First verbs : On the way to mini-paradigms

This 18th issue of ZAS-Papers in Linguistics consists of papers on the development of verb acquisition in 9 languages from the very early stages up to the onset of paradigm construction. Each of the 10 papers deals with first-Ianguage developmental processes in one or two children studied via longitudinal data. The languages involved are French, Spanish, Russian, Croatian, Lithuanien, Finnish, English and German. For German two different varieties are examined, one from Berlin and one from Vienna. All papers are based on presentations at the workshop 'Early verbs: On the way to mini-paradigms' held at the ZAS (Berlin) on the 30./31. of September 2000. This workshop brought to a close the first phase of cooperation between two projects on language acquisition which has started in October 1999: a) the project on "Syntaktische Konsequenzen des Morphologieerwerbs" at the ZAS (Berlin) headed by Juergen Weissenborn and Ewald Lang, and financially supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and b) the international "Crosslinguistic Project on Pre- and Protomorphology in Language Acquisition" coordinated by Wolfgang U. Dressler in behalf of the Austrian Academy of Sciences

First tentative conclusions on the early development of verb morphology

In these conclusions we can deal only with some of the tentative comparative results of the workshop papers on the early development of verb morphology. The main focus is on criteria of how the child detects morphology and how this emerging morphological competence develops in its earliest phases. In view of the purpose and tentative character of these conclusions, all references will be limited to the papers of the workshop and to earlier studies by workshop participants within the "Crosslinguistic Project on Pre- and Protomorphology in Language Acquisition". Much more will be given in the projected final publication

Vier Lieder nach Gedichten von Wolfgang Bittner

Die Vier Lieder nach Gedichten von Wolfgang Bittner entstanden 1987-88. Wolfgang Bittner hatte ich während meines Stipendienaufenthalts auf dem Künstlerhof Schreyahn (Niedersachsen) kennen und schätzen gelernt. Die Gedichte sind in dem Sonderband „Kopfsprünge“ (Spectrum-Verlag) mit Gedichten des 1941 geborenen, heute in Göttingen lebenden Schriftstellers erschienen. Nach zwei düsteren, emotional weit gespannten, langsamen Liedern folgt ein lyrisches Intermezzo (Nr. 3) und ein heiter-ironischer Abschluss in der Art eines „humpelnden“ Walzers. Die Lieder wurden 1992 von Andrea Drude (Sopran) und Christopher Oakden (Klavier) auf der Kammermusik-CD mit Werken von Matthias Drude eingespielt, die beim Komponisten erhältlich ist. (Matthias Drude):1. Geräusche beim Atmen 2. Kurz davor, etwas zu begreifen 3. Von weither 4. Sanierun

'Nur keine Sorge': Drei Lieder nach Gedichten von Wolfgang Bittner

„Nur keine Sorge“ ist ein dreiteiliger Liederzyklus nach satirischen Gedichten von Wolfgang Bittner, einem Schriftsteller, den ich während meines Stipendienaufenthalts auf dem Künstlerhof Schreyahn 1987 kennen und schätzen gelernt habe. Der Zyklus wurde komponiert für den Countertenor Reinhold Coors-Genetin, der damals an der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover studierte, an der ich als Lehrbeauftragter für Musiktheorie und Gehörbildung tätig war. An der Uraufführung 1993 in der hannoverschen Hochschule habe ich als Klavierbegleiter mitgewirkt. Es war dort zugleich mein letzter öffentlicher Auftritt vor meinem Wechsel an die Hochschule für Kirchenmusik Dresden.:1. Umweltfreundlich 2. Gerüchte 3. Abends Spielfil

Seasonal Predictability over Europe Arising from El Nino and Stratospheric Variability in the MPI-ESM Seasonal Prediction System

Predictability on seasonal time scales over the North Atlantic–Europe region is assessed using a seasonal prediction system based on an initialized version of the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM). For this region, two of the dominant predictors on seasonal time scales are El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events. Multiple studies have shown a potential for improved North Atlantic predictability for either predictor. Their respective influences are however difficult to disentangle, since the stratosphere is itself impacted by ENSO. Both El Niño and SSW events correspond to a negative signature of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which has a major influence on European weather. This study explores the impact on Europe by separating the stratospheric pathway of the El Niño teleconnection. In the seasonal prediction system, the evolution of El Niño events is well captured for lead times of up to 6 months, and stratospheric variability is reproduced with a realistic frequency of SSW events. The model reproduces the El Niño teleconnection through the stratosphere, involving a deepened Aleutian low connected to a warm anomaly in the northern winter stratosphere. The stratospheric anomaly signal then propagates downward into the troposphere through the winter season. Predictability of 500-hPa geopotential height over Europe at lead times of up to 4 months is shown to be increased only for El Niño events that exhibit SSW events, and it is shown that the characteristic negative NAO signal is only obtained for winters also containing major SSW events for both the model and the reanalysis data

Use of computed tomography to determine penetration paths and the distribution of melamine resin in thermally-modified beech veneers after plasma treatment

In this study, X-ray computed tomography was used to detect flow paths and the distribution of melamine resin in thermally-modified and subsequently plasma-treated beech veneers. By introducing iodide as a contrast agent, the melamine resin deposition in veneer samples could be visualized and quantified. The investigations showed that the deposition of melamine resin within the lumina and cell walls of the reference samples was limited to near-surface areas. In contrast to the reference, the plasma-treated samples showed a higher loading with the modifier, both in the near surface and in the deeper areas of the sample. Increased resin infiltration was observed in the production-related micro-cracks only in the plasma-treated samples. Plasma-treated samples displayed a significant increase in impregnated volume compared to non-plasma-treated samples, both in the lumina and cell wall areas. © 2020 The Author

Evidence of mild founder LMOD3 mutations causing nemaline myopathy 10 in Germany and Austria

Objective To expand the clinical and genetic spectrum of nemaline myopathy 10 by a series of Austrian and German patients with a milder disease course and missense mutations in LMOD3. Methods We characterized the clinical features and the genetic status of 4 unrelated adolescent or adult patients with nemaline myopathy. Results The 4 patients showed a relatively mild disease course. They all have survived into adulthood, 3 of 4 have remained ambulatory, and all showed marked facial weakness. Muscle biopsy specimens gave evidence of nemaline bodies. All patients were unrelated but originated from Austria (Tyrol and Upper Austria) and Southern Germany (Bavaria). All patients carried the missense variant c.1648C>T, p.(Leu550Phe) in the LMOD3 gene, either on both alleles or in trans with another missense variant (c.1004A>G, p.Gln335Arg). Both variants were not reported previously. Conclusions In 2014, a severe form of congenital nemaline myopathy caused by disrupting mutations in LMOD3 was identified and denoted as NEM10. Unlike the previously reported patients, who had a severe clinical picture with a substantial risk of early death, our patients showed a relatively mild disease course. As the missense variant c.1648C>T is located further downstream compared to all previously published LMOD3 mutations, it might be associated with higher protein expression compared to the reported loss-of-function mutations. The apparent clusters of 2 mild mutations in Germany and Austria in 4 unrelated families may be explained by a founder effect

EXACT2: the semantics of biomedical protocols

© 2014 Soldatova et al.; licensee BioMed Central. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: The reliability and reproducibility of experimental procedures is a cornerstone of scientific practice. There is a pressing technological need for the better representation of biomedical protocols to enable other agents (human or machine) to better reproduce results. A framework that ensures that all information required for the replication of experimental protocols is essential to achieve reproducibility. Methods: We have developed the ontology EXACT2 (EXperimental ACTions) that is designed to capture the full semantics of biomedical protocols required for their reproducibility. To construct EXACT2 we manually inspected hundreds of published and commercial biomedical protocols from several areas of biomedicine. After establishing a clear pattern for extracting the required information we utilized text-mining tools to translate the protocols into a machine amenable format. We have verified the utility of EXACT2 through the successful processing of previously ‘unseen’ (not used for the construction of EXACT2) protocols. Results: The paper reports on a fundamentally new version EXACT2 that supports the semantically-defined representation of biomedical protocols. The ability of EXACT2 to capture the semantics of biomedical procedures was verified through a text mining use case. In this EXACT2 is used as a reference model for text mining tools to identify terms pertinent to experimental actions, and their properties, in biomedical protocols expressed in natural language. An EXACT2-based framework for the translation of biomedical protocols to a machine amenable format is proposed. Conclusions: The EXACT2 ontology is sufficient to record, in a machine processable form, the essential information about biomedical protocols. EXACT2 defines explicit semantics of experimental actions, and can be used by various computer applications. It can serve as a reference model for for the translation of biomedical protocols in natural language into a semantically-defined format.This work has been partially funded by the Brunel University BRIEF award and a grant from Occams Resources