Comparative Analysis of Russian and French Prosodies: Theoretical, Experimental and Applied Aspects"

Experience shows that in teaching the pronunciation of a foreign language, it is the native syllable stereotype that resists correction most strongly. This is because the syllable is the basic unit of the perception and production of speech, and syllabic production is highly automatic and to some degree determines the prosody of speech at all levels: accent, rhythm, phrase, etc. The results of psycho-physiological studies show that the human acoustic analyser is a typical contemplator organ and new acoustic qualities are perceived through their inclusion into the already existing system of values characteristic to the mother tongue. This results in the adaptation of the perception and so production of foreign speech to native patterns. The less conscious the perception of the unit and the more 'primitive' its status, the greater the degree of its auditory assimilation, and the syllable is certainly among the less controllable linguistic units. The group carried out a complex investigation of the French and Russian languages at the level of syllable realisation, focusing on the stressed syllable of both open and closed types. The useful acoustic characteristics of the French/Russian syllable pattern were determined through identifying a typical syllable pattern within the system of each of the two languages, comparing these patterns to establish their contrasting features, and observing and systematising deviations from the pattern typical of the French/Russian language teaching situation. The components of the syllable pattern shown to need particular attention in teaching French pronunciation to Russian native speakers were intensity, fundamental frequency, and duration. The group then developed a method of correction which combines the auditory and visual canals of sound signal perception and tested this method with groups of Russian students of different levels.

Human and embodied energy analysis applied to water source protection and household water treatment interventions used in Mali, West Africa

As water quality interventions are scaled up to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking water by 2015 there has been much discussion on the merits of household- and source-level interventions. This study furthers the discussion by examining specific interventions through the use of embodied human and material energy. Embodied energy quantifies the total energy required to produce and use an intervention, including all upstream energy transactions. This model uses material quantities and prices to calculate embodied energy using national economic input/output-based models from China, the United States and Mali. Embodied energy is a measure of aggregate environmental impacts of the interventions. Human energy quantifies the caloric expenditure associated with the installation and operation of an intervention is calculated using the physical activity ratios (PARs) and basal metabolic rates (BMRs). Human energy is a measure of aggregate social impacts of an intervention. A total of four household treatment interventions – biosand filtration, chlorination, ceramic filtration and boiling – and four water source-level interventions – an improved well, a rope pump, a hand pump and a solar pump – are evaluated in the context of Mali, West Africa. Source-level interventions slightly out-perform household-level interventions in terms of having less total embodied energy. Human energy, typically assumed to be a negligible portion of total embodied energy, is shown to be significant to all eight interventions, and contributing over half of total embodied energy in four of the interventions. Traditional gender roles in Mali dictate the types of work performed by men and women. When the human energy is disaggregated by gender, it is seen that women perform over 99% of the work associated with seven of the eight interventions. This has profound implications for gender equality in the context of water quality interventions, and may justify investment in interventions that reduce human energy burdens.

A review of dendrogeomorphological research applied to flood risk analysis in Spain

Over the last forty years, applying dendrogeomorphology to palaeoflood analysis has improved estimates of the frequency and magnitude of past floods worldwide. This paper reviews the main results obtained by applying dendrogeomorphology to flood research in several case studies in Central Spain. These dendrogeomorphological studies focused on the following topics: (1) anatomical analysis to understand the physiological response of trees to flood damage and improve sampling efficiency; (2) compiling robust flood chronologies in ungauged mountain streams, (3) determining flow depth and estimating flood discharge using two-dimensional hydraulic modelling, and comparing them with other palaeostage indicators; (4) calibrating hydraulic model parameters (i.e. Manning roughness); and (5) implementing stochastic-based, cost–benefit analysis to select optimal mitigation measures. The progress made in these areas is presented with suggestions for further research to improve the applicability of dendrogeochronology to palaeoflood studies. Further developments will include new methods for better identification of the causes of specific types of flood damage to trees (e.g. tilted trees) or stable isotope analysis of tree rings to identify the climatic conditions associated with periods of increasing flood magnitude or frequency.

A fixed-links modeling approach to assess individual differences in the attentional blink: Analysis of behavioral and psychophysiological data

The attentional blink (AB) is a fundamental limitation of the ability to select relevant information from irrelevant information. It can be observed with the detection rate in an AB task as well as with the corresponding P300 amplitude of the event-related potential. In previous research, however, correlations between these two levels of observation were weak and rather inconsistent. A possible explanation of this finding might be that multiple processes underlie the AB and, thus, obscure a possible relationship between AB-related detection rate and the corresponding P300 amplitude. The present study investigated this assumption by applying a fixed-links modeling approach to represent behavioral individual differences in the AB as a latent variable. Concurrently, this approach enabled us to control for additional sources of variance in AB performance by deriving two additional latent variables. The correlation between the latent variable reflecting behavioral individual differences in AB magnitude and a corresponding latent variable derived from the P300 amplitude was high (r=.70). Furthermore, this correlation was considerably stronger than the correlations of other behavioral measures of the AB magnitude with their psychophysiological counterparts (all rs<.40). Our findings clearly indicate that the systematic disentangling of various sources of variance by utilizing the fixed-links modeling approach is a promising tool to investigate behavioral individual differences in the AB and possible psychophysiological correlates of these individual differences.

Behavioral and cellular analysis of classical conditioning of feeding behavior in Aplysia

In classical conditioning, an associative form of learning, animals learn to associate two stimuli. Cellular and molecular mechanisms for the induction and consolidation of associative learning and memory at the level of single cells and synaptic connections have been studied in both vertebrate and invertebrate animals. The majority of studies, however, relied on aversive stimuli to induce learning. This bias may limit the extent to which identified mechanisms generalize to other forms of associative learning and memory, such as appetitive forms. The goal of the present study was to develop a classical conditioning procedure for the marine mollusk Aplysia californica using appetitive reinforcement, and to analyze associative learning using behavioral and electrophysiological techniques. ^ Using tactile stimulation of the lips as the conditional stimulus (CS) and food as the unconditional stimulus (US) a training protocol was developed that reliably induced classical conditioning of feeding behavior. Memory persisted for at least 24 hours. The gross organization of reinforcement-mediating pathways was analyzed in additional behavioral experiments. Moreover, neurophysiological correlates of classical conditioning were identified and characterized in an in vitro preparation containing the circuitry for feeding behavior. In vitro stimulation of a nerve (AT4) that may mediate the CS during training, resulted in a greater number of buccal motor patterns (BMPs) in brains from conditioned animals, as compared to control animals. The majority of these BMPs were ingestion-like, consistent with the increased number of bites in response to the CS after classical conditioning. Moreover, classical conditioning correlated with increased excitatory synaptic input to BMP-initiating neuron B31/32, in response to stimulation of AT 4, as compared to controls. The expression of the correlates of classical conditioning identified in this study was specific to stimulation of AT 4, which is consistent the stimulus specificity that is characteristic for classical conditioning. ^ The identification of cellular correlates of classical conditioning documented here provides the basis for future, more detailed analyses of an appetitive form of associative learning and memory, that may extend the working knowledge of the cellular and molecular mechanisms for associative plasticity in general. ^

Behavioral characteristics of applied general equilibrium models with an Armington-Krugman-Melitz encompassing module

This paper explore how simulation results change with different choice of trade specification, and the strength of preference for traded variety by economic agent differs, utilizing two types of three-region, three-sector AGE model that includes the Armington-Krugman-Melitz Encompassing module based on Dixon and Rimmer (2012). Simulation experiments reveal that: (1) the Melitz-type specification does not always enhance effectiveness of a certain policy change more than the one obtained with the Krugman-type, especially when economic agents' preference for traded variety is not so strong; (2) there are likely to be points where the volumes of effects obtained with the Melitz-type exceed the ones with the Krugman-type; and (3) the preference of the producers, those who are in the sectors that exhibit increasing returns to scale, for traded variety might be the engine of explosive effects as suggested by Fujita, et al. (2000).

Simulation analysis of the EU ELV/RoHS directives based on an applied general equilibrium model with Melitz-type trade specification

This paper explores the potential usefulness of an AGE model with the Melitz-type trade specification to assess economic effects of technical regulations, taking the case of the EU ELV/RoHS directives as an example. Simulation experiments reveal that: (1) raising the fixed exporting cost to make sales in the EU market brings results that exports of the targeted commodities (motor vehicles and parts for ELV and electronic equipment for RoHS) to the EU from outside regions/countries expand while the domestic trade in the EU shrinks when the importer's preference for variety (PfV) is not strong; (2) if the PfV is not strong, policy changes that may bring reduction in the number of firms enable survived producers with high productivity to expand production to be large-scale mass producers fully enjoying the fruit of economies of scale; and (3) When the strength of the importer's PfV is changed from zero to unity, there is the value that totally changes simulation results and their interpretations.

Project management competence analysis in rural communities through territorial representation: application to Aymara women communities in Puno (Peru)

The acquisition of technical, contextual and behavioral competences is a prerequisite for sustainable development and strengthening of rural communities. Territorial display of the status of these skills helps to design the necessary learning, so its inclusion in planning processes is useful for decision making. The article discusses the application of visual representation of competences in a rural development project with Aymara women communities in Peru. The results show an improvement of transparency and dialogue, resulting in a more successful project management and strengthening of social organization.

Robust regression applied to fractal/multifractal analysis.

Fractal and multifractal are concepts that have grown increasingly popular in recent years in the soil analysis, along with the development of fractal models. One of the common steps is to calculate the slope of a linear fit commonly using least squares method. This shouldn?t be a special problem, however, in many situations using experimental data the researcher has to select the range of scales at which is going to work neglecting the rest of points to achieve the best linearity that in this type of analysis is necessary. Robust regression is a form of regression analysis designed to circumvent some limitations of traditional parametric and non-parametric methods. In this method we don?t have to assume that the outlier point is simply an extreme observation drawn from the tail of a normal distribution not compromising the validity of the regression results. In this work we have evaluated the capacity of robust regression to select the points in the experimental data used trying to avoid subjective choices. Based on this analysis we have developed a new work methodology that implies two basic steps: ? Evaluation of the improvement of linear fitting when consecutive points are eliminated based on R pvalue. In this way we consider the implications of reducing the number of points. ? Evaluation of the significance of slope difference between fitting with the two extremes points and fitted with the available points. We compare the results applying this methodology and the common used least squares one. The data selected for these comparisons are coming from experimental soil roughness transect and simulated based on middle point displacement method adding tendencies and noise. The results are discussed indicating the advantages and disadvantages of each methodology.

MedVir: 3D visual interface applied to gene profile analysis

The use of data mining techniques for the gene profile discovery of diseases, such as cancer, is becoming usual in many researches. These techniques do not usually analyze the relationships between genes in depth, depending on the different variety of manifestations of the disease (related to patients). This kind of analysis takes a considerable amount of time and is not always the focus of the research. However, it is crucial in order to generate personalized treatments to fight the disease. Thus, this research focuses on finding a mechanism for gene profile analysis to be used by the medical and biologist experts. Results: In this research, the MedVir framework is proposed. It is an intuitive mechanism based on the visualization of medical data such as gene profiles, patients, clinical data, etc. MedVir, which is based on an Evolutionary Optimization technique, is a Dimensionality Reduction (DR) approach that presents the data in a three dimensional space. Furthermore, thanks to Virtual Reality technology, MedVir allows the expert to interact with the data in order to tailor it to the experience and knowledge of the expert.

Dendrogeomorphological research applied to flood hazard analysis in the Caldera de Taburiente National Park (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain).

Se ha realizado un estudio dendrogeomorfológico utilizando las heridas de los árboles como indicadores de paleoinundaciones.