Iconicity norms for 234 sign in Italian Sign Language (LIS)

The study of sign languages has received increasing interest in recent years; however there exist hardly any norms for psycholinguistic variables that have appeared to play an important role in sign language processing. Spoken and sign languages share the processes underlying the linguistic function, but also present specific features. One of these is the fundamental role of iconicity in sign languages, both in production and in their understanding. Research on the Italian Sign Language (LIS) is becoming more frequent and it is essential to have available linguistic databases. The objective of this study, therefore, is to offer a first corpus in LIS, which links iconicity with different psycholinguistic variables. Hearing Italian participants provided ratings of iconicity on a total of 234 sign of the www.spreadthesign.com site. Besides iconicity, the variables studied were: concreteness, imaginability, familiarity, age of acquisition and frequency. The analyzes suggest that imaginability is related to iconicity. This is the first psycholinguistic description based on a corpus of 234 signs and can be useful to other researchers interested in LIS

A feasibility study of a NBI photoneutralizer based on nonlinear gating laser recirculation

The neutralization efficiency of negative ion neutral beam injectors is a major issue for future fusion reactors. Photon neutralization might be a valid alternative to present gas neutralizers, but still with several challenges for a valid implementation. Some concepts have been presented so far but none has been validated yet. A novel photoneutralization concept is discussed here, based on an annular cavity and a duplicated frequency laser beam (recirculation injection by nonlinear gating). The choice of lithium triborate as the material for the second harmonic extractor is discussed and a possible cooling method via crystal slicing is presented; laser intensity enhancement within the cavity is evaluated in order to quantify the achievable neutralization rate. Mockups of the critical components are proposed as intermediate steps toward system realization