The semantic effects of verb raising and its consequences in second language grammars

This article considers whether highly proficient second language speakers of English can distinguish meaning contrasts associated with constructions where there is a raising be, and constructions where there is a non-raising thematic verb, as illustrated in the difference between (1a) and (1b): 1a. Kim is reading a novel (`event-in-progress/existential ? interpretation

Structure of the Effective Potential in Nonrelativistic Chern-Simons Field Theory

We present the scalar field effective potential for nonrelativistic self-interacting scalar and fermion fields coupled to an Abelian Chern-Simons gauge field. Fermions are non-minimally coupled to the gauge field via a Pauli interaction. Gauss's law linearly relates the magnetic field to the matter field densities; hence, we also include radiative effects from the background gauge field. However, the scalar field effective potential is transparent to the presence of the background gauge field to leading order in the perturbative expansion. We compute the scalar field effective potential in two gauge families. We perform the calculation in a gauge reminiscent of the $R_\xi$-gauge in the limit $\xi\rightarrow 0$ and in the Coulomb family gauges. The scalar field effective potential is the same in both gauge-fixings and is independent of the gauge-fixing parameter in the Coulomb family gauge. The conformal symmetry is spontaneously broken except for two values of the coupling constant, one of which is the self-dual value. To leading order in the perturbative expansion, the structure of the classical potential is deeply distorted by radiative corrections and shows a stable minimum around the origin, which could be of interest when searching for vortex solutions. We regularize the theory with operator regularization and a cutoff to demonstrate that the results are independent of the regularization scheme.Comment: 24 pages, UdeM-LPN-TH-93-185, CRM-192

Breaking arches with vibrations: the role of defects

We present experimental results about the stability of arches against external vibrations. Two dimensional strings of mutually stabilizing grains are geometrically analyzed and subsequently submitted to a periodic forcing at fixed frequency and increasing amplitude. The main factor that determines the granular arch resistance against vibrations is the maximum angle among those formed between any particle of the arch and its two neighbors: the higher the maximum angle is, the easier to break the arch. Based in an analysis of the forces, a simple explanation is given for this dependence. From this, interesting information can be extracted about the expected magnitudes of normal forces and friction coefficients of the particles conforming the arches

Determination of Soybean Oil, Protein and Amino Acid Residues in Soybean Seeds by High Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMRS) and Near Infrared (NIRS)

A detailed account is presented of our high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (HR-NMR) and near infrared (NIR) calibration models, methodologies and validation procedures, together with a large number of composition analyses for soybean seeds. NIR calibrations were developed based on both HR-NMR and analytical chemistry reference data for oil and twelve amino acid residues in mature soybeans and soybean embryos. This is our first report of HR-NMR determinations of amino acid profiles of proteins from whole soybean seeds, without protein extraction from the seed. It was found that the best results for both oil and protein calibrations were obtained with a Partial Least Squares Regression (PLS-1) analysis of our extensive NIR spectral data, acquired with either a DA7000 Dual Diode Array (Si and InGaAs detectors) instrument or with several Fourier Transform NIR (FT-NIR) spectrometers equipped with an integrating sphere/InGaAs detector accessory. In order to extend the bulk soybean samples calibration models to the analysis of single soybean seeds, we have analized in detail the component NIR spectra of all major soybean constituents through spectral deconvolutions for bulk, single and powdered soybean seeds. Baseline variations and light scattering effects in the NIR spectra were corrected, respectively, by calculating the first-order derivatives of the spectra and the Multiplicative Scattering Correction (MSC). The single soybean seed NIR spectra are broadly similar to those of bulk whole soybeans, with the exception of minor peaks in single soybean NIR spectra in the region from 950 to 1,000 nm. Based on previous experience with bulk soybean NIR calibrations, the PLS-1 calibration model was selected for protein, oil and moisture calibrations that we developed for single soybean seed analysis. In order to improve the reliability and robustness of our calibrations with the PLS-1 model we employed standard samples with a wide range of soybean constituent compositions: from 34% to 55% for protein, from 11% to 22% for oil and from 2% to 16% for moisture. Such calibrations are characterized by low standard errors and high degrees of correlation for all major soybean constituents. Morever, we obtained highly resolved NIR chemical images for selected regions of mature soybean embryos that allow for the quantitation of oil and protein components. Recent developments in high-resolution FT-NIR microspectroscopy extend the NIR sensitivity range to the picogram level, with submicron spatial resolution in the component distribution throughout intact soybean seeds and embryos. Such developments are potentially important for biotechnology applications that require rapid and ultra- sensitive analyses, such as those concerned with high-content microarrays in Genomics and Proteomics research. Other important applications of FT-NIR microspectroscopy are envisaged in biomedical research aimed at cancer prevention, the early detection of tumors by NIR-fluorescence, and identification of single cancer cells, or single virus particles in vivo by super-resolution microscopy/ microspectroscopy

Analysis of the sensitivity of the End-Of-Turn Detection task to errors generated by the Automatic Speech Recognition process.

An End-Of-Turn Detection Module (EOTD-M) is an essential component of au- tomatic Spoken Dialogue Systems. The capability of correctly detecting whether a user’s utterance has ended or not improves the accuracy in interpreting the meaning of the message and decreases the latency in the answer. Usually, in di- alogue systems, an EOTD-M is coupled with an Automatic Speech Recognition Module (ASR-M) to transmit complete utterances to the Natural Language Un- derstanding unit. Mistakes in the ASR-M transcription can have a strong effect on the performance of the EOTD-M. The actual extent of this effect depends on the particular combination of ASR-M transcription errors and the sentence featurization techniques implemented as part of the EOTD-M. In this paper we investigate this important relationship for an EOTD-M based on semantic information and particular characteristics of the speakers (speech profiles). We introduce an Automatic Speech Recognition Simulator (ASR-SIM) that mod- els different types of semantic mistakes in the ASR-M transcription as well as different speech profiles. We use the simulator to evaluate the sensitivity to ASR-M mistakes of a Long Short-Term Memory network classifier trained in EOTD with different featurization techniques. Our experiments reveal the dif- ferent ways in which the performance of the model is influenced by the ASR-M errors. We corroborate that not only is the ASR-SIM useful to estimate the performance of an EOTD-M in customized noisy scenarios, but it can also be used to generate training datasets with the expected error rates of real working conditions, which leads to better performance.EMPATHIC IT1244-19 TIN2016-78365-R PID2019-104966GB-I00

Spacetime-Filling Branes and Strings with Sixteen Supercharges

We discuss branes whose worldvolume dimension equals the target spacetime dimension, i.e. ``spacetime-filling branes''. In addition to the D9-branes, there are 9-branes in the NS-NS sectors of both the IIA and IIB strings. The worldvolume actions of these branes are constructed, via duality, from the known actions of branes with codimension larger than zero. Each of these types of branes is used in the construction of a string theory with sixteen supercharges by modding out a type II string by an appropriate discrete symmetry and adding 32 9-branes. These constructions are related by a web of dualities and each arises as a different limit of the Horava-Witten construction.Comment: 43 pages, LaTeX, 8 figures, uses html.sty, version to appear in Nucl. Phys.

Mortalidad entre los pacientes en tratamiento con metadona e infectados con el virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana y/o hepatitis C [Mortality rate in patients on methadone treatment and infected with the human immunodeficiency virus and/or the hepatitis C virus ]

Sr. Director: La adicción a la heroína es una enfermedad recidivante crónica con graves consecuencias, particularmente en términos de prematura y alta mortalidad (Hser, Hoffman, Grella y Anglin, 2001). Los programas de tratamiento de mantenimiento con metadona (TMM) han demostrado ser eficaces para reducir el uso ilícito de opioides, y el riesgo de infección por el virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH) y/o virus de la hepatitis C (VHC), entre otras variables (Kleber, 2008; Pedrero-Pérez y MethaQoL, 2017). A pesar de todo, la tasa de mortalidad anual entre los pacientes incluidos en programas de TMM, aproximadamente del 1%, es más de 10 veces superior al de la población general (Zanis y Woody, 1998); constituyendo la sobredosis y la infección por VIH y otros virus transmitidos por la sangre (p.e. VHC) las causas más comunes de muerte (Roncero, Vega, Martinez-Raga y Torrens, 2017). En efecto, entre los drogodependientes por vía parenteral e infectados por VIH, la co-infección por VIH y VHC se observa en el 50% -95% de los casos (Muga, Roca, Egea, Tor, Sirera y Rey-Joly, 2000); pudiendo provocar, dicha infección simultanea por VIH, una mayor carga viral del VHC y una evolución más rápida a la cirrosis hepática y sus complicaciones (Santos y Sanz, 22004; Elizalde, Iñarrairaegui, Rodríguez y Zozaya, 2004)... Dear Director, Heroin addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease with serious consequences, particularly in terms of premature and high mortality (Hser, Hoffman, Grella & Anglin, 2001). Methadone maintenance treatment programs (MMT’s) have shown to be effective in reducing illicit opioid use and the risk of infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and/or Hepatitis C virus (HCV), among other (Kleber, 2008; Pedrero-Pérez & MethaQoL, 2017). Nevertheless, the approximately 1% annual mortality among MMT patients is more than 10 times that of the general population (Zanis &y Woody, 1998); and overdose, HIV infection (VIH), and other viruses transmitted by blood (e.g., HCV infection) constitute the most common causes of death (Roncero, Vega, Martinez-Raga & Torrens, 2017). In fact, among HIV-infected patients, HIV–HCV co-infection is observed in 50–95% of cases (Muga, Roca, Egea, Tor, Sirera & Rey-Joly, 2000); this simultaneous HIV infection can cause an increased viral load of HCV and a more rapid evolution to liver cirrhosis and its complications (Santos & Sanz, 2004; Elizalde, Iñarrairaegui, Rodríguez & Zozaya, 2004)..