Le Musée de la culture juive de Bratislava et les implications postcommunistes de son développement institutionnel

The central idea and the purported role which organize the work of a given Jewish museum clearly refer to the issues occupying its surrounding society with the greatest intensity or, alternatively, to the theme that could have the best chance of being digested by that society. Such issues may include the thematization of anti-Semitism or of the Holocaust, or may have a cultural mediating role. To what extent can we find a reflection of the Central-European Jewry’s multi-layered process of self-definition in the work of the Museum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava after 1989? Furthermore, to what extent does this process of self-definition follow the historical image conceived in the consciousness of the surrounding societies? What are the social conditions, the historical precursors and the future perspectives of these self-reflections? These are the questions to which I purport to find an answer in my article

Distribution and habitat preference of Leucobryum Hampe species in the Mecsek Mts. (Hungary)

The genus Leucobryum includes two species (Leucobryum glaucum and L. juniperoideum) in Hungary. While L. glaucum is sparse, L. juniperoideum is rather rare in the country. The first species is protected by law in Hungary and listed in Annex V of the Habitats Directive, therefore its monitoring is obligate for all members of the EU. Because these taxa are very similar and usually occur together, it is possible to confuse them in the field. During systematic surveys from 2016 to 2017, we have checked previously known localities and similar habitats in the Mecsek Mts. Following the standard protocol, 11 representative stands were sampled thoroughly in 1 ha quadrats. Within these quadrats five phytocoenological relevés were taken randomly in 100 m2 plots. The cover of Leucobryum [dm2] was recorded and the presence of co-occurring species per layer were listed in the 1 ha quadrats. The cover values of moss layer, bare surfaces and organic debris were estimated within the 100 m2 plots, while the exposure, the inclination and the distance from water sources were recorded in both scale. Soil pH[H2O] of the upper 5 cm layer of the ground were measured by Hannah Combo pH and EC meter. 43 Leucobryum stands were found in 11 flora mapping units (ca. 35 km2) in the Mecsek Mts. In 10 of these quadrats L. glaucum, and in 3 of them L. juniperoideum were recorded. The total cover of Leucobryum in the Mecsek is 20.500 m2 as a minimum. Considering that the last survey estimated 16.300 m2 as a minimum and 36.675 m2 as a maximum in the whole country, and there are several large white moss stands in other parts of Hungary, the results indicate the bias of the former surveys. Both species occurred on steep north-facing slopes in stands of acidophytic beech and oak forests. The average pH was 4.3 in the soil. Both the cover of Leucobryum and the frequency of bryophyte species, which prefer moist habitats, tend to be lower Eastwards in the Mecsek. According to the survey 129 vascular plant and 84 bryophyte species were found in the Leucobryum stands (approx. 30% of the total bryophyte flora of the Mecsek Mts). Most of the taxa are relatively frequent in fresh acidophytic habitats, but among the bryophytes there are several threatened species (e.g. EN: Buxbaumia viridis, Jungermannia leiantha, Marsupella funckii; VU: Buxbaumia aphylla, Scapania nemorea; DD: Campylopus pyriformis; NT: Bazzania trilobata, Calypogeia fissa, Diphyscium foliosum). Although there are several large stands of white moss in the Mecsek Mts., most of them (60%) are threatened by the expansion of Campylopus flexuosus, a strong competitor in mesic acidophytic forests. However, their habitat preference is +/- different, Campylopus introflexus (probably the most dangerous invasive bryophyte species in Europe) was also found in some stands of Leucobryum (26%). Since the expansion or invasion of these mosses is rather fast, monitoring of Leucobryum stands in the Mecsek Mts, is the problem of the present day

Towards capturing implicit innovative language attitude using an auditory Implicit Association Test

Since the birth of sociolinguistics the localization of innovative speakers has been regarded as a key issue in the study of language change. For this purpose, researchers traditionally categorize the speakers of a speech community on the basis of demographic and socioeconomic features; however, these parameters prove not to be sufficient to identify innovative speakers in all cases. It may be argued, however, that the speaker’s implicit attitude towards linguistic innovations may also be captured and may be a good indicator of the speaker’s innovative linguistic behavior. This line of research is not yet well elaborated on, probably due to the complexity of the attitude construct (which makes the measurement of implicit attitudes a challenging task), and the difficulty of grasping attitude towards linguistic innovations as such. The present study aims at addressing the potentials present in this aspect of sociolinguistic investigation. We review the psychological literature on the attitude construct and propose that a method borrowed from social psychology, the Implicit Association Test (IAT), may be adapted for the measurement of implicit attitude towards linguistic innovations if used with a linguistic variable that is subject to an ongoing language change as the test variable (or target). We report a pre-test conducted for variable selection for the adaptation of the IAT, and analyze data gathered by means of this newly created method for capturing implicit innovative linguistic attitude. We propose that this new IAT may be a useful tool in language change studies

Új fotonikai eszközök távközlési funkcióinak vizsgálata = Investigation on new photonic devices for telecommunication functions

A kutatások célja annak felderítése volt, hogy az új fotonikai eszközökkel milyen új távközlési feladatok oldhatók meg. Vizsgálatainkat a következő eszközökre terjesztettük ki: - VCSEL (vertical cavity surface emitting laser = függőleges üregű felületi sugárzó lézer) - SOA (semiconductor optical amplifier = félvezető optikai erősítő) - MCL (mikro-chip szilárd test lézer) - HPT (heterojunction photo transistor = hetero szerkezetű foto-tranzisztor) A következő főbb jellemzőket vizsgáltuk: - a jelelőállítás terén: módustisztaság, relatív intenzitás zaj (RIN), relaxációs rezonancia, modulációs meredekség és linearitás, hatásfok, stabilitás, stb. - az erősítés terén: spontán emissziós zaj, sávszélesség, erősítés, stabilitás, modulációs tulajdonságok, nemlinearitás, intermodulációs torzítás, keverés, stb. - a detekció terén: kvantum hatásfok, detekciós erősítés, zajtényező, sávszélesség, illesztés. A fenti vizsgálatok alapján új optikai távközlési eljárást dolgoztunk ki és vizsgáltunk meg. Az új rendszer épületek belső távközlésének a megoldására előnyösen használható. | The aim of the research was to disclose new application areas in telecommunications utilizing new photonic devices. The investigations were carried out on the following devices: - VCSEL (vertical cavity surface emitting laser) - SOA (semiconductor optical amplifier) - MCL (micro chip solid state laser) - HPT (heterojunction photo transistor) The following important characteristics were tested: - for signal generation: single mode operation, relative intensity noise (RIN), relaxation resonance, modulation sensitivity and linearity, efficiency, stability, etc. - for amplification: spontaneous emission noise, bandwidth, amplification, stability, modulation properties, nonlinearity, intermodulation distortion, mixing, etc. - for detection: responsivity, detection gain, noise factor, bandwidth, matching. Based on the beforegoing investigations, we developed and tested a new optical telecommunication method. The new system can be advantageously used for the internal communications in large buildings

A magánhangzós hosszúsági fonológiai kontraszt a dajkanyelvben a csecsemő életkorának függvényében

According to Lindblom’s H&H theory, speech production is speaker-oriented, i.e., in adverse listening conditions, speakers enhance intelligibility by the exaggeration of contrasts to produce „hyperspeech”. As infants are at an early stage of language acquisition, it is often hypothesized that infant directed speech (IDS) is also a type of hyperspeech (as opposed to adult directed speech, ADS, that is more on the hypospeech end of the continuum). Therefore, in IDS exaggeration of (linguistic) contrasts, e.g., phonemic contrasts, is suggested. With respect to the phonological vowel length contrast, there is only a limited amount of data available for IDS. Moreover, these data are also quite inconclusive (showing the expected contrast exaggeration in some cases, but revealing the lack of it in others), leaving us to the possible conclusion that contrast exaggeration is not necessary and/or economical for IDS speech to employ. In the present study we aim to contribute to this field of knowledge through the analysis of Hungarian IDS. Hungarian is quite unique (as opposed to e.g., English or Japanese), as it uses both spectral and durational cues combined to express phonological length contrast: while low vowels are distinguished both by spectral and durational cues, high vowels are claimed to be differentiated mostly by durational cues. We addressed the questions, i) if we find contrast exaggeration in IDS vs. ADS in Hungarian, ii) if durational or spectral cues exaggerate the contrast, and iii) if the patterns of long-short vowel contrasts show an interrelation with the infant’s age between the age of 0 and 8 months. We analysed /u/–/u:/ and /A/–/a:/ in 22 first-time mothers’ speech. Speakers read target vowels in one-syllable nonsense CVC words introduced as pixie names in a children’s story book to the experimenter (ADS), and then to their child (IDS), in pre-written sentences that contained the names in pitch-accented positions. We recorded IDS and ADS 3 times with each participant, i) the day after the baby was born (0m), ii) at the age of 4 months (4m), and iii) at the age of 8 months (8m) of the baby. We measured V durations, F1, and F2 values, and analysed absolute V durations, durational differences, and durational ratios of V pairs, and spatial differences of the Vs in the F1×F2 plane. Results showed that although in general mothers did lengthen V durations especially in long vowels, durational contrast was only exaggerated in IDS, if operationalized by durational differences (and not by duration ratios). Further, we found no enhancement in the spectral domain in any of the analysed pairs; and lastly, we found no effect of the baby’s age. We concluded that these results (especially the duration ratio data) provided further evidence to the claim that phonological vowel length contrast is not exaggerated in IDS, and pointed to the questions, if durational cues of length are sufficient in IDS to support distributional learning, or word segmentation skills developing around the age of 1 are needed for the babies to acquire phonological vowel length contrast