Numeral Incorporation In American Sign Language

Numeral incorporation is a moderately productive process in ASL which combines a numeral and a base to form a compounded fully formed sign. Numeral-incorporated signs involve some sort of simultaneity of the base and the numeral. I interviewed six individuals who use ASL as their primary language in order to gather examples of numeral-incorporated signs in ASL, thus getting a sampling of variation in the American deaf community. Traditionally, numeral incorporation has been viewed as a process of combining a numeral sign with a noun, which I call a source sign. Instead, I found that the source signs are separate lexical items and are different than the bases used in numeral incorporation. While some of these source signs are homophonous with certain numeral-incorporated forms, others are different. Incorporation also occurs when the forms of the source and incorporated signs are different or when no source sign corresponds to the base. Numeral-incorporated signs are formed from a numeral and a base. Some numeral-incorporated signs can be modified with additional derivational morphology while others cannot. Incorporated bases can be grouped into categories that have phonetic or semantic similarities. Also, the production of numeral-incorporated signs varies between signers and sometimes for one signer. The pronunciation of any one numeral-incorporated sign can vary in handshape, orientation, or movement. The numeral ranges for which numerals can incorporate into numeral-incorporated signs also vary according to signer and according to the base. Numeral-incorporated signs can be represented autosegmentally using Sandler\u27s hand-tier diagrams. The hand-tier diagrams show the features of the numeral and the base as well as the resulting compound. The hand-tier diagrams can also show signer variation

Coronary-artery bypass surgery in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy

BACKGROUND The survival benefit of a strategy of coronary-artery bypass grafting (CABG) added to guideline-directed medical therapy, as compared with medical therapy alone, in patients with coronary artery disease, heart failure, and severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction remains unclear. METHODS From July 2002 to May 2007, a total of 1212 patients with an ejection fraction of 35% or less and coronary artery disease amenable to CABG were randomly assigned to undergo CABG plus medical therapy (CABG group, 610 patients) or medical therapy alone (medical-therapy group, 602 patients). The primary outcome was death from any cause. Major secondary outcomes included death from cardiovascular causes and death from any cause or hospitalization for cardiovascular causes. The median duration of follow-up, including the current extended-follow-up study, was 9.8 years. RESULTS A primary outcome event occurred in 359 patients (58.9%) in the CABG group and in 398 patients (66.1%) in the medical-therapy group (hazard ratio with CABG vs. medical therapy, 0.84; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.73 to 0.97; P=0.02 by log-rank test). A total of 247 patients (40.5%) in the CABG group and 297 patients (49.3%) in the medical-therapy group died from cardiovascular causes (hazard ratio, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.66 to 0.93; P=0.006 by log-rank test). Death from any cause or hospitalization for cardiovascular causes occurred in 467 patients (76.6%) in the CABG group and in 524 patients (87.0%) in the medical-therapy group (hazard ratio, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.64 to 0.82; P<0.001 by log-rank test). CONCLUSIONS In a cohort of patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy, the rates of death from any cause, death from cardiovascular causes, and death from any cause or hospitalization for cardiovascular causes were significantly lower over 10 years among patients who underwent CABG in addition to receiving medical therapy than among those who received medical therapy alone. (Funded by the National Institutes of Health; STICH [and STICHES] ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00023595.

An 11th century a.d. burnt granary at La Gravette, south-western France : preliminary archaeobotanical results

International audienceA thick layer of carbonised seeds was encountered in an 11th century a.d. room situated in the seigneurial part of the village of La Gravette. This paper presents the first results of charcoal and seed analyses which give information on the food products stored in the granary and on their arrangement there. Triticum aestivum/durum/turgidum was by far the most important stored crop, while Avena sp., then Hordeum vulgare, Secale cereale, Triticum monococcum and Vitis vinifera were secondary. Weeds were poorly represented. Charcoals were dominated by deciduous Quercus sp., and 11 additional wood taxa were recorded, including especially Fagus sylvatica, Fraxinus sp., Rosaceae, Corylus avellana, Acer campestre and Ulmus sp. According to the charcoal distribution, Quercus and Fagus were probably building materials while most of other taxa would have been used for basketry, wattling or joinery work. In the western part of the granary, naked wheat was stored in bulk. In the eastern part, various crops (at least naked wheat, barley, rye, oat and grape) were stored in small amounts, most of which were probably separated by light wooden structures. The cereal crops had largely been processed and cleaned. The stored products probably represent taxes paid to the lord who owned the granary

Do 3D face images capture cues of strength, weight, and height better than 2D face images do?

Objectives: A large literature exists investigating the extent to which physical characteristics (e.g., strength, weight, and height) can be accurately assessed from face images. While most of these studies have employed two-dimensional (2D) face images as stimuli, some recent studies have used three-dimensional (3D) face images because they may contain cues not visible in 2D face images. As equipment required for 3D face images is considerably more expensive than that required for 2D face images, we here investigated how perceptual ratings of physical characteristics from 2D and 3D face images compare. Methods: We tested whether 3D face images capture cues of strength, weight, and height better than 2D face images do by directly comparing the accuracy of strength, weight, and height ratings of 182 2D and 3D face images taken simultaneously. Strength, height and weight were rated by 66, 59 and 52 raters respectively, who viewed both 2D and 3D images. Results: In line with previous studies, we found that weight and height can be judged somewhat accurately from faces; contrary to previous research, we found that people were relatively inaccurate at assessing strength. We found no evidence that physical characteristics could be judged more accurately from 3D than 2D images. Conclusion: Our results suggest physical characteristics are perceived with similar accuracy from 2D and 3D face images. They also suggest that the substantial costs associated with collecting 3D face scans may not be justified for research on the accuracy of facial judgments of physical characteristics

Structure based inhibitor design targeting glycogen phosphorylase b. Virtual screening, synthesis, biochemical and biological assessment of novel N-acyl-β-d-glucopyranosylamines

Glycogen phosphorylase (GP) is a validated target for the development of new type 2 diabetes treatments. Exploiting the Zinc docking database, we report the in silico screening of 1888 β- D-glucopyranose-NH-CO-R putative GP inhibitors differing only in their R groups. CombiGlide and GOLD docking programs with different scoring functions were employed with the best performing methods combined in a “consensus scoring” approach to ranking of ligand binding affinities for the active site. Six selected candidates from the screening were then synthesized and their inhibitory potency was assessed both in vitro and ex vivo. Their inhibition constants’ values, in vitro, ranged from 5 to 377 µM while two of them were effective at causing inactivation of GP in rat hepatocytes at low µM concentrations. The crystal structures of GP in complex with the inhibitors were defined and provided the structural basis for their inhibitory potency and data for further structure based design of more potent inhibitors

Emerging Themes from the ESA Symposium Entitled “Pollinator Nutrition: Lessons from Bees at Individual to Landscape Levels”

Pollinator populations are declining (Biesmeijer et al., 2006; Brodschneider et al., 2018; Cameron et al., 2011; Goulson, Lye, & Darvill, 2008; Kulhanek et al., 2017; National Research Council, 2007; Oldroyd, 2007), and both anecdotal and experimental evidence suggest that limited access to high quality forage might play a role (Carvell, Meek, Pywell, Goulson, & Nowakowski, 2007; Deepa et al., 2017; Goulson, Nicholls, Botias, & Rotheray, 2015; Potts et al., 2003, 2010; Vanbergen & The Insect Pollinators Initiative, 2013; Vaudo, Tooker, Grozinger, & Patch, 2015; Woodard, 2017). Multiple researchers are earnestly addressing this topic in a diverse array of insect-pollinator systems. As research continues to be published, increased communication among scientists studying the topic of nutrition is essential for improving pollinator health

Exercise during chemotherapy for ovarian cancer (ECHO) trial : design and implementation of a randomised controlled trial

Introduction Epidemiological evidence supports an association between higher levels of physical activity and improved cancer survival. Trial evidence is now needed to demonstrate the effect of exercise in a clinical setting. The Exercise during CHemotherapy for Ovarian cancer (ECHO) trial is a phase III, randomised controlled trial, designed to determine the effect of exercise on progression-free survival and physical well-being for patients receiving first-line chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. Methods and analysis Participants (target sample size n=500) include women with newly diagnosed primary ovarian cancer, scheduled to receive first-line chemotherapy. Consenting participants are randomly allocated (1:1) to either the exercise intervention (plus usual care) or usual care alone, with stratification for recruitment site, age, stage of disease and chemotherapy delivery (neoadjuvant vs adjuvant). The exercise intervention involves individualised exercise prescription with a weekly target of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity, mixed-mode exercise (equivalent to 450 metabolic equivalent minutes per week), delivered for the duration of first-line chemotherapy through weekly telephone sessions with a trial-trained exercise professional. The primary outcomes are progression-free survival and physical well-being. Secondary outcomes include overall survival, physical function, body composition, quality of life, fatigue, sleep, lymphoedema, anxiety, depression, chemotherapy completion rate, chemotherapy-related adverse events, physical activity levels and healthcare usage. Ethics and dissemination Ethics approval for the ECHO trial (2019/ETH08923) was granted by the Sydney Local Health District Ethics Review Committee (Royal Prince Alfred Zone) on 21 November 2014. Subsequent approvals were granted for an additional 11 sites across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. Findings from the ECHO trial are planned to be disseminated via peer-reviewed publications and international exercise and oncology conferences