Adjectives in Thai: Implications for a functionalist typology of word classes

Tai languages are often described as “lacking” a major lexical class “adjectives”; accordingly, they and other area languages are frequently cited as evidence against adjectival universality. This article brings the putative lack under examination, arguing that a more complete distributional analysis reveals a pattern: overlap is highest among semantically peripheral adjectives and verbs and in constructions prototypically associated to both classes crosslinguistically, and lowest among semantically core adjectives and verbs and in constructions prototypically associated to only one or the other class. Rather than “lacking” adjectives, data from Thai thus in fact support functional-typological characterizations of adjectival universality such as those of Givón (1984), Croft (2001), and Dixon (2004). Finally, while data from Thai would fail to falsify an adaptation of Enfield's (2004) Lao lexical class-taxonomy (in which adjectives are treated as a verbal subclass) on its own terms, this article argues that in absence of both universally-applicable criteria for the evaluation of categorial taxonomies crosslinguistically and evidence for the cognitive reality of categorial taxonomies so stipulated, even this more limited sense of a “lack” of adjectives in Thai is less radical a challenge to adjectival universality than has sometimes been supposed.

Family business: Multiple members of major phytohormone classes orchestrate plant stress responses

Low-molecular-weight compounds such as jasmonic, abscisic and salicylic acids are commonly thought to be regulators of plant stress responses. However, it is becoming clear that these molecules, often referred to as phytohormones, are only a part of bigger groups of compounds with biological activity. We propose that the concept of "hormone families" may help to better understand plant physiological responses by taking into account not only the alleged main regulators, but also their precursors, conjugates and catabolites. Novel approaches to profile potentially active compounds in plants are discussed.

Search for charged Higgs bosons through the violation of lepton universality in t art events using collision data at sqrts=7 TeV with the AT experiment

In several extensions of the Standard Model, the top quark can decay into a bottom quark and a light charged Higgs boson H+, t -> bH(+), in addition to the Standard Model decay t -> bW. Since W bosons decay to the three lepton generations equally, while H+ may predominantly decay into tau nu, charged Higgs bosons can be searched for using the violation of lepton universality in top quark decays. The analysis in this paper is based on 4.6 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at root s = 7 TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Signatures containing leptons (e or mu) and/or a hadronically decaying tau (tau(had)) are used. Event yield ratios between e+ tau(had) and e + mu, as well as between mu + tau(had) and mu + e, final states are measured in the data and compared to predictions from simulations. This ratio-based method reduces the impact of systematic uncertainties in the analysis. No significant deviation from the Standard Model predictions is observed. With the assumption that the branching fraction B(H+ -> tau nu) is 100%, upper limits in the range 3.2%-4.4% can be placed on the branching fraction B(t -> bH(+)) for charged Higgs boson masses m(H+) in the range 90-140GeV. After combination with results from a search for charged Higgs bosons in t (t) over bar decays using the tau(had) + jets final state, upper limits on B(t -> bH(+)) can be set in the range 0.8%-3.4%, for m(H+) in the range 90-160GeV.

Classes of multichannel EEG microstates in light and deep hypnotic conditions

The study assessed the brain electric mechanisms of light and deep hypnotic conditions in the framework of EEG temporal microstates. Multichannel EEG of healthy volunteers during initial resting, light hypnosis, deep hypnosis, and eventual recovery was analyzed into temporal EEG microstates of four classes. Microstates are defined by the spatial configuration of their potential distribution maps ([Symbol: see text]potential landscapes') on the head surface. Because different potential landscapes must have been generated by different active neural assemblies, it is reasonable to assume that they also incorporate different brain functions. The observed four microstate classes were very similar to the four standard microstate classes A, B, C, D [Koenig, T. et al. Neuroimage, 2002;16: 41-8] and were labeled correspondingly. We expected a progression of microstate characteristics from initial resting to light to deep hypnosis. But, all three microstate parameters (duration, occurrence/second and %time coverage) yielded values for initial resting and final recovery that were between those of the two hypnotic conditions of light and deep hypnosis. Microstates of the classes B and D showed decreased duration, occurrence/second and %time coverage in deep hypnosis compared to light hypnosis; this was contrary to microstates of classes A and C which showed increased values of all three parameters. Reviewing the available information about microstates in other conditions, the changes from resting to light hypnosis in certain respects are reminiscent of changes to meditation states, and changes to deep hypnosis of those in schizophrenic states.

Applicative theories for logarithmic complexity classes

We present applicative theories of words corresponding to weak, and especially logarithmic, complexity classes. The theories for the logarithmic hierarchy and alternating logarithmic time formalise function algebras with concatenation recursion as main principle. We present two theories for logarithmic space where the first formalises a new two-sorted algebra which is very similar to Cook and Bellantoni's famous two-sorted algebra B for polynomial time [4]. The second theory describes logarithmic space by formalising concatenation- and sharply bounded recursion. All theories contain the predicates WW representing words, and VV representing temporary inaccessible words. They are inspired by Cantini's theories [6] formalising B.