Syntax as an exponent of morphological features

In this paper we investigate a selection of issues in the morphology-syntax interface. This has been the locus of intense research activity in recent years particularly within lexicalist theories of grammar such as Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG). A central question addressed in LFG is the way that across languages or within a single language a whole host of morphological, lexical and syntactic means can be deployed to express essentially the same set of meanings or functions. One very specific example of this is seen when very similar (or even identical) grammatical meanings/functions are sometimes expressed by inflected morphological word forms and sometimes by means of syntactic constructions, that is, when a single set of grammatical properties receives synthetic and analytic expression within the same language

Supersymmetric AdS_4 black holes and attractors

Using the general recipe given in arXiv:0804.0009, where all timelike supersymmetric solutions of N=2, D=4 gauged supergravity coupled to abelian vector multiplets were classified, we construct the first examples of genuine supersymmetric black holes in AdS_4 with nonconstant scalar fields. This is done for various choices of the prepotential, amongst others for the STU model. These solutions permit to study the BPS attractor flow in AdS. We also determine the most general supersymmetric static near-horizon geometry and obtain the attractor equations in gauged supergravity. As a general feature we find the presence of flat directions in the black hole potential, i.e., generically the values of the moduli on the horizon are not completely specified by the charges. For one of the considered prepotentials, the resulting moduli space is determined explicitely. Still, in all cases, we find that the black hole entropy depends only on the charges, in agreement with the attractor mechanism.Comment: 25 pages, uses JHEP3.cl

Eurasian Arctic greening reveals teleconnections and the potential for novel ecosystems

Arctic warming has been linked to observed increases in tundra shrub cover and growth in recent decades on the basis of significant relationships between deciduous shrub growth/biomass and temperature. These vegetation trends have been linked to Arctic sea ice decline and thus to the sea ice/albedo feedback known as Arctic amplification. However, the interactions between climate, sea ice and tundra vegetation remain poorly understood. Here we reveal a 50- year growth response over a >100,000 km2 area to a rise in summer temperature for alder (Alnus) and willow (Salix), the most abundant shrub genera respectively at and north of the continental treeline. We demonstrate that whereas plant productivity is related to sea ice in late spring, the growing season peak responds to persistent synoptic-scale air masses over West Siberia associated with Fennoscandian weather systems through the Rossby wave train. Substrate is important for biomass accumulation, yet a strong correlation between growth and temperature encompasses all observed soil types. Vegetation is especially responsive to temperature in early summer. These results have significant implications for modelling present and future Low Arctic vegetation responses to climate change, and emphasize the potential for structurally novel ecosystems to emerge fromwithin the tundra zone.Vertaisarviointia edeltävä käsikirjoitu

Elevated hemostasis markers after pneumonia increases one-year risk of all-cause and cardiovascular deaths

Background: Acceleration of chronic diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease, may increase long-term mortality after community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), but underlying mechanisms are unknown. Persistence of the prothrombotic state that occurs during an acute infection may increase risk of subsequent atherothrombosis in patients with pre-existing cardiovascular disease and increase subsequent risk of death. We hypothesized that circulating hemostasis markers activated during CAP persist at hospital discharge, when patients appear to have recovered clinically, and are associated with higher mortality, particularly due to cardiovascular causes. Methods: In a cohort of survivors of CAP hospitalization from 28 US sites, we measured D-Dimer, thrombin-antithrombin complexes [TAT], Factor IX, antithrombin, and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 at hospital discharge, and determined 1-year all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Results: Of 893 subjects, most did not have severe pneumonia (70.6% never developed severe sepsis) and only 13.4% required intensive care unit admission. At discharge, 88.4% of subjects had normal vital signs and appeared to have clinically recovered. D-dimer and TAT levels were elevated at discharge in 78.8% and 30.1% of all subjects, and in 51.3% and 25.3% of those without severe sepsis. Higher D-dimer and TAT levels were associated with higher risk of all-cause mortality (range of hazard ratios were 1.66-1.17, p = 0.0001 and 1.46-1.04, p = 0.001 after adjusting for demographics and comorbid illnesses) and cardiovascular mortality (p = 0.009 and 0.003 in competing risk analyses). Conclusions: Elevations of TAT and D-dimer levels are common at hospital discharge in patients who appeared to have recovered clinically from pneumonia and are associated with higher risk of subsequent deaths, particularly due to cardiovascular disease. © 2011 Yende et al

Semi-local quantum liquids

Gauge/gravity duality applied to strongly interacting systems at finite density predicts a universal intermediate energy phase to which we refer as a semi-local quantum liquid. Such a phase is characterized by a finite spatial correlation length, but an infinite correlation time and associated nontrivial scaling behavior in the time direction, as well as a nonzero entropy density. For a holographic system at a nonzero chemical potential, this unstable phase sets in at an energy scale of order of the chemical potential, and orders at lower energies into other phases; examples include superconductors and antiferromagnetic-type states. In this paper we give examples in which it also orders into Fermi liquids of "heavy" fermions. While the precise nature of the lower energy state depends on the specific dynamics of the individual system, we argue that the semi-local quantum liquid emerges universally at intermediate energies through deconfinement (or equivalently fractionalization). We also discuss the possible relevance of such a semi-local quantum liquid to heavy electron systems and the strange metal phase of high temperature cuprate superconductors.Comment: 31 pages, 7 figure

Using Management Objectives to Specify Management Information Systems - A Contribution to MIS Success

Data warehouse projects, today, are in an ambivalent situation. On the one hand, data warehouses are critical for a company’s success and various methodological and technological tools are sophisticatedly developed to implement them. On the other hand, a significant amount of data warehouse projects fails due to non-technical reasons such as insufficient management support or in-corporative employees. But management support and user participation can be increased dramatically with specification methods that are understandable to these user groups. This paper aims at overcoming possible non-technical failure reasons by introducing a user-adequate specification approach within the field of management information systems.\u

New variants of Perfect Non-crossing Matchings

Given a set of points in the plane, we are interested in matching them with straight line segments. We focus on perfect (all points are matched) non-crossing (no two edges intersect) matchings. Apart from the well known MinMax variation, where the length of the longest edge is minimized, we extend work by looking into different optimization variants such as MaxMin, MinMin, and MaxMax. We consider both the monochromatic and bichromatic versions of these problems and by employing diverse techniques we provide efficient algorithms for various input point configurations

Unbalanced Holographic Superconductors and Spintronics

We present a minimal holographic model for s-wave superconductivity with unbalanced Fermi mixtures, in 2+1 dimensions at strong coupling. The breaking of a U(1)_A "charge" symmetry is driven by a non-trivial profile for a charged scalar field in a charged asymptotically AdS_4 black hole. The chemical potential imbalance is implemented by turning on the temporal component of a U(1)_B "spin" field under which the scalar field is uncharged. We study the phase diagram of the model and comment on the eventual (non) occurrence of LOFF-like inhomogeneous superconducting phases. Moreover, we study "charge" and "spin" transport, implementing a holographic realization (and a generalization thereof to superconducting setups) of Mott's two-current model which provides the theoretical basis of modern spintronics. Finally we comment on possible string or M-theory embeddings of our model and its higher dimensional generalizations, within consistent Kaluza-Klein truncations and brane-anti brane setups.Comment: 45 pages, 15 figures; v2: two paragraphs below eq. (3.1) slightly modified, figure 5 (left) replaced, references added; v3: typos corrected, comments added, figure 12 replace