Speech Impact in Political Discourse in Context of COVID-19 Pandemic (Speeches of B. Johnson and D. Biden)

The article is devoted to the study of pragmalinguistic means of political discourse. The material was transcriptions of speeches by British Prime Minister B. Johnson and US President D. Biden, published on the official websites of the governments of Great Britain and the United States. The authors set themselves the task of studying communication tactics that update the main directions of policy regarding COVID-19. The relevance of the work is due to the constructivist approach to the language. Political discourse is one of the ways to actualize power and control in society. The analysis revealed two groups of tactics that affect social consciousness and behavior: tactics of negative representation and tactics of positive representation. The tactics of negative representation of the pandemic include the following: emphasizing the threat, modeling a negative scenario, attracting negative experience. Positive representations are created through the use of tactics such as highlighting achievements, modeling a positive scenario, solidarity, appeals to duty, persuasion and appeal. It is shown that the linguistic means of updating the identified tactics have a targeted impact on the emotional sphere and on the consciousness of citizens, being a strong argument in favor of vaccination. The analysis carried out contributes to the understanding of the discursive mechanisms of influence on the mass consciousness

Axiology of Bikers’ Group Identity (based on the Internet Communication)

The paper presents the results of discourse analysis of bikers’ communication. The authors aim to reveal key axiological values in biker subculture, as well as discovering linguistic features in discourse of this social group and characterizing its members’ identity. The study takes a close look at how values are actualized through their linguistic forms in discourse. The research is innovative in that it attempts to employ discourse analysis in order to explore youth subcultures, specifically biker subculture. The paper offers a literature review focusing on biker subculture and covering some aspects of youth discourse in general. The authors provide a theoretical background for using the category of topos to reveal values in biker subculture. The findings include a list of principal topoi that provide a frame for the construction of bikers’ collective social identity. The authors argue that the social category ‘biker’ is constructed through the topoi of ‘bike’, ‘pleasure’, ‘danger’ and ‘brotherhood’. The conclusion is drawn that the biker is discursively constructed as a person who loves life, respects and appreciates peers, treats riding a bike with all responsibility, but who at the same time takes а risk to get excitement. Linguistic resources used in bikers’ communications are various and embrace lexical units of evaluation, references to feelings and emotions, metaphors, a vast number of jargonisms and elements of folklore

Media Representation of the Pandemic: a Metaphorical Image of War (based on American Newspapers)

The article is devoted to the study of the media representation features of the situation of coronavirus infection spread. The material was articles published in American newspapers. It is shown that the metaphorical model "War" is widely used in media coverage of the pandemic. The relevance of the work is due to the ability of the media to influence the mass consciousness. The methodological basis of the research is formed by critical discourse analysis, which establishes the connection between language and social reality. The article provides an overview of works devoted to the study of metaphor. The theoretical foundations for the study of metaphorical modeling are given. In the course of the analysis, the linguistic means of updating the metaphorical model "War" were revealed. The authors note that this metaphorical model is represented by such frames as “War and its characteristics”, “Participants in military action”, “War zone”, “Enemy actions”, “Confronting the enemy”. It is shown that modern reality is presented in the media as martial law, the coronavirus is positioned in the media as a cruel and merciless enemy seeking to take over the world, the treatment of the disease is represented as a fight against the enemy. It is concluded that the use of the metaphorical model "War" is one of the ways to conceptualize the spread of coronavirus

Quantitative oculomotor assessment in hereditary ataxia: discriminatory power, correlation with severity measures, and recommended parameters for specific genotypes

Characterizing bedside oculomotor deficits is a critical factor in defining the clinical presentation of hereditary ataxias. Quantitative assessments are increasingly available and have significant advantages, including comparability over time, reduced examiner dependency, and sensitivity to subtle changes. To delineate the potential of quantitative oculomotor assessments as digital-motor outcome measures for clinical trials in ataxia, we searched MEDLINE for articles reporting on quantitative eye movement recordings in genetically confirmed or suspected hereditary ataxias, asking which paradigms are most promising for capturing disease progression and treatment response. Eighty-nine manuscripts identified reported on 1541 patients, including spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA2, n = 421), SCA3 (n = 268), SCA6 (n = 117), other SCAs (n = 97), Friedreich ataxia (FRDA, n = 178), Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC, n = 57), and ataxia-telangiectasia (n = 85) as largest cohorts. Whereas most studies reported discriminatory power of oculomotor assessments in diagnostics, few explored their value for monitoring genotype-specific disease progression (n = 2; SCA2) or treatment response (n = 8; SCA2, FRDA, NPC, ataxia-telangiectasia, episodic-ataxia 4). Oculomotor parameters correlated with disease severity measures including clinical scores (n = 18 studies (SARA: n = 9)), chronological measures (e.g., age, disease duration, time-to-symptom onset; n = 17), genetic stratification (n = 9), and imaging measures of atrophy (n = 5). Recurrent correlations across many ataxias (SCA2/3/17, FRDA, NPC) suggest saccadic eye movements as potentially generic quantitative oculomotor outcome. Recommendation of other paradigms was limited by the scarcity of cross-validating correlations, except saccadic intrusions (FRDA), pursuit eye movements (SCA17), and quantitative head-impulse testing (SCA3/6). This work aids in understanding the current knowledge of quantitative oculomotor parameters in hereditary ataxias, and identifies gaps for validation as potential trial outcome measures in specific ataxia genotypes

Proceedings of the second "international Traveling Workshop on Interactions between Sparse models and Technology" (iTWIST'14)

The implicit objective of the biennial "international - Traveling Workshop on Interactions between Sparse models and Technology" (iTWIST) is to foster collaboration between international scientific teams by disseminating ideas through both specific oral/poster presentations and free discussions. For its second edition, the iTWIST workshop took place in the medieval and picturesque town of Namur in Belgium, from Wednesday August 27th till Friday August 29th, 2014. The workshop was conveniently located in "The Arsenal" building within walking distance of both hotels and town center. iTWIST'14 has gathered about 70 international participants and has featured 9 invited talks, 10 oral presentations, and 14 posters on the following themes, all related to the theory, application and generalization of the "sparsity paradigm": Sparsity-driven data sensing and processing; Union of low dimensional subspaces; Beyond linear and convex inverse problem; Matrix/manifold/graph sensing/processing; Blind inverse problems and dictionary learning; Sparsity and computational neuroscience; Information theory, geometry and randomness; Complexity/accuracy tradeoffs in numerical methods; Sparsity? What's next?; Sparse machine learning and inference.Comment: 69 pages, 24 extended abstracts, iTWIST'14 website: http://sites.google.com/site/itwist1

Quantitative oculomotor assessment in hereditary ataxia: systematic review and consensus by the ataxia global initiative working group on digital-motor biomarkers

Oculomotor deficits are common in hereditary ataxia, but disproportionally neglected in clinical ataxia scales and as outcome measures for interventional trials. Quantitative assessment of oculomotor function has become increasingly available and thus applicable in multicenter trials and offers the opportunity to capture severity and progression of oculomotor impairment in a sensitive and reliable manner. In this consensus paper of the Ataxia Global Initiative Working Group On Digital Oculomotor Biomarkers, based on a systematic literature review, we propose harmonized methodology and measurement parameters for the quantitative assessment of oculomotor function in natural-history studies and clinical trials in hereditary ataxia. MEDLINE was searched for articles reporting on oculomotor/vestibular properties in ataxia patients and a study-tailored quality-assessment was performed. One-hundred-and-seventeen articles reporting on subjects with genetically confirmed (n=1134) or suspected hereditary ataxia (n=198), and degenerative ataxias with sporadic presentation (n=480) were included and subject to data extraction. Based on robust discrimination from controls, correlation with disease-severity, sensitivity to change, and feasibility in international multicenter settings as prerequisite for clinical trials, we prioritize a core-set of five eye-movement types: (i) pursuit eye movements, (ii) saccadic eye movements, (iii) fixation, (iv) eccentric gaze holding, and (v) rotational vestibulo-ocular reflex. We provide detailed guidelines for their acquisition, and recommendations on the quantitative parameters to extract. Limitations include low study quality, heterogeneity in patient populations, and lack of longitudinal studies. Standardization of quantitative oculomotor assessments will facilitate their implementation, interpretation, and validation in clinical trials, and ultimately advance our understanding of the evolution of oculomotor network dysfunction in hereditary ataxias

SYNTHESIS OF YTTRIUM AND CALCIUM STABILIZED ZIRCONIA BY CONTROLLED DOUBLE-JET PRECIPITATION

The work is aimed at obtaining yttrium and calcium stabilized zirconia with a spheroidal particle shape and a narrow particle size distribution. It was shown that the stabilizing com-ponents have a different effect on the morphology and particle size distribution of the obtained oxides

Biden's Speech: Strategies and Tactics of Creating a Positive Image

Статья посвящена изучению прагмалингвистических средств, используемых для создания положительного имиджа в речи президента Америки Д. Байдена.The article is devoted to the study of pragmalinguistic means used to create a positive image in the speech of the President of the USA J. Biden

La didattica dell'oralità tra tradizione e innovazione

Nell’ambito dell’insegnamento e apprendimento delle lingue straniere (LS), l’approccio orientato all’azione proposto dal Quadro Comune Europeo di Riferimento per le lingue (QCER) conferisce grande importanza alla didattica dell’oralità. Lo studio ha l’obiettivo di osservare gli strumenti e le risorse a disposizione per l’insegnamento e apprendimento di interazioni orali; il focus è posto sull’insegnamento della lingua francese (FLE) nel contesto universitario italiano. Dopo una breve introduzione sullo stato dell’arte relativo alla didattica delle interazioni, la presentazione della metodologia e del QCER, sono descritti sia l’evoluzione della manualistica FLE in relazione alle interazioni considerate, sia il contributo di risorse disponibili online per il loro arricchimento e completamento.Dans le domaine de l'enseignement/apprentissage des langues étrangères (LS), l'approche actionnelle proposée par le Cadre européen commun de référence pour les langues (CECR) accorde une grande importance à la didactique de l'oralité. L'objectif de cette étude est celui d'observer les outils et les ressources disponibles pour l'enseignement/apprentissage de l'interaction orale ; l'accent est mis sur l'enseignement de la langue française (FLE) dans le contexte universitaire italien. Après une brève introduction sur l'état de l'art concernant l'enseignement des interactions, la présentation de la méthodologie et du CECRL, on décrit à la fois l'évolution des manuels de FLE par rapport aux interactions considérées et l'apport des ressources en ligne disponibles pour les enrichir et les compléter