Pottsian LFG

Potts (2005) provides an elegant and influential approach to the syntax and semantics of a wide range of 'parenthetical' constructions, including various kinds of supplementals/appositives and expressives, which have not received much attention in the LFG literature. The prospect of wholesale importation of Pottsian analyses for such constructions is appealing. However, there are (as Potts himself notes) problems with his approach from a resource sensitive perspective, such as is often assumed in LFG approaches to the syntax semantics interface. Potts sketches, but does not develop, a way of overcoming these problems. In this paper we attempt to develop his proposal and explore ways in which it can be implemented in the architecture of LFG. For exemplification, we focus on supplemental ('appositive', non-restrictive) relative clauses in English. A side effect of our discussion is thus a proposal for an LFG analysis of this construction, which appears to have been neglected hitherto

Resource Splitting and Reintegration with Supplementals

In this paper we survey the various ways of expressing modality in Urdu/Hindi and show that Urdu/Hindi modals provide interesting insights on current discussions of the semantics of modality. There are very few dedicated modals in Urdu/Hindi: most of which has been arrived at constructionally via a combination of a certain kind of verb with a certain kind of embedded verb form and a certain kind of case. Among the range of constructions yielded by such combinations, there is evidence for a two-place modal operator in addition to the one-place operator usually assumed in the literature. We also discuss instances of the Actuality Entailment, which had been shown to be sensitive to aspect, but in Urdu/Hindi appears to be sensitive to aspect only some of the time, depending on the type of modal verb. Indeed, following recent proposals by Ramchand (2011), we end up with a purely lexical account of modality and the Actuality Entailment, rather than the structural one put forward by Hacquard (2010)

Affected experiencers and mixed semantics in LFG/Glue

Bosse, Bruening and Yamada (2012) (BBY) provides a study of several constructions involving ?non-selected? arguments, and outlines an approach to the syntax and semantics of one such construction: the Affected Experiencer (AE) construction. The syntactic analysis relies on abstract functional projections and particular assumptions about configurational syntax. We show how an account may be given without these syntactic assumptions. Semantically, BBY argue that AEs may contribute both at issue content and conventional implicatures, which raises interesting issues for the approach of e.g. Potts (2005). We explore some consequences of their semantic analysis and show that it faces a number of difficulties

Results from the NEMO 3 experiment

The aim of the NEMO 3 experiment is the search for neutrinoless double beta decay and precise measurement of two-neutrino double beta decay of several isotopes. The experiment has been taking data since 2003. Since no evidence for neutrinoless double beta decay of Mo100 and Se82 has been found, a 90% C.L. lower limit on the half-life of this process and corresponding upper limit on the effective Majorana neutrino mass are derived. The data are also interpreted in terms of alternative models, such as weak right-handed currents or Majoron emission. In addition, NEMO 3 has performed precision measurements of the two-neutrino double beta decay for seven different isotopes. The most recent experimental results of NEMO 3 are presented in this paper.Comment: 5 pages, 2 tables, talk at the 10th ICATPP Conference (Como, Italy, 8 - 12 October 2007

Uranium(III) coordination chemistry and oxidation in a flexible small-cavity macrocycle

U(III) complexes of the conformationally flexible, small-cavity macrocycle trans-calix[2]benzene[2]pyrrolide (L)2–, [U(L)X] (X = O-2,6-tBu2C6H3, N(SiMe3)2), have been synthesized from [U(L)BH4] and structurally characterized. These complexes show binding of the U(III) center in the bis(arene) pocket of the macrocycle, which flexes to accommodate the increase in the steric bulk of X, resulting in long U–X bonds to the ancillary ligands. Oxidation to the cationic U(IV) complex [U(L)X][B(C6F5)4] (X = BH4) results in ligand rearrangement to bind the smaller, harder cation in the bis(pyrrolide) pocket, in a conformation that has not been previously observed for (L)2–, with X located between the two ligand arene rings

Almost Global Stochastic Stability

We develop a method to prove almost global stability of stochastic differential equations in the sense that almost every initial point (with respect to the Lebesgue measure) is asymptotically attracted to the origin with unit probability. The method can be viewed as a dual to Lyapunov's second method for stochastic differential equations and extends the deterministic result in [A. Rantzer, Syst. Contr. Lett., 42 (2001), pp. 161--168]. The result can also be used in certain cases to find stabilizing controllers for stochastic nonlinear systems using convex optimization. The main technical tool is the theory of stochastic flows of diffeomorphisms.Comment: Submitte

Frame synchronization for the Galileo code

Results are reported on the performance of the Deep Space Network's frame synchronizer for the (15,1/4) convolutional code after Viterbi decoding. The threshold is found that optimizes the probability of acquiring true sync within four frames using a strategy that requires next frame verification

Implications of Rewiring Bacterial Quorum Sensing

Bacteria employ quorum sensing, a form of cell-cell communication, to sense changes in population density and regulate gene expression accordingly. This work investigated the rewiring of one quorum-sensing module, the lux circuit from the marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri. Steady-state experiments demonstrate that rewiring the network architecture of this module can yield graded, threshold, and bistable gene expression as predicted by a mathematical model. The experiments also show that the native lux operon is most consistent with a threshold, as opposed to a bistable, response. Each of the rewired networks yielded functional population sensors at biologically relevant conditions, suggesting that this operon is particularly robust. These findings (i) permit prediction of the behaviors of quorum-sensing operons in bacterial pathogens and (ii) facilitate forward engineering of synthetic gene circuits

Synthetic Gene Circuits: Design with Directed Evolution

Synthetic circuits offer great promise for generating insights into nature's underlying design principles or forward engineering novel biotechnology applications. However, construction of these circuits is not straightforward. Synthetic circuits generally consist of components optimized to function in their natural context, not in the context of the synthetic circuit. Combining mathematical modeling with directed evolution offers one promising means for addressing this problem. Modeling identifies mutational targets and limits the evolutionary search space for directed evolution, which alters circuit performance without the need for detailed biophysical information. This review examines strategies for integrating modeling and directed evolution and discusses the utility and limitations of available methods