Tones in Shupamem Reduplication

This thesis presents an analysis of reduplication in Shupamem, an Eastern Grassfields Bantu language of Cameroon. In this language nouns, verbs, and adjectives undergo full segmental reduplication. At the suprasegmental level, on the other hand, tones of the reduplicants are not entirely faithful to their bases. The tonal asymmetry of the reduplicted phrase also relies on the grammatical function of that phrase within a clause, as well as on the neighboring grammatical words, such as tense particles. This morphological process gives also an insight to an underlying tonal representations in Shupamem. Nominal reduplication, in particular, provides a proof of the necessity of an underspecified underlying tone

A Network Science Approach to Bilingual Code-switching

Previous research has shown that the structure of the semantic network can influence language production, such that a word with low clustering coefficient (C) is more easily retrieved than a word with high C. In this study, we used a network science approach to examine whether the network structure accounts for why bilinguals code-switch. We established semantic networks for words in each language, then measured the C for each code-switched word and its translated equivalent. The results showed that words where language is switched have lower C than their translated equivalents in the other language, suggesting that the structures of the lexicons in the two languages play an important role in bilingual code-switching speech

Finding Common Ground: Annotating and Predicting Common Ground in Spoken Conversations

When we communicate with other humans, we do not simply generate a sequence of words. Rather, we use our cognitive state (beliefs, desires, intentions) and our model of the audience's cognitive state to create utterances that affect the audience's cognitive state in the intended manner. An important part of cognitive state is the common ground, which is the content the speaker believes, and the speaker believes the audience believes, and so on. While much attention has been paid to common ground in cognitive science, there has not been much work in natural language processing. In this paper, we introduce a new annotation and corpus to capture common ground. We then describe some initial experiments extracting propositions from dialog and tracking their status in the common ground from the perspective of each speaker

Timeout : The Role of Family-Friendly Policies in Business Start-Up Among Mothers

This article explores why an increasing number of Swedish mothers are becoming entrepreneurs; this choice appears counterintuitive given the prevailing social welfare system prioritizes the rights of employed women. Using an interpretative stance, we analyzed the life stories of 18 Swedish mothers who created new ventures while caring for young children. The value of the time afforded by parental leave policies was identified as vital to the business creation process. Hence, we argue that time is a critical entrepreneurship-relevant resource; this is illustrated by the positive effect of the Swedish welfare system upon entrepreneurship entry and the timing of this decision

Weird inflects but OK : Making sense of morphological generation errors

We conduct a manual error analysis of the CoNLL-SIGMORPHON 2017 Shared Task on Morphological Reinflection. In this task, systems are given a word in citation form (e.g., hug) and asked to produce the corresponding inflected form (e.g., the simple past hugged). This design lets us analyze errors much like we might analyze children's production errors. We propose an error taxonomy and use it to annotate errors made by the top two systems across twelve languages. Many of the observed errors are related to inflectional patterns sensitive to inherent linguistic properties such as animacy or affect; many others are failures to predict truly unpredictable inflectional behaviors. We also find nearly one quarter of the residual "errors" reflect errors in the gold data. © 2019 Association for Computational Linguistics.Peer reviewe

Multi-Objective Optimization of Biomass Conversion Technologies by Using Evolutionary Algorithm and Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP)

The design and operation of energy systems are key issues for matching the energy supply and consumption. Moreover, in the present context of finding ways to decrease CO2 emission, poly-generation technologies, together with the integration of renewable energy resources, have a high potential for CO2 emission reduction. An optimisation model and systematic procedure to select, size and operate a poly-generation plant are developed and presented in this paper. In the optimisation model the integration of biomass resources is mainly investigated. Several options for integrating biomass in the energy system, namely back pressure steam turbine, biomass ranking cycle (BRC), biomass integrated gasification gas engine (BIGGE), biomass integrated gasification gas turbine, production of synthetic natural gas (SNG) and biomass integrated gasification combined cycle (BIGCC), are investigated in this paper. The goal is to minimize costs and CO2 emission simultaneously with a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (QMOO) and a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). Finally the proposed model demonstrated by means of a case study. The results shown the simultaneous production of electricity and heat with biomass and natural gas are reliable upon the established assumptions. Besides, higher primary energy savings and CO2 emission reduction are obtained through the gradual increase of renewable energy sources compare to the natural gas usage

Deciphering the Regulatory Circuits of RA3 Replication Module - Mechanisms of the Copy Number Control

The RA3 plasmid, the archetype of IncU incompatibility group, represents a mosaic- modular genome of 45.9 kb. The replication module encompasses repA and repB (initiator) surrounded by two long repetitive sequences DR1 and DR2 of unknown function. Here, we mapped the origin of replication oriV to the 3′ end of repB and showed that oriV was activated by the transcription coming from orf02revp in the adjacent stability module. Using various in vivo and in vitro methods we demonstrated that the repB expression proceeded either from repBp located in the intergenic repA- repB region or from the upstream strong repAp that was autoregulated by RepA. Additionally, the repBp activity was modulated by the transcription from the overlapping, divergently oriented repXp. Both repXmRNA (antisense for repAmRNA) and its small polypeptide product, RepX, were strong incompatibility determinants. Hence, we showed that the sophisticated RA3 copy number control combined the multivalent regulation of repB expression, RepB titration by DR1, and transcriptional activation of oriV, dependent on the RA3 global regulatory network. Similarly organized replicons have been found in diverse bacterial species confirming the significance of these mechanisms in establishing the IncU plasmids in a broad spectrum of host

Current management of cervical cancer in Poland : analysis of the questionnaire trial for the years 2002-2014 in relation to ASCO 2016 recommendations

OBJECTIVES:To assess the survival of patients with cervical cancer (CC). Since the recommendations concerning cervical cancer management adopted by Polish medical societies do not differ significantly from the ESGO or non-European guidelines, and the fact that evaluation of the system for CC treatment in Poland, as well as the mortality rate of Polish women with CC, which is 70% higher than the average for European Union (EU) countries, justifies the hypothesis that treatment of CC in Poland deviates from the Polish and international recommendations. This article puts forward the current management of cervical cancer in Poland and discusses it in the context of ASCO guidelines. MATERIAL AND METHODS:A survey retrospective multicenter analysis of the medical records of 1247 patients with cervical cancer who underwent treatment for disease and who had completed at least two years of follow-up. RESULTS:Although concurrent radiotherapy and chemotherapy is a standard treatment of FIGO IB to IVA cervical cancer patients in enhanced- and maximum-resources settings, in our analysis, we found that the percentage of women subjected to chemotherapy was lower than in countries where total survival rates were lower. CONCLUSION:Within the IA to II A cervical cancer patients studied group, the methods of treatment remained in line with ASCO guidelines for countries with the highest standard of care. Although concurrent radiotherapy and chemotherapy is a standard treatment of FIGO IB to IVA cervical cancer patients in enhanced- and maximum-resources settings, in our analysis, we found that the percentage of women subjected to chemotherapy was lower than in countries where total survival rates were lower. Our findings, together with the inconsistencies within the cervical cancer screening program, may be one of the explanations of poorer survival rate of women with cervical cancer in Poland

Overall and GTV subvolumes tumour control probability (TCP) for head and neck cancer treated by 3D-IMRT with inhomogeneous dose distribution

Introduction.  In this study, an original model has been developed to estimate the real TCP that is a product of the TCPs calculated for GTV subvolumes of head and neck cancer based on 3D-IMRT dose planning. Material and methods.  Retrospective pilot group consist of 16 cases of oropharyngeal cancer in stage T1–2N0 previously treated with 3D-IMRT with at least 3-year follow-up. The total dose (TD) was 60–70 Gy in 2.0 Gy fractions delivered over 42–49 days. Within GTV two subvolumes were marked out: SVA with the planned 100% TD, and underdosed (90–95%) SVB. The TCP for both was calculated using the original formula developed by Withers and Maciejewski. Results.  During 3-year follow-up, 8 local recurrences (LR) occurred. In about 70% of SVB “dose cold spots” encompassed more than 50% GTV volume. This resulted in the TCPSVB decrease to 60%. Thus, the real overall TCP was much lower than a priori predicted, and in these cases local recurrences occurred. Discussion.Both cold spot SVB volumes and their dose deficit strongly correlated with a high risk of LR. Conclusions.In conclusion the magnitude of dose deficit and the size of cold subvolume within GTV have an indepen­dent negative impact on real TCP and demand dose re-planning