1,374 research outputs found
Linguistics
Contains research objectives and reports on one research project.National Science Foundatio
Transverse instability for non-normal parameters
We consider the behaviour of attractors near invariant subspaces on varying a
parameter that does not preserve the dynamics in the invariant subspace but is
otherwise generic, in a smooth dynamical system. We refer to such a parameter
as ``non-normal''. If there is chaos in the invariant subspace that is not
structurally stable, this has the effect of ``blurring out'' blowout
bifurcations over a range of parameter values that we show can have positive
measure in parameter space.
Associated with such blowout bifurcations are bifurcations to attractors
displaying a new type of intermittency that is phenomenologically similar to
on-off intermittency, but where the intersection of the attractor by the
invariant subspace is larger than a minimal attractor. The presence of distinct
repelling and attracting invariant sets leads us to refer to this as ``in-out''
intermittency. Such behaviour cannot appear in systems where the transverse
dynamics is a skew product over the system on the invariant subspace.
We characterise in-out intermittency in terms of its structure in phase space
and in terms of invariants of the dynamics obtained from a Markov model of the
attractor. This model predicts a scaling of the length of laminar phases that
is similar to that for on-off intermittency but which has some differences.Comment: 15 figures, submitted to Nonlinearity, the full paper available at
http://www.maths.qmw.ac.uk/~eo
Isospectral domains with mixed boundary conditions
We construct a series of examples of planar isospectral domains with mixed
Dirichlet-Neumann boundary conditions. This is a modification of a classical
problem proposed by M. Kac.Comment: 9 figures. Statement of Theorem 5.1 correcte
Binary Tree Approach to Scaling in Unimodal Maps
Ge, Rusjan, and Zweifel (J. Stat. Phys. 59, 1265 (1990)) introduced a binary
tree which represents all the periodic windows in the chaotic regime of
iterated one-dimensional unimodal maps. We consider the scaling behavior in a
modified tree which takes into account the self-similarity of the window
structure. A non-universal geometric convergence of the associated superstable
parameter values towards a Misiurewicz point is observed for almost all binary
sequences with periodic tails. There are an infinite number of exceptional
sequences, however, which lead to superexponential scaling. The origin of such
sequences is explained.Comment: 25 pages, plain Te
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Hashtags Functions in the Protests Across Brazil
In this article, we discuss the communicative functions of hashtags during a period of major social protests in Brazil. Drawing from a theoretical background of the use of Twitter and hashtags in protests and the functions of language, we extracted a sample of 46,090 hashtags from 2,321,249 tweets related to Brazilian protests in June 2013. We analyzed the hashtags through content analysis, focusing on functions, and co-occurrences. We also qualitatively analyzed a group of 500 most retweeted tweets to understand the users’ tagging behavior. Our results show how users appropriate tags to accomplish different effects on the narrative of the protests
Regular quantum graphs
We introduce the concept of regular quantum graphs and construct connected
quantum graphs with discrete symmetries. The method is based on a decomposition
of the quantum propagator in terms of permutation matrices which control the
way incoming and outgoing channels at vertex scattering processes are
connected. Symmetry properties of the quantum graph as well as its spectral
statistics depend on the particular choice of permutation matrices, also called
connectivity matrices, and can now be easily controlled. The method may find
applications in the study of quantum random walks networks and may also prove
to be useful in analysing universality in spectral statistics.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
Trial of Remote Continuous versus Intermittent NEWS monitoring after major surgery (TRaCINg): protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled trial
Background: Despite medical advances, major surgery remains high risk. Up to 44% of patients experience postoperative complications, which can have huge impacts for patients and the healthcare system. Early recognition of postoperative complications is crucial in reducing morbidity and preventing long-term disability. The current standard of care is intermittent manual vital signs monitoring, but new wearable remote monitors offer the benefits of continuous vital signs monitoring without limiting the patient’s mobility. The aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and clinical impacts of continuous remote monitoring after major surgery.
Methods: The study is a randomised, controlled, unblinded, parallel group, feasibility trial. Adult patients undergoing elective major surgery will be invited to participate if they have the capacity to provided informed, written consent and do not have a cardiac pacemaker or an allergy to adhesives. Participants will be randomly assigned to receive continuous remote monitoring and normal National Early Warning Score (NEWS) monitoring (intervention group) or normal NEWS monitoring alone (control group). Continuous remote monitoring will be achieved using the SensiumVitals® wireless patch which is worn on the patient’s chest and monitors heart rate, respiratory rate and temperature continuously and alerts the nurse when there is deviation from pre-set physiological norms. Participants will be followed up throughout their hospital admission and for 30 days after discharge. Feasibility will be assessed by evaluating recruitment rate, adherence to protocol and randomisation, and the amount of missing data. The acceptability of the patch to nursing staff and patients will be assessed using questionnaires and interviews. Clinical outcomes will include time to antibiotics in cases of sepsis, length of hospital stay, number of critical care admissions and rate of readmission within 30 days of discharge.
Discussion: Early detection and treatment of complications minimises the need for critical care, improves patient outcomes, and produces significant cost savings for the healthcare system. Remote continuous monitoring systems have the potential to allow earlier detection of complications, but evidence from the literature is mixed. Demonstrating significant benefit over intermittent monitoring to offset the practical and economic implications of continuous monitoring requires well-controlled studies in high-risk populations to demonstrate significant differences in clinical outcomes; this feasibility trial seeks to provide evidence of how best to conduct such a confirmatory trial.
Trial registration: This study is listed on the ISRCTN registry with study ID ISRCTN16601772
Affective iconic words benefit from additional sound–meaning integration in the left amygdala
Recent studies have shown that a similarity between sound and meaning of a word (i.e., iconicity) can help more readily access the meaning of that word, but the neural mechanisms underlying this beneficial role of iconicity in semantic processing remain largely unknown. In an fMRI study, we focused on the affective domain and examined whether affective iconic words (e.g., high arousal in both sound and meaning) activate additional brain regions that integrate emotional information from different domains (i.e., sound and meaning). In line with our hypothesis, affective iconic words, compared to their non‐iconic counterparts, elicited additional BOLD responses in the left amygdala known for its role in multimodal representation of emotions. Functional connectivity analyses revealed that the observed amygdalar activity was modulated by an interaction of iconic condition and activations in two hubs representative for processing sound (left superior temporal gyrus) and meaning (left inferior frontal gyrus) of words. These results provide a neural explanation for the facilitative role of iconicity in language processing and indicate that language users are sensitive to the interaction between sound and meaning aspect of words, suggesting the existence of iconicity as a general property of human language
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