1,442 research outputs found
Measuring Cross-Linguistic Influence in First- and Second-Generation Bilinguals: ERP vs. Acceptability Judgments
Two types of Spanish-English bilinguals were tested in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment on a contrast in the two languages exemplified in (1) and (2) in order to investigate linguistic permeability during processing of Spanish (1a and 2a). In Spanish, but not English, absence of the complementizer que is ungrammatical.
(1) a. Qué hermana confesó Inés que había comido la tarta?
b. *What sister did Inés confess that had eaten the cake?
(2) a. *Qué hermana confesó Inés Ø había comido la tarta?
b. What sister did Inés confess Ø had eaten the cake?
In a first analysis, we grouped subjects by generation and compared ERP responses to que-less vs. que-full sentences. A significant N400 effect was found for first-, but not second-generation, suggesting reduced sensitivity to missing que for the latter. However, a second analysis, using linear mixed modeling to test predictiveness of individual speaker variables revealed generation to be non-predictive of N400 amplitude. Instead, current language use, cumulative exposure to English, and socioeconomic status (SES) were significant predictors for all subjects: increased English use, exposure, and SES resulted in smaller N400 amplitude to the anomaly in Spanish shown in (2a). Our results show that a priori classification of bilinguals masks gradient cross-linguistic effects, and processing is permeable in all bilinguals depending on amount of language use. Results from an acceptability judgment task administered to the same subjects using a subset of the same stimuli show that both subject groups judge que-less and que-full to be equally natural. These results suggest that behavioral measures that rely on metalinguistic judgments may not be good indicators of processing, and that having to appeal to metalinguistic knowledge may mask intrinsic knowledge
1994 Kentucky Bluegrass Variety Test Report
Kentucky bluegrass (Poapratensis) is the third most prominent cool-season grass used in Kentucky for forage, behind tall fescue and orchardgrass. As with all cool-season grasses, Kentucky bluegrass does best in cooler weather, becoming relatively non-productive in hot, dry conditions. It is a high quality, long-lived, rhizomatous grass that is used for both turf and forage. Compared to other cool-season grasses, Kentucky bluegrass is slower to germinate (2-3 weeks) and generally is lower in seedling vigor and herbage yield. Most recent varieties have been developed for turf use. Several have been used in horse pastures even though they were not developed for forage use because Kentucky bluegrass is a low growing species that is tolerant of close grazing by horses. It is highly palatable to horses and has no known toxicities. In horse pastures, Kentucky bluegrass grows well with white clover, a low growing, grazing-tolerant legume, that is also a favorite of horse pasture managers. While it is more suited for use by grazing animals, Kentucky bluegrass may be harvested as hay. Management is similar to that for other cool-season grasses
The MGDO software library for data analysis in Ge neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments
The GERDA and Majorana experiments will search for neutrinoless double-beta
decay of germanium-76 using isotopically enriched high-purity germanium
detectors. Although the experiments differ in conceptual design, they share
many aspects in common, and in particular will employ similar data analysis
techniques. The collaborations are jointly developing a C++ software library,
MGDO, which contains a set of data objects and interfaces to encapsulate, store
and manage physical quantities of interest, such as waveforms and high-purity
germanium detector geometries. These data objects define a common format for
persistent data, whether it is generated by Monte Carlo simulations or an
experimental apparatus, to reduce code duplication and to ease the exchange of
information between detector systems. MGDO also includes general-purpose
analysis tools that can be used for the processing of measured or simulated
digital signals. The MGDO design is based on the Object-Oriented programming
paradigm and is very flexible, allowing for easy extension and customization of
the components. The tools provided by the MGDO libraries are used by both GERDA
and Majorana.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, proceedings for TAUP201
Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment: A Decadal Synopsis and Recommendations for Action
Scientific evidence is abundantly clear and convincing that due to the current trajectory of human-derived emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, the atmosphere and ocean will continue to warm, the ocean will continue to acidify, atmospheric and ocean circulation patterns will be altered, the cryosphere will continue to lose ice in all forms, and sea level will rise
A boron-coated CCD camera for direct detection of Ultracold Neutrons (UCN)
A new boron-coated CCD camera is described for direct detection of ultracold
neutrons (UCN) through the capture reactions B
(n,0)Li (6%) and B(n,1)Li (94%).
The experiments, which extend earlier works using a boron-coated ZnS:Ag
scintillator, are based on direct detections of the neutron-capture byproducts
in silicon. The high position resolution, energy resolution and particle ID
performance of a scientific CCD allows for observation and identification of
all the byproducts , Li and (electron recoils). A
signal-to-noise improvement on the order of 10 over the indirect method has
been achieved. Sub-pixel position resolution of a few microns is demonstrated.
The technology can also be used to build UCN detectors with an area on the
order of 1 m. The combination of micrometer scale spatial resolution, few
electrons ionization thresholds and large area paves the way to new research
avenues including quantum physics of UCN and high-resolution neutron imaging
and spectroscopy.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure
Determination of the Parity of the Neutral Pion via the Four-Electron Decay
We present a new determination of the parity of the neutral pion via the
double Dalitz decay pi^0 -> e+ e- e+ e-. Our sample, which consists of 30511
candidate decays, was collected from K_L -> pi0 pi0 pi0 decays in flight at the
KTeV-E799 experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. We confirm the
negative pi^0 parity, and place a limit on scalar contributions to the pi^0 ->
e+ e- e+ e- decay amplitude of less than 3.3% assuming CPT conservation. The
pi^0 gamma* gamma* form factor is well described by a momentum-dependent model
with a slope parameter fit to the final state phase space distribution.
Additionally, we have measured the branching ratio of this mode to be B(pi^0 ->
e+ e- e+ e-) = (3.26 +- 0.18) x 10^(-5).Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Typographical error in radiative branching ratio
(Eq. 6) correcte
Search for the Rare Decays KL->pi0pi0mu+mu- and KL->pi0pi0X0->pi0pi0mu+mu-
The KTeV E799 experiment has conducted a search for the rare decays
KL->pi0pi0mu+mu- and KL->pi0pi0X0->pi0pi0mu+mu-, where the X0 is a possible new
neutral boson that was reported by the HyperCP experiment with a mass of (214.3
pm 0.5) MeV/c^{2}. We find no evidence for either decay. We obtain upper limits
of Br(KL->pi0pi0X0->pi0pi0mu+mu-) pi0pi0mu+mu-) <
9.2 x 10^{-11} at the 90% confidence level. This result rules out the
pseudoscalar X0 as an explanation of the HyperCP result under the scenario that
the \bar{d}sX0 coupling is completely real
Search for the Rare Decay K_{L}\to\pi^{0}\pi^{0}\gamma
The KTeV E799 experiment has conducted a search for the rare decay
via the topology
(where ). Due to Bose
statistics of the pair and the real nature of the photon, the
decay is restricted to proceed at lowest order
by the CP conserving direct emission (DE) of an E2 electric quadrupole photon.
The rate of this decay is interesting theoretically since chiral perturbation
theory predicts that this process vanishes at level . Therefore, this
mode probes chiral perturbation theory at . In this paper we report a
determination of an upper limit of (90% CL) for
. This is approximately a factor of 20 lower than
previous results.Comment: six pages and six figures in the submission. Reformatted for Physics
Review
Dispersive analysis of K_{L mu3} and K_{L e3} scalar and vector form factors using KTeV data
Using the published KTeV samples of K_L --> pi^{\pm} e^{\mp} nu and K_L -->
pi^{\pm} mu^{\mp} nu decays [1], we perform a reanalysis of the scalar and
vector form factors based on the dispersive parameterization [2,3]. We obtain
phase space integrals I^e_K = 0.15446 \pm 0.00025 and I^{mu}_K = 0.10219 \pm
0.00025. For the scalar form factor parameterization, the only free parameter
is the normalized form factor value at the Callan-Treiman point (C); our best
fit results in ln C = 0.1915 \pm 0.0122. We also study the sensitivity of C to
different parametrizations of the vector form factor. The results for the phase
space integrals and C are then used to make tests of the Standard Model.
Finally, we compare our results with lattice QCD calculations of F_K/F_pi and
f_+(0).Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, to be published in PR
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