An eye movement corpus study of the age-of-acquisition effect

In the present study, we investigated the effects of word-level age of acquisition (AoA) on natural reading. Previous studies, using multiple language modalities, showed that earlier-learned words are recognized, read, spoken, and responded to faster than words learned later in life. Until now, in visual word recognition the experimental materials were limited to single-word or sentence studies. We analyzed the data of the Ghent Eye-tracking Corpus (GECO; Cop, Dirix, Drieghe, & Duyck, in press), an eyetracking corpus of participants reading an entire novel, resulting in the first eye movement megastudy of AoA effects in natural reading. We found that the ages at which specific words were learned indeed influenced reading times, above other important (correlated) lexical variables, such as word frequency and length. Shorter fixations for earlier-learned words were consistently found throughout the reading process, in both early (single-fixation durations, first-fixation durations, gaze durations) and late (total reading times) measures. Implications for theoretical accounts of AoA effects and eye movements are discussed

Adjuvant radiotherapy after radical cystectomy for patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer : a phase II trial

Background: Neo-adjuvant chemotherapy followed by radical cystectomy with extended pelvic lymph node dissection is considered to be the treatment of choice for patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). Despite this aggressive treatment the outcome is poor and ultimately, 30% of the patients with >= pT3 tumors develop a pelvic recurrence. We hypothesize that postoperative adjuvant external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) might prevent local and lymph node recurrence and improve disease free-and overall survival as loco-regional recurrence is linked to the development of distant metastasis. Methods: We plan to perform a multicentric prospective phase two study including 76 patients. Eligible patients are patients with MIBC, treated with radical cystectomy and presenting with >= 1 of the following characteristics: - Pathological (p) T3 stage + presence of lymphovascular invasion on pathological examination - pT4 stage - < 10 lymph nodes removed - positive lymph nodes - positive surgical margins Patients will have a F-18-FDG PET-CT to rule out the presence of distant metastasis prior to EBRT. A median dose of 50 Gy in 25 fractions is prescribed to the pelvic lymph node regions with inclusion of the operative bladder bed in case of a positive surgical margin. Patients with suspected lymph nodes on PET-CT can still be included in the trial, but a simultaneous integrated boost to 74Gy to the positive lymph nodes will be delivered. Blood and urine samples will be collected on day-1 and last day of EBRT for evaluation of biomarkers. The primary endpoint is evaluation of acute >= Grade 3 intestinal or grade 4 urinary toxicity, in case of a neo-bladder reconstruction, within 12 weeks after EBRT. Secondary endpoints are: assessment of QOL, late RTOG toxicity, local control, disease free survival and overall survival. Biomarkers in urine and blood will be correlated with secondary survival endpoints. Discussion: This is a prospective phase 2 trial re-assessing the feasibility of adjuvant radiotherapy in high-risk MIBC

Cross-lingual neighborhood effects in generalized lexical decision and natural reading

The present study assessed intra- and cross-lingual neighborhood effects, using both a generalized lexical decision task and an analysis of a large-scale bilingual eye-tracking corpus (Cop, Dirix, Drieghe & Duyck, in press). Using new neighborhood density and frequency measures, the general lexical decision task yielded an inhibitory cross-lingual neighborhood density effect on reading times of second language words, replicating van Heuven, Dijkstra and Grainger (1998). Reaction times for native language words were not influenced by neighborhood density or frequency but error rates showed cross-lingual neighborhood effects depending on target word frequency. The large-scale eye movement corpus confirmed effects of cross-lingual neighborhood on natural reading, even though participants were reading a novel in a unilingual context. Especially second language reading and to a lesser extent native language reading were influenced by lexical candidates from the non-target language, although these effects in natural reading were largely facilitatory. These results offer strong and direct support for bilingual word recognition models that assume language-independent lexical access

Перспективность применения новых технических решений по усовершенствованию подготовки машинных классов на ЦОФ "Червоноградская"

Виконано аналіз існуючої технології і апаратурного оформлення вузла мокрого підготовчого грохотіння на ЦЗФ "Червоноградська". Запропоновані нові технічні рішення по удосконаленню технології підготовки машинних класів: прив’язка агрегатно установлених нерухомого гідрогрохота ГГН-4,2 і рухомого грохота ГІСТ-72, а також застосування комбінованого гідровібраційного метода розділення частинок на рухомій поверхні. Приведено опис і переваги нових технічних рішень по удосконаленню технології підготовки машинних класів на ЦЗФ "Червоноградська".Выполнен анализ существующей технологии и аппаратурного оформления узла мокрого подготовительного грохочения на ЦОФ "Червоноградская". Предложены новые технические решения по совершенствованию технологии подготовки машинных классов: привязка агрегатно установленных неподвижного гидрогрохота ГГН-4,2 и подвижного грохота ГИСТ-72, а также применение комбинированного гидровибрационного метода разделения частиц на подвижной поверхности. Приведено описание и преимущества новых технических решений по совершенствованию технологии подготовки машинных классов на ЦОФ "Червоноградская"

Beyond associations : do implicit beliefs play a role in smoking addiction?

A

Globalization and responsibility for human rights

In this article, we examine to what extent globalization has altered responsibilities for human rights. We give priority to negative human rights and take the violation of these rights as the baseline for determining harm and injustice. We will focus on the global economic order and on climate change and examine whether these aspects of globalization provide us with new reasons to value our relationships with distant others. We argue that, if a relationship of harm is established, fulfilling positive duties is no longer a matter of general charity but has become a special obligation of justice. Accordingly, human rights and corresponding obligations gain important normative weight. We propose to use the "vulnerability presumption principle" as a guideline in determining whether or not such a relationship of harm is established