La metafonia del Salento meridionale. Fenomeno arcaico o moderno?

According to a historical interpretation of the phonological phenomena characterizing the central-southern Italian varieties, metaphonic raising of the mid-low vowels (/ɛ, ɔ/→[e], [o]/__[i, u]) was considered an archaic phenomena; conversely, metaphonic diphthongization of the same vowels (/ɛ, ɔ/→[jɛ], [wɔ]/__[i, u]) was considered an innovative process. In this work, we address this issue in the light of clear evidence of metaphonic raising involving /ɛ/, /ɔ/ found in southern Salento. Our aim, limited to the available data, is to discuss the question by crossing two perspectives of analysis. We will use the tools of historical linguistics, and therefore we will adopt adiachronic perspective, trying to integrate it with the synchronic perspective, incorporating some assumptions of theoretical linguistics. In this way, we want to better explain linguistic change and in particular the metaphony processes of southern Salento characterized by micro-variation. Thus, we will try to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches and in parallel to develop an hypothesis that combines the two perspectives of analysis. This will help us to plan more focused researches in the future with a clear awareness of the problems raised by this kind of data

The Phonetics of Speech Production and Medical Research

The production of speech requires the interplay of a number of cognitive and motoric activities, which make it an interesting object of study from both a linguistic and a medical point of view. In this paper, we discuss, first, the features and domain of application of the most used technologies in linguistic research on speech production, focusing on those that have been applied to medicine. Second, we offer an insight into the main results that have been obtained so far in studying dysarthria in Italian Parkinson's Disease, as an example of the interdisciplinary, experimental research at the border between linguistics and medicine

Acquisizione delle vocali L2 dell’inglese americano da parte di apprendenti italofoni: un confronto tra training percettivo e training articolatorio con ecografo

La realizzazione del contrasto vocalico dell’inglese americano /ɑ-ʌ/ (es. cop-cup) da parte di apprendenti italofoni risulta essere particolarmente difficile in produzione, poiché le differenze fonetiche-fonologiche dei due sistemi linguistici e le regole di conversione grafema-fonema fanno sì che gli apprendenti italofoni realizzino il contrasto L2-/ɑ-ʌ/ utilizzando le vocali native /ɔ-a/ rispettivamente. Lo scopo di questo studio è quello di osservare se un breve training possa aiutare gli apprendenti italofoni a migliorare la produzione delle vocali non native /ɑ-ʌ/. In particolare, si effettuerà un confronto tra un training percettivo e un training articolatorio, effettuato con l’utilizzo di un ecografo, al fine di osservare: 1) gli effetti di entrambi i training sulla realizzazione del contrasto L2 /ɑ-ʌ/; e 2) se il training articolatorio comporti risultati migliori rispetto a quello percettivo. Allo studio hanno partecipato nove studentesse salentine che sono state suddivise, in modo casuale, in tre gruppi: i) tre soggetti hanno preso parte al training percettivo della durata di un’ora (ES-P): ii) tre soggetti hanno partecipato al training articolatorio con ultrasuono della durata di un’ora (ES-US); iii) tre soggetti di controllo che non hanno effettuato alcun tipo di training (CS). I primi due gruppi (ES-P e ES-US) hanno ricevuto istruzioni sulle caratteristiche fonetiche sia delle vocali L2 /ɑ-ʌ/ che delle vocali della L1 /ɔ-a/ nonché sulle loro differenze utilizzando una rappresentazione sul piano cartesiano delle formanti F1 e F2. Successivamente, ciascun gruppo ha effettuato il training: i) i soggetti del gruppo ES-P hanno effettuato un test di identificazione basato sulla procedura High Variability Phonetic Training; ii) i soggetti del gruppo ES-US hanno effettuato un training articolatorio osservando sia un video relativo ai gesti linguali durante la produzione delle vocali /ɑ-ʌ/ da parte di un parlante nativo, sia una visualizzazione dinamica dei movimenti e della posizione della lingua, ottenuta grazie ad una sonda ecografica posizionata sotto il proprio mento. Le partecipanti sono state registrate sia prima che dopo l’addestramento (pre- e post-test) e le loro produzioni sono state analizzate acusticamente misurando il valore delle prime due formanti. I risultati mostrano che nel pre-test tutti le apprendenti realizzano L2-/ɑ-ʌ/ come L1-/ɔ-a/ rispettivamente. Al contrario, nel post-test sono soprattutto le apprendenti che hanno effettuato il training articolatorio riescono a realizzare le vocali L2 in modo differente sia rispetto a quelle realizzate nel pre-test sia rispetto alle vocali della L1. In particolare, un’apprendente produce entrambe le vocali non native in modo più accurato. Il training articolatorio sembra quindi essere più efficace del training percettivo.

The Use of Phonetic Motor Invariants Can Improve Automatic Phoneme Discrimination

affiliation: Castellini, C (Reprint Author), Univ Genoa, LIRA Lab, Genoa, Italy. Castellini, Claudio; Metta, Giorgio; Tavella, Michele, Univ Genoa, LIRA Lab, Genoa, Italy. Badino, Leonardo; Metta, Giorgio; Sandini, Giulio; Fadiga, Luciano, Italian Inst Technol, Genoa, Italy. Grimaldi, Mirko, Salento Univ, CRIL, Lecce, Italy. Fadiga, Luciano, Univ Ferrara, DSBTA, I-44100 Ferrara, Italy. article-number: e24055 keywords-plus: SPEECH-PERCEPTION; RECOGNITION research-areas: Science & Technology - Other Topics web-of-science-categories: Multidisciplinary Sciences author-email: [email protected] funding-acknowledgement: European Commission [NEST-5010, FP7-IST-250026] funding-text: The authors acknowledge the support of the European Commission project CONTACT (grant agreement NEST-5010) and SIEMPRE (grant agreement number FP7-IST-250026). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. number-of-cited-references: 31 times-cited: 0 journal-iso: PLoS One doc-delivery-number: 817OO unique-id: ISI:000294683900024We investigate the use of phonetic motor invariants (MIs), that is, recurring kinematic patterns of the human phonetic articulators, to improve automatic phoneme discrimination. Using a multi-subject database of synchronized speech and lips/tongue trajectories, we first identify MIs commonly associated with bilabial and dental consonants, and use them to simultaneously segment speech and motor signals. We then build a simple neural network-based regression schema (called Audio-Motor Map, AMM) mapping audio features of these segments to the corresponding MIs. Extensive experimental results show that (a) a small set of features extracted from the MIs, as originally gathered from articulatory sensors, are dramatically more effective than a large, state-of-the-art set of audio features, in automatically discriminating bilabials from dentals; (b) the same features, extracted from AMM-reconstructed MIs, are as effective as or better than the audio features, when testing across speakers and coarticulating phonemes; and dramatically better as noise is added to the speech signal. These results seem to support some of the claims of the motor theory of speech perception and add experimental evidence of the actual usefulness of MIs in the more general framework of automated speech recognition

Cetuximab continuation after first progression in metastatic colorectal cancer (CAPRI-GOIM): A randomized phase II trial of FOLFOX plus cetuximab versus FOLFOX

Background: Cetuximab plus chemotherapy is a first-line treatment option in metastatic KRAS and NRAS wild-type colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. No data are currently available on continuing anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) therapy beyond progression. Patients and methods: We did this open-label, 1:1 randomized phase II trial at 25 hospitals in Italy to evaluate the efficacy of cetuximab plus 5-fluorouracil, folinic acid and oxaliplatin (FOLFOX) as second-line treatment of KRAS exon 2 wild-type metastatic CRC patients treated in first line with 5-fluorouracil, folinic acid and irinotecan (FOLFIRI) plus cetuximab. Patients received FOLFOX plus cetuximab (arm A) or FOLFOX (arm B). Primary end point was progressionfree survival (PFS). Tumour tissues were assessed by next-generation sequencing (NGS). This report is the final analysis. Results: Between 1 February 2010 and 28 September 2014, 153 patients were randomized (74 in arm A and 79 in arm B). Median PFS was 6.4 [95% confidence interval (CI) 4.7-8.0] versus 4.5 months (95% CI 3.3-5.7); [hazard ratio (HR), 0.81; 95% CI 0.58-1.12; P = 0.19], respectively. NGS was performed in 117/153 (76.5%) cases; 66/117 patients (34 in arm A and 32 in arm B) had KRAS, NRAS, BRAF and PIK3CA wild-type tumours. For these patients, PFS was longer in the FOLFOX plus cetuximab arm [median 6.9 (95% CI 5.5-8.2) versus 5.3 months (95% CI 3.7-6.9); HR, 0.56 (95% CI 0.33-0.94); P = 0.025]. There was a trend in better overall survival: median 23.7 [(95% CI 19.4-28.0) versus 19.8 months (95% CI 14.9-24.7); HR, 0.57 (95% CI 0.32-1.02); P = 0.056]. Conclusions: Continuing cetuximab treatment in combination with chemotherapy is of potential therapeutic efficacy in molecularly selected patients and should be validated in randomized phase III trials

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

Infected pancreatic necrosis: outcomes and clinical predictors of mortality. A post hoc analysis of the MANCTRA-1 international study

: The identification of high-risk patients in the early stages of infected pancreatic necrosis (IPN) is critical, because it could help the clinicians to adopt more effective management strategies. We conducted a post hoc analysis of the MANCTRA-1 international study to assess the association between clinical risk factors and mortality among adult patients with IPN. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression models were used to identify prognostic factors of mortality. We identified 247 consecutive patients with IPN hospitalised between January 2019 and December 2020. History of uncontrolled arterial hypertension (p = 0.032; 95% CI 1.135-15.882; aOR 4.245), qSOFA (p = 0.005; 95% CI 1.359-5.879; aOR 2.828), renal failure (p = 0.022; 95% CI 1.138-5.442; aOR 2.489), and haemodynamic failure (p = 0.018; 95% CI 1.184-5.978; aOR 2.661), were identified as independent predictors of mortality in IPN patients. Cholangitis (p = 0.003; 95% CI 1.598-9.930; aOR 3.983), abdominal compartment syndrome (p = 0.032; 95% CI 1.090-6.967; aOR 2.735), and gastrointestinal/intra-abdominal bleeding (p = 0.009; 95% CI 1.286-5.712; aOR 2.710) were independently associated with the risk of mortality. Upfront open surgical necrosectomy was strongly associated with the risk of mortality (p < 0.001; 95% CI 1.912-7.442; aOR 3.772), whereas endoscopic drainage of pancreatic necrosis (p = 0.018; 95% CI 0.138-0.834; aOR 0.339) and enteral nutrition (p = 0.003; 95% CI 0.143-0.716; aOR 0.320) were found as protective factors. Organ failure, acute cholangitis, and upfront open surgical necrosectomy were the most significant predictors of mortality. Our study confirmed that, even in a subgroup of particularly ill patients such as those with IPN, upfront open surgery should be avoided as much as possible. Study protocol registered in ClinicalTrials.Gov (I.D. Number NCT04747990)