2,778 research outputs found
What is India speaking: The "Hinglish" invasion
While language competition models of diachronic language shift are
increasingly sophisticated, drawing on sociolinguistic components like variable
language prestige, distance from language centers and intermediate bilingual
transitionary populations, in one significant way they fall short. They fail to
consider contact-based outcomes resulting in mixed language practices, e.g.
outcome scenarios such as creoles or unmarked code switching as an emergent
communicative norm. On these lines something very interesting is uncovered in
India, where traditionally there have been monolingual Hindi speakers and
Hindi/English bilinguals, but virtually no monolingual English speakers. While
the Indian census data reports a sharp increase in the proportion of
Hindi/English bilinguals, we argue that the number of Hindi/English bilinguals
in India is inaccurate, given a new class of urban individuals speaking a mixed
lect of Hindi and English, popularly known as "Hinglish". Based on
predator-prey, sociolinguistic theories, salient local ecological factors and
the rural-urban divide in India, we propose a new mathematical model of
interacting monolingual Hindi speakers, Hindi/English bilinguals and Hinglish
speakers. The model yields globally asymptotic stable states of coexistence, as
well as bilingual extinction. To validate our model, sociolinguistic data from
different Indian classes are contrasted with census reports: We see that
purported urban Hindi/English bilinguals are unable to maintain fluent Hindi
speech and instead produce Hinglish, whereas rural speakers evidence
monolingual Hindi. Thus we present evidence for the first time where an
unrecognized mixed lect involving English but not "English", has possibly taken
over a sizeable faction of a large global population.Comment: This paper has been withdrawan as the model has now been modified and
the existing model has some error
High-level Cryptographic Abstractions
The interfaces exposed by commonly used cryptographic libraries are clumsy,
complicated, and assume an understanding of cryptographic algorithms. The
challenge is to design high-level abstractions that require minimum knowledge
and effort to use while also allowing maximum control when needed.
This paper proposes such high-level abstractions consisting of simple
cryptographic primitives and full declarative configuration. These abstractions
can be implemented on top of any cryptographic library in any language. We have
implemented these abstractions in Python, and used them to write a wide variety
of well-known security protocols, including Signal, Kerberos, and TLS.
We show that programs using our abstractions are much smaller and easier to
write than using low-level libraries, where size of security protocols
implemented is reduced by about a third on average. We show our implementation
incurs a small overhead, less than 5 microseconds for shared key operations and
less than 341 microseconds (< 1%) for public key operations. We also show our
abstractions are safe against main types of cryptographic misuse reported in
the literature
Enhanced Removal Efficiency of Arsenic and Copper from Aqueous Solution Using Activated Acorus calamus Based Adsorbent
Water security, due to heavy metal pollution in water resources, has become a serious problem in modern urbanized society. Plants with a good source of cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin, lignin, etc., are the most promising adsorbents for the removal of heavy metals from water. In this work, for the first time, a low-cost local plant named Acorus calamus (AC; flag root or sweet flag) and citric acid modified AC root powder (CAMAC) were used as potential adsorbents. The samples were characterized by SEM, FT-IR, XRD, and the sorption properties were investigated by different parameters, such as solution pH, batch kinetic study, batch isotherm, effect of adsorbent dose, effect of initial concentration, and effect of contact time. The results of ACRP on removal efficiency of copper (II) and arsenic (III) in an aqueous solution showed an excellent adsorption behavior (~ 80 % adsorption efficiency). This study opens up an easy and economical method for the decontamination of harsh polluting metal ions from water.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research Notes: Potential of exotic soybeans in the sub-montane region of Himachal Pradesh (India)
Himachal Pradesh is a hilly state of Northern India , with its global location between 75°45\u27 - 79°04 \u27 E longitude and 30°22\u27 - 33°12\u27 N latitude. In this part of the country, soybean is indigenously grown as a rainy season crop up to an altitude of 1800 m above mean sea level . The indigenous soybean comprise small seeded, twining type low- yielding varieties
Limits on the time variation of the electromagnetic fine-structure constant in the low energy limit from absorption lines in the spectra of distant quasars
Most of the successful physical theories rely on the constancy of few
fundamental quantities (such as the speed of light, , the fine-structure
constant, \alpha, the proton to electron mass ratio, \mu, etc), and
constraining the possible time variations of these fundamental quantities is an
important step toward a complete physical theory. Time variation of \alpha can
be accurately probed using absorption lines seen in the spectra of distant
quasars. Here, we present the results of a detailed many-multiplet analysis
performed on a new sample of Mg II systems observed in high quality quasar
spectra obtained using the Very Large Telescope. The weighted mean value of the
variation in \alpha derived from our analysis over the redshift range 0.4<z<2.3
is \Delta\alpha/\alpha = (-0.06+/-0.06) x 10^{-5}. The median redshift of our
sample (z=1.55) corresponds to a look-back time of 9.7 Gyr in the most favored
cosmological model today. This gives a 3\sigma limit, -2.5 x 10^{-16} yr^-1
<(\Delta\alpha/\alpha\Delta t) <+1.2x10^{-16} yr^-1, for the time variation of
\alpha, that forms the strongest constraint obtained based on high redshift
quasar absorption line systems.Comment: uses revtex, 4 pages 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical
Review Letter
Pancreatic Enzyme Supplementation in Acute Pancreatitis
This study evaluates the effect of oral pancreatic enzyme supplements on pain, analgesic requirement
and the incidence of complications in patients with acute pancreatitis. This double blind, prospectively
randomised placebo controlled study included 23 patients. Pain was monitored using a visual analogue
scale; the analgesic requirement was assessed with a numerical score
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