2,177 research outputs found

    Linkage in narratives: A comparison between monolingual speakers of French and Italian, and early and late French-Italian bilinguals

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    In the course of language acquisition learners have to deal with the task of producing narrative texts that are coherent across a range of conceptual domains (space, time, entities) -- both within as well as across utterances. The organization of information is analyzed in this study, on the basis of retellings of a silent film, in terms of devices used in the coordination and subordination of events within the narrative sequence. The focus on subordination reflects a core grammatical difference between Italian and French, as Italian is a null-subject language while French is not. The implications of this contrast for information structure include differences in topic management within the sequence of events. The present study investigates in how far Italian-French bilingual speakers acquire the patterns of monolingual speakers of Italian. It compares how early and late bilinguals of these two languages proceed when linking information in narratives in Italia

    Identification of the role played by Na+/Ca2+ exchanger 1 (NCX1) in hippocampal dependent anxiety, spatial learning and memory consolidation through genetic modified mice and newly synthesized compounds.

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    The Na+/Ca2+ exchanger 1 (NCX1), which is highly expressed in the hippocampus, cortex, and amygdala, regulates Akt1 phosphorylation. Since Akt1 is part of the PTEN/Akt1/CREB signaling pathway, which participates in synaptic plasticity and long-term memory, we investigated whether NCX1 expression/activity might also be involved in some hippocampal-dependent learning and memory processes. To test this hypothesis, we used two genetically-modified mice to selectively overexpress (NCX1.4over) or downregulate (NCX1ko) NCX1 in hippocampal, cortical, and amygdala neurons and a newly synthesized selective NCX1 stimulating compound, named CN-PYB2. Both NCX1.4over and CN-PYB2-treated mice showed increased phosphorylated CaMKII levels in the hippocampus and improved long-term spatial learning and memory performance. By contrast, NCX1ko mice displayed a decrease in both. In addition, both NCX1.4over and CN-PYB2-treated mice also displayed an increase in context-dependent anxiety. Altogether, these results demonstrate that neuronal NCX1 participates in hippocampal-amygdala memory consolidation and promote anxiety behavior

    The determinants of migration to the EU: evidence from residence permits data

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    The report analyzes the drivers of different forms of migration. Specifically, using Eurostat data on new residence permits issued by EU countries to Third-Country Nationals, we are able to distinguish among five channels of entry and stay in Europe: family, work-related, education, humanitarian, and other reasons. We estimate several panel data gravity models for each of the groups of migrants, for the period 2008-2015. We find that dyadic variables influence all forms of migration similarly. We provide evidence of network effects, especially for the groups of family and work-related migrants. Population growth in the country of origin is negatively associated with migration, except for humanitarian forms of migration. Increasing economic disparities between the origin and the destination countries, measured with GDP per-capita, are associated with higher migration movements, though not for all the groups. Restrictive migration policies in the destination country and travel visa restrictions seem to act as a deterrent for migrations.JRC.E.6-Demography, Migration and Governanc

    An On-line BIST RAM Architecture with Self Repair Capabilities

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    The emerging field of self-repair computing is expected to have a major impact on deployable systems for space missions and defense applications, where high reliability, availability, and serviceability are needed. In this context, RAM (random access memories) are among the most critical components. This paper proposes a built-in self-repair (BISR) approach for RAM cores. The proposed design, introducing minimal and technology-dependent overheads, can detect and repair a wide range of memory faults including: stuck-at, coupling, and address faults. The test and repair capabilities are used on-line, and are completely transparent to the external user, who can use the memory without any change in the memory-access protocol. Using a fault-injection environment that can emulate the occurrence of faults inside the module, the effectiveness of the proposed architecture in terms of both fault detection and repairing capability was verified. Memories of various sizes have been considered to evaluate the area-overhead introduced by this proposed architectur

    The relationship between inequality in the origin country and emigration

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    This policy brief illustrates the role of inequality as a driver of migration and seeks empirical evidence of the relationship between inequality within the country of origin and emigration rate.JRC.E.6-Demography, Migration and Governanc

    Many more to come? Migration from and within Africa

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    The report provides an analysis of the past of African migration; the present patterns of migration within and from Africa; the individual intentions to migrate; the macro drivers of migration within and from Africa; the potential impacts of demography and development on migration within and from Africa in a medium term perspective. The main conclusion of this analysis in response to the question in the title of this science for policy report ‘Many more to come?’ is that at the moment there are no signs of an imminent exodus but that in a medium term perspective both development and demographic factors are likely to determine an increase of migratory pressure from Africa. What is not known is if this migratory pressure will manifest itself mostly within Africa or whether it will 'spill over' in international migrations directed in particular towards Europe due to geographical proximity and existing economic and migration ties.JRC.E.6-Demography, Migration and Governanc

    Online and Offline BIST in IP-Core Design

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    This article presents an online and offline built-in self-test architecture implemented as an SRAM intellectual-property core for telecommunication applications. The architecture combines fault-latency reduction, code-based fault detection, and architecture-based fault avoidance to meet reliability constraint

    Hepatotoxicity induced by greater celandine (Chelidonium majus L.): a review of the literature

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    The available literature assessing Chelidonium majus L. (CM) hepatotoxicity potential, and its risk to benefit assessment has been reviewed in this paper. Identification of significant scientific literature was performed via the following research databases: Cochrane Central, Google Scholar, EMBASE, Medline, Science Direct, Scopus, Web of Science, using the following keywords: "Chelidonium majus", "greater celandine", "Hepatotoxicity", "Liver" "Injury", "Toxicity" individually investigated and then again in association. CM named also greater celandine, swallow-wort, or bai-qu-cai (Chinese), has been used for a long time in traditional Chinese medicine and phytotherapy. Its extracts have been claimed to display a wide variety of biological activities: antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, spasmolytic, antineoplastic, hepatoprotective, and analgesic. Moreover, herbal medicine suggests this plant have numerous additional effects which have not yet been scientifically evaluated, such as antitussive, diuretic, and eye-regenerative. However, despite its claimed hepatoprotective effects, several hepatotoxicity cases have been reported to be probably or highly probably connected with CM exposure, after their evaluation through liver-targeted causality assessment methods. CM hepatotoxicity has been defined as a distinct form of herb-induced liver injury (HILI), due to an idiosyncratic reaction of the metabolic type. This evidence has to be considered in relationship with the absence of considerable benefits of CM therapy. Therefore, the risk to benefit ratio of the use of herbal products containing greater celandine can actually be considered as negative
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