deposition of solids, causes significant operational difficulties in petroleum producing and processing industries and is considered a billion dollar problem. There are two routes of petroleum fouling: physical fouling, where material of low-solubility precipitates, and chemical fouling, where a chemical reaction produces insoluble material, often on the surface of heat exchangers. By implementing laboratory-scale experimental simulations of the industrial process using a petroleum derived light crude oil fraction, it is shown that chemical fouling proceeds via multistep pathways involving dehydrogenation and radical formation reactions on PAHs, resulting in the formation of carbonaceous deposits

Study of Crude Oil Fouling from Sulfur-Containing Compounds Using High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry

With the depletion of conventional resources, heavier and more sulfur-rich crude oils come into the focus of interest. However, the utilization of such feedstocks is extremely undesirable since their high sulfur content causes corrosion fouling, catalyst poisoning, and emissions of toxic pollutants into the atmosphere. As known catalyst poisoners, sulfur-containing compounds are also suspected to play an important role in crude oil fouling, that is, the formation of undesired solid deposits. To overcome these problems, insightful knowledge on the chemical composition of the sulfur-containing compounds on a molecular level and their behavior is necessary. Here, fouling reactions of a gas condensate were simulated in the laboratory under atmospheric and inert conditions, with special focus on sulfur-containing compounds, and the resulting mixtures were analyzed by using sophisticated analytical methods such as ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry and electron microscopy. The results indicate that sulfur-containing compounds decompose at elevated temperatures, partly by a radical-induced mechanism. Furthermore, the resulting intermediates show a limited stability in the presence of oxygen

Impact of Trucks on Arterial LOS and Freeway Work Zone Capacity Part B:Freeway Work Zone Capacity

The existing FDOT lane closure analysis method was developed several years ago, and it is the desire of the Department to evaluate and update it accordingly. The objective of this research was to develop analytical models and procedures for estimating the capacity of a freeway work zone considering various geometric and traffic parameters. Due to the Unavailability of real-world work zone data, the study was based on simulation. CORSIM (version 5.1) was used to develop a comprehensive database which was used in the analytical model development. Models were developed for three types of work zone configurations (2-to-1, 3-to-2, and 3-to-1 lane closures). Two different types of models were developed for each lane closure configuration; a planning model and an operational model. The Planning model is the simplest once and it applies when a capacity estimate is required, but the work zone is not in place. The operational model requires more data as input, and it may be used for estimating the capacity of an existing work zone