Thinking About Multiword Constructions: Usage‐Based Approaches to Acquisition and Processing

Usage‐based approaches to language hold that we learn multiword expressions as patterns of language from language usage, and that knowledge of these patterns underlies fluent language processing. This paper explores these claims by focusing upon verb–argument constructions (VACs) such as “V(erb) about n(oun phrase).” These are productive constructions that bind syntax, lexis, and semantics. It presents (a) analyses of usage patterns of English VACs in terms of their grammatical form, semantics, lexical constituency, and distribution patterns in large corpora; (b) patterns of VAC usage in child‐directed speech and child language acquisition; and (c) investigations of VAC free‐association and psycholinguistic studies of online processing. We conclude that VACs are highly patterned in usage, that this patterning drives language acquisition, and that language processing is sensitive to the forms of the syntagmatic construction and their distributional statistics, the contingency of their association with meaning, and spreading activation and prototypicality effects in semantic reference. Language users have rich implicit knowledge of the statistics of multiword sequences.Ellis & Ogden examine the acquisition, processing and usage of verb‐argument constructions in English. They analyze the semantic, grammatical and distributional features of these multiword constructions in a large corpus; describes their use by both L1 and L2 learners; and reviews psycholinguistic findings on their processing by native and non‐native speakers. The findings demonstrate that language users have rich implicit statistical knowledge of multiword patterns and use this knowledge in learning and processing.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137734/1/tops12256.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137734/2/tops12256_am.pd

Pesticides and bees: ecological-economic modelling of bee populations on farmland

Production of insect-pollinated crops typically relies on both pesticide use and pollination, leading to a potential conflict between these two inputs. In this paper we combine ecological modelling with economic analysis to investigate the effects of pesticide use on wild and commercial bees, whilst allowing farmers to partly offset the negative effects of pesticides on bee populations by creating more on-farm bee habitat. Farmers have incentives to invest in creating wild bee habitat to increase pollination inputs. However, the optimal allocation of on-farm habitat strongly depends on the negative effects of pesticides, with a threshold-like behaviour at a critical level of the impairment. When this threshold is crossed, the population of wild bees becomes locally extinct and their availability to pollinate breaks down. We also show that availability of commercial bees masks the decrease in pollination services which would otherwise incentivise farmers to conserve the wild pollinator population, therefore indirectly leading to local wild bee extinction. The paper demonstrat es the importance of combining ecological modelling with economics to study sustainability in the provision of ecosystem services in agro-ecosystems

The THISL SDR system at TREC-8

This paper describes the participation of the THISL group at the TREC-8 Spoken Document Retrieval (SDR) track. The THISL SDR system consists of the realtime version of the ABBOT large vocabulary speech recognition system and the THISLIR text retrieval system. The TREC-8 evaluation assessed SDR performance on a corpus of 500 hours of broadcast news material collected over a five month period. The main test condition involved retrieval of stories defined by manual segmentation of the corpus in which non-news material, such as commercials, were excluded. An optional test condition required required retrieval of the same stories from the unsegmented audio stream. The THISL SDR system participated at both test conditions. The results show that a system such as THISL can produce respectable information retrieval performance on a realistically-sized corpus of unsegmented audio material

Pirnilu Nintipungkupayi (Everyone Is a Teacher): Keeping Old People's Spirit Healthy Through Education

In the Ngaanyatjarra Lands of desert Western Australia, older people are being encouraged to participate meaningfully in student education. This initiative is being led by two of the authors of this article, senior Ngaanyatjarra women, both of whom work with the Ngaanyatjarra Lands School with its campuses in eight remote communities spread over hundreds of kilometres. Elderly men and women, some of whom are residents in the Ngaanyatjarra Aged Care home (Ngaanyatjarra Health Service, 2021), are eagerly participating in the planning of bush trips, gathering their traditional resources, seeds, grinding stones, bush resins, recalling stories, songs, and dances - as they prepare for the bush camps with students. During the camps the schoolteachers step back and the elderly lead in what is known as two‐way science. At first glance, this work may look like it is simply focused on the educational needs of students with senior Yarnangu acting in a supporting role. However, this article will demonstrate the continuous connections and responsibilities, laid out in the Tjukurrpa (the Dreaming), between the old and the young, to their ancestral lands. It sets out how according to "Tjukurrpa thinking," the principal way to provide good care is by helping senior people remain on country with family, pass on their knowledge to younger people, and thus keep strong languages and kurrunpa (people's spirit) alive

The Causes and Consequences of a Colonising Pollinator

Relatório de estágio do mestrado em Ensino da Educação Física dos Ensinos Básicos e Secundário, apresentado à Faculdade de Ciências do Desporto e da Educação Física da Universidade de CoimbraO Relatório Final de Estágio insere-se no âmbito da unidade curricular Relatório de Estágio, do 2º ano do Mestrado em Ensino da Educação Física dos Ensinos Básico e Secundário, da Faculdade de Ciências do Desporto e Educação Física da Universidade de Coimbra. Esta etapa representa o culminar da formação académica em que são colocados em prática, em contexto real, todos os conhecimentos adquiridos até ao momento. Todas as experiências vivenciadas, aprendizagens e conhecimentos adquiridos permitem-nos hoje o desempenho de uma prática pedagógica de mestria na área da Educação Física. O Relatório Final de Estágio pretende a realização de uma reflexão por parte do estagiário, relativa às atividades desenvolvidas e aprendizagens realizadas durante o estágio pedagógico, contemplando sempre as suas expectativas iniciais. Este documento contempla três grandes capítulos. O primeiro é uma área essencialmente descritiva relativamente à contextualização pedagógica. O segundo consiste numa reflexão crítica das práticas pedagógicas realizadas. Por último, o terceiro capítulo pretende ser um aprofundamento de um tema/problema. O tema/problema selecionado foram as atitudes dos alunos sem deficiência face inclusão de alunos com necessidades educativas especiais na Educação Física. O Estágio Pedagógico foi realizado na Escola Básica com Secundário José Falcão de Miranda do Corvo, no ano letivo de 2013/2014, para a disciplina de Educação Física ao 7º ano de escolaridade. The Final Training Report falls within the scope of the Course Training Report, the 2nd year of the Master in Teaching Physical Education Primary and Secondary Education, Faculty of Sport Sciences and Physical Education, University of Coimbra. This step is the culmination of academic training in which are put into practice, in the real world, all the knowledge acquired so far. All the experiences, skills and knowledge acquired today allow us the performance of a pedagogical practice of mastery in the area of Physical Education. The main goal of the Final Training Report is to conduct to a reflection of the trainee on the developed and knowledge acquired during the practicum activities, always contemplating their initial expectations. This document contains three main chapters. The first is an essentially descriptive area regarding pedagogical context. The second is a critical reflection on the practices carried out. Finally, the third chapter will be a deepening of an issue / problem. The issue / problem selected were the attitudes of students without disabilities face inclusion of pupils with special educational needs in physical education. The Pedagogical Training was conducted in Secondary School with Joseph Falcon Miranda do Corvo, in school year 2013/2014, to the discipline of Physical Education through the 7th grade

Ecological-economic modelling of interactions between wild and commercial bees and pesticide use

The decline in extent of wild pollinators in recent years has been partly associated with changing farm practices and in particular with increase of pesticide use. In this paper we combine ecological modelling with economic analysis of a single farm output under the assumption that both pollination and pest control are essential inputs. We show that the drive to increase farm output can lead to a local decline in the wild bee population. Commercial bees are often considered an alternative to wild pollinators, but we show that their introduction can lead to further decline and finally local extinction of wild bees. The transitions between different outcomes are characterised by threshold behaviour and are potentially difficult to predict and detect in advance. Small changes in economic (input prices) and ecological (wild bees carrying capacity and effect of pesticides on bees) can move the economic-ecological system beyond the extinction threshold. We also show that increasing the pesticide price or decreasing the commercial bee price might lead to reestablishment of wild bees following their local extinction. Thus, we demonstrate the importance of combining ecological modelling with economics to study the provision of ecosystem services and to inform sustainable management of ecosystem service providers

The neonicotinoid insecticide thiacloprid impacts upon bumblebee colony development under field conditions

The impacts of pesticides, and in particular of neonicotinoids, on bee health remain much debated. Many studies describing negative effects have been criticised as the experimental protocol did not perfectly simulate real-life field scenarios. Here, we placed free-flying bumblebee colonies next to raspberry crops that were either untreated or treated with the neonicotinoid thiacloprid as part of normal farming practice. Colonies were exposed to the raspberry crops for a two week period before being relocated to either a flower-rich or flower-poor site. Overall, exposed colonies were more likely to die prematurely, and those that survived reached a lower final weight and produced 46% fewer reproductives than colonies placed at control farms. The impact was more marked at the flower-rich site (all colonies performed poorly at the flower poor site). Analysis of nectar and pollen stores from bumblebee colonies placed at the same raspberry farms revealed thiacloprid residues of up to 771ppb in pollen and up to 561ppb in nectar. The image of thiacloprid as a relatively benign neonicotinoid should now be questioned

Biotope associations and the decline of bumblebees (Bombus spp.)

Much of the ecology of rare bumblebee species remains poorly understood and in need of further study. It has recently been suggested that differences in the range and rate of decline among bumblebee species may relate to differences in their degree of habitat specialization. We examine biotope use by 17 bumblebee species in the Hebrides, southern UK and South Island, New Zealand. We identify a cluster of widespread and abundant species that occur in almost all biotopes and exploit man-made environments such as gardens and arable margins; this group corresponding to the “mainland ubiquitous” species of previous studies. A second grouping of species includes those associated to varying degrees with heathland. It is notable that some species occupy markedly different biotopes in different parts of their range; for example B. soroeensis is found largely on upland heaths in the Hebrides, but on calcareous grassland in the south. Some species, such as B. subterraneus and B. distinguendus, now survive only in specific rare biotopes and could be mistaken for habitat specialists, but it is clear from their historic distributions that they formerly occupied a broader range of biotopes. Surviving populations of several of the species that have declined most (B. distinguendus, B. sylvarum, B. muscorum sladeni, B. humilis) exhibit a markedly coastal distribution, when once they were widespread inland. We suggest that this is probably simply because some coastal biotopes are less amenable to agricultural improvement, and so more have escaped the detrimental effects of intensive farming. Our results concur with previous suggestions that bumblebees are generally not habitat specialists, so that the conservation of most bumblebee species could be achieved by restoration of flower-rich unimproved meadows