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Sentences
Kinds of Sentences Terms modified by Sentences Selected AbstractsSENTENCES WRITTEN DURING THE MINI-MENTAL STATE EXAMINATION: CONTENT AND DIAGNOSTIC VALUE IN COGNITIVELY HEALTHY ELDERLY PEOPLE AND PATIENTS WITH DEMENTIAJOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 12 2005Alexander Rösler MD No abstract is available for this article. [source] "The Luminous Flash of a Single Sentence": Using Mark Twain's Digital Manuscripts in the Pedagogy of CompositionTHE MARK TWAIN ANNUAL, Issue 1 2005Matthew D. Klauza First page of article [source] Uncertainty About the Rest of the SentenceCOGNITIVE SCIENCE - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 4 2006John Hale Abstract A word-by-word human sentence processing complexity metric is presented. This metric formalizes the intuition that comprehenders have more trouble on words contributing larger amounts of information about the syntactic structure of the sentence as a whole. The formalization is in terms of the conditional entropy of grammatical continuations, given the words that have been heard so far. To calculate the predictions of this metric, Wilson and Carroll's (1954) original entropy reduction idea is extended to infinite languages. This is demonstrated with a mildly context-sensitive language that includes relative clauses formed on a variety of grammatical relations across the Accessibility Hierarchy of Keenan and Comrie (1977). Predictions are derived that correlate significantly with repetition accuracy results obtained in a sentence-memory experiment (Keenan & Hawkins, 1987). [source] Improving Parsing of ,BA' Sentences for Machine TranslationIEEJ TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING, Issue 1 2008Dapeng Yin Non-member Abstract The research on Chinese-Japanese machine translation has been lasting for many years, and now this research field is increasingly thoroughly refined. In practical machine translation system, the processing of a simple and short Chinese sentence has somewhat good results. However, the translation of complex long Chinese sentence still has difficulties. For example, these systems are still unable to solve the translation problem of complex ,BA' sentences. In this article a new method of parsing of ,BA' sentence for machine translation based on valency theory is proposed. A ,BA' sentence is one that has a prepositional word ,BA'. The structural character of a ,BA' sentence is that the original verb is behind the object word. The object word after the ,BA' preposition is used as an adverbial modifier of an active word. First, a large number of grammar items from Chinese grammar books are collected, and some elementary judgment rules are set by classifying and including the collected grammar items. Then, these judgment rules are put into use in actual Chinese language and are modified by checking their results instantly. Rules are checked and modified by using the statistical information from an actual corpus. Then, a five-segment model used for ,BA' sentence translation is brought forward after the above mentioned analysis. Finally, we applied this proposed model into our developed machine translation system and evaluated the experimental results. It achieved a 91.3% rate of accuracy and the satisfying result verified effectiveness of our five-segment model for ,BA' sentence translation. Copyright © 2007 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] A Broken System: The Persistent Patterns of Reversals of Death Sentences in the United StatesJOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2004Andrew Gelman We collected data on the appeals process for all death sentences in U.S. states between 1973 and 1995. The reversal rate was high, with an estimated chance of at least two-thirds that any death sentence would be overturned by a state or federal appeals court. Multilevel regression models fit to the data by state and year indicate that high reversal rates are strongly associated with higher death-sentencing rates and lower rates of apprehending and imprisoning violent offenders. In light of our empirical findings, we discuss potential remedies including "streamlining" the appeals process and restricting the death penalty to the "worst of the worst" offenders. [source] Crime Reduction and the Length of Prison SentencesLAW & POLICY, Issue 1 2002Richard L. Lippke The issue discussed is whether policies of imposing increasingly lengthy prison sentences on serious criminal offenders reduce crime. The empirical evidence for the deterrence and incapacitation effects of incarceration is first examined and found to be of limited help in answering the question whether lengthy prison sentences reduce crime. Conceptual and normative analysis of deterrence and incapacitation suggest that we have little reason to believe that the general use of lengthy prison terms produces more good than harm for society, especially if the burdens of and alternatives to such prison terms are taken into account. [source] Developmental Differences in Visual and Auditory Processing of Complex SentencesCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2000James R. Booth Children aged 8 through 11 (N= 250) were given a word-by-word sentence task in both the visual and auditory modes. The sentences included an object relative clause, a subject relative clause, or a conjoined verb phrase. Each sentence was followed by a true,false question, testing the subject of either the first or second verb. Participants were also given two memory span measures: digit span and reading span. High digit span children slowed down more at the transition from the main to the relative clause than did the low digit span children. The findings suggest the presence of a U-shaped learning pattern for on-line processing of restrictive relative clauses. Off-line accuracy scores showed different patterns for good comprehenders and poor comprehenders. Poor comprehenders answered the second verb questions at levels that were consistently below chance. Their answers were based on an incorrect local attachment strategy that treated the second noun as the subject of the second verb. For example, they often answered yes to the question ,The girl chases the policeman' after the object relative sentence ,The boy that the girl sees chases the policeman.' Interestingly, low memory span poor comprehenders used the local attachment strategy less consistently than high memory span poor comprehenders, and all poor comprehenders used this strategy less consistently for harder than for easier sentences. [source] Measurement Properties of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories at Ages One and Two YearsCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2000Heidi M. Feldman In a prospective study of child development in relation to early-life otitis media, we administered the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) to a large (N = 2,156), sociodemographically diverse sample of 1- and 2-year-old children. As a prerequisite for interpreting the CDI scores, we studied selected measurement properties of the inventories. Scores on the CDI/Words and Gestures (CDI-WG), designed for children 8 to 16 months old, and on the CDI/Words and Sentences (CDI-WS), designed for children 16 to 30 months old, increased significantly with months of age. On several scales of both CDI-WG and CDI-WS, standard deviations approximated or exceeded mean values, reflecting wide variability in results. Statistically significant differences in mean scores were found according to race, maternal education, and health insurance status as an indirect measure of income, but the directionality of differences was not consistent across inventories or across scales of the CDI-WS. Correlations between CDI-WG and CDI-WS ranged from .18 to .39. Our findings suggest that the CDI reflects the progress of language development within the age range 10 to 27 months. However, researchers and clinicians should exercise caution in using results of the CDI to identify individual children at risk for language deficits, to compare groups of children with different sociodemographic profiles, or to evaluate the effects of interventions. [source] Integrating Web-Based Documents, Shared Knowledge Bases, and Information Retrieval for User HelpCOMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, Issue 1 2000Doug Skuce We describe a prototype system, IKARUS, with which we investigated the potential of integrating web-based documents, shared knowledge bases, and information retrieval for improving knowledge storage and retrieval. As an example, we discuss how to implement both a user manual and an online help system as one system. The following technologies are combined: a web-based design, a frame-based knowledge engine, use of an advanced full-text search engine, and simple techniques to control terminology. We have combined graphical browsing with several unusual forms of text retrieval,for example, to the sentence and paragraph level. [source] Accurate automatic visible speech synthesis of arbitrary 3D models based on concatenation of diviseme motion capture dataCOMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS (PREV: JNL OF VISUALISATION & COMPUTER ANIMATION), Issue 5 2004Jiyong Ma Abstract We present a technique for accurate automatic visible speech synthesis from textual input. When provided with a speech waveform and the text of a spoken sentence, the system produces accurate visible speech synchronized with the audio signal. To develop the system, we collected motion capture data from a speaker's face during production of a set of words containing all diviseme sequences in English. The motion capture points from the speaker's face are retargeted to the vertices of the polygons of a 3D face model. When synthesizing a new utterance, the system locates the required sequence of divisemes, shrinks or expands each diviseme based on the desired phoneme segment durations in the target utterance, then moves the polygons in the regions of the lips and lower face to correspond to the spatial coordinates of the motion capture data. The motion mapping is realized by a key-shape mapping function learned by a set of viseme examples in the source and target faces. A well-posed numerical algorithm estimates the shape blending coefficients. Time warping and motion vector blending at the juncture of two divisemes and the algorithm to search the optimal concatenated visible speech are also developed to provide the final concatenative motion sequence. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Exploring the possibility of risk assessment of Japanese sexual offenders using Static-99CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 3 2006Junya Sudo Background,The number of sexual offences reported in Japan doubled between 1992 and 2002. This has prompted attention to assessment of risk of recidivism. Aims,To explore whether an actuarial assessment of risk widely used in the West can be meaningfully applied to Japanese men serving a prison sentence for sexual offences. Method,All sex offenders incarcerated in Kitakyushu Medical Prison in Fukuoka at any time in a period of one year (1 July 2002-30 June 2003) were identified. Demographic data, characteristics of offences and the Static-99 were rated from records. Results,Following a slightly modified application of coding rules, all items of the Static-99 were rateable. Nine offenders of 45 whose Static-99 score was over 6 were thus identified as high-risk offenders. The items distinguishing apparently high-risk men were history of institutionalization as a delinquent and mental retardation. Conclusions and implications for practice,The Static-99 may be a useful tool in assessing sex offenders in Japan. With apparently increasing recognition of sex crimes here, it seems timely to be developing a systematic approach to assessment. Further work is required to test its value in practice as a predictor of recidivism. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Homicide, psychopathology, prosecutorial and jury discretion and the death penaltyCRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 4 2000Chief, Division of Forensic Psychiatry, Richard M. Yarvis MD MPH Professor of Clinical Psychiatry Introduction The American preoccupation with the death penalty persists and, in fact, shows no sign of abatement. This is demonstrated not only by attitudinal measures but also by the quickening pace of executions. In California, homicide convictions can result in either 25-year-to-life, life-with-no-possibility-of-parole, or death sentences. The ultimate outcome in any given case is determined by a complex interaction of prosecutorial and jury decisions. Three vignettes illustrate how heinous crimes have been handled quite variably. Method A data set comprising 115 homicide cases was examined. To determine how murderers who qualify for the death penalty differed, if at all, from those who did not so qualify, 52 defendants who met the criteria for a death sentence were compared with 63 who did not. Criteria utilized and ignored by prosecutors in seeking the death penalty were analysed by comparing 39 cases in which death sentences could have been and were sought with 13 cases in which prosecutors chose to seek a lesser penalty instead. Finally, criteria utilized and ignored by juries to reach sentencing decisions were analysed by comparing 25 cases in which juries chose not to hand down death sentences with 14 cases in which they did render death verdicts. Results Special circumstance murderers did not differ significantly on personal variables from ordinary murderers. (1) Special circumstances were invariably charged when more than one criterion for this was present. Robbery and sexual assault usually provoked a special circumstances charge. Mitigating factors did not deter prosecutors from charging a special circumstance. (2) There was no excess of aggravating factors in individuals sentenced to death by juries, indeed there was a trend for the opposite to be the case, but there was a trend for mitigating factors to be commoner in those excused the death penalty. Conclusion It is not clear that the death penalty process in California carries out the legislature's intent but the US Supreme Court's 1976 mandate that mitigating and aggravating factors should provide discretion may be having a modest impact. Copyright © 2000 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source] INJUSTICE AND IRRATIONALITY IN CONTEMPORARY YOUTH POLICYCRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 4 2004DONNA M. BISHOP Lionel Tate was 12 years old when he killed 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick. Tiffany had been staying at the Tate home and, by all accounts, got along well with Lionel. The two were playing at "wrestling" when Lionel decided to try out some moves that he had seen on television. He threw Tiffany across the room, inflicting fatal injuries. Despite the boy's tender age, the prosecutor transferred Lionel to criminal court on a charge of first-degree murder, an offense carrying a mandatory penalty of life without parole. The boy was given an opportunity to plead guilty to second-degree murder in return for a sentence of three years incarceration, but he rejected the offer. A jury subsequently convicted him of first-degree murder. At sentencing, the prosecution recommended leniency, which drew an angry response from the judge: If the state believed the boy did not deserve to be sent to prison for life, why hadn't it charged him with a lesser offense? Without any inquiry into the boy's cognitive, emotional, or moral maturity, the judge imposed the mandatory sentence.1 Raymond Gardner was 16 years old when he shot and killed 20-year-old Mack Robinson.2 Raymond lived in a violent urban neighborhood with his mother, who kept close watch over him. He had no prior record. He was an A student and worked part-time in a clothing store to earn money for college. On the day of the shooting, a friend came into the store to tell Raymond that Mack had a beef with him about talking to a girl, and was "looking to get him." The victim was known on the street as "Mack the Knife" because he always carried a small machete and was believed to have stabbed several people. To protect himself on the way home, Raymond took the gun kept under the counter of the shop where he worked. As he neared home, Mack and two other men approached and blocked his path. According to eyewitness testimony, Raymond began shaking, then pulled out the gun and fired. Mack ran into the street and fell. Raymond followed and fired five more shots into the victim's back as he lay dying on the ground. Raymond did not run. He just stood there crying. The prosecutor filed a motion in juvenile court to transfer Raymond on a charge of first-degree murder. The judge ordered a psychological evaluation, which addressed the boy's family and social background, medical and behavioral history, intelligence, maturity, potential for future violence and prospects for treatment. The judge subsequently denied the transfer motion. He found Raymond delinquent and committed him to a private psychiatric treatment facility.3 [source] The Measure of Mercy: Islamic Justice, Sovereign Power, and Human Rights in IranCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2006Arzoo Osanloo In January 2000, Iranian government agents hailed a last-minute death sentence reprieve as an expression of Islamic human rights. Officials mobilized a native source of human rights in the invocation of mercy. For some, the proliferation of human rights norms situates a state in the fold of modernity, whereas the "spectacle of the scaffold" suggests a premodern demonstration of sovereign power. Through a study of sovereign power and human rights, this article questions the seemingly clear-cut divide between premodern and modern forms of justice and suggests that contemporary appeals to mercy as human rights should not be dismissed as being outside modern forms of state sovereignty. [source] The Meaning of ,Actually'DIALECTICA, Issue 2 2010Yannis Stephanou The paper is an investigation into the concept of actuality from the standpoint of the philosophy of language. It is argued that expressions such as ,actually' and ,in fact' are not indexicals like ,here' and ,now'; when e.g. ,Snow is actually white' is uttered in a world, what proposition is conveyed does not depend on the world. Nor are such expressions ambiguous. The paper makes a suggestion about the role that ,actually' and its cognates do play. It is also argued that the sentence ,Actually S, expresses a necessary truth only if S itself expresses one. In order to capture the necessitation of the proposition expressed in ,Actually S,, it is not sufficient to prefix the word ,necessarily'. [source] Misunderstanding Gödel: New Arguments about Wittgenstein and New Remarks by WittgensteinDIALECTICA, Issue 3 2003Victor Rodych The long-standing issue of Wittgenstein's controversial remarks on Gödel's Theorem has recently heated up in a number of different and interesting directions [(Floyd and Putnam. 2000), (Steiner, 2001), (Floyd, 2001)]. In their (2000), Juliet Floyd and Hilary Putnam purport to argue that Wittgenstein's,notorious'(RFM App. III, §8) "Contains a philosophical claim of great interest," namely, "if one assumed. that ,P is provable in Russell's system one should, give up the "translation" of P by the English sentence ,P is not provable'," because if ,P is provable in PM, PM is , -inconsistent, and if PM is ,-inconsistent, we cannot translate ,P'as 'P is not provable in PM'because the predicate,NaturalNo.(x)'in ,P'"cannot be,interpreted" as "x is a natural number." Though Floyd and Putnam do not clearly distinguish the two tasks, they also argue for "The Floyd-Putnam Thesis," namely, that in the 1930's Wittgenstein had a particular (correct) understanding of Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem. In this paper, I endeavour to show, first, that the most natural and most defensible interpretation of Wittgenstein's (RFM App. III, §8) and the rest of (RFM App. III) is incompatible with the Floyd-Putnam attribution and, second, that evidence from Wittgenstein's Nachla (i.e., a hitherto unknown "proof sketch" of Gödel's reasoning, Wittgenstein's only mention of ,-inconsistency, and Wittgenstein's only mention of "K provable") strongly indicates that the Floyd- Putnam attribution and the Floyd-Putnam Thesis are false. By way of this examination, we shall see that despite a failure to properly understand Gödel's proof,perhaps because, as Kreisel says, Wittgenstein did not read Gödel's 1931 paper prior to 1942-Wittgenstein's 1937,38, 1941 and 1944 remarks indicate that Gödel's result makes no sense from Wittgenstein's own (idiosyncratic) perspective. [source] Forensic psychiatry, ethics and protective sentencing: what are the limits of psychiatric participation in the criminal justice process?ACTA PSYCHIATRICA SCANDINAVICA, Issue 399 2000S. N. Verdun-Jones As clinicians, psychiatrists are unequivocally dedicated to relieving the suffering of those who are afflicted with mental disorders. However, the public and those individuals, who are assessed, find it difficult to draw a distinction between forensic psychiatrists acting in a clinical role and the very same professionals acting in an evaluative role, on behalf of the state. This paper examines the ethical issues raised by psychiatric involvement in the sentencing process. It rejects the view that a forensic psychiatrist, who undertakes an evaluation for the state, is to be considered as an advocate of justice who is not bound by conventional ethical duties to the individual whom he or she assesses. It contends that the forensic psychiatrist has an important role to play in presenting evidence that may result in the mitigation of the sentence that may be imposed on a person who is mentally disordered. The paper will focus on these issues in the particular context of the situation in England and Wales, Canada and the United States. [source] Fine structure of spermatozoa of Chondrostoma nasus and Rutilus meidingerii (Teleostei, Cyprinidae), as revealed by scanning and transmission electron microscopyACTA ZOOLOGICA, Issue 1 2010Sonja Fürböck Abstract Fürböck, S., Patzner, R.A. and Lahnsteiner, F. 2008. Fine structure of spermatozoa of Chondrostoma nasus and Rutilus meidingerii (Teleostei, Cyprinidae), as revealed by scanning and transmission electron microscopy. , Acta Zoologica (Stockholm) 91: 88,95 The fine structure of spermatozoa of sneep or nase, Chondrostoma nasus, and lake chub, Rutilus meidingerii, was investigated by means of scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The uniflagellate spermatozoa of C. nasus lacked an acrosome. The flagellum contained the conventional nine peripheral doublets and one central pair of microtubules (9 + 2 pattern) and lacked lateral fins. The uniflagellate spermatozoa of R. meidingerii were made up of a head, also without an acrosome. For both species the sperm tail was covered by a plasma membrane. The midpiece of C. nasus contained five or six mitochondria on average, vesicles and glycogen granules, whereas the midpiece of R. meidingerii had seven mitochondria of a spherical or ovoid shape. The centriolar complex was located caudolaterally with respect to the nucleus. In C. nasus, the centrioles were orientated at an angle of 125° to each other, whereas the centrioles of R. meidingerii were at an angle of 110°. The fine structure of C. nasus and R. meidingerii spermatozoa showed species-specific differences in the position of the proximal centriole relative to the distal centriole, the position and number of mitochondria, size of the head and the length of the flagellum. (Correction added on 11 June 2009, after first online publication: The word ,axoneme' was deleted from the sentence ,The flagellum contained the conventional nine peripheral doublets and one central pair of microtubules (9 + 2 pattern) axoneme and lacked lateral fins.') [source] Verbatim and gist recall of sentences by dyslexic and non-dyslexic adultsDYSLEXIA, Issue 3 2006T. R. Miles Abstract Forty-eight college students, 24 of them dyslexic, were presented with four sentences of increasing complexity. Participants were asked to repeat each sentence and a record was kept of the number of repetitions required before 100% correct accuracy was achieved. None of the 24 control participants required a total of more than eight repetitions over the four sentences, whereas among the dyslexics the total number of repetitions needed ranged from one to 25. Dyslexic participants were unpredictable in their performance from one level of difficulty to the next and inter-individual variability was far greater in the dyslexic group than in the control group. Overall, despite their relatively poor performance in achieving verbatim accuracy relative to non-dyslexic participants, dyslexic individuals regularly managed to preserve the gist of the sentences. Some theoretical issues arising from these results are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Three-year mortality and predictors after release: a longitudinal study of the first-time drug offenders in TaiwanADDICTION, Issue 5 2010Chuan-Yu Chen ABSTRACT Aims To assess the possible increase in mortality rate and associated socio-demographic and judiciary determinants among first-time drug offenders during the first 3 years after release from correctional facilities. Setting and participants A total of 22 224 male and 4444 female adults who had served a sentence of at least 1 day in correctional facilities for illegal drug-related offences were identified from the judiciary records of the Ministry of Justice, Taiwan. Design and measurements The underlying causes of death were defined by the International Classification of Diseases, ninth revision. Findings All-cause standardized mortality ratios (SMR) were 7 for schedule I (e.g. heroin) and 3 for schedule II (e.g. methamphetamine) drug offenders, respectively; accidents, suicide and circulatory diseases were three leading causes of death. After release, the risk of death among those drug offenders without subsequent incarceration increased gradually until the 9th month. Those who were aged 30 years or older, had an engagement with a higher-ranked schedule substance or who received severe sentences were two to three times more likely to die. Substantial reduction in the risk of death was linked with re-imprisonment. Conclusions The SMR estimates for external causes were greater than those for disease-related causes in drug offenders, and schedule I drugs-related mortality rate was twice as high as that with schedule II drugs. In transitioning from the correctional setting to the community, the health needs of drug offenders should be addressed by the provision of continuous, adequate medical care tailored to individual background, medical history and drug experience. [source] Drug use and perceived treatment need among newly sentenced prisoners in England and WalesADDICTION, Issue 2 2009Duncan Stewart ABSTRACT Aims To investigate pre-custody levels of drug use among newly sentenced prisoners and factors associated with perceived drug treatment need. Design, setting and participants A sample of 1457 prisoners was recruited to a general purpose longitudinal survey of convicted prisoners starting a new sentence. Measurements Data were collected by structured interviews on reception to prison. Measures were taken of illicit drug use, drug treatment history, current treatment needs, psychological health and a range of social problems. Findings Life-time use of heroin, crack cocaine, cocaine powder, amphetamines or cannabis was reported by 79% of prisoners. Cannabis was the drug reported most commonly, but approximately a third had used heroin or crack cocaine during the year before custody. Nearly half of recent drug users reported wanting help or support with a drug problem during their sentence. Dependence on heroin and cocaine, previous drug treatment, employment, accommodation and psychological health problems were all associated positively with perceived treatment need. Conclusions The prevalence of pre-custody drug use among this sample of newly sentenced prisoners was high. Because treatment need was associated with a range of drug, health and social factors, assessment and referral to appropriate interventions should occur as soon as possible on reception. Treatment should be coordinated with other services and support. [source] Erratum: Analysis of the effects of ultrafine particulate matter while accounting for human exposureENVIRONMETRICS, Issue 6 2009Brian J. Reich Volume 20, Issue 2, Pages 131,146 (March 2009) DOI: 10.1002/env.915 On page 144 of the above paper, under Discussion, the first sentence of the third paragraph should read, "The dynamic factor model proposed in Section 3 could be adapted to model a single pollutant that is repeatedly measured at multiple locations, as in Lopes et al. (2008).". The additional reference is: Lopes, H., Salazar, E. and Gamerman, D. 2008. Spatial dynamic factor analysis. Bayesian Analysis3: 759,792. [source] Global patterns of genetic variation in plant species along vertical and horizontal gradients on mountainsGLOBAL ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2008Takafumi Ohsawa ABSTRACT Aim To understand global patterns of genetic variation in plant species on mountains and to consider the significance of mountains for the genetic structure and evolution of plant species. Location Global. Methods We review published studies. Results Genetic diversity within populations can vary along altitudinal gradients in one of four patterns. Eleven of 42 cited studies (26% of the total) found that populations at intermediate altitudes have greater diversity than populations at lower and higher altitudes. This is because the geographically central populations are under optimal environmental conditions, whereas the peripheral populations are in suboptimal situations. The second pattern, indicating that higher populations have less diversity than lower populations, was found in eight studies (19%). The third pattern, indicating that lower populations have lower diversity than higher populations, was found in 10 studies (24%). In 12 studies (29%), the intrapopulation genetic variation was found to be unaffected by altitude. Evidence of altitudinal differentiation was found in more than half of these studies, based on measurements of a range of variables including genome size, number of chromosomes or a range of loci using molecular markers. Furthermore, great variation has been found in phenotypes among populations at different altitudes in situ and in common garden experiments, even in cases where there was no associated variation in molecular composition. Mountains can be genetic barriers for species that are distributed at low elevations, but they can also provide pathways for species that occupy high-elevation habitats. [Correction added after publication 9 October 2007: ,less diversity' changed to ,greater diversity' in the second sentence of the Results section of the Abstract] Main conclusions Genetic diversity within populations can vary along altitudinal gradients as a result of several factors. The results highlight the importance of phenotypic examinations in detecting altitudinal differences. The influence of mountain ridges on genetic differentiation varies depending, inter alia, on the elevation at which the species occurs. Based on these findings, zoning by altitudes or ridges would be helpful for the conservation of tree populations with the onset of global warming. [source] Neural correlates of noncanonical syntactic processing revealed by a picture-sentence matching taskHUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 9 2008Ryuta Kinno Abstract It remains controversial whether the left inferior frontal gyrus subserves syntactic processing or short-term memory demands. Here we devised a novel picture-sentence matching task involving Japanese sentences with different structures to clearly contrast syntactic reanalysis processes. Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), activations under three main conditions were directly compared: a canonical/subject-initial active sentence (AS), a noncanonical/subject-initial passive sentence (PS), and a noncanonical/object-initial scrambled sentence (SS). We found that activation in the dorsal region of the left inferior frontal gyrus (dF3t) was enhanced more by the noncanonical processing under the PS and SS conditions than by the canonical processing under the AS condition, and this enhancement was independent of domain-general factors, such as general memory demands and task difficulty. Moreover, the left posterior superior/middle temporal gyrus (pSTG/MTG) showed more enhanced responses to object-initial sentences under the SS condition than to subject-initial sentences under the AS and PS conditions, which were not significantly affected by task difficulty. Furthermore, activation in the left lateral premotor cortex (LPMC) increased under the AS, PS, and SS conditions, in that order. It is possible that task difficulty affects the left LPMC, but the three distinct activations patterns suggest that these frontal and temporal regions work in concert to process syntactic structures, with their respective contributions dynamically regulated by linguistic requirements. Hum Brain Mapp 2008. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] An fMRI study of canonical and noncanonical word order in GermanHUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 10 2007Jörg Bahlmann Abstract Understanding a complex sentence requires the processing of information at different (e.g., phonological, semantic, and syntactic) levels, the intermediate storage of this information and the unification of this information to compute the meaning of the sentence information. The present investigation homed in on two aspects of sentence processing: working memory and reanalysis. Event-related functional MRI was used in 12 healthy native speakers of German, while they read sentences. Half of the sentences had unambiguous initial noun-phrases (masculine nominative, masculine accusative) and thus signaled subject-first (canonical) or object-first (noncanonical) sentences. Noncanonical unambiguous sentences were supposed to entail greater demand on working memory, because of their more complex syntactic structure. The other half of the sentences had case-ambiguous initial noun-phrases (feminine gender). Only the second unambiguous noun-phrase (eighth position in the sentences) revealed, whether a canonical or noncanonical word order was present. Based on previous data it was hypothesized that ambiguous noncanonical sentences required a recomputation of the sentence, as subjects would initially commit to a subject first reading. In the respective contrasts two main areas of brain activation were observed. Unambiguous noncanonical sentences elicited more activation in left inferior frontal cortex relative unambiguous canonical sentences. This was interpreted in conjunction with the greater demands on working memory in the former condition. For noncanonical ambiguous relative to canonical ambiguous sentences, an activation of the left supramarginal gyrus was revealed, which was interpreted as a reflection of the reanalysis-requirements induced by this condition. Hum Brain Mapp, 2007. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Volitional control of attention and brain activation in dual task performanceHUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 2 2007Sharlene D. Newman Abstract This study used functional MRI (fMRI) to examine the neural effects of willfully allocating one's attention to one of two ongoing tasks. In a dual task paradigm, participants were instructed to focus either on auditory sentence comprehension, mental rotation, or both. One of the major findings is that the distribution of brain activation was amenable to strategic control, such that the amount of activation per task was systematically related to the attention-dividing instructions. The activation in language processing regions was lower when attending to mental rotation than when attending to the sentences, and the activation in visuospatial processing regions was lower when attending to sentences than when attending to mental rotations. Additionally, the activation was found to be underadditive, with the dual-task condition eliciting less activation than the sum of the attend sentence and attend rotation conditions. We also observed a laterality shift across conditions within language-processing regions, with the attend sentence condition showing bilateral activation, while the dual task condition showed a left hemispheric dominance. This shift suggests multiple language-processing modes and may explain the underadditivity in activation observed in the current and previous studies. Hum. Brain Mapp, 2007. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Functional segregation of cortical language areas by sentence repetitionHUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 5 2006Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz Abstract The functional organization of the perisylvian language network was examined using a functional MRI (fMRI) adaptation paradigm with spoken sentences. In Experiment 1, a given sentence was presented every 14.4 s and repeated two, three, or four times in a row. The study of the temporal properties of the BOLD response revealed a temporal gradient along the dorsal,ventral and rostral,caudal directions: From Heschl's gyrus, where the fastest responses were recorded, responses became increasingly slower toward the posterior part of the superior temporal gyrus and toward the temporal poles and the left inferior frontal gyrus, where the slowest responses were observed. Repetition induced a decrease in amplitude and a speeding up of the BOLD response in the superior temporal sulcus (STS), while the most superior temporal regions were not affected. In Experiment 2, small blocks of six sentences were presented in which either the speaker voice or the linguistic content of the sentence, or both, were repeated. Data analyses revealed a clear asymmetry: While two clusters in the left superior temporal sulcus showed identical repetition suppression whether the sentences were produced by the same speaker or different speakers, the homologous right regions were sensitive to sentence repetition only when the speaker voice remained constant. Thus, hemispheric left regions encode linguistic content while homologous right regions encode more details about extralinguistic features like speaker voice. The results demonstrate the feasibility of using sentence-level adaptation to probe the functional organization of cortical language areas. Hum Brain Mapp, 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Improving Parsing of ,BA' Sentences for Machine TranslationIEEJ TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING, Issue 1 2008Dapeng Yin Non-member Abstract The research on Chinese-Japanese machine translation has been lasting for many years, and now this research field is increasingly thoroughly refined. In practical machine translation system, the processing of a simple and short Chinese sentence has somewhat good results. However, the translation of complex long Chinese sentence still has difficulties. For example, these systems are still unable to solve the translation problem of complex ,BA' sentences. In this article a new method of parsing of ,BA' sentence for machine translation based on valency theory is proposed. A ,BA' sentence is one that has a prepositional word ,BA'. The structural character of a ,BA' sentence is that the original verb is behind the object word. The object word after the ,BA' preposition is used as an adverbial modifier of an active word. First, a large number of grammar items from Chinese grammar books are collected, and some elementary judgment rules are set by classifying and including the collected grammar items. Then, these judgment rules are put into use in actual Chinese language and are modified by checking their results instantly. Rules are checked and modified by using the statistical information from an actual corpus. Then, a five-segment model used for ,BA' sentence translation is brought forward after the above mentioned analysis. Finally, we applied this proposed model into our developed machine translation system and evaluated the experimental results. It achieved a 91.3% rate of accuracy and the satisfying result verified effectiveness of our five-segment model for ,BA' sentence translation. Copyright © 2007 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] On open-set lattices and some of their applications in semanticsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, Issue 12 2003Mouw-Ching Tjiok In this article, we present the theory of Kripke semantics, along with the mathematical framework and applications of Kripke semantics. We take the Kripke-Sato approach to define the knowledge operator in relation to Hintikka's possible worlds model, which is an application of the semantics of intuitionistic logic and modal logic. The applications are interesting from the viewpoint of agent interactives and process interaction. We propose (i) an application of possible worlds semantics, which enables the evaluation of the truth value of a conditional sentence without explicitly defining the operator "," (implication), through clustering on the space of events (worlds) using the notion of neighborhood; and (ii) a semantical approach to treat discrete dynamic process using Kripke-Beth semantics. Starting from the topological approach, we define the measure-theoretical machinery, in particular, we adopt the methods developed in stochastic process,mainly the martingale,to our semantics; this involves some Boolean algebraic (BA) manipulations. The clustering on the space of events (worlds), using the notion of neighborhood, enables us to define an accessibility relation that is necessary for the evaluation of the conditional sentence. Our approach is by taking the neighborhood as an open set and looking at topological properties using metric space, in particular, the so-called ,-ball; then, we can perform the implication by computing Euclidean distance, whenever we introduce a certain enumerative scheme to transform the semantic objects into mathematical objects. Thus, this method provides an approach to quantify semantic notions. Combining with modal operators Ki operating on E set, it provides a more-computable way to recognize the "indistinguishability" in some applications, e.g., electronic catalogue. Because semantics used in this context is a local matter, we also propose the application of sheaf theory for passing local information to global information. By looking at Kripke interpretation as a function with values in an open-set lattice ,,U, which is formed by stepwise verification process, we obtain a topological space structure. Now, using the measure-theoretical approach by taking the Borel set and Borel function in defining measurable functions, this can be extended to treat the dynamical aspect of processes; from the stochastic process, considered as a family of random variables over a measure space (the probability space triple), we draw two strong parallels between Kripke semantics and stochastic process (mainly martingales): first, the strong affinity of Kripke-Beth path semantics and time path of the process; and second, the treatment of time as parametrization to the dynamic process using the technique of filtration, adapted process, and progressive process. The technique provides very effective manipulation of BA in the form of random variables and ,-subalgebra under the cover of measurable functions. This enables us to adopt the computational algorithms obtained for stochastic processes to path semantics. Besides, using the technique of measurable functions, we indeed obtain an intrinsic way to introduce the notion of time sequence. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Comparing fecundity in parthenogenetic versus sexual populations of the freshwater snail Campeloma limum: is there a two-fold cost of sex?INVERTEBRATE BIOLOGY, Issue 1 2009Lisa T. Crummett Abstract. The predominance of sexuality in eukaryotes remains an evolutionary paradox, given the "two-fold cost of sex" also known as the "cost of males." [Correction added after online publication 29 January 2009: in the preceding sentence, extraneous words were deleted.] As it requires two sexual parents to reproduce and only one parthenogenetic parent, parthenogens should have twice the reproductive rate compared with their sexual counterparts and their genes should spread twice as fast, if all else is equal. Yet, parthenogenesis is relatively rare and considered an evolutionary dead-end, while sexuality is the dominant form of reproduction in multicellular eukaryotes. Many studies have explored short-term benefits of sex that could outweigh its two-fold cost, but few have compared fecundity between closely related sexuals and parthenogens to first verify that "all else is equal" reproductively. We compared six fecundity measures between sexual and parthenogenetic populations of the freshwater snail, Campeloma limum, during a brooding cycle (1 year) across two drainages. Drainages were analyzed separately because of a significant drainage effect. In the Savannah drainage, fecundity was not significantly different between sexuals and parthenogens, even though parthenogens had significantly more empty egg capsules per brood. In the Ogeechee drainage, parthenogens had significantly more egg capsules with multiple embryos and more hatched embryos than sexuals. Taken over 1 year, embryo size was not significantly different between parthenogens and sexuals in either drainage. Given these results and the close proximity of sexual and parthenogenetic populations, it is perplexing why parthenogenetic populations have not completely replaced sexual populations in C. limum. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||