What is the Source of Bilingual Cross-Language Activation in Deaf Bilinguals?

When deaf bilinguals are asked to make semantic similarity judgments of two written words, their responses are influenced by the sublexical relationship of the signed language translations of the target words. This study investigated whether the observed effects of ASL activation on English print depend on (a) an overlap in syllabic structure of the signed translations or (b) on initialization, an effect of contact between ASL and English that has resulted in a direct representation of English orthographic features in ASL sublexical form. Results demonstrate that neither of these conditions is required or enhances effects of cross-language activation. The experimental outcomes indicate that deaf bilinguals discover the optimal mapping between their two languages in a manner that is not constrained by privileged sublexical associations

Industrial-Scale Decontamination Procedure Effects on the Content of Acaricides, Heavy Metals and Antioxidant Capacity of Beeswax

María Dolores Navarro-Hortal is a FPU fellow from the Spanish Ministry of Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades. We acknowledge Nutraceutical Translations for English language editing of this manuscript.Beeswax is useful for the beekeeping sector but also for the agro-food, pharmaceutical or cosmetics sectors. Frequently, this bee product is contaminated with pesticides reducing its utility and causing the decline in its market. This study aimed to prove the effectiveness of an industrial-scale decontamination method in removing acaricides from beeswax. Chlorfenvinphos and coumaphos decrease was higher than 90%, whereas tau fluvalinate decrease was only 30%. No changes were observed in the beeswax content of hydrocarbons and monoesters, whereas a decrease in the concentrations of Ca, Fe, Zn, Hg, Mn and P, and an increase in the concentrations of As and Si were found after the decontamination. Filtration reduced total phenolics, flavonoids and the antioxidant capacity of the lipophilic extract. These results demonstrate that the industrial method used was as effective as the method previously tested on a laboratory scale. The study also contributes to a better knowledge and characterization of beeswax, specially related to trace and ultra-trace elements and antioxidant capacity. Moreover, it offers the chance to further develop a method to effectively detect wax adulterations based on the chemical elements profile.The present study was partially funded by the “National Beekeeping Aid Program (Programa Nacional de Ayudas a la Apicultura)”, cofounded by the European Union and assigned to Spanish FEGA and FEAGA agencies (2016)

Treatment with tocilizumab or corticosteroids for COVID-19 patients with hyperinflammatory state: a multicentre cohort study (SAM-COVID-19)

Objectives: The objective of this study was to estimate the association between tocilizumab or corticosteroids and the risk of intubation or death in patients with coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) with a hyperinflammatory state according to clinical and laboratory parameters. Methods: A cohort study was performed in 60 Spanish hospitals including 778 patients with COVID-19 and clinical and laboratory data indicative of a hyperinflammatory state. Treatment was mainly with tocilizumab, an intermediate-high dose of corticosteroids (IHDC), a pulse dose of corticosteroids (PDC), combination therapy, or no treatment. Primary outcome was intubation or death; follow-up was 21 days. Propensity score-adjusted estimations using Cox regression (logistic regression if needed) were calculated. Propensity scores were used as confounders, matching variables and for the inverse probability of treatment weights (IPTWs). Results: In all, 88, 117, 78 and 151 patients treated with tocilizumab, IHDC, PDC, and combination therapy, respectively, were compared with 344 untreated patients. The primary endpoint occurred in 10 (11.4%), 27 (23.1%), 12 (15.4%), 40 (25.6%) and 69 (21.1%), respectively. The IPTW-based hazard ratios (odds ratio for combination therapy) for the primary endpoint were 0.32 (95%CI 0.22-0.47; p < 0.001) for tocilizumab, 0.82 (0.71-1.30; p 0.82) for IHDC, 0.61 (0.43-0.86; p 0.006) for PDC, and 1.17 (0.86-1.58; p 0.30) for combination therapy. Other applications of the propensity score provided similar results, but were not significant for PDC. Tocilizumab was also associated with lower hazard of death alone in IPTW analysis (0.07; 0.02-0.17; p < 0.001). Conclusions: Tocilizumab might be useful in COVID-19 patients with a hyperinflammatory state and should be prioritized for randomized trials in this situatio

Negative polarity licensing and negative concord in the Romance languages.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the investigation of the semantics and syntax of Negative Words (N-words) in negative concord languages, with a focus on Spanish. An in-depth look into the syntactic behavior as well as into the meaning of terms such as nadie 'nobody', nada 'nothing', nunca 'never', etc., will provide some insight into the controversial nature of these words in the Romance languages as well as a better understanding of their peculiar pattern of distribution. On a larger picture, a thorough investigation of the semantics and syntax of these items will, in turn, contribute to a better understanding of the nature of negative polarity items in general. Thus, as I just anticipated, my conclusion is that N-words are in fact equivalent to negative polarity items, and that the phenomenon of negative concord, by which, in some languages, various negative items contribute only one semantic negation to a sentence, is a subcase of the crosslinguistic phenomenon of negative polarity licensing. In this respect, my analysis of N-words builds on the analyses of Bosque (1980) and Laka (1990). I base my conclusion that N-words are negative polarity items upon an extensive survey of comparative data coming from different Romance languages as well as from English, and I bring up new data and arguments supporting my view on the issue. In addition to arguing for the negative polarity nature of N-words, I also explore the extent to which syntactic operations are involved in the licensing of N-words, and I provide evidence showing that N-word licensing does not directly involve syntactic movement (contra most standard assumptions). Finally, in my investigation of the nature of N-words, I go beyond simply identifying them as negative polarity items. Specifically, I look deeply into the logicosemantic contribution of N-words, and I present arguments and data showing that N-words do not have either negative or any other kind of quantificational force. Rather, as I argue, they are better characterized as logicosemantic variables (in the sense of Kamp 1981 and Heim 1982.) In this regard, I depart from Bosque's (1980) and Laka's (1990) characterization of N-words. My view is more radical than theirs in that I do not just claim that N-words do not have inherent negative content, but also that they do not have any quantificational force of their own at all

Comparing the Informational Content of Speech/Gesture and Sign Language

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Bilingual word recognition in deaf and hearing signers: Effects of proficiency and language dominance on cross-language activation

Recent evidence demonstrates that American Sign Language signs are active during print word recognition in deaf bilinguals who are highly proficient in both ASL and English. In the present study, we investigate whether signs are active during print word recognition in two groups of unbalanced bilinguals: deaf ASL-dominant and hearing English-dominant bilinguals. Participants judged the semantic relatedness of word pairs in English. Critically, a subset of both the semantically related and unrelated English word pairs had phonologically related translations in ASL, but participants were never shown any ASL signs during the experiment. Deaf ASL-dominant bilinguals (Experiment 1) were faster when semantically related English word pairs had similar form translations in ASL, but slower when semantically unrelated words had similar form translations in ASL, indicating that ASL signs are engaged during English print word recognition in these ASL-dominant signers. Hearing English-dominant bilinguals (Experiment 2) were also slower to respond to semantically unrelated English word pairs with similar form translations in ASL, but no facilitation effects were observed in this population. The results provide evidence that the interactive nature of lexical processing in bilinguals is impervious to language modality

La violencia contra la mujer en la pareja: Un estudio en el ámbito de la atención primaria Intimate partner violence: A survey conducted in the primary care setting

Objetivos: Determinar la prevalencia de violencia contra la mujer en la pareja en una muestra de mujeres asistentes por cualquier motivo a centros de atención primaria, y analizar las características de esta violencia. Métodos: Estudio transversal en 23 consultas de atención primaria de Andalucía, Madrid y Valencia. La muestra incluye 1.402 mujeres entre 18 y 65 años de edad elegidas aleatoriamente en estas consultas. Entre las variables recogidas mediante cuestionario autoadministrado se incluyeron la existencia de maltrato fisico, emocional o sexual, su temporalidad, su frecuencia y su duración. Resultados: El 32% del total de mujeres en la muestra tuvo algún tipo de maltrato a lo largo de su vida. El 7% presentó en algún momento de su vida maltrato físico y emocional a la vez, el 14% maltrato emocional, el 3% maltrato emocional y sexual conjuntamente y el 6% los 3 tipos de maltrato. El 52% de las mujeres que refirieron los 3 tipos de maltrato lo habían sufrido durante más de 5 años. Hay una mayor probabilidad de padecer maltrato en la actualidad habiéndolo sufrido con una pareja anterior en el pasado (odds ratio = 3,30; intervalo de confianza del 95%, 2,10-5,18). Conclusiones: Estos resultados ponen de manifiesto la magnitud de la violencia contra la mujer en la pareja en nuestro ámbito. Los profesionales de la salud se encuentran en una situación privilegiada para abordar este grave problema de salud pública.<br>Objectives: To determine the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) in a sample of women attending primary care centers for any reason and to analyze the characteristics of this violence. Methods: A cross sectional study was performed in 23 primary care centers in three regions of Spain (Andalusia, Madrid and Valencia). The sample included 1,402 randomly selected adult women aged between 18 and 65 years attending these centers. Among the variables collected through a self-administered questionnaire were the existence of physical, emotional or sexual abuse, and its timing, duration, and frequency. Results: Overall, 32% had experienced some type of IPV. By type, 7% had experienced both physical and emotional IPV, 14% had experienced emotional IPV, 3% had experienced emotional and sexual IPV, and 6% had suffered all 3 types of IPV. Among the latter, 52% had experienced abuse for more than 5 years. Women who experienced abuse in a previous relationship had a greater probability of being abused by a new intimate partner (OR = 3.30; 95% CI, 2.10-5.18). Conclusions: These results show the scale of IPV in Spain. Health professionals play an important role in IPV, as they are in a privileged position to tackle this serious public health problem