Rhythm and Vowel Quality in Accents of English

In a sample of 27 speakers of Scottish Standard English two notoriously variable consonantal features are investigated: the contrast of /m/ and /w/ and non-prevocalic /r/, the latter both in terms of its presence or absence and the phonetic form it takes, if present. The pattern of realisation of non-prevocalic /r/ largely confirms previously reported findings. But there are a number of surprising results regarding the merger of /m/ and /w/ and the loss of non-prevocalic /r/: While the former is more likely to happen in younger speakers and females, the latter seems more likely in older speakers and males. This is suggestive of change in progress leading to a loss of the /m/ - /w/ contrast, while the variation found in non-prevocalic /r/ follows an almost inverse sociolinguistic pattern that does not suggest any such change and is additionally largely explicable in language-internal terms. One phenomenon requiring further investigation is the curious effect direct contact with Southern English accents seems to have on non-prevocalic /r/: innovation on the structural level (i.e. loss) and conservatism on the realisational level (i.e. increased incidence of [r] and [r]) appear to be conditioned by the same sociolinguistic factors

High Throughput Genetic Characterisation of Caucasian Patients Affected by Multi-Drug Resistant Rheumatoid or Psoriatic Arthritis

Rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis (RA and PsA) are inflammatory rheumatic disorders characterised by a multifactorial etiology. To date, the genetic contributions to the disease onset, severity and drug response are not clearly defined, and despite the development of novel targeted therapies, ~10% of patients still display poor treatment responses. We characterised a selected cohort of eleven non-responder patients aiming to define the genetic contribution to drug resistance. An accurate clinical examination of the patients was coupled with several high-throughput genetic testing, including HLA typing, SNPs-array and Whole Exome Sequencing (WES). The analyses revealed that all the subjects carry very rare HLA phenotypes which contain HLA alleles associated with RA development (e.g., HLA-DRB1*04, DRB1*10:01 and DRB1*01). Additionally, six patients also carry PsA risk alleles (e.g., HLA-B*27:02 and B*38:01). WES analysis and SNPs-array revealed 23 damaging variants with 18 novel “drug-resistance” RA/PsA candidate genes. Eight patients carry likely pathogenic variants within common genes (CYP21A2, DVL1, PRKDC, ORAI1, UGT2B17, MSR1). Furthermore, “private” damaging variants were identified within 12 additional genes (WNT10A, ABCB7, SERPING1, GNRHR, NCAPD3, CLCF1, HACE1, NCAPD2, ESR1, SAMHD1, CYP27A1, CCDC88C). This multistep approach highlighted novel RA/PsA candidate genes and genotype-phenotype correlations potentially useful for clinicians in selecting the best therapeutic strategy

An outline of an asymmetric two-component theory of aspect

The paper presents the bases of an asymmetric two-component model of aspect. The main theoretical conclusion of the study is that (grammatical) viewpoint aspect and situation aspect are not independent aspectual levels, since the former often modifies the input situation aspect of the phrase/sentence. As it is shown, besides the arguments and adjuncts of the predicate, viewpoint aspect is also an important factor in compositionally marking situation aspect. The aspectual framework put forward in the paper is verified and illustrated on the basis of the aspectual system of Hungarian and some examples taken from English linguistic data

How Are ‘Barack Obama’ and ‘President Elect’ Differentially Stored in the Brain? An ERP Investigation on the Processing of Proper and Common Noun Pairs

BACKGROUND:One of the most debated issues in the cognitive neuroscience of language is whether distinct semantic domains are differentially represented in the brain. Clinical studies described several anomic dissociations with no clear neuroanatomical correlate. Neuroimaging studies have shown that memory retrieval is more demanding for proper than common nouns in that the former are purely arbitrary referential expressions. In this study a semantic relatedness paradigm was devised to investigate neural processing of proper and common nouns. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:780 words (arranged in pairs of Italian nouns/adjectives and the first/last names of well known persons) were presented. Half pairs were semantically related ("Woody Allen" or "social security"), while the others were not ("Sigmund Parodi" or "judicial cream"). All items were balanced for length, frequency, familiarity and semantic relatedness. Participants were to decide about the semantic relatedness of the two items in a pair. RTs and N400 data suggest that the task was more demanding for common nouns. The LORETA neural generators for the related-unrelated contrast (for proper names) included the left fusiform gyrus, right medial temporal gyrus, limbic and parahippocampal regions, inferior parietal and inferior frontal areas, which are thought to be involved in the conjoined processing a familiar face with the relevant episodic information. Person name was more emotional and sensory vivid than common noun semantic access. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:When memory retrieval is not required, proper name access (conspecifics knowledge) is not more demanding. The neural generators of N400 to unrelated items (unknown persons and things) did not differ as a function of lexical class, thus suggesting that proper and common nouns are not treated differently as belonging to different grammatical classes

Prosodic tools for language learning

In this paper we will be concerned with the role played by prosody in language learning and by the speech technology already available as commercial product or as prototype, capable to cope with the task of helping language learner in improving their knowledge of a second language from the prosodic point of view. The paper has been divided into two separate sections: Section One, dealing with Rhythm and all related topics; Section Two dealing with Intonation. In the Introduction we will argue that the use of ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) as Teaching Aid should be under-utilized and should be targeted to narrowly focussed spoken exercises, disallowing open-ended dialogues, in order to ensure consistency of evaluation. Eventually, we will support the conjoined use of ASR technology and prosodic tools to produce GOP useable for linguistically consistent and adequate feedback to the student. This will be illustrated by presenting State of the Art for both sections, with systems well documented in the scientific literature of the respective field. In order to discuss the scientific foundations of prosodic analysis we will present data related to English and Italian and make comparisons to clarify the issues at hand. In this context, we will also present the Prosodic Module of a courseware for computer-assisted foreign language learning called SLIM—an acronym for Multimedia Interactive Linguistic Software, developed at the University of Venice (Delmonte et al. in Convegno GFS-AIA, pp. 47–58, 1996a; Ed-Media 96, AACE, pp. 326–333, 1996b). The Prosodic Module has been created in order to deal with the problem of improving a student’s performance both in the perception and production of prosodic aspects of spoken language activities. It is composed of two different sets of Learning Activities, the first one dealing with phonetic and prosodic problems at word level and at syllable level; the second one dealing with prosodic aspects at phonological phrase and utterance suprasegmental level. The main goal of Prosodic Activities is to ensure consistent and pedagogically sound feedback to the student intending to improve his/her pronunciation in a foreign language

Costs and benefits of orthographic inconsistency in reading:evidence from a cross-linguistic comparison

We compared reading acquisition in English and Italian children up to late primary school analyzing RTs and errors as a function of various psycholinguistic variables and changes due to experience. Our results show that reading becomes progressively more reliant on larger processing units with age, but that this is modulated by consistency of the language. In English, an inconsistent orthography, reliance on larger units occurs earlier on and it is demonstrated by faster RTs, a stronger effect of lexical variables and lack of length effect (by fifth grade). However, not all English children are able to master this mode of processing yielding larger inter-individual variability. In Italian, a consistent orthography, reliance on larger units occurs later and it is less pronounced. This is demonstrated by larger length effects which remain significant even in older children and by larger effects of a global factor (related to speed of orthographic decoding) explaining changes of performance across ages. Our results show the importance of considering not only overall performance, but inter-individual variability and variability between conditions when interpreting cross-linguistic differences

Ramipril and Risk of Hyperkalemia in Chronic Hemodialysis Patients

Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors provide well known cardiorenal-protective benefits added to antihypertensive effects in chronic renal disease. These agents are underused in management of patients receiving hemodialysis (HD) because of common concern of hyperkalemia. However, few studies have investigated effect of renin angiotensin aldosterone system (RAAS) blockade on serum potassium in hemodialysis patients. We assessed the safety of ramipril in patients on maintenance HD. We enrolled 28 adult end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients treated by maintenance HD and prescribed them ramipril in doses of 1.25 to 5 mg per day. They underwent serum potassium concentration measurements before ramipril introduction and in 1 to 3 months afterwards. No significant increase in kalemia was found. Results of our study encourage the use of ACE inhibitors in chronically hemodialyzed patients, but close potassium monitoring is mandatory