Predication and equation

English is one language where equative sentences and non-equative sentences have a similar surface syntax (but see Heggie 1988 and Moro 1997 for a discussion of more subtle differences). In this paper we address the fact that many other languages appear to use radically different morphological means which seem to map to intuitive differences in the type of predication expressed. We take one such language, Scottish Gaelic, and show that the real difference is not between equative and non-equative sentences, but is rather dependent on whether the predicational head in the structure proposed above is eventive or not. We show that the aparently odd syntax of “equatives” in this language derives from the fact that they are constructed via a non-eventive Pred head. Since Pred heads cannot combine with non-predicative categories, such as saturated DPs, “equatives” are built up indirectly from a simple predicational structure with a semantically bleached predicate. This approach not only allows us to maintain a strict one-to-one syntax/semantics mapping for predicational syntax, but also for the syntax of DPs. The argument we develop here, then, suggests that the interface between the syntactic and semantic components is maximally economical— one could say perfect

Principal Regression Analysis and the index leverage effect

We revisit the index leverage effect, that can be decomposed into a volatility effect and a correlation effect. We investigate the latter using a matrix regression analysis, that we call `Principal Regression Analysis' (PRA) and for which we provide some analytical (using Random Matrix Theory) and numerical benchmarks. We find that downward index trends increase the average correlation between stocks (as measured by the most negative eigenvalue of the conditional correlation matrix), and makes the market mode more uniform. Upward trends, on the other hand, also increase the average correlation between stocks but rotates the corresponding market mode {\it away} from uniformity. There are two time scales associated to these effects, a short one on the order of a month (20 trading days), and a longer time scale on the order of a year. We also find indications of a leverage effect for sectorial correlations as well, which reveals itself in the second and third mode of the PRA.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Time and the event: The semantics of Russian prefixes

In this paper, I draw on data from prefixation in Russian to argue for a basic distinction between event structure and temporal struc- ture. I present a linguistic semantics of verb and argument structure interpretation on the one hand, and a formal semantic implementa- tion of 'telicity' on the other, which makes sense of the generalisations apparently common to both domains. I will claim that the temporal domain embeds the event structure domain, and that the latter con- strains the former. At the same time, the different formal primitives that operate at the levels proposed form the basis for a principled linguistic distinction between the two tiers of composition: the event structure level encodes subevental relations and predicational rela- tions within those subevents; the temporal structure level introduces a t variable explicitly and relates it to the structure built up by the event level. Whether the event structure is homogenous or not will have an impact on whether the temporal variable chosen will be 'def- inite' or 'indefinite.' This latter claim then forms the basis for a new conception of the difference between perfective and imperfective verb forms in Russian

The effects of purchasing alcohol and marijuana among adolescents at-risk for future substance use

BACKGROUND: Among high-risk youth, those who may be at increased risk for adverse alcohol and other drug (AOD) use outcomes may benefit from targeted prevention efforts; how youth acquire AOD may provide an objective means of identifying youth at elevated risk. METHODS: We assessed how youth acquired alcohol and marijuana (purchasing vs. other means), demographics, AOD behaviors/consequences, and environment among adolescents referred to a diversion program called Teen Court (N = 180) at two time points (prior to the program and 180 days from baseline). Participants were predominantly White and Hispanic/Latino(a). RESULTS: In cross-sectional analyses among alcohol and marijuana users, purchasing marijuana was associated with more frequent marijuana use and consequences, time spent around teens who use marijuana, higher likelihood of substance use disorders, and lower resistance self-efficacy compared to non-purchasers. Teens who purchased both alcohol and marijuana experienced similar outcomes to those who purchased only marijuana, and also reported more frequent and higher quantity of drinking, greater alcohol-related consequences, time spent around teens who use other drugs, and prescription drug misuse. Longitudinally, purchasing alcohol and marijuana at baseline was associated with more frequent and higher quantity of drinking compared to non-purchasers at follow-up. Marijuana only purchasers had a greater likelihood of substance use disorders at follow-up compared to non-purchasers. CONCLUSIONS: In an era where drinking is commonplace and attitudes towards marijuana use are becoming more tolerant, it is essential to evaluate how accessibility to AOD and subsequent purchasing behaviors affect youth consumption and intervene accordingly to prevent future consequences

Irrigation and drainage in the new millennium

Presented at the 2000 USCID international conference, Challenges facing irrigation and drainage in the new millennium on June 20-24 in Fort Collins, Colorado.Includes bibliographical references.This paper is based on the results of a one-year study and analysis of irrigated agriculture in Indonesia (1997-98). The research was funded by the Asian Development Bank. and implemented with cooperation of the National Development Planning Board (BAPPENAS) and the Directorate General of Water Resources (DGWRD, Ministry of Public Works) in Indonesia. The overall purpose of the study was to review past policy approaches to irrigation development and management, evaluate their effectiveness, and recommend options for future

Psychology of learning for teachers : preparing for classroom inquiry

This paper is a plea to enable prospective teachers to use the conceptual frameworks, tools and approaches that the discipline of psychology has to offer, so as to understand how children learn. In the course of reviewing Michael Howe's classic book (1999/1984), I will make a distinction between gaining knowledge of theories of learning as mere information, and a deeper “understanding” that allows teachers to research learning in the context of their own classrooms. I will argue that initial teacher education programmes should shift focus from teaching theories of learning as a product to be assimilated, to understanding the processes used to generate these theories

Interpretable Machine Learning for Predictive Analytics with High-Fidelity Imbalanced Clinical Data

Healthcare professionals frequently manage complex, under-represented clinical events that challenge established diagnostic and decision-making pathways. These include infrequently diagnosed conditions, early-stage deterioration, and diseases with heterogeneous manifestations, where low prevalence, variable presentation, and limited structured data introduce significant uncertainty. Clinicians apply deep expertise to interpret these cases, often under constraints of time, information, and documentation. This thesis examines how high-fidelity clinical data can be analysed using machine learning (ML) techniques to support clinical judgement.It explores how computational models might surface latent patterns, identify early risk signals, and make complex data more interpretable in settings defined by imbalance, variability, and diagnostic ambiguity. Across a series of empirical studies, the thesis addresses technical challenges common to rare or complex event prediction: class imbalance, missingness, temporal variation, and heterogeneity in clinical presentation. The first case study focuses on sepsis, a common but acutely time-sensitive condition. While sepsis is well recognised, the rapid progression of the disease limits the availability of temporally labelled pre-onset data. Using intensive care unit (ICU) records, the thesis develops preprocessing pipelines and tests attention-based temporal models to support early warning in a moderately imbalanced context, where timely prediction is critical and observational data are sparse. With the advent of COVID-19, a fast-spreading and clinically disruptive condition, under-standing the factors that lead to hospitalisation became a pressing research need. While early studies primarily focused on symptom onset and complications, less attention was paid to the early signals embedded in longitudinal health records. This study draws on primary care data that capture patients’ health trajectories over time, enabling analysis of events leading up to hospitalisation. Within this broader population dataset, hospital admission occurs in approximately 10% of cases, resulting in a naturally imbalanced outcome. Class-sensitive objectives and temporally structured features are applied to surface early risk markers that may inform triage decisions and support timely intervention. Building on the hospitalisation study, the thesis further explores how injecting structured clinical knowledge into models can improve the representation of infrequent manifestations within the same imbalanced primary care setting. Medical ontologies are integrated into language models to enhance the embedding of rare clinical terms and improve classification performance. This approach is applied to two additional prediction tasks using the same dataset.COVID-19-related mortality ( 1%) serves as a highly imbalanced clinical outcome for evaluating model sensitivity to low-signal, high-risk events, whilst stroke ( 30%) is used as a more common benchmark for assessing generalisability across conditions of varying prevalence and complexity. Together, these tasks extend the modelling framework to uncover how structured knowledge improves the encoding of infrequent clinical features and contributes to more robust and generalisable prediction across diverse diagnostic contexts. Grounded in the clinical utility of differentiating hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM)from Fabry disease, a rare metabolic disorder frequently misdiagnosed due to overlapping cardiac features, this final case study extends the thesis’s exploration of imbalance to include disease heterogeneity and population-level rarity. A novel multimodal dataset was collected from hospital cardiac records, including echocardiography, ECG, and Holter monitoring data from genetically confirmed Fabry patients and matched HCM controls. Traditional ML classifiers trained on this dataset showed promising discriminatory ability using routinely acquired clinical measurements. These findings suggest that standard diagnostic tools may help raise earlier consideration of rare conditions in everyday practice when modelled with care and clinical insight. Together, these studies propose a generalisable approach to modelling rare and under-represented clinical events using ML. The thesis focuses on structuring and improving the quality and utility of clinical data, surfacing patterns of clinical relevance, and supporting decision-making in diagnostically uncertain environments. The final clinical interface is de-signed as a practical tool to assist interpretation and integrate predictions into clinical work-flows and as a space to understand better how models behave in context. These contributions are made with deep appreciation for the complexity of clinical decision-making and the expertise of those who carry it out. The work aims to support that expertise by offering tools and insights that are transparent, interpretable, and aligned with real-world care

A background to the novel in the West Indies

That there is a substantial fiction from the West Indies and that a relatively high proportion of it is of good quality} these are the premises with which this study began and which it must in part substantiate. But there are problems to be coped with. The lack of basic information about writers, works and periods; and the absence of a West Indian critical tradition are more acutely felt because most West Indian writers live in London and have their works published and read in England.This circumstance encourages the documentary tendency already noted to the extent that the novels become primary evidence for theories about West Indian society. Meanwhile, the fiction is not felt in the West Indies as part of the social and cultural life of the islands.This study tries to deal with the whole nexus of problems in a crossdisciplinary fashion. On one level it tries to trace the growth of West Indian fiction and to illuminate its background, thus placing it in its proper social context and preparing the way for informed critical appreciation by its largely non-vest Indian readers. This provides the outer frame for the thesis and determines the Chapter headings. Chapter II Life without Fiction ranges from the eighteenth century to the 1940's tracing the growth of writing in the islands in relation to the development of West Indian society and charting the inevitable drift of the present generation of novelists to London. In Chapters III, IV and V the critical problems raised by this exile situation are approached under the broad headings 'Race', 'Language* and 'Society'. Finally in Chapter VI, 'Precursors', a resume of the continuing significance of older West Indian writers is followed by an account of the life and career of Claude McKay (1890-1948) the first West Indian Negro novelist and the first to go into exile, but paradigmatic in even deeper critical senses than this.Such is the outer shape of the thesis, ithin the chapters lie seemingly digressive pockets of literary criticism and literary history. These are important as part of the informational load. But it is felt that coming alongside the background elements, they would both engage with problems of art and serve as exercises in the critical use of background.Instead of an essay type conclusion, hardly practicable in view of the kind of argument being pursued, there will be a select list divided into (A) and (B) categories, of the novels judged to be outstanding as a result of this study