Cross-Linguistic Influence in the Bilingual Mental Lexicon: Evidence of Cognate Effects in the Phonetic Production and Processing of a Vowel Contrast.

The present study examines cognate effects in the phonetic production and processing of the Catalan back mid-vowel contrast (/o/-/ɔ/) by 24 early and highly proficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals in Majorca (Spain). Participants completed a picture-naming task and a forced-choice lexical decision task in which they were presented with either words (e.g., /bɔsk/ "forest") or non-words based on real words, but with the alternate mid-vowel pair in stressed position ((*)/bosk/). The same cognate and non-cognate lexical items were included in the production and lexical decision experiments. The results indicate that even though these early bilinguals maintained the back mid-vowel contrast in their productions, they had great difficulties identifying non-words and real words based on the identity of the Catalan mid-vowel. The analyses revealed language dominance and cognate effects: Spanish-dominants exhibited higher error rates than Catalan-dominants, and production and lexical decision accuracy were also affected by cognate status. The present study contributes to the discussion of the organization of early bilinguals' dominant and non-dominant sound systems, and proposes that exemplar theoretic approaches can be extended to include bilingual lexical connections that account for the interactions between the phonetic and lexical levels of early bilingual individuals

Saturated absorption frequency locking and second harmonic generation for narrowband entangled photon pair generation

En col·laboració amb la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) i la Universitat de Barcelona (UB).The design of two locking systems for light sources desired to generate narrowband photon pairs is under study. First a DBR laser will be locked to the D1 transition frequency of Rb 87 using a Doppler-free Saturated Absorption Spectroscopy. Afterwards the frequency-locked light will be doubled in a nonlinear PPKTP crystal resulting in a frequency stabilized source at 397.5 nm

Distribution of winners in truel games

In this work we present a detailed analysis using the Markov chain theory of some versions of the truel game in which three players try to eliminate each other in a series of one-to-one competitions, using the rules of the game. Besides reproducing some known expressions for the winning probability of each player, including the equilibrium points, we give expressions for the actual distribution of winners in a truel competition.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures. Conference proceedin

Discrete--time ratchets, the Fokker--Planck equation and Parrondo's paradox

Parrondo's games manifest the apparent paradox where losing strategies can be combined to win and have generated significant multidisciplinary interest in the literature. Here we review two recent approaches, based on the Fokker-Planck equation, that rigorously establish the connection between Parrondo's games and a physical model known as the flashing Brownian ratchet. This gives rise to a new set of Parrondo's games, of which the original games are a special case. For the first time, we perform a complete analysis of the new games via a discrete-time Markov chain (DTMC) analysis, producing winning rate equations and an exploration of the parameter space where the paradoxical behaviour occurs.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure

Sur deux neveux d'Eisenstein

Artavazd Péléchian et Serghei Paradjanov, réalisateurs arméniens contemporains, ont tous deux été influencés par l'esthétique d'Eisenstein, héritage qu'ils ont réinterprété, chacun à sa façon, comme ils ont réinterprété celui de Vertov. Ils ont ainsi créé des films poétiques où ils ont expérimenté une forme d'épiphanie discontinue qui les apparente aux grands pionniers russes.This article concerns the influence of Eisensteins aesthetics on two Armenian contem porary filmmakers: Artavazd Pelechian and Serghei Paradjanov. The author explains how these artists, each in his own way, do reinterpret Eisenstein's heritage as well as Vertov's. Both Pelechian and Paradjanov create poetical films where they can experiment a form of discontinuous epipaphany, what relates them to the great Russsian pioneers

Annex I: resum meteorològic

Abstract not availabl

Cambios en la capacidad del Estado para enfrentar las violaciones de las normas laborales: los talleres de confección de prendas de vestir en Buenos Aires

Developing the capacity for states to enforce labor law is a key challenge to regulating decent work. Dominant accounts of state capacity, however, suggest that the principal components of state enforcement capacity are relative stable and, consequently, difficult to reform in the short-term. This article traces the arc of enforcement in the garment industry of Buenos Aires from 2001-2009. In the beginning of the period, there was little reaction from the state to extreme violations of labor law. Then, in 2006, enforcement increased drastically and was sustained for nearly two years. After 2008, however, enforcement levels dropped once again. Why did the state’s capacity to respond to widespread violations of labor laws in the garment industry change so dramatically over just a few years? In contrast with arguments that focus primarily in the stable organizational features of the bureaucracy, this article shows that a key, and often overlooked, component of capacity is the ability of labor inspectors to mobilize resources from society for enforcement. Since this ability is contingent on the structure of state-society linkages, it tends to be highly unstable and it shifts as political coalitions change. This finding suggests that developing a better understanding of the formation of state-society linkages can lead to new opportunities for regulators to promote decent work, even in places where inspectorates are highly constrained.Spain. National Research CouncilAndrew W. Mellon FoundationMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for International Studie