Predication and identity in copular sentences

There are different types of copular sentence. \textit{Cicero is tall} does not mean the same thing as \textit{Cicero is Tully}. The former is typically called a predication and the latter an identity. But where does this difference come from (and the difference between these sentences and \textit{Cicero is a Roman statesman}, \textit{This is Cicero}, and \textit{The culprit was Cicero} for that matter)? This thesis is an attempt to bring the combined forces of modern linguistics and philosophy together to understand how we make meaningfully distinct sentences. It is useful to focus on copular sentences for this task because they are the minimally-sized sentences in many of the world's languages. A debate in linguistics has persisted for some years about the status of sentences like \textit{The culprit was Cicero}, in particular, in terms of whether they should be aligned with predications or identities. The linguistic evidence points in different directions. I think there are conceptual clarifications that could elucidate the terms of this debate. I start by investigating the obvious logical starting point: logic. Can copular sentences really be exhaustively specified as logical predications or identities in the first place? What about syntax? Does it have a problem-free definition of predication that might serve as a way of distinguishing meanings? I answer in the negative in both cases. From there the copula itself is studied, and I argue that it isn't any kind of real lexical verb that can be semantically ambiguous (like the verb \textit{bank} can in \textit{I'm going down a driveway banked by boulders and wildflowers} vs.\ \textit{I banked the cheque then went for lunch}). I then give some examples of the sort of thing linguists have shown copulas actually can do. I argue that distinguishing copular sentence meanings is not something that can be truly \textit{explained} in logical or syntactic terms; the best we can hope for is to \textit{describe} the different uses of the biological capacity for language, to talk of `functions' of copular sentences and their components. I argue for an approach to a full description of copular sentences that is based mainly on use and information structure properties of the flankers of the copula. Different permutations of these give rise to different sentence types, and thus to a more pluralistic copular taxonomy. Syntax has a foundational role, but it does not serve to discriminate copular sentence meanings. Copular sentences are argued to be \textit{uniformly} syntactic predications. Overall, then, I argue that the taxonomy of copular sentences cannot be explained in terms of logical predication or logical identity. Rather, we can describe (not explain) the distinct meaning types of copular sentences in terms of the number of different licit permutations of flanker properties, where these are mainly use and information structure properties

Poison hemlock (conium Maculatum L.) : biology, implications for pastures and response to herbicides

The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on September 19, 2008)Thesis (M.S.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2008.Poison hemlock is a biennial, toxic and invasive weed that grows along roadsides, pastures and low-disturbed areas. Research was conducted to determine seed ecology, growth characteristics and response to herbicides. Seed production, viability and germination of poison hemlock seed were measured. Dry biomass of poison hemlock was measured through time in the early spring in relation to plant density. Herbicide efficacy experiments were conducted in the spring using amino acid biosynthesis inhibitors, acetolactate synthase (ALS) inhibitors and growth regulator herbicides. Results indicate poison hemlock is a prolific and viable seed producer (between 1,700 to 39,000 seed per plant), and portions of seed were capable of germination upon maturity, having no dormancy restriction. Poison hemlock plants were actively growing in mid-March, and growth increased exponentially through mid-May. Biomass produced between mid-March and mid-May, considering all plant densities studied, range from 13 to 3,464 kg/ha. Most herbicides were effective for poison hemlock control, but ALS herbicides seemed to be the most consistent ([greater than] 84%).Includes bibliographical references

Invited Paper - A Profile of Prolonged, Persistent SSH Attack on a Kippo Based Honeynet

This paper is an investigation focusing on activities detected by SSH honeypots that utilised kippo honeypot software. The honeypots were located across a variety of geographical locations and operational platforms. The honeynet has suffered prolonged, persistent and attack from a /24 network which appears to be of Chinese geographical origin. In addition to these attacks, other attackers have been successful in compromising real hosts in a wide range of other countries that were subsequently involved in attacking the honeypot machines in the honeynet. Keywords: Cyber Security, SSH, Secure Shell, Honeypots, Kipp

Titanium Nitride Diffusion Barriers and Schottky Diodes

Titanium nitride was studied for use in two applications: as a barrier metal in an aluminum metallization and as a Schottky diode metal on n type silicon(ND = 1X1015/cm3). The films were reactively sputtered in an RiT magnetron configuration using a Perkin-Elmer 2400 sputtering system. Effects of heat treatment temperature on performance were studied for both applications. TiN as sputtered in this experiment was shown to be an effective barrier against Al-Si interdiffusion. Annealing temperature was shown to affect the Schottky barrier height, which ranged from 471 to 658 mV as calculated from specific contact resistivity

Gadobutrol-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance imaging for detection of coronary artery disease

BACKGROUND: Gadolinium-based contrast agents were not approved in the United States for detecting coronary artery disease (CAD) prior to the current studies. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to determine the sensitivity and specificity of gadobutrol for detection of CAD by assessing myocardial perfusion and late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging. METHODS: Two international, single-vendor, phase 3 clinical trials of near identical design, GadaCAD1 and GadaCAD2, were performed. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) included gadobutrol-enhanced first-pass vasodilator stress and rest perfusion followed by LGE imaging. CAD was defined by quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) but computed tomography coronary angiography could exclude significant CAD. RESULTS: Because the design and results for GadaCAD1 (n = 376) and GadaCAD2 (n = 388) were very similar, results were summarized as a fixed-effect meta-analysis (n = 764). The prevalence of CAD was 27.8% defined by a ≥70% QCA stenosis. For detection of a ≥70% QCA stenosis, the sensitivity of CMR was 78.9%, specificity was 86.8%, and area under the curve was 0.871. The sensitivity and specificity for multivessel CAD was 87.4% and 73.0%. For detection of a 50% QCA stenosis, sensitivity was 64.6% and specificity was 86.6%. The optimal threshold for detecting CAD was a ≥67% QCA stenosis in GadaCAD1 and ≥63% QCA stenosis in GadaCAD2. CONCLUSIONS: Vasodilator stress and rest myocardial perfusion CMR and LGE imaging had high diagnostic accuracy for CAD in 2 phase 3 clinical trials. These findings supported the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of gadobutrol-enhanced CMR (0.1 mmol/kg) to assess myocardial perfusion and LGE in adult patients with known or suspected CAD

Seawater Desalination for Municipal Water Production

This paper examines the optimal allocation of several inputs in the context of seawater desalination by reverse osmosis (RO) as a source of municipal (or commercial or industrial) water. A cost-minimization model is developed, a production function is estimated, and sensitivity analyses are conducted using the optimization model to investigate the effect of environmental conditions and economic factors on the optimal input portfolio and the cost of operating a modeled seawater desalination facility. The objectives of this paper are to better understand the effect on the seawater desalination facility’s costs and input portfolio from changes in water quality, membrane lifespan, daily operations schedule, and energy prices. Findings include that lower total facility costs are associated with warm-weather water quality parameters, longer membrane life, and mid-range daily operations schedule (14.265 hours/day). Under most conditions, an interruptible power supply regime reduces facility costs. Exceptions include when the interruptible power supply regime implies significant reductions in operating hours and the associated reduction in energy price is very small.water, production, seawater desalination, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Digital Equity in the Time of COVID: Student Use of Technology for Equitable Outcomes

This issue brief is the third and final in a series published by the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium (MERC) addressing digital equity in K-12 schools. It examines research regarding students’ use of and outcomes related to technology. Research finds that inequities exist in use and outcomes for students based on gender, language, ability, race, SES and other sociocultural factors. Based on these inequities, theoretical and practical recommendations are discussed

Artemisinin-Derived Dimers Have Greatly Improved Anti-Cytomegalovirus Activity Compared to Artemisinin Monomers

Artesunate, an artemisinin-derived monomer, was reported to inhibit Cytomegalovirus (CMV) replication. We aimed to compare the in-vitro anti-CMV activity of several artemisinin-derived monomers and newly synthesized artemisinin dimers.Four artemisinin monomers and two novel artemisinin-derived dimers were tested for anti-CMV activity in human fibroblasts infected with luciferase-tagged highly-passaged laboratory adapted strain (Towne), and a clinical CMV isolate. Compounds were evaluated for CMV inhibition and cytotoxicity.Artemisinin dimers effectively inhibited CMV replication in human foreskin fibroblasts and human embryonic lung fibroblasts (EC(50) for dimer sulfone carbamate and dimer primary alcohol 0.06+/-0.00 microM and 0.15+/-0.02 microM respectively, in human foreskin fibroblasts) with no cytotxicity at concentrations required for complete CMV inhibition. All four artemisinin monomers (artemisinin, artesunate, artemether and artefanilide) shared a similar degree of CMV inhibition amongst themselves (in microM concentrations) which was significantly less than the inhibition achieved with artemisinin dimers (P<0.0001). Similar to monomers, inhibition of CMV with artemisinin dimers appeared early in the virus life cycle as reflected by decreased expression of the immediate early (IE1) protein.Artemisinin dimers are potent and non-cytotoxic inhibitors of CMV replication. These compounds should be studied as potential therapeutic agents for the treatment of CMV infection in humans

A spatial econometric approach to designing and rating scalable index insurance in the presence of missing data

Index-Based Livestock Insurance has emerged as a promising market-based solution for insuring livestock against drought-related mortality. The objective of this work is to develop an explicit spatial econometric framework to estimate insurable indexes that can be integrated within a general insurance pricing framework. We explore the problem of estimating spatial panel models when there are missing dependent variable observations and cross-sectional dependence, and implement an estimable procedure which employs an iterative method. We also develop an out-of-sample efficient cross-validation mixing method to optimise the degree of index aggregation in the context of spatial index models