Prosodic Analysis of Wh-indeterminate Questions in L2 Korean

Wh-indeterminate questions, particularly wh-questions and yes-no questions, in Korean are ambiguous due to the limited morpho-syntactic markers in the sentence. The absence of these markers leaves two questions syntactically identical, leading to lexical ambiguity. The disambiguation of these two questions relies primarily on prosodic cues. Drawing from previous studies in the L1 Korean context, this study examines the intonation patterns of English learners of Korean in producing and perceiving wh-questions and yes-no questions and explores if there is any sign of L1 influence from English. Five English learners of Korean, who received formal instruction in Korean at a U.S. university, completed a production and perception test that consisted of 10 dialogues featuring ambiguous wh-indeterminate questions. Their speech was analyzed for prosodic features, such as pitch range, boundary tone, and accentual phrasing. The findings revealed that there was a significant variability in prosodic elements, with language proficiency markedly affecting pitch range. However, no consistent relationship was found among learners regarding accentual phrasing. The results of the study suggest that there is a complex interplay between proficiency and target-like prosody in second language acquisition

The Impact of IS Employees’ Perceived Fairness on Organizational Commitment in Post-Merger Information Systems Integration

Despite the proliferation of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) for last few decades, lots of M&As have failed to fulfil planned objectives and to create synergy. Many researchers pointed out the failure of post-merger information systems (IS) integration as one of critical causes for M&A failure. This study, based on organizational justice theory (OJT), proposes a research model to identify the impact of IS employees’ perceived fairness on their organizational commitment during post-merger integration stage. In addition, the relationship between those variables and organizational trust and job insecurity is also examined. We expect the results of this study can contribute to provide some guidelines for the firms that is now integrating IS systems after M&A or considering M&A in the future

Decompositions of factor codes and embeddings between shift spaces with unequal entropies

Given a factor code between sofic shifts X and Y, there is a family of decompositions of the original code into factor codes such that the entropies of the intermediate subshifts arising from the decompositions are dense in the interval from the entropy of Y to that of X. Furthermore, if X is of finite type, we can choose those intermediate subshifts as shifts of finite type. In the second part of the paper, given an embedding from a shift space to an irreducible sofic shift, we characterize the set of the entropies of the intermediate subshifts arising from the decompositions of the given embedding into embeddings.Comment: 14pages, 2 figures; v2) minor revision. to appear in Ergodic Theory Dynamical System

Optimal fiscal policy under finite planning horizons

We propose a novel framework that revisits the seminal Chamley-Judd zero capital taxation result in light of bounded rationality stemming from a finite policy planning horizon and structural frictions in fiscal institutions. We show a mechanism that generates positive optimal capital taxation in the long run. Our numerical results indicate that the current tax system in the United States could be near-optimal in a constrained environment where policymakers exhibit limited policy planning horizons and imperfect altruism toward household welfare under subsequent governments.Euiyoung Jung acknowledges financial support from Consellería de Innovación, Universidades, Ciencia y Sociedad Digital de la Generalitat Valenciana (CIPROM/2021/060). Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature

A Data-Driven Approach to Identify the Predictors of Perceived Health Status Among Chinese and Korean Americans.

Asian Americans are the countrys fastest-growing racial group, and several studies have focused on the health outcomes of Asian Americans, including perceived health status. Perceived health status provides a summarized view of the health of populations for diverse domains, such as the psychological, social, and behavioral aspects. Given its multifaceted nature, perceived health status should be carefully approached when examining any variables influence because it results from interactions among many variables. A data-driven approach using machine learning provides an effective way to discover new insights when there are complex interactions among multiple variables. To date, there are not many studies available that use machine learning to examine the effects of diverse variables on the perceived health status of Chinese and Korean Americans. This study aims to develop and evaluate three prediction models using logistic regression, random forest, and support vector machines to find the predictors of perceived health status among Chinese and Korean Americans from survey data. The prediction models identified specific predictors of perceived health status. These predictors can be utilized when planning for effective interventions for the better health outcomes of Chinese and Korean Americans

Reliable Asynchronous Image Transfer Protocol in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

In the paper, we propose a reliable asynchronous image transfer protocol, RAIT. RAIT applies a double sliding window method to node-to-node transfer, with one sliding window for the receiving queue, which is used to prevent packet loss caused by communication failure between nodes, and another sliding window for the sending queue, which prevents packet loss caused by network congestion. The routing node prevents packet loss between nodes by preemptive scheduling of multiple packets for a given image. RAIT implements a double sliding window method by means of a cross-layer design between the RAIT layer, routing layer, and queue layer. We demonstrate that RAIT guarantees a higher reliability of image transmission compared to the existing protocols

Prosodic Analysis of \u3ci\u3eWh\u3c/i\u3e-indeterminate Questions in L2 Korean

Wh-indeterminate questions in Korean are potentially ambiguous due to the limited use of morpho-syntactic markers. When an explicit morpheme indicating the question type is not used, the disambiguation of the question relies, primarily, on prosodic cues. Drawing from previous studies of L1 Korean, this study examines the production and perception of intonation patterns of English L1 learners of Korean for wh- and yes-no questions in Korean. That examination allows speculation on potential L1 influence in the learners\u27 production. Five English L1 learners of Korean who received formal instruction in Korean at a U.S. university completed a production and perception test consisting of 10 dialogues featuring ambiguous wh-indeterminate questions. Their speech was analyzed for pitch range, boundary tone, and accentual phrasing. The findings revealed that L2 Korean learners are able to produce and perceive wh-questions in a more target- like manner than yes-no questions. Learners\u27 proficiency level significantly influenced pitch peak and pitch range, with advanced learners showing a resemblance to L1 production. However, yes- no questions remained non-target-like across all proficiency levels. Additionally, there was evidence of L1 influence from English in boundary tone choices and pitch ranges, as well as inconsistency in accentual phrasing. These results suggest an interplay between language proficiency and L2 prosody and emphasize the need to incorporate targeted prosodic training within the curriculum for Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language

OntoCS: A Web-Based System for Collaborative Ontology Construction

A number of studies on ontology editing tools and ontology-based applications have been proposed for automatically processing knowledge and information. However, the existing methodologies and tools for dealing with ontologies have assumed that the system is restricted to a single user. Main motivation of this paper is to foster collaborations between users, because ontology building is an expensive task. Thereby, in this paper, we present a web-based ontology construction and integration system, which is called OntoCS, to support collaborative interactions between people during creating ontologies. Particularly, inexpert users can collect available language resources from the web to describe concepts in a (even unfamiliar) domain. We believe that this collaborative process is implementing collective intelligence. In conclusion, we have shown that the proposed OntoCS system can efficiently edit and manage multiple ontologies over time

Estimation of an Examinee's Ability in the Web-Based Computerized Adaptive Testing Program IRT-CAT

We developed a program to estimate an examinee s ability in order to provide freely available access to a web-based computerized adaptive testing (CAT) program. We used PHP and Java Script as the program languages, PostgresSQL as the database management system on an Apache web server and Linux as the operating system. A system which allows for user input and searching within inputted items and creates tests was constructed. We performed an ability estimation on each test based on a Rasch model and 2- or 3-parametric logistic models. Our system provides an algorithm for a web-based CAT, replacing previous personal computer-based ones, and makes it possible to estimate an examinee's ability immediately at the end of test