Remarks on deixis

The prevailing conception of deixis is oriented to the idea of 'concrete' physical and perceptual characteristics of the situation of speech. Signs standardly adduced as typical deictics are I, you, here, now, this, that. I and you are defined as meaning "the person producing the utterance in question" and "the person spoken to", here and now as meaning "where the speaker is at utterance time" and "at the moment the utterance is made" (also, "at the place/time of the speech exchange"); similarly, the meanings of this and that are as a rule defined via proximity to speaker's physical location. The elements used in such definitions form the conceptual framework of most of the general characterisations of deixis in the literature. [...] There is much in the literature, of course, that goes far beyond this framework . A great variety of elements, mostly with very abstract meanings, have been found to share deictic characteristics although they do not fit into the personnel-place-time-of-utterance schema. The adequacy of that schema is also called into question by many observations to the effect that the use of such standard deictics as here, now, this, that cannot really be accounted for on its basis, and by the far-reaching possibilities of orienting deictics to reference points in situations other than the situation of speech, to 'deictic centers' other than the speaker. [...] Analyses along the lines of the standard conception regularly acknowledge the existence of deviations from the assumed basic meanings. One traditional solution attributes them to speaker's "subjectivity", or to differences between "physical" and "psychological" space or time; in a similar vein, metaphorical extensions may be said to be at play, or a distinction between prototypical and non-prototypical meanings invoked. Quite apart from the question of the relative merits of these explanatory principles, which I do not wish to discuss here, the problem with all such accounts is that the definitions of the assumed basic meanings themselves are founded on axiom rather than analysis of situated use. The logical alternative, of course, is to set out for more abstract and comprehensive meaning definitions from the start. In fact, a number of recent, discourse-oriented, treatments of the demonstratives proceed this way; they view those elements as processing instructions rather than signs with inherently spatial denotation (Isard 1975, Hawkins 1978, Kirsner 1979, Linde 1979 , Ehlich 1982.

La cultura italiana nelle opere di Jenő Péterfy

Péterfy Jenőről, a neves klasszikafilológus esztétáról közismert Itália-szeretete: Ő volt az egyik első „áldozata” a XIX-XX. századforduló magyar lateiner értelmiségieire jellemző „Itália-mánia” betegségnek. Viszonylag fiatalon azért lőtte magát főbe az Olaszországból hazafelé tartó vonaton, mert nem akart a szeretett országtól messze meghalni, és mert meg volt róla győződve, hogy „atomjai halála után Itáliába akartak volna szökni”. Fuchs Anna tanulmánya részletesen számba veszi Péterfy Jenő olasz kultúrával, irodalommal foglalkozó írásait, mindenek előtt Szász Károly Isteni Színjáték fordítása kapcsán írt Dante tanulmányát, mely Dante költészetének „dekadens” értelmezésével Babits Mihály új fordításának egyik kiindulási pontja volt

A Fast 2-Approximation of Minimum Manhattan Networks

Given a set P of n points in the plane, a Manhattan network of P is a network that contains a rectilinear shortest path between every pair of points of P. A minimum Manhattan network of P is a Manhattan network of minimum total length. It is unknown whether it is NP-hard to construct a minimum Manhattan network. The best approximations published so far are a combinatorial 3-approximation algorithm in time O(n log n), and an LP-based 2-approximation algorithm. We present a new combinatorial 2-approximation for this problem in time O(n log n)

A Meta-Model for Real-Time Fraud Detection in ERP Systems

Fraud is a worldwide issue affecting almost every organization once in a time. Recent studies have shown that fraudulent behavior impacts up to 5 % of a companies annual revenue. Information systems (IS) have become an integral part of every modern organization. They contain the data foundation of the entire company and thereby supporting business processes and day-to-day transactions. Although an IS usually contains control mechanisms to prevent different kinds of fraud, these mechanisms look insufficient, considering the role of IS in many fraud cases. Since many cases from different companies have shown the need for an appropriate countermeasure, we want to develop an application that efficiently detects fraud and fraudulent behavior. Therefore, we conducted a structured literature review and a qualitative survey to apply the design science research (DSR) methodology and derive requirements for a fraud detection system (FDS). As a result, we present a meta-model for a FDS for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. We also provide application requirements, principles, and features that define areas for further research

Strings of group endomorphisms

Recently the strings and the string number of self-maps were used in the computation of the algebraic entropy of special group endomorphisms. We introduce two special kinds of strings, and their relative string numbers. We show that a dichotomy holds for all these three string numbers; in fact, they admit only zero and infinity as values on group endomorphisms.Comment: 17 page

Transgenerational transmission of childhood adversity: examining potential pathways to break the cycle of risk across generations

Child maltreatment is a widespread global phenomenon affecting the lives of millions of children all over the world. As these children grow up to be parents, they are at a higher risk of completing the so-called “cycle of abuse” and become perpetrators themselves. Only very recently, however, the spotlight has been moved from a limited focus on the intergenerational transmission of actual maltreatment on to further maladaptive outcomes in offspring of victims of child maltreatment. Hence, the number of studies investigating the subject is small, and core questions still remain unanswered. In addition, there is a lack of top-down theories enabling researchers to integrate evidence into a broader framework. Therefore, the aim of this work is to extend theoretical and empirical knowledge on transgenerational sequelae of maternal child abuse and neglect by 1) contributing an overarching model of transgenerational transmission of risk and 2) broaden the empirical data base by reporting results of four studies. Study 1 investigates the impact of a maternal history of childhood abuse (HoA) on mother-child interaction in a longitudinal case-control design. Results indicate that the period of developing child locomotion represents a critical time window for mothers with a HoA as they show less optimal mother-child interactional quality compared to a healthy control group during that phase. Study 2 examines mother-child interaction in mothers with depression in remission, mothers with a HoA, mothers with both depression in remission and a HoA, and comparison group mothers. Results reveal that depression affects maternal emotional availability even during remission. Furthermore, mothers with depression in remission and additional severe childhood abuse seem to be particularly affected. Study 3 investigates mother-child adrenocortical attunement in a community sample of mothers with a HoA and their five-months-old infants, matched with a healthy comparison group. Results confirm an association between maternal and infant salivary cortisol levels for the complete sample. However, in the comparison group, cortisol attunement was only significant in mother-daughter dyads, whereas in the maltreatment group, cortisol levels were associated only in mother–son dyads. Lastly, Study 4 examines whether children of the sample described in study 2 differ in inhibitory performance while taking into account their mothers reported impulsivity. There are no group differences in children’s inhibitory performance, however, maternal impulsivity moderates the association between group membership and child inhibition. Children whose mothers report a history of childhood abuse and high levels of impulsivity show lower levels of inhibition than children whose mothers report a HoA and low levels of impulsivity

How to reach ‘hard-to-reach’ older people for research: The TIBaR model of recruitment

Recruiting older persons with diverse health statuses as participants in research projects is a challenge for health researchers, particularly because persons with health impairments and in socially disadvantaged living conditions are difficult to reach. This article presents a step model for gaining access to older people who are difficult to contact. The step model is based on the literature and a qualitative analysis of documentation, field notes and memos that stem from the recruitment processes of two studies from the German research consortium ‘Autonomy despite multimorbidity in old age’, both of which also included older persons who would qualify as ‘hard-to-reach’. The analysis followed the method of Grounded Theory and aimed to understand the social process of ‘recruitment’. Four steps of the recruitment process were identified that had been applied – intentionally or unintentionally – in both of the projects, i.e., the qualitative as well as the quantitative projects: 1. build up Trust, 2. offer Incentives, 3. identify individual Barriers and 4. be Responsive (TIBaR). The step model provides information for facilitating access to various target groups for qualitative as well as quantitative research designs. However, its implementation requires time, financial resources, flexibility and appropriately qualified staff members.Peer Reviewe

Adjoint algebraic entropy

The new notion of adjoint algebraic entropy of endomorphisms of Abelian groups is introduced. Various examples and basic properties are provided. It is proved that the adjoint algebraic entropy of an endomorphism equals the algebraic entropy of the adjoint endomorphism of the Pontryagin dual. As applications, we compute the adjoint algebraic entropy of the shift endomorphisms of direct sums, and we prove an Addition Theorem for the adjoint algebraic entropy of bounded Abelian groups. A dichotomy is established, stating that the adjoint algebraic entropy of any endomorphism can take only values zero or infinity. As a consequence, we obtain the following surprising discontinuity criterion for endomorphisms: every endomorphism of a compact abelian group, having finite positive algebraic entropy, is discontinuous.Comment: 27 page