Comparing Standard Reference Corpora and Google Books Ngrams : Strengths, Limitations and Synergies in the Contrastive Study of Variable h- in British and American English

This chapter is based on two standard reference corpora, the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English, as opposed to the multi-billion-word database of Google Books Ngrams, which has, despite its allure, not been used in many systematic linguistic studies so far. Focusing on indefinite article allomorphy (a vs an) as an orthographic cue to the phonological strength of ‹h›-onsets in British and American English, the size advantage of the Ngrams database expectedly plays out in larger type and token counts, more stable estimates and fewer distortions due to data sparsity. However, as metadata are extremely limited (to year and variety), a fully accountable analysis is not feasible. The case study illustrates how richly annotated corpora can shed light on potential disturbances arising from two sources: genre differences and between-author variability. A sensitivity analysis offers some degree of reassurance when extending the analysis to the Ngrams database. In this way, the authors demonstrate that the strengths and limitations of corpora and big data resources can, with due caution, be counterbalanced to answer questions of linguistic interest

Democratization of Englishes : Synchronic and diachronic approaches

The term democratization has been used in recent linguistic research to describe how specific linguistic changes can be linked to changes in sociocultural norms. This broad definition, however, does not fully capture the essence of this phenomenon or explain how it differs from other processes of language change. Other key issues in this area of research include what the cause-effect relationship is between linguistic change and social change, and how empirical corpus linguistic studies can contribute to current knowledge. In this opening contribution to the special issue New perspectives on democratization: Evidence from English(es), we address some of these key issues by reviewing previous synchronic and diachronic work studies on democratization in different varieties of English, and introduce new studies that take evidence from different linguistic corpora. By placing the linguistic changes into their specific socio-historical contexts, these studies yield interesting results, showing that variationist linguistic methodology may significantly contribute to disentangling the complex relationship between language change and social and societal changes. (C) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Las profecías son noticia. El uso del futuro en la información televisiva española sobre la crisis de Irak (24 de febrero-20 de marzo 2003).

Este artículo analiza el recurso a la anticipación del futuro en la cobertura informativa que las cadenas generalistas de televisión españolas hicieron de la crisis de Irak hasta el estallido de la guerra (24 de febrero al 20 de marzo de 2003). Se realiza un análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo de los informativos de prime time de la cadena pública TVE 1 y de dos cadenas privadas, Telecinco y Antena 3. Se analiza el estilo, fuentes y consecuencias que estas referencias sobre lo venidero tuvieron en el modo de presentar la crisis en general. Se mostrará cómo utiliza el periodismo televisivo, en este período y sobre este tema, los presagios y cómo muchos de ellos fueron especulaciones sin base real. Su papel, en algunos casos, fue mantener el interés por el tema con un tono sensacionalista. En otros, adelantaba la guerra como única salida de la crisis

Matching between regional coronary vasodilator capacity and corresponding circumferential strain in individuals with normal and increasing body weight

Background: To define the relationship between regional coronary vasodilator capacity and myocardial circumferential strain at rest in normal weight, overweight, and obese individuals with normal global left-ventricular function. Methods and Results: Myocardial blood flow at rest and during pharmacologic vasodilation was measured with 13N-ammonia PET/CT in mL/g/minute in normal weight control (CON, n=12), overweight (OW, n=10), and obese individuals (OB, n=10). In addition, resting myocardial function was evaluated as circumferential strain (Єc, %) by MRI. Global myocardial flow reserve (MFR) did not differ significantly between CON and OW (2.98±0.96 vs 2.70±0.66, P=.290), whereas it declined significantly in OB (1.98±1.04, P=.030). Further, global Єc (%) was comparable between CON, OW, and OB (−0.24±0.03, −0.23±0.02, and −0.23±0.04) but it was lowest in OB when normalized to the rate-pressure product (NЄc: −0.31±0.06, −0.32±0.05, and −0.26±0.08). When MFR of the three major coronary territories was correlated with corresponding Єc, a positive association was observed in CON (r=0.36, P=.030), in OW (r=0.54, P=.002), and also in OB when relating NЄc to coronary vascular resistance during pharmacologic vasodilation (r=−0.46, P=.010). Conclusions: Higher coronary vasodilator capacity is related to corresponding regional circumferential strain at rest in non-obese individuals, while this is also observed for reduced MFR in obesit

Effect of myofibre architecture on ventricular pump function by using a neonatal porcine heart model: from DT-MRI to rule-based methods

Myofibre architecture is one of the essential components when constructing personalized cardiac models. In this study, we develop a neonatal porcine bi-ventricle model with three different myofibre architectures for the left ventricle (LV). The most realistic one is derived from ex vivo diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging, and other two simplifications are based on rule-based methods (RBM): one is regionally dependent by dividing the LV into 17 segments, each with different myofibre angles, and the other is more simplified by assigning a set of myofibre angles across the whole ventricle. Results from different myofibre architectures are compared in terms of cardiac pump function. We show that the model with the most realistic myofibre architecture can produce larger cardiac output, higher ejection fraction and larger apical twist compared with those of the rule-based models under the same pre/after-loads. Our results also reveal that when the cross-fibre contraction is included, the active stress seems to play a dual role: its sheet-normal component enhances the ventricular contraction while its sheet component does the opposite. We further show that by including non-symmetric fibre dispersion using a general structural tensor, even the most simplified rule-based myofibre model can achieve similar pump function as the most realistic one, and cross-fibre contraction components can be determined from this non-symmetric dispersion approach. Thus, our study highlights the importance of including myofibre dispersion in cardiac modelling if RBM are used, especially in personalized models

Sierra County Advocate, 1908-12-25

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/sc_advocate_news/3230/thumbnail.jp