Antarctic ecosystems in transition – life between stresses and opportunities

Important findings from the second decade of the 21st century on the impact of environmental change on biological processes in the Antarctic were synthesised by 26 international experts. Ten key messages emerged that have stakeholder-relevance and/or a high impact for the scientific community. They address (i) altered biogeochemical cycles, (ii) ocean acidification, (iii) climate change hotspots, (iv) unexpected dynamism in seabed-dwelling populations, (v) spatial range shifts, (vi) adaptation and thermal resilience, (vii) sea ice related biological fluctuations, (viii) pollution, (ix) endangered terrestrial endemism and (x) the discovery of unknown habitats. Most Antarctic biotas are exposed to multiple stresses and considered vulnerable to environmental change due to narrow tolerance ranges, rapid change, projected circumpolar impacts, low potential for timely genetic adaptation, and migration barriers. Important ecosystem functions, such as primary production and energy transfer between trophic levels, have already changed, and biodiversity patterns have shifted. A confidence assessment of the degree of 'scientific understanding' revealed an intermediate level for most of the more detailed sub-messages, indicating that process-oriented research has been successful in the past decade. Additional efforts are necessary, however, to achieve the level of robustness in scientific knowledge that is required to inform protection measures of the unique Antarctic terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and their contributions to global biodiversity and ecosystem services

Multidimensional Signals and Analytic Flexibility: Estimating Degrees of Freedom in Human-Speech Analyses

Recent empirical studies have highlighted the large degree of analytic flexibility in data analysis that can lead to substantially different conclusions based on the same data set. Thus, researchers have expressed their concerns that these researcher degrees of freedom might facilitate bias and can lead to claims that do not stand the test of time. Even greater flexibility is to be expected in fields in which the primary data lend themselves to a variety of possible operationalizations. The multidimensional, temporally extended nature of speech constitutes an ideal testing ground for assessing the variability in analytic approaches, which derives not only from aspects of statistical modeling but also from decisions regarding the quantification of the measured behavior. In this study, we gave the same speech-production data set to 46 teams of researchers and asked them to answer the same research question, resulting in substantial variability in reported effect sizes and their interpretation. Using Bayesian meta-analytic tools, we further found little to no evidence that the observed variability can be explained by analysts’ prior beliefs, expertise, or the perceived quality of their analyses. In light of this idiosyncratic variability, we recommend that researchers more transparently share details of their analysis, strengthen the link between theoretical construct and quantitative system, and calibrate their (un)certainty in their conclusions

ACVIM consensus statement: Guidelines for the identification, evaluation, and management of systemic hypertension in dogs and cats

An update to the 2007 American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) consensus statement on the identification, evaluation, and management of systemic hypertension in dogs and cats was presented at the 2017 ACVIM Forum in National Harbor, MD. The updated consensus statement is presented here. The consensus statement aims to provide guidance on appropriate diagnosis and treatment of hypertension in dogs and cats

Multidimensional signals and analytic flexibility: Estimating degrees of freedom in human speech analyses

Recent empirical studies have highlighted the large degree of analytic flexibility in data analysis which can lead to substantially different conclusions based on the same data set. Thus, researchers have expressed their concerns that these researcher degrees of freedom might facilitate bias and can lead to claims that do not stand the test of time. Even greater flexibility is to be expected in fields in which the primary data lend themselves to a variety of possible operationalizations. The multidimensional, temporally extended nature of speech constitutes an ideal testing ground for assessing the variability in analytic approaches, which derives not only from aspects of statistical modeling, but also from decisions regarding the quantification of the measured behavior. In the present study, we gave the same speech production data set to 46 teams of researchers and asked them to answer the same research question, resulting insubstantial variability in reported effect sizes and their interpretation. Using Bayesian meta-analytic tools, we further find little to no evidence that the observed variability can be explained by analysts’ prior beliefs, expertise or the perceived quality of their analyses. In light of this idiosyncratic variability, we recommend that researchers more transparently share details of their analysis, strengthen the link between theoretical construct and quantitative system and calibrate their (un)certainty in their conclusions

External Argument Focus and the Syntax of Reflexivity

It is unexpected under previous accounts that, in a subclass of sentences that contain reflexive anaphors, focus on a reflexive anaphor can be felicitously interpreted as a response to a subject-question (e.g. "Johnny burned HIMSELF" as a response to "Who burned Johnny?"). This focus phenomenon can only be accounted for under existing theories of focus and syntax-prosody mapping if the syntactic representation of reflexivity is amended, as is pursued in this paper. A revised model of reflexivity such as the one presented in this paper is not only able to account for this focus data, but is generally more empirically robust: able to better account for the distribution of phrasal stress in clauses with reflexive anaphors, as well as the realization of reflexivity of other languages.The Coyote Papers are made available by the Arizona Linguistics Circle at the University of Arizona and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] with questions about these materials

Syntax-phonology mapping and the Tongan DP

Tongan, a Polynesian language, is almost entirely head-initial. There are some exceptions to this, including Demonstrative enclitics and the so-called Definitive Accent (Churchward 1953), which appears to be a stress-shift operation, typically in the rightmost word of the DP. One question that arises here is: where does the morphophonological status of being an enclitic come from – particularly in a rather radically head-initial language? By investigating the distributional properties of the Definitive Accent, it will become clear that this is the result of syntactic and phonological structures proceeding without any direct appeal to morphophonological properties. A new formal analysis presented here derives the positions of the Definitive Accent and possible prosodic phrasings, appealing to independently motivated phonological constraints applying to structures with three cross-linguistically supported movement operations. It is shown that achieving this requires neither including morpheme-indexed constraints, nor having lexemes pre-specified with morphophonological properties such as “enclitic” or “prefix”. Finally, Tongan Definitive Accents raise important issues about the immutability of phases. Specifically, it must be that Phonology may access and manipulate previously spelled out material in a way that Syntax cannot, which is in fact exactly what a Minimalist architecture predicts

Giving Reflexivity a Voice: Twin Reflexives in English

Across languages, there is variability in the surface realization of reflexivity, according to various sets of properties. For example, there are languages (e.g. Greek, Lakhota) that seem to treat some of their reflexive clauses as being in a non-active voice, similar to a passive. There are also languages (e.g. French, Kannada) in which reflexivity is encoded differently depending on whether the antecedent is the subject or not. In this way, English seems to be different: reflexivity is apparently realized in a homogeneous way - filling an argument position with an anaphoric expression like themselves - regardless of clausal voice or grammatical role of the antecedent.This homogeneity is an illusion. Despite using a single set of anaphoric expressions for reflexivity in various situations, reflexive anaphors in English fall into two classes: those that exhibit exceptional prosodic behaviors, and those that do not.This exceptionality can be directly observed in two domains: the distribution of "default" phrasal stress, and the distribution of a certain focal accent. From the results of expirments on speech production and perception, I show that the distribution of exceptionally behaving reflexive anaphors is structurally constrained. This implicates that there must a be syntactic account for these prosodic properties.Assuming that syntactic structure plays a near deterministic role in prosody (an assumption going back to even the earliest generative work on phrasal stress; Chomsky and Halle 1968:25), I argue for a more refined syntactic structure of reflexivity. Briefly, I demonstrate a sub-class of reflexive anaphors in English undergo a syntactic movement (to a reflexive VoiceP). This movement, along with independently motivated mechanisms for placement of phrasal stress and focal accents, derives the heterogeneous prosodic behaviors of reflexives in English. Crucially, this analysis does not require the prosodic component to have any stipulations for specific (classes of) words, in line with a Minimalist approach to the Syntax-Prosody Interface.This model of reflexivity simultaneously reduces the amount of theoretical machinery necessary to achieve descriptive adequacy, while also enhancing the model's predictive power. Moreover, this research has broad theoretical implications, beyond just reflexives in English. This theory is able to unify the various morpho-syntactic instantiations of reflexivizing functions - across languages - as being related to the Reflexive VoiceP. It also establishes a core set of properties that define clausal reflexivity, each of which are the result of the formal properties of the reflexive Voice0. Finally, it provides direct support for the hypothesis that syntactic and prosodic structures are maximally isomorphic, with prosodic cues in the signal giving direct evidence for otherwise invisible syntactic structure