On Functional Load and its Relation to the Actuation Problem

There have been many attempts to address the actuation problem using interspeaker variation (Baker et al. 2011), articulatory biases (Sóskuthy 2013), and informativity (Cohen Priva 2017). In this work we study another factor, functional load, by examining ongoing mergers in English and Dutch, trying to isolate the conditions under which functional load has a detectable effect in preventing a merger from the conditions under which no effect is visible. The effect is clear in cases of unconditioned mergers, like devoicing of Dutch fricatives, but unclear in cases of conditioned mergers, like the loss of a contrast in rhotic environments in English. We discuss the implications of these findings for the actuation problem and for phonological acquisition

Use of simple body measurements and allometry to predict the chemical growth and feed intake in pigs

Nel lavoro si propone una procedura per stimare le variazioni di composizione chimica corporea e dell'in gestione alimentare di suini, allevati in condizioni non limitanti, basata su rilievi di peso vivo (BW) e di spessore del grasso dorsale (P2) ripetuti a diverse età. Si è utilizzata una banca dati riguardante 920 suini ibridi maschi (Goland) alimentati ad libitum che ha fornito informazioni individuali di BW, misurato a 71 ± 4 (t1), 126 ± 5 (t2) and 184 ± 5 (t3) giorni di età, di P2, misurato alle età t2 e t3, e di ingestioni ali mentari (FI), registrate nell'intervallo di tempo tra t2 e t3 mediante stazioni di alimentazione automatiz zate (IVOG). La massa corporea di lipidi (kg) è stata stimata con l'equazione L= (9,17 + 0,70*P2)*BW/100 e gli altri costituenti corporei sono stati calcolati dal peso vivo netto meno la frazione lipidica, utilizzando funzioni di allometria. Dai cambiamenti stimati di composizione corporea tra le età t2 e t3 sono stati quindi valutati i fabbisogni di energia per il mantenimento e per la crescita ottenendo i cor rispondenti quantitativi di mangime previsti per il periodo di crescita in esame (PFI) per ciascun indivi duo. I valori misurati di consumo alimentare (FI) ottenuti dalle stazioni IVOG sono stati sottoposti ad ana lisi della varianza per gli effetti: mese, partita (entro mese), BWt2, P2t2, accrescimento medio giornaliero e variazioni di P2 nel periodo tra t2 e t3. I valori di FI sono stati anche analizzati sostituendo, come fonti di variazione, le misure corporee dirette con stime derivate di PFI. Risultati. L'approccio seguito ha con sentito di stimare i parametri delle curve di Gompertz che definiscono la crescita proteica potenziale di ciascun individuo, la massa proteica matura (Pm, kg), il coefficiente di accrescimento relativo (B, d-1) e il rapporto lipidi:proteine a maturità (Lm/Pm), risultati in media pari a 43,5 ± 5,8 kg, 0,0116 ± 0,0011 d-1 e 1,81 ± 0,30, rispettivamente. Nel periodo compreso tra t2 e t3 la massa proteica mediamente pre sente è risultata pari a 18,5 + 1,6 kg e le ritenzioni medie di proteine e lipidi sono state in media pari a 177 ± 21 e 239 ± 62 g/d, rispettivamente. I valori medi di FI e di PFI sono stati, rispettivamente, pari a 2,824 ± 0,448 and 2,814 ± 0,393 kg/d. Nel modello di analisi statistica la sostituzione delle misure cor poree dirette con i valori di PFI non ha modificato la proporzione di varianza spiegata (83%) né i valori di deviazione standard residua (0,199 g/d). I valori di "residual feed intake" risultanti dall'applicazione dei due modelli di analisi sono risultati altamente correlati (RSD= 0,043 kg/d; R2= 0.961). L'approccio impiegato ha quindi consentito di ottenere una buona interpretazione biologica della varianza dei valori di FI associata alle diverse misure corporee. La sostanziale coincidenza tra valori misurati e stimati di ingestione alimentare ha fornito una ragionevole garanzia sulla validità dei valori di composizione corpo rea stimati. Così, un protocollo di misure ripetute di peso vivo e di spessore del lardo dorsale nel corso della crescita, accoppiato ad elaborazioni di tipo allometrico, può essere proposto per stimare in vivo lo stato chimico corporeo di suini allevati in condizioni ritenute non limitanti. The paper provides a practical procedure to estimate the chemical composition of pigs, their compositional growth and the expected feed intake from measurements of body weight (BW) and backfat thickness (P2) serially performed in vivo. A farm data set provided information on 920 individuals including BW, measured at 71 ± 4 (t1), 126 ± 5 (t2) and 184 ± 5 (t3) days of age, of P2 at t2 and t3, and of voluntary daily feed intake (FI), recorded over the period from t2 to t3 by automated IVOG feeders. Body lipid mass was estimated as L= (9.17 + 0.70*P2) *BW/100 and the other chemical constituents were predicted from fat free empty body mass using Gompertz growth functions and allometry. Using individual changes of body composition from age t2 to t3, energy requirements for maintenance and growth and the corresponding predicted feed intakes (PFI) were estimated. Measured FI were analysed for the effects of month, batch (within month), BWt2, P2t2, average metabolic weight, average daily gain and variation of P2 from t2 to t3. The same model was run again replacing the direct simple body measurements (BW and P2) with the estimated values of PFI as source of variation. Results. The Gompertz estimates of mature protein mass (Pm), relative growth rate parameter (B) and lipid to protein ratio at maturity were 43.5 ± 5.8 kg, 0.0116 ± 0.0011 d-1 and 1.81 ± 0.30, respectively. The current protein mass averaged 18.5 + 1.6 kg and the daily retentions of protein and lipid were 177 ± 21 and 239 ± 62 g/d, respectively. FI and PFI averaged 2.824 ± 0.448 and 2.814 ± 0.393 kg/d, respectively. In the ANOVA of the FI data, the replacement of direct body measurements by PFI did not change the proportion of variance explained (83%) and the RSD (0.199 g/d). The two sets of residual feed intake values obtained from the two ANOVA were highly correlated (RSD = 0.043 kg/d; R2= 0.961). Agreement between predicted and determined feed intakes provided a reasonable guarantee to the estimated (based on BW and P2) changes of body composition. Thus, a scheduled protocol of measurement of BW and P2 over the course of growth, coupled with the use of allometry, can be proposed to estimate in vivo the change of the chemical status of pigs kept under non limiting conditions

Learning implicational models of universal grammar parameters

The use of parameters in the description of natural language syntax has to balance between the need to discriminate among (sometimes subtly different) languages, which can be seen as a cross-linguistic version of Chomsky's descriptive adequacy (Chomsky, 1964), and the complexity of the acquisition task that a large number of parameters would imply, which is a problem for explanatory adequacy. Here we first present a novel approach in which machine learning is used to detect hidden dependencies in a table of parameters. The result is a dependency graph in which some of the parameters can be fully predicted from others. These findings can be then subjected to linguistic analysis, which may either refute them by providing typological counter-examples of languages not included in the original dataset, dismiss them on theoretical grounds, or uphold them as tentative empirical laws worth of further study. Machine learning is also used to explore the full sets of parameters that are sufficient to distinguish one historically established language family from others. These results provide a new type of empirical evidence about the historical adequacy of parameter theories

Risks associated with intensive blood pressure control in older patients

Hypertension management forms a cornerstone of cardiovascular prevention. Strong evidence is available supporting the benefits of blood pressure (BP) lowering in older adults and recent studies indicate that intensive BP control may provide additional advantages on cardiovascular and mortality risk, also at older ages. Yet, in older adults the cardiovascular benefit of intensive treatment may come at the expense of increase in adverse events. Indeed, advanced age and frailty may modify the risk/benefit ratio of BP lowering due to a greater predisposition to hypotension and more severe consequences deriving from treatment-related adverse effects. This mostly applies to individuals with poor health status and limited life expectancy, in whom aggressive BP lowering may not lead to cardiovascular benefits, but rather increase the risk of short-term treatment-related complications. Furthermore, the potential harms of intensive BP control might be underestimated in clinical trials due to exclusion criteria which preclude patients with frailty and multimorbidity from being eligible. Syncope and falls are the most frequently mentioned antihypertensive-related safety concern, but aggressive BP lowering may negatively affect also renal function, cognitive performance, quality of life and survival. With the growing emphasis on intensive treatment strategies, raising awareness on potential harms associated with aggressive BP lowering might help improve hypertension management in older adults and encourage implementation of clinical research on safety issues. Given these premises, we present a narrative review illustrating the most relevant risk potentially associated with intensive BP control in older patients

Formal linguistics as a cue to demographic history

Beyond its theoretical success, the development of molecular genetics has brought about the possibility of extraordinary progress in the study of classification and in the inference of the evolutionary history of many species and populations. A major step forward was represented by the availability of extremely large sets of molecular data suited to quantitative and computational treatments. In this paper, we argue that even in cognitive sciences, purely theoretical progress in a discipline such as linguistics may have analogous impact. Thus, exactly on the model of molecular biology, we propose to unify two traditionally unrelated lines of linguistic investigation: 1) the formal study of syntactic variation (parameter theory) in the biolinguistic program 2) the reconstruction of relatedness among languages (phylogenetic taxonomy) The results of our linguistic analysis have thus been plotted against data from population genetics and the correlations have turned out to be largely significant: given a non-trivial set of languages/populations, the description of their variation provided by the comparison of systematic parametric analysis and molecular anthropology informatively recapitulates their history and relationships. As a result, we can claim that the reality of some parametric model of the language faculty and language acquisition/transmission (more broadly of generative grammar) receives strong and original support from its historical heuristic power. Then, on these grounds, we can begin testing Darwin's prediction that, when properly generated, the trees of human populations and of their languages should eventually turn out to be significantly parallel

Mathematical modeling of grammatical diversity supports the historical reality of formal syntax

Recent studies have taken advantage of computational techniques to investigate the evolution of Indo-European languages [1-3]. However, these methods are not able to overcome the time constraints on lexical evolution, which limit a broader application of the Classical Comparative Method, and therefore cannot be used above the family level. For this reason, evidence from cross-family relationships must come from other domains (e.g. phonetics, [4, 5]). Reference [6] shows that another domain, syntax, is a potential source for cross-family comparison. In this paper, we evaluate the method proposed in [6], the PCM, and argue through a random generation of possible grammars that syntactic distances can be useful to detect signals of historical relatedness above the Indo-European level, within some confidence probabilistic intervals

More rule than exception: parallel evidence of ancient migrations in grammars and genomes of Finno-Ugric speakers

To reconstruct aspects of human demographic history, linguistics and genetics complement each other, reciprocally suggesting testable hypotheses on population relationships and interactions. Relying on a linguistic comparative method based on syntactic data, here we focus on the non-straightforward relation of genes and languages among Finno-Ugric (FU) speakers, in comparison to their Indo-European (IE) and Altaic (AL) neighbors. Syntactic analysis, in agreement with the indications of more traditional linguistic levels, supports at least three distinct clusters, corresponding to these three Eurasian families; yet, the outliers of the FU group show linguistic convergence with their geographical neighbors. By analyzing genome-wide data in both ancient and contemporary populations, we uncovered remarkably matching patterns, with north-western FU speakers linguistically and genetically closer in parallel degrees to their IE-speaking neighbors, and eastern FU speakers to AL speakers. Therefore, our analysis indicates that plausible cross-family linguistic interference effects were accompanied, and possibly caused, by recognizable demographic processes. In particular, based on the comparison of modern and ancient genomes, our study identified the Pontic-Caspian steppes as the possible origin of the demographic processes that led to the expansion of FU languages into Europe

The cultural evolution of complexity in linguistic structure

In this work we compare, on the well explored domain of Indo-European languages, the phylogenetic outputs of three different sets of linguistic characters: traditional etymological judgments, a system for phonetic alignment of lists of cognates, and a set of values for generative syntactic parameters. The correlation and relative informativeness of distances and phylogenies generated by the three types of char- acters can thus be for the first time accurately evaluated, and the degree of success of the last two, innovative, alternatives to the classical comparative method can be so assessed

SEASONAL INFLUENZA VACCINE – VIEW OF THE ELDERLY

Objetivo: conhecer a opinião dos idosos a respeito da vacina contra a gripe sazonal, identificando os mitos e crenças que envolvem a vacinação contra esta patologia. Metodologia: pesquisa descritiva, exploratória com abordagem qualitativa, realizada com sete idosos internados em um hospital de médio porte da região Sul do Rio Grande do Sul, entre os dias 22 e 26 de março de 2010.  Os dados, obtidos através da entrevista semi-estruturada, foram avaliados a partir da pré-análise sendo definidas as unidades de registros e a classificação de temas. Resultados: identificou-se que os mitos e crenças que induzem os idosos a não realizarem a vacina, muitas vezes, são influenciados por suas experiências e as do seu círculo de convivência. Conclusão: destacou-se a necessidade de adoção de novas estratégias para a abordagem dos idosos frente à vacinação contra a gripe, as quais devem considerar o contexto cultural, visando à garantia de um cuidado transcultural

Machine Learning Models of Universal Grammar Parameter Dependencies

The use of parameters in the description of natural language syntax has to balance between the need to discriminate among (sometimes subtly different) languages, which can be seen as a cross-linguistic version of Chomsky’s (1964) descriptive adequacy, and the complexity of the acquisition task that a large number of parameters would imply, which is a problem for explanatory adequacy. Here we present a novel approach in which a machine learning algorithm is used to find dependencies in a table of parameters. The result is a dependency graph in which some of the parameters can be fully predicted from others. These empirical findings can be then subjected to linguistic analysis, which may either refute them by providing typological counter-examples of languages not included in the original dataset, dismiss them on theoretical grounds, or uphold them as tentative empirical laws worth of further study