Coherence and Coreference Revisited

For more than three decades, research into the psycholinguistics of pronoun interpretation has argued that hearers use various interpretation ‘preferences ’ or ‘strategies’ that are associated with specific linguistic properties of antecedent expressions. This focus is a departure from the type of approach outlined in Hobbs (1979), who argues that the mechanisms supporting pronoun interpretation are driven predominantly by semantics, world knowledge and inference, with particular attention to how these are used to establish the coherence of a discourse. On the basis of three new experimental studies, we evaluate a coherence-driven analysis with respect to four previously proposed interpretation biases—based on grammatical role parallelism, thematic roles, implicit causality, and subjecthood—and argue that the coherence-driven analysis can explain the underlying source of the biases and predict in what contexts evidence for each will surface. The results further suggest that pronoun interpretation is incrementally influenced by probabilistic expectations that hearers have regarding what coherence relations are likely to ensue, together with their expectations about what entities will be mentioned next, which, crucially, are conditioned on those coherence relations

A survey of phytoestrogenic activity in Kansas flint hills pastures

The botanical composition and basal cover of three Kansas Flint Hills pastures located in Butler and Chase counties was surveyed to estimate the incidence of plant species that contain appreciable levels of estrogenic activity. Many-flowered scurfpea and Ladino clover were the only plant species classified as high in estrogenic activity. Although significant estrogenic activity existed in specific species, the willingness of livestock to consume those species is unclear

Evaluation of Ralgro® on pasture and subsequent feedlot performance and carcass merit of mexican crossbred steers

A pasture/feedlot field study was conducted to evaluate the effects of a single Ralgro® implant during the stocker phase on steer grazing performance and subsequent feedlot performance and carcass merit. A total of 2,764 steers of Mexican origin averaging 449 lb were assembled in Texas and shipped to Kansas, where they grazed on three intensively-early-stocked Flint Hills pastures. At initial processing, the steers were individually weighed and randomly assigned to either a non-implanted control group or a Ralgro implant group. Ralgro steers gained more (23 lb; P<0.01) than controls during the 82- to 93-day grazing phase. Following the grazing phase, all steers were shipped to a commercial feedlot in southwestern Kansas where steers from each pasture were individually weighed and given a single Component E-S® implant. Immediately after processing, steers from each pasture were sorted into either a light- or heavy-weight pen, regardless of pasture implant treatment, resulting in six feedlot pens. Days on feed ranged from 127 to 197. Control steers gained faster (P<0.01) during the feedlot phase; however, Ralgro steers had higher cumulative weight gains across the combined pasture and feedlot phases (P<0.01) and averaged three fewer days on feed (P<0.05). There were no significant differences for marbling, fat thickness, ribeye area, KPH fat, or yield grade. Ralgro steers had lower (P<0.05) quality grades because of a higher incidence (P<0.001) of steers with B and C carcass maturities

Evaluation of Kansas Beef Consumers’ Awareness and Understanding of Business-to-Consumer Marketing

Objective: The objective of the study was to determine the understanding and knowledge level of consumers purchasing beef in a business-to-consumer (B2C) format within Kansas. Study Description: A digital survey was created to evaluate consumers’ familiarity and satisfaction of buying beef in a B2C format. The survey was made available for a two-week period to consumers utilizing the Shop Kansas Farms online social media group. Results: Results of the survey showed 93% of consumers (n = 174) reported having previously purchased beef products from a local producer or locker. Of these, 63.1% reported that their most recent purchase was their first time purchasing in a B2C format and the same percentage of consumers had been purchasing beef in a B2C format for less than five years. The most common methods of purchasing beef in a B2C format were “portion cuts” (24.5%), followed by “quarter beef” (17.0%) and “half beef” (15.1%), or a combination of at least two of these methods (20.7%). Only 5.7% of consumers experienced challenges while purchasing beef in a B2C format, yet 100% of those consumers still intended to continue purchasing beef in this format. When consumers were given options that would be useful to prevent future complaints, the most selected response was “improved consumer knowledge.” The consumers (n = 82) who rated this response as “very effective” or “extremely effective” indicated that “increased state extension resources” would be at least “moderately effective” (82.9%). This indicates that increased state extension resources would be an effective way to improve consumer knowledge. The Bottom Line: Consumers within the state of Kansas are interested in and have positive experiences with purchasing beef in the B2C format. Moreover, most consumers are new consumers to buying beef in the B2C format, indicating that there is increasing demand for beef available for purchase in this format. Results of this study support this but show room for growth within consumer understanding of purchasing beef in a B2C format. Results of this study shows the opportunity for improvement of extension and other resources for consumers

Noise-Aided Logic in an Electronic Analog of Synthetic Genetic Networks

We report the experimental verification of noise-enhanced logic behaviour in an electronic analog of a synthetic genetic network, composed of two repressors and two constitutive promoters. We observe good agreement between circuit measurements and numerical prediction, with the circuit allowing for robust logic operations in an optimal window of noise. Namely, the input-output characteristics of a logic gate is reproduced faithfully under moderate noise, which is a manifestation of the phenomenon known as Logical Stochastic Resonance. The two dynamical variables in the system yield complementary logic behaviour simultaneously. The system is easily morphed from AND/NAND to OR/NOR logi

Contrastive prosody and the subsequent mention of alternatives during discourse processing

Linguistic research has long viewed prosody as an important indicator of information structure in intonationally rich languages like English. Correspondingly, numerous psycholinguistic studies have shown significant effects of prosody, particularly with respect to the immediate processing of a prosodically prominent phrase. Although co-reference resolution is known to be influenced by information structure, it has been less clear whether prosodic prominence can affect decisions about next mention in a discourse, and if so, how. We present results from an open-ended story continuation task, conducted as part of a series of experiments that examine how prosody influences the anticipation and resolution of co-reference. Overall results from the project suggest that prosodic prominence can increase or decrease reference to a saliently pitch-accented phrase, depending on additional circumstances of the referential decision. We argue that an adequate account of prosody’s role in co-reference requires consideration of how the processing system interfaces with multiple levels of linguistic representation