How do speakers with and without aphasia use syntax and semantics across two discourse genres?

Background: Discourse is an increasing focus of assessment in clinical and research settings because it reflects everyday communication. Everyday communication is likely to include a range of different discourse genres, e.g. describing a scene, or reflecting on life experiences. It is likely that speakers use verbs differently in these different discourse genres, but very little is known about this. Aims: To explore whether there were differences in how two groups of speakers (with and without a communication impairment) used verbs in two different discourse genres, in terms of syntax and semantics. Methods & Procedures: Data from people with aphasia (PWA) were taken from an earlier study (Cruice and colleagues, 2010; 2014), and neurologically healthy people (NHP) were recruited for the current study. Participants produced discourses from two genres: a picture description (the Western Aphasia Battery ‘Picnic Scene’) and personal narrative (reflective responses to quality of life questions). Discourses were analysed using measures of argument structure (mean Predicate Argument Structure score), verb weight (% heavy verbs) and verb semantic category (% mental and relational verbs). Comparisons were made for each measure between genre and group using a series of two mixed two-way ANOVAs. Outcomes & results: Data from 26 PWA and 27 NHP were analysed. For PAS, there was a main effect of genre, significant interaction between group and genre, and main effect of group. For the semantic measures, there was a main effect of genre for % mental verbs but no effects or interactions for % heavy and % relational verbs. Post-hoc correlations explored associations between the variables. Conclusions: Genre exerts no demonstrable impact on semantic weight, in either speaker group, but does exert influence on the semantic category of verbs used because, for both speaker groups, the picture description genre elicited a smaller percentage of mental verbs than the personal narratives produced in response to QOL questions. For PWA only, genre also exerted an influence on argument structure, with QOL narratives eliciting significantly less complex argument structures. This has implications for clinical assessment. Discourses of different genres should be sampled to fully assess a speaker’s syntactic and lexico-semantic skills; and the genre of discourse used for assessment and therapy materials should align with the client’s communication goals

High-Frequency Jet Ventilation During Cryoablation of Small Renal Tumours

AIM: To evaluate the effect of high-frequency jet ventilation (HFJV) in place of standard intermittent positive-pressure ventilation (IPPV) on procedure duration, patient radiation dose, complication rates, and outcomes during CT-guided cryoablation of small renal tumours. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred consecutive CT-guided cryoablation procedures to treat small renal tumours under general anaesthesia were evaluated-50 with standard IPPV and 50 after the introduction of HFJV as standard practice. Anaesthesia and procedural times, ionising radiation dose, complications, and 1-month post-treatment outcomes were collected. RESULTS: HFJV was feasible and safe in all cases. Mean procedure time and total anaesthetic time were shorter with HFJV (p = <0.0001). The number of required CT acquisitions (p = 0.0002) and total procedure patient radiation dose (p = 0.0027) were also lower in the HFJV group compared with the IPPV group. There were a total of four complications of Clavien-Dindo classification 3 or above-three in the IPPV group and one in the HFJV group. At 1-month follow-up, two cases (both in the IPPV group) demonstrated subtotal treatment. Both cases were subsequently successfully retreated with cryoablation. CONCLUSION: By reducing target tumour motion during CT-guided renal cryoablation, HFJV can reduce procedure times and exposure to ionising radiation. HFJV provides an important adjunct to complex image-guided interventions, with potential to improve safety and treatment outcomes

A novel flexible field-aligned coordinate system for tokamak edge plasma simulation

Tokamak plasmas are confined by a magnetic field that limits the particle and heat transport perpendicular to the field. Parallel to the field the ionised particles can move freely, so to obtain confinement the field lines are “closed” (ie.form closed surfaces of constant poloidal flux) in the core of a tokamak. Towards, the edge, however, the field lines intersect physical surfaces, leading to interaction between neutral and ionised particles, and the potential melting of the material surface. Simulation of this interaction is important for predicting the performance and lifetime of future tokamak devices such as ITER. Field-aligned coordinates are commonly used in the simulation of tokamak plasmas due to the geometry and magnetic topology of the system. However, these coordinates are limited in the geometry they allow in the poloidal plane due to orthogonality requirements. A novel 3D coordinate system is proposed herein that relaxes this constraint so that any arbitrary, smoothly varying geometry can be matched in the poloidal plane while maintaining a field-aligned coordinate. This system is implemented in BOUT++ and tested for accuracy using the method of manufactured solutions. A MAST edge cross-section is simulated using a fluid plasma model and the results show expected behaviour for density, temperature, and velocity. Finally, simulations of an isolated divertor leg are conducted with and without neutrals to demonstrate the ion-neutral interaction near the divertor plate and the corresponding beneficial decrease in plasma temperature

Explaining the human resource management preferences of employees: A study of Chinese workers

The forces of globalization, technology and the differences or similarities in institutional systems place substantial pressure on convergence and divergence in HRM practices. Moreover, local customs and the responses from employees also pose serious constraints on the degree of convergence or divergence (Rowley and Benson 2002). In other words, there is what might be termed an upward influence coming from the employees. Although companies may benchmark HRM ‘best practices’, the actual adoption and success of these practices depends, to a large extent, on perceptions and acceptance from employees. However, the opinions of non-managerial employees have been largely neglected in the studies of HRM (Cooke 2009; Legge 1995; Guest 2002; Edgar and Geare 2005; Qiao, Khilji and Wang 2009). Cooke (2009), after reviewing studies on HRM in China published between 1998 and 2007 in major business and management journals, reported that two-thirds of the studies had collected data from managers and most of them relied on managers as the sole source for information. Since the information has mainly been provided by managers, there is the potential for bias because feedback from the managers probably reflects the ideal or ‘best practices’ of HRM that those managers want to implement, rather than the actual HR policies or practices being used in the organization. Thus Cooke (2009, p.19) argued that ‘unless we can broaden our research catchment to include views from the widest range of stakeholders, particularly the employees, our understanding of HRM in China remains partial, from management’s lens’. This study explores the HR preferences of Chinese employees, both non-managerial and managerial ones, based on a sample of 2852 questionnaires from companies in China. A number of questions are explored. For example, what do they think of a ‘promotion-from-within’ policy? Do they prefer an individual-based bonus or a group-based bonus? Do they prefer a ‘downward performance appraisal method’ or a ‘multi-source performance appraisal method’? The research findings shows a strong ‘group orientation’ and a great emphasis on ‘soft factors’ such as seniority, loyalty and connections in many HRM areas. The debate on whether Chinese HRM will converge or diverge towards the Western models is still ongoing. Many argue that there could be further convergence towards the Western practices because globalization may place substantial pressure on firms to standardize practices and policies (see Chen, Lawler and Bae 2005). Others argue that HRM is highly context specific in which institutional and cultural forces have enduring influences (see Rowley and Cooke 2010), which indicates a divergent perspective. The third group supports a ‘cross-vergence’ view which argues that there will be signs of convergence in certain areas but Chinese HRM will keep its ‘Chinese characteristics’ (Cooke 2005, 2010; Yeung, Warner and Rowley 2008; Warner 2009a, b). This study supports the ‘cross-vergence’ perspective. It is argued that certain areas of Chinese HRM are converging to the Western model, but the influence of traditional Chinese personnel practices remains strong. A ‘group orientation’, a major emphasis on ‘soft factors’ and a trade union presence is likely to remain as the three main features of Chinese HRM in the long-term

Investigating the occurrence of hierarchies of cyclicity in platform carbonates

Hierarchies of cyclicity have been described from a wide variety of carbonate platform strata and are assumed to be a consequence of Milankovitch-forced variations in accommodation, although descriptions of hierarchical strata, including ‘cycles’ and what they constitute, are typically qualitative, subjective, and in some cases difficult to reproduce. One reason for this is the lack of any detailed definition of what constitutes a hierarchy, as well as the implicit and largely untested nature of the assumptions underpinning most interpretations of hierarchical strata.In this study we aim to investigate the response of depositional systems if they were to behave in the way implied by sequence stratigraphic (hierarchical) models, to clearly state the assumptions of these models, and illustrate the consequences of these assumptions when they are employed in a simple, internally-consistent forward model with plausible parameters.We define hierarchies, in both the time-domain (chronostratigraphic) and thickness-domain (stratigraphic), as two or more high-frequency sequences (HFSs) in which there exists a repeated trend of decreasing high-frequency sequence thickness such that within a single low-frequency sequence (LFS) each high-frequency sequence is thinner than the previous sequence.Based on this definition, results from 110 000 numerical model runs suggest that ordered forcing via cyclical eustatic sea-level oscillations rarely results in an easily identifiable hierarchy of stacked cycles. Hierarchies measured in the chronostratigraphic time-domain occur in only 9% of model run cases, and in 15% of cases when measured in the thickness-domain, suggesting that vertical thickness trends are probably not a useful way to identify products of ordered periodic external forcing. Variability in relative forcing periodicity results in significant variation in both HFS and LFS thickness trends making accurate identification of hierarchy and any forcing controls from thickness data alone very difficult. Comparison between model results and outcrop sections suggests that hierarchies are often assumed to be present despite a lack of adequate supporting evidence and quantitative analysis of these sections suggests that they are not hierarchical in any meaningful sense

GEANT4 : a simulation toolkit

Abstract Geant4 is a toolkit for simulating the passage of particles through matter. It includes a complete range of functionality including tracking, geometry, physics models and hits. The physics processes offered cover a comprehensive range, including electromagnetic, hadronic and optical processes, a large set of long-lived particles, materials and elements, over a wide energy range starting, in some cases, from 250 eV and extending in others to the TeV energy range. It has been designed and constructed to expose the physics models utilised, to handle complex geometries, and to enable its easy adaptation for optimal use in different sets of applications. The toolkit is the result of a worldwide collaboration of physicists and software engineers. It has been created exploiting software engineering and object-oriented technology and implemented in the C++ programming language. It has been used in applications in particle physics, nuclear physics, accelerator design, space engineering and medical physics. PACS: 07.05.Tp; 13; 2

BOUT++ : Recent and current developments

BOUT++ is a 3D nonlinear finite-difference plasma simulation code, capable of solving quite general systems of PDEs, but targeted particularly on studies of the edge region of tokamak plasmas. BOUT++ is publicly available, and has been adopted by a growing number of researchers worldwide. Here we present improvements which have been made to the code since its original release, both in terms of structure and its capabilities. Some recent applications of these methods are reviewed, and areas of active development are discussed. We also present algorithms and tools which have been developed to enable creation of inputs from analytic expressions and experimental data, and for processing and visualisation of output results. This includes a new tool Hypnotoad for the creation of meshes from experimental equilibria. Algorithms have been implemented in BOUT++ to solve a range of linear algebraic problems encountered in the simulation of reduced MHD and gyro-fluid models: A preconditioning scheme is presented which enables the plasma potential to be calculated efficiently using iterative methods supplied by the PETSc library, without invoking the Boussinesq approximation. Scaling studies are also performed of a linear solver used as part of physics-based preconditioning to accelerate the convergence of implicit time-integration schemes