Noun and Verb Morphology in Micmac Hieroglyphic Texts

Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on General Topics in American Indian Linguistics (1990), pp. 128-13

What is the empirical basis for converting banded ordinal data on numbers of sex partners among MSM into a continuous scale level variable? A secondary analysis of 13 surveys across 17 countries

BACKGROUND: To provide empirically based guidance for substituting partner number categories in large MSM surveys with mean numbers of sexual and condomless anal intercourse (CAI) partners in a secondary analysis of survey data. METHODS: We collated data on numbers of sexual and CAI partners reported in a continuous scale (write-in number) in thirteen MSM surveys on sexual health and behaviour across 17 countries. Pooled descriptive statistics for the number of sexual and CAI partners during the last twelve (N = 55,180) and 6 months (N = 31,759) were calculated for two sets of categories commonly used in reporting numbers of sexual partners in sexual behaviour surveys. RESULTS: The pooled mean number of partners in the previous 12 months for the total sample was 15.8 partners (SD = 36.6), while the median number of partners was 5 (IQR = 2-15). Means for number of partners in the previous 12 months for the first set of categories were: 16.4 for 11-20 partners (SD = 3.3); 27.8 for 21-30 (SD = 2.8); 38.6 for 31-40 (SD = 2.4); 49.6 for 41-50 (SD = 1.5); and 128.2 for 'more than 50' (SD = 98.1). Alternative upper cut-offs: 43.4 for 'more than 10' (SD = 57.7); 65.3 for 'more than 20' (SD = 70.3). Self-reported partner numbers for both time frames consistently exceeded 200 or 300. While there was substantial variation of overall means across surveys, the means for all chosen categories were very similar. Partner numbers above nine mainly clustered at multiples of tens, regardless of the selected time frame. The overall means for CAI partners were lower than those for sexual partners; however, such difference was completely absent from all categories beyond ten sexual and CAI partners. CONCLUSIONS: Clustering of reported partner numbers confirm common MSM sexual behaviour surveys' questionnaire piloting feedback indicating that responses to numbers of sexual partners beyond 10 are best guesses rather than precise counts, but large partner numbers above typical upper cut-offs are common

An examination of the reciprocal and concurrent relations between behavioral and cardiac indicators of acute pain in toddlerhood

The aim of this study was to examine the concurrent and predictive relations between healthy toddlers’ pain behavior and cardiac indicators (i.e., heart rate [HR], respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) during routine vaccinations. Caregiver-infant dyads were part of a longitudinal cohort observed during their 12- and 18-month vaccinations. Behavioral and cardiac data were simultaneously collected for 1-minute pre-needle and 3-minutes post-needle. Videotapes were coded for pain behaviors (FLACC; Merkel et al., 1996), and cardiac data were analyzed (HR, RSA) during sequential 30-second epochs. Four separate cross-lagged path models were estimated using data from the 12- (n= 147) and 18-month (n= 122) vaccinations. Across 12- and 18-month vaccinations, predictive within-measure relations were consistent for FLACC, HR and RSA, reflecting good stability of these pain indicators. Behavioral indicators predicted subsequent HR and RSA within the immediate post-needle period. Both baseline behavior and HR/RSA predicted future pain scores. Concurrent residual relations between behavioral and cardiac indicators were inconsistent across time and indicator. Results suggest that behavioral and cardiac indicators reflect unique aspects of the nociceptive response. As such, multi-modal assessment tools should be utilized and contextualized by child age, cardiac indicator, baseline behavior/physiology, and pain phase

Towards evidence-based conservation of subterranean ecosystems

Subterranean ecosystems are among the most widespread environments on Earth, yet we still have poor knowledge of their biodiversity. To raise awareness of subterranean ecosystems, the essential services they provide, and their unique conservation challenges, 2021 and 2022 were designated International Years of Caves and Karst. As these ecosystems have traditionally been overlooked in global conservation agendas and multilateral agreements, a quantitative assessment of solution-based approaches to safeguard subterranean biota and associated habitats is timely. This assessment allows researchers and practitioners to understand the progress made and research needs in subterranean ecology and management. We conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed and grey literature focused on subterranean ecosystems globally (terrestrial, freshwater, and saltwater systems), to quantify the available evidence-base for the effectiveness of conservation interventions. We selected 708 publications from the years 1964 to 2021 that discussed, recommended, or implemented 1,954 conservation interventions in subterranean ecosystems. We noted a steep increase in the number of studies from the 2000s while, surprisingly, the proportion of studies quantifying the impact of conservation interventions has steadily and significantly decreased in recent years. The effectiveness of 31% of conservation interventions has been tested statistically. We further highlight that 64% of the reported research occurred in the Palearctic and Nearctic biogeographic regions. Assessments of the effectiveness of conservation interventions were heavily biased towards indirect measures (monitoring and risk assessment), a limited sample of organisms (mostly arthropods and bats), and more accessible systems (terrestrial caves). Our results indicate that most conservation science in the field of subterranean biology does not apply a rigorous quantitative approach, resulting in sparse evidence for the effectiveness of interventions. This raises the important question of how to make conservation efforts more feasible to implement, cost-effective, and long-lasting. Although there is no single remedy, we propose a suite of potential solutions to focus our efforts better towards increasing statistical testing and stress the importance of standardising study reporting to facilitate meta-analytical exercises. We also provide a database summarising the available literature, which will help to build quantitative knowledge about interventions likely to yield the greatest impacts depending upon the subterranean species and habitats of interest. We view this as a starting point to shift away from the widespread tendency of recommending conservation interventions based on anecdotal and expert-based information rather than scientific evidence, without quantitatively testing their effectiveness.Peer reviewe

Incontri, scontri, confronti Appunti sulla ricezione della xilografia nordica in Italia tra XV e XX secolo

Germany, France, Italy: the attribution of the first woodcut images has long been debated between several countries, to gain the technological primacy of the invention of reproductive printmaking, before Gutenberg’s movable type printing. Today we know how difficult it is, if not impossible, to establish a place and a date of origin of image printing in Europe. Impossible and probably unimportant. Printing was a European phenomenon in the 15th century, and we may ask ourselves whether a northern woodcut beyond the Italian borders was intended as something different than an Italian one. The contrast between northern and southern prints, which has been claimed by art historians from Vasari until the half of the 20th century, seems to be denied by early modern Italian sources. For example, a German woodcut from the first decades of the 15th century and a Florentine painting from the end of the 14th century can coexist as models for the illumination of the same manuscript. This unpublished case study of two Florentine 15th-century illuminations shows how a European cultural horizon was more common than we think today, and how much woodcut has been a fundamental tool for this broadening of horizons, since its very beginning

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO