The Rhombi-Chain Bose-Hubbard Model: geometric frustration and interactions

We explore the effects of geometric frustration within a one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model using a chain of rhombi subject to a magnetic flux. The competition of tunnelling, self-interaction and magnetic flux gives rise to the emergence of a pair-superfluid (pair-Luttinger liquid) phase besides the more conventional Mott-insulator and superfluid (Luttinger liquid) phases. We compute the complete phase diagram of the model by identifying characteristic properties of the pair-Luttinger liquid phase such as pair correlation functions and structure factors and find that the pair-Luttinger liquid phase is very sensitive to changes away from perfect frustration (half-flux). We provide some proposals to make the model more resilient to variants away from perfect frustration. We also study the bipartite entanglement properties of the chain. We discover that, while the scaling of the block entropy pair-superfluid and of the single-particle superfluid leads to the same central charge, the properties of the low-lying entanglement spectrum levels reveal their fundamental difference.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure

Mood-congruent and mood-incongruent psychotic symptoms in major depression: The role of severity and personality

Background: Whether psychotic symptoms in major depression (MD) are better explained by a severity model or by a vulnerability model, with personality as a predisposing factor, is still debated. The aim of the present study was to evaluate in MD the relationship between the content of psychotic features (mood congruent (MC) or mood incongruent (MI)) and severity of depression or personality traits. Methods: 62 inpatients affected by MD with psychotic features were divided into three groups on the basis of the content of psychotic symptoms: MC, MI, mixed MC-MI. All subjects completed the SCID-IV, the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression. Personality was assessed after MD remission. Results: MI psychotic symptoms were positively associated with schizotypal traits, whereas MC symptoms were positively related to obsessive-compulsive traits and severity of depression. Patients with both MC and MI psychotic symptoms were characterized by a personality profile and depression severity standing in a middle position between the MC and MI groups. Limitations: The main limitations of the study are represented by the small sample size, the time of assessment of personality and the inclusion of only unipolar depression. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that both depression severity and personality profile, independently from each other, model the content of psychotic symptoms, confirming the validity of subgrouping psychotic depression into two distinct MC and MI types and supporting the inclusion of a third mixed MC-MI type because of its intermediate position in personality profile and severity between the MC or MI group. © 2012 Elsevier B.V

Ergin Öpengin. The Mukri Variety of Central Kurdish. Grammar, Texts, and Lexicon

Le Mukri ou Mukriyani est une variété de kurde parlée autour de Mahabad, en Iran, très proche du kurde de Suleimaniya, mais présentant néanmoins plusieurs caractéristiques phonologiques et morphologiques. Après une introduction socio-linguistique sur le Mukri, le chapitre 2 contient “A descriptive and typologically-oriented sketch of the phonology of Mukri Kurdish” (§2.2) et “morphology and syntax of Mukri” (§2.3). La description s’appuie sur un corpus recueilli au Kurdistan iranien de 2009 à..

Jaroslava Obrtelová. From Oral to Written. A Text-linguistic Study of Wakhi

Publication d’une thèse soutenue à Uppsala, ce travail porte sur les différences d’usage linguistique entre écrit et parlé en wakhi. Langue iranienne orientale parlé au Pamir, éminemment orale, le wakhi a commencé à être doté d’une littérature écrite seulement à partir de 2012. Le corpus utilisé pour cette étude inclue 24 textes oraux, recueillis au cours de cinq missions effectuées au Tadjikistan entre 2010 et 2015, et 29 textes écrits, extraits de livres publiés entre 2012 et 2016 ou inédit..

Zeeya A. Pashtoon. Pashto-English Dictionary

Le dictionnaire pashto-russe de M.G. Aslanov (Afgansko-russki slovar’. Moskva, 1966) demeure encore aujourd’hui, à presque 50 ans de sa publication, une référence indispensable pour la pashtologie internationale. Cette première édition du Pashto-English Dictionary représente quasiment la traduction littérale de cet ouvrage : cela va sans dire, un outil utile et très commode, voire essentiel pour tous ceux qui ne sont pas en mesure de lire le russe. Les 60 000 mots contenus à l’intérieur en fo..

Nicholas Sims-Williams, James Hamilton. Turco-Sogdian Documents from 9th–10th century Dunhuang

Cet ouvrage, essentiellement la traduction anglaise de Documents turco-sogdiens du IXe-Xe siècle de Touen-houang, London : School of Oriental and African Studies, 1990 (= DTS), contient l’édition de huit documents « turco-sogdiens », qui « attestent une variété jusqu’ici inconnue du sogdien tardif incorporant des éléments turcs et, à un moindre degré, chinois » (DTS, p. 10). Les huit documents (de A à H) sont de longueur et contenu différents : A. 25 lignes contenant une liste de pièces d’éto..

Bahareh Soohani. The phonology of Iranian-Balochi dialects: description and analysis

Cette thèse, soutenue à l’Université de Leyde, porte sur l’analyse des traits phonologiques des dialectes du baloutchi iranien (provinces de Sistan et Balochistan), en particulier les dialectes Sarawani et Lashari et le parler de Mirjaveh. Ce travail « has no ambition to offer innovative and new phonological phenomena, but rather to present and analyze new data for Balochi » (p. 1). Le chapitre introductif offre une brève présentation des études antérieures sur le système phonologique et phon..

Sima Zolfaghari. The Bakhtiaris: an anthropological-linguistic lexical study of Haft Lang nomads of southwestern Iran

Cet ouvrage porte sur la description linguistique et anthropologique des Bakhtiaris, population chiite, en partie nomade, répandue en Iran entre les villes d’Esfahān et Ahvaz, dans le Khuzestān et le Lorestān, entre autres. Le bakhtiari est une langue iranienne sud-occidentale, parlée en 2001 par environ un million de locuteurs, mais très peu étudiée. L’ouvrage est arrangé en deux sections. Dans la première, après une introduction qui expose l’objet, la méthodologie et l’organisation du trav..

The effect of severity and personality on the psychotic presentation of major depression

The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether symptom severity or personality traits are associated with psychotic symptoms in major depression (MD), since it is still debated whether psychotic depression represents the most severe form of depression or the effect of personality structure. The study included 163 patients affected by MD who were divided into four groups on the basis of the presence/absence of melancholic features and psychotic symptoms. All subjects completed the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Disorders (SCID-IV), the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders (SIDP-IV) and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (Ham-D). Personality was assessed after MD remission (absence of DSM-IV criteria and Ham-D score lower than 7 for at least 2 months). Psychotic symptoms were positively associated with symptom severity (higher Ham-D total score) and with paranoid and schizotypal traits and negatively related to histrionic traits. Our data support the view that the effect of paranoid-schizotypal traits and symptom severity on the presence of psychotic symptoms in MD occurs separately and they are independent of each other. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd

The TAS-20 more likely measures negative affects rather than alexithymia itself in patients with major depression, panic disorder, eating disorders and substance use disorders

Background This study evaluates whether the difference in Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 item (TAS-20) between patients with major depression (MD), panic disorder (PD), eating disorders (ED), and substance use disorders (SUD) and healthy controls persisted after controlling for the severity of anxiety and depression. Methods Thirty-eight patients with MD, 58 with PD, 52 with ED, and 30 with SUD and 78 healthy controls (C) completed the TAS-20, the Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (Ham-A), the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (Ham-D). Results The differences in TAS-20 scores observed between patient groups, regardless of the type of their disorders, and controls disappeared after controlling for the effect of anxiety and depression severity. In contrast, the differences in severity of anxiety and depression between patients and controls were still present, after excluding the effect of alexithymic levels. Conclusions Our data suggest that alexithymic levels, as measured by the TAS-20, are modulated by the severity of symptoms, supporting the view that alexithymia can represent a state phenomenon in patients with MD, PD, ED and SUD, because the TAS-20 seems overly sensitive to a general distress syndrome, and it is more likely to measure negative affects rather than alexithymia itself. \ua9 2014 Elsevier Inc