Direct and secondary object ditransitive structures in Old Romanian

In the present article we investigate the ditransitive syntactic construction involving a [+animate] direct object and a [–animate] secondary object. The configuration, which was inherited from Latin, distinguishes Romanian from the other Romance languages, in which the corresponding pattern involves an indirect and a direct object. In Old Romanian, the pattern is well represented, being encountered in all types of texts. The configuration is examined in the following areas: the verbs that allow for it; the realizations of the secondary object; its particularities in Old Romanian texts

Nonlinear optical tagging diagnostic for the measurement of Fokker–Planck diffusion and electric fields

International audienceStrong optical pumping of ions can result after a few microseconds of resonance excitation in a laser beam. However, both Fokker-Planck diffusion and acceleration due to macroscopic electric fields can remove an ion from resonance by changing the ion velocity on a similar timescale. Therefore, the time dependence of laser induced fluorescence can be influenced by particle acceleration and velocity-space diffusion. This effect which has already been used to measured Fokker-Planck diffusion, is extended to include the influence of an electric field and used to measure the electric field associated with an electrostatic shock in a multipolar gas discharge

Substantive masive și abstracte pluralizate în româna veche

În urma examinării unui corpus bogat de limbă română veche, autorul ajunge la concluzia că fenomenul ‘pluralizării’ substantivelor masive și al celor abstracte este extrem de frecvent în româna veche. Efectele semantice ale pluralizării sînt asemănătoare pentru masive și abstracte, constînd în apariția unor varietăți semantice denotative și/sau conotative. Din ansamblul desinențelor de plural, dacoromâna și-a specializat una (desinența –uri) pentru pluralizarea masivelor. Evoluția desinenței –uri evidențiază un proces special, de convertire a unui semn gramatical (de plural) într-unul lexical (așa-numitele ‘plurale lexicale’). Deși ‘pluralele lexicale’ apar, izolat, și în alte limbi romanice, nicăieri nu au luat extinderea și regularitatea din română

Old Romanian pluralized mass and abstract nouns

The analysis of a rich old Romanian corpus shows that the ‘pluralization’ of mass and abstract nouns is extremely frequent in old Romanian. The semantic effects of pluralization are similar for mass and abstract nouns, consisting in the creation of denotative and/or connotative semantic variants. Of the plural endings, –uri is specialized for the pluralization of mass nouns in Daco-Romanian. The evolution of the ending –uri illustrates the specific process by which a grammatical (plural) morpheme is converted into a lexical morpheme (the so-called ‘lexical plurals’). ‘Lexical plurals’ have isolated occurrences in other Romance languages, but they have not reached the spread and regularity they display in Romanian

Reduction of the Number of Live Animals Used for Microsurgical Skill Acquisition: An Experimental Randomized Noninferiority Trial

Background Live animals have been used for decades as one of the many training models for developing surgical skills. Microsurgery in particular relies on training for skill acquisition and maintenance, using live animal models, especially rats (murine models). Efforts are underway to reduce the number of rats sacrificed to achieve this objective. Methods A group of students with minimal microsurgical experience, after having gone through a basic microsurgical course, were randomly split into three equal groups, all three groups following a 24-week standard training program based on low- and medium-fidelity training models with standardized murine training days. In addition to the standard training regimen, each participant performed supplementary training on live rats every 4, 6, or 8 weeks. According to the training program, the procedures have been performed on chicken legs, flower petals, and rats, each procedure being blindly assessed and evaluated using validated models and scales. The primary evaluated outcome was the Stanford Microsurgery and Resident Training (SMaRT) scale result of the final rat anastomosis performed by each group, for which the tested hypothesis was one of noninferiority. The secondary outcomes were represented by the final rat anastomosis time, final chicken leg anastomosis result and time, and the final petal score. Results After the 24th week, no differences were observed between the three groups regarding their microsurgical skills, as measured by the aforementioned surgical outcomes. All participants improved significantly during the study (mean [standard deviation] 19 ± 4 points on the SMaRT scale), with no significant differences between the groups, p < 0.001 for noninferiority. Conclusion A training regimen based on low- and moderate-fidelity models, with the addition of training on a live rat every 8 weeks was noninferior to a training regimen that used a live rat every 6 weeks and also noninferior to a training regimen that used a live rat every 4 weeks