2,837 research outputs found
Second language acquisition of intonation: Peak alignment in American English
The objective of the present study was to investigate (1) whether, and to what degree, late bilinguals of different L1 backgrounds are comparable to native speakers in the phonetic implementation of tonal targets in their L2, (2) whether they exhibit general patterns of acquisition irrespective of the typological closeness of their L1 to their L2, and (3) whether learnersâ choice of accent contours and the alignment of the high tone (Hâ) proceeds in parallel with proficiency in the L2. More specifically, we examined the acquisition of the nuclear contour composition and the Hâ alignment of the American English (L)HâL- (i.e. pitch accent and boundary tone combination) in initial-stressed and final-stressed words by Japanese and Spanish late bilingual speakers at varying proficiency levels in American English. Our results show that the L1 Spanish speakers were more comparable than the L1 Japanese speakers to the native English speakers in the phonological aspect of intonation (choice of pitch accent contour). In terms of peak alignment, we found that the late bilinguals generally tended to realise significantly later alignment than the native speakers, although the precise manifestation of this varied according to the L1 background of speakers and the stress pattern of words.This research was supported by a PhD scholarship awarded to the first author from the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust and St John's College, University of Cambridge, and by a PhD research support grant from the Japan Foundation. These sources of support are gratefully acknowledged
Abstract robust coarse spaces for systems of PDEs via generalized eigenproblems in the overlaps
Coarse spaces are instrumental in obtaining scalability for domain decomposition methods for partial differential equations (PDEs). However, it is known that most popular choices of coarse spaces perform rather weakly in the presence of heterogeneities in the PDE coefficients, especially for systems of PDEs. Here, we introduce in a variational setting a new coarse space that is robust even when there are such heterogeneities. We achieve this by solving local generalized eigenvalue problems in the overlaps of subdomains that isolate the terms responsible for slow convergence. We prove a general theoretical result that rigorously establishes the robustness of the new coarse space and give some numerical examples on two and three dimensional heterogeneous PDEs and systems of PDEs that confirm this property
Moral Framing and Ideological Bias of News
News outlets are a primary source for many people to learn what is going on
in the world. However, outlets with different political slants, when talking
about the same news story, usually emphasize various aspects and choose their
language framing differently. This framing implicitly shows their biases and
also affects the reader's opinion and understanding. Therefore, understanding
the framing in the news stories is fundamental for realizing what kind of view
the writer is conveying with each news story. In this paper, we describe
methods for characterizing moral frames in the news. We capture the frames
based on the Moral Foundation Theory. This theory is a psychological concept
which explains how every kind of morality and opinion can be summarized and
presented with five main dimensions. We propose an unsupervised method that
extracts the framing Bias and the framing Intensity without any external
framing annotations provided. We validate the performance on an annotated
twitter dataset and then use it to quantify the framing bias and partisanship
of news
Menstrual cycle phase does not predict political conservatism
Recent authors have reported a relationship between women's fertility status, as indexed by menstrual cycle phase, and conservatism in moral, social and political values. We conducted a survey to test for the existence of a relationship between menstrual cycle day and conservatism. 2213 women reporting regular menstrual cycles provided data about their political views. Of these women, 2208 provided information about their cycle date, 1260 provided additional evidence of reliability in self-reported cycle date, and of these, 750 also indicated an absence of hormonal disruptors such as recent hormonal contraception use, breastfeeding or pregnancy. Cycle day was used to estimate day-specific fertility rate (probability of conception); political conservatism was measured via direct self-report and via responses to the "Moral Foundationsâ questionnaire. We also recorded relationship status, which has been reported to interact with menstrual cycle phase in determining political preferences. We found no evidence of a relationship between estimated cyclical fertility changes and conservatism, and no evidence of an interaction between relationship status and cyclical fertility in determining political attitudes. Our findings were robust to multiple inclusion/exclusion criteria and to different methods of estimating fertility and measuring conservatism. In summary, the relationship between cycle-linked reproductive parameters and conservatism may be weaker or less reliable than previously thought
Soliton pair creation in classical wave scattering
We study classical production of soliton-antisoliton pairs from colliding
wave packets in (1+1)-dimensional scalar field model. Wave packets represent
multiparticle states in quantum theory; we characterize them by energy E and
particle number N. Sampling stochastically over the forms of wave packets, we
find the entire region in (E,N) plane which corresponds to classical creation
of soliton pairs. Particle number is parametrically large within this region
meaning that the probability of soliton-antisoliton pair production in
few-particle collisions is exponentially suppressed.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, journal version; misprint correcte
Application of quasi-Monte Carlo methods to PDEs with random coefficients -- an overview and tutorial
This article provides a high-level overview of some recent works on the
application of quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods to PDEs with random
coefficients. It is based on an in-depth survey of a similar title by the same
authors, with an accompanying software package which is also briefly discussed
here. Embedded in this article is a step-by-step tutorial of the required
analysis for the setting known as the uniform case with first order QMC rules.
The aim of this article is to provide an easy entry point for QMC experts
wanting to start research in this direction and for PDE analysts and
practitioners wanting to tap into contemporary QMC theory and methods.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1606.0661
On renormalization group flows and the a-theorem in 6d
We study the extension of the approach to the a-theorem of Komargodski and
Schwimmer to quantum field theories in d=6 spacetime dimensions. The dilaton
effective action is obtained up to 6th order in derivatives. The anomaly flow
a_UV - a_IR is the coefficient of the 6-derivative Euler anomaly term in this
action. It then appears at order p^6 in the low energy limit of n-point
scattering amplitudes of the dilaton for n > 3. The detailed structure with the
correct anomaly coefficient is confirmed by direct calculation in two examples:
(i) the case of explicitly broken conformal symmetry is illustrated by the free
massive scalar field, and (ii) the case of spontaneously broken conformal
symmetry is demonstrated by the (2,0) theory on the Coulomb branch. In the
latter example, the dilaton is a dynamical field so 4-derivative terms in the
action also affect n-point amplitudes at order p^6. The calculation in the
(2,0) theory is done by analyzing an M5-brane probe in AdS_7 x S^4.
Given the confirmation in two distinct models, we attempt to use dispersion
relations to prove that the anomaly flow is positive in general. Unfortunately
the 4-point matrix element of the Euler anomaly is proportional to stu and
vanishes for forward scattering. Thus the optical theorem cannot be applied to
show positivity. Instead the anomaly flow is given by a dispersion sum rule in
which the integrand does not have definite sign. It may be possible to base a
proof of the a-theorem on the analyticity and unitarity properties of the
6-point function, but our preliminary study reveals some difficulties.Comment: 41 pages, 5 figure
From everyday conversation to political action: Talking austerity in online âthird spacesâ
Taking forward a new agenda for online political deliberation â the study of everyday political talk in non-political, online âthird spacesâ â this article examines the dynamics of political talk across three general interest UK-based online forums. The quantitative analysis found that discussions about austerity were just as likely to emerge from non-political discussions as they were ones that began as âpoliticalâ, demonstrating the links people made between everyday experiences and public policy. Our qualitative analysis represents the first real attempt to analyse political actions within third spaces, with some striking outcomes. Over half of all political discussions led to at least one political action (with significant variation between forums). The findings demonstrate that while such third spaces remain concerned with the preoccupations of everyday life, they can and do perform a role of mobilizing agent towards political participation
Hot new directions for quasi-Monte Carlo research in step with applications
This article provides an overview of some interfaces between the theory of
quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods and applications. We summarize three QMC
theoretical settings: first order QMC methods in the unit cube and in
, and higher order QMC methods in the unit cube. One important
feature is that their error bounds can be independent of the dimension
under appropriate conditions on the function spaces. Another important feature
is that good parameters for these QMC methods can be obtained by fast efficient
algorithms even when is large. We outline three different applications and
explain how they can tap into the different QMC theory. We also discuss three
cost saving strategies that can be combined with QMC in these applications.
Many of these recent QMC theory and methods are developed not in isolation, but
in close connection with applications
Metabolomics demonstrates divergent responses of two Eucalyptus species to water stress
Past studies of water stress in Eucalyptus spp. generally highlighted the role of fewer than five âimportantâ metabolites, whereas recent metabolomic studies on other genera have shown tens of compounds are affected. There are currently no metabolite profiling data for responses of stress-tolerant species to water stress. We used GCâMS metabolite profiling to examine the response of leaf metabolites to a long (2 month) and severe (Κpredawn < â2 MPa) water stress in two species of the perennial tree genus Eucalyptus (the mesic Eucalyptus pauciflora and the semi-arid Eucalyptus dumosa). Polar metabolites in leaves were analysed by GCâMS and inorganic ions by capillary electrophoresis. Pressureâvolume curves and metabolite measurements showed that water stress led to more negative osmotic potential and increased total osmotically active solutes in leaves of both species. Water stress affected around 30â40% of measured metabolites in E. dumosa and 10â15% in E. pauciflora. There were many metabolites that were affected in E. dumosa but not E. pauciflora, and some that had opposite responses in the two species. For example, in E. dumosa there were increases in five acyclic sugar alcohols and four low-abundance carbohydrates that were unaffected by water stress in E. pauciflora. Re-watering increased osmotic potential and decreased total osmotically active solutes in E. pauciflora, whereas in E. dumosa re-watering led to further decreases in osmotic potential and increases in total osmotically active solutes. This experiment has added several extra dimensions to previous targeted analyses of water stress responses in Eucalyptus, and highlights that even species that are closely related (e.g. congeners) may respond differently to water stress and re-waterin
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