Learning a procedural task: effectiveness of multimedia presentations

Three experiments investigated the effectiveness of presenting procedural information through different media and their combinations. Experiment 1 examined the effectiveness of text, line drawings, text and line drawings, video. and video stills for learning a first aid task. The results showed an advantage of text and line drawings and of the video presentation over the other three conditions for both bandaging performance and answering questions about the task. Experiment 2 showed that the beneficial effect of the combination of text and pictures could not be accounted for simply in terms of a dual coding explanation. Rather, the effectiveness of the media and their combinations was influenced by the extent to which they conveyed action information. Finally, Experiment 3 showed no evidence of a contiguity effect: text and pictures were as effective when presented together on the same screen as when they were presented separately. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Responsiveness to change by standard-form contract drafters: A case study of the FIDIC White Book

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the Fédération Internationale des Ingénieurs-Conseils (FIDIC) White Book standard form of building contract. It tracks the changes to this contract over its four editions, and seeks to identify their underlying causes. Design/methodology/approach – The changes made to the White Book are quantified using a specific type of quantitative content analysis. The amended clauses are then examined to understand the nature of the changes made. Findings – The length of the contract increased by 34 per cent between 1990 and 2006. A large proportion of the overall increase can be attributed to the clauses dealing with “conflict of interest/corruption” and “dispute resolution”. In both instances, the FIDIC drafting committees have responded to international developments to discourage corruption, and to encourage the use of alternative dispute resolution. Between 1998 and 2006, the average length of the sentences increased slightly, raising the question of whether long sentences are easily understood by users of contracts. Research limitations/implications – Quantification of text appears to be particularly useful for the analysis of documents which are regularly updated because changes can be clearly identified and the length of sentences can be determined, leading to conclusions about the readability of the text. However, caution is needed because changes of great relevance can be made to contract clauses without actually affecting their length. Practical implications – The paper will be instructive for contract drafters and informative for users of FIDIC's White Book. Originality/value – Quantifying text has been rarely used regarding standard-form contracts in the field of construction.

Measuring lexical diversity among L2 learners of French: an exploration of the validity of D, MTLD and HD-D as measures of language ability

In this study two new measures of lexical diversity are tested for the first time on French. The usefulness of these measures, MTLD (McCarthy and Jarvis (2010 and this volume) ) and HD-D (McCarthy and Jarvis 2007), in predicting different aspects of language proficiency is assessed and compared with D (Malvern and Richards 1997; Malvern, Richards, Chipere and Durán 2004) and Maas (1972) in analyses of stories told by two groups of learners (n=41) of two different proficiency levels and one group of native speakers of French (n=23). The importance of careful lemmatization in studies of lexical diversity which involve highly inflected languages is also demonstrated. The paper shows that the measures of lexical diversity under study are valid proxies for language ability in that they explain up to 62 percent of the variance in French C-test scores, and up to 33 percent of the variance in a measure of complexity. The paper also provides evidence that dependence on segment size continues to be a problem for the measures of lexical diversity discussed in this paper. The paper concludes that limiting the range of text lengths or even keeping text length constant is the safest option in analysing lexical diversity.

Understanding the transition to seizure by modeling the epileptiform activity of general anesthetic agents

A central difficulty in modeling epileptogenesis using biologically plausible computational and mathematical models is not the production of activity characteristic of a seizure, but rather producing it in response to specific and quantifiable physiologic change or pathologic abnormality. This is particularly problematic when it is considered that the pathophysiological genesis of most epilepsies is largely unknown. However, several volatile general anesthetic agents, whose principle targets of action are quantifiably well characterized, are also known to be proconvulsant. The authors describe recent approaches to theoretically describing the electroencephalographic effects of volatile general anesthetic agents that may be able to provide important insights into the physiologic mechanisms that underpin seizure initiation.

Profiling text comprehension impairments in aphasia

Background: Research in aphasia has focused on acquired dyslexias at the single word level, with a paucity of assessment techniques and rehabilitation approaches for individuals with difficulty at the text level. A rich literature from research with paediatric populations and healthy non-brain damaged, skilled adult readers allows the component processes that are important for text reading to be defined and more appropriate assessments to be devised. Aims: To assess the component processes of text reading in a small group of individuals with aphasia who report difficulties reading at the text level. Do assessments of component processes in reading comprehension reveal distinct profiles of text comprehension? To what extent are text comprehension difficulties caused by underlying linguistic and/or cognitive deficits? Methods & Procedures: Four individuals with mild aphasia who reported difficulties reading at the text level took part in a case-series study. Published assessments were used to confirm the presence of text comprehension impairment. Participants completed a range of assessments to provide a profile of their linguistic and cognitive skills, focusing on processes known to be important for text comprehension. We identified the following areas for assessment: reading speed, language skills (single word and sentence), inferencing, working memory and metacognitive skills (monitoring and strategy use). Outcomes & Results: Performance was compared against age-matched adult control data. One participant presented with a trend for impaired abilities in inferencing, with all other assessed skills being within normal limits. The other three had identified linguistic and working memory difficulties. One presented with a residual deficit in accessing single word meaning that affected text comprehension. The other two showed no clear link between sentence processing difficulties and text comprehension impairments. Across these three, data suggested a link between verbal working memory capacity and specific inferencing skills. Conclusions: Successful text reading relies on a number of component processes. In this paper we have made a start in defining those component processes and devising tasks suitable to assess them. From our results, assessment of verbal working memory and inferencing appears to be critical for understanding text comprehension impairments in aphasia. It is possible that rehabilitation input can capitalize on key meta-cognitive skills (monitoring, strategy use) to support functional reading in the face of existing linguistic, text comprehension and memory impairments.

Contribution to collective harms and responsibility

In the present contribution, I discuss the claim, endorsed by a number of authors, that contributing to a collective harm is the ground for special responsibilities to the victims of that harm. Contributors should, between them, cover the costs of the harms they have inflicted, at least if those harms would otherwise be rights-violating. I raise some doubts about the generality of this principle before moving on to sketch a framework for thinking about liability for the costs of harms in general. This framework uses a contractualist framework to build an account of how to think about liability for costs on the basis of the presumably attractive thought that individual agents should have as much control over their liabilities as is compatible with others having like control. I then use that framework to suggest that liability on the basis of contribution should be restricted to cases in which the contributors could have avoided their contribution relatively costlessly, in which meeting the liability is not crippling for them, and in which such a liability would not have chilling effects, either on them or on third parties. This account of the grounds for contributory liability also has the advantage of avoiding a number of awkward questions about what counts as a contribution by shifting the issue away from often unanswerable questions about the precise causal genesis of some harm or other. Instead, control over conduct, which plausibly has some relation to the harm, becomes crucial. On the basis of this account, I then investigate whether a number of uses of the contributory principle are entirely appropriate. I argue that contributory liability is not appropriate for cases of collective harms committed by coordinated groups in the way that, for example, Iris Marion Young and Thomas Pogge have suggested and that further investigation of how members of such groups may be liable will be needed.

A complex network approach to text summarization

Automatic summarization of texts is now crucial for several information retrieval tasks owing to the huge amount of information available in digital media, which has increased the demand for simple, language-independent extractive summarization strategies. In this paper, we employ concepts and metrics of complex networks to select sentences for an extractive summary. The graph or network representing one piece of text consists of nodes corresponding to sentences, while edges connect sentences that share common meaningful nouns. Because various metrics could be used, we developed a set of 14 summarizers, generically referred to as CN-Summ, employing network concepts such as node degree, length of shortest paths, d-rings and k-cores. An additional summarizer was created which selects the highest ranked sentences in the 14 systems, as in a voting system. When applied to a corpus of Brazilian Portuguese texts, some CN-Summ versions performed better than summarizers that do not employ deep linguistic knowledge, with results comparable to state-of-the-art summarizers based on expensive linguistic resources. The use of complex networks to represent texts appears therefore as suitable for automatic summarization, consistent with the belief that the metrics of such networks may capture important text features. (c) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Precambrian history of the Zona Transversal of the Borborema Province, NE Brazil: Insights from Sm-Nd and U-Pb geochronology

The Borborema Province has three major subprovinces. The northern subprovince lies north of the Patos shear zone and is comprised of Paleoproterozoic cratonic basement with Archean nuclei, plus overlying Neoproterozoic supracrustal rocks and Brasiliano plutonic rocks. The central subprovince occurs between the Patos and Pernambuco shear zones and is mainly comprised of the Zona Transversal. The southern subprovince occurs between the Pernamabuco shear zone and the Sao Francisco craton and is comprised of a tectonic collage of various blocks, terranes, or domains ranging in age from Archean to Neoproterozoic. This report focuses on the Zona Transversal, especially on Brasiliano rocks for which we have the most new information. Paleoproterozoic gneisses with ages of 2.0-2.2 Ga occur discontinuously throughout the Zona Transversal. The Cariris Velhos suite consists of metavolcanic, metasedimentary, and metaplutonic rocks yielding U-Pb zircon ages of 995-960 Ma. This suite is mainly confined to a 100 km wide belt that extends for more than 700 km within the Alto Pajeu terrane. Sm-Nd model ages in metaigneous rocks cluster about 1.3-1.6 Ga, indicating that older crust was involved in genesis of their magmas. Brasiliano supracrustal rocks dominate the Pianco-Alto Brigida terrane, and they probably also constitute significant parts of the Alto Pajeu and Rio Capibaribe terranes. They are only slightly older than early stages of Brasiliano plutonism, with detrital zircon ages at least as young as 620 Ma; most T(DM) ages range from 1.2 to 1.6 Ga. Brasiliano plutons range from ca. 640 to 540 Ma, and their T(DM) ages range from 1.2 to 2.5 Ga. Previous workers have shown significant correlations among U-Pb ages, Sm-Nd model ages, petrology, and geochemistry, and we are able to reinforce and extend these correlations. Stage I plutons formed 640 -610 Ma and have T(DM) ages less than 1.5 Ga. Stage 11 (610-590 Ma) contains few plutons, but coincides with the peak of compressional deformation, metamorphism, and formation of migmatites. Stage III plutons (590 to ca. 575 Ma) have older T(DM) ages (ca. 1.8-2.0 Ga), as do Stage IV plutons (575 to ca. 550 Ma; T(DM) from 1.9 to 2.4 Ga). Stage III plutons formed during the transition from compressional to transcurrent deformation, while Stage IV plutons are mainly post-tectonic. Stage V plutons (550-530 Ma) are commonly undeformed (except along younger shear zones) and have A-type geochemistry. The five stages have distinct geochemical properties, which suggest that the tectonic settings evolved from early, arc-related magma-genesis (Stage I) to within-plate magma-genesis (Stage V), with perhaps some intermediate phases of extensional environments. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mineralogy and trace-element geochemistry of the high-grade iron ores of the Aguas Claras Mine and comparison with the Capao Xavier and Tamandua iron ore deposits, Quadrilahero Ferrifero, Brazil

Several major iron deposits occur in the Quadrilatero Ferrifero (QF), southeastern region of Brazil, where metamorphosed and heterogeneously deformed banded iron formation (BIF) of the Caue Formation, regionally called itabirite, was transformed into high- (Fe >64%) and lowgrade (30%of itabirites occur in the QF: siliceous, dolomitic, and amphibolitic itabirite. Unlike other mines in the QF, the Aguas Claras Mine contained mainly high-grade ores hosted within dolomitic itabirite. Two distinct types of high-grade ore occurred at the mine: soft and hard. The soft ore was the most abundant and represented more than 85% of the total ore mined until it was mined out in 2002. Soft and hard ores consist essentially of hematite, occurring as martite, anhedral to granular/tabular hematite and, locally, specularite. Gangue minerals are rare, consisting of dolomite, sericite, chlorite, and apatite in the hard and soft ores, and Mn-oxides and ferrihydrite in the soft ore where they are concentrated within porous bands. Chemical analyses show that hard and soft ores consist almost entirely of Fe(2)O(3), with a higher amount of detrimental impurities, especially MnO, in the soft ore. Both hard and soft ores are depleted in trace elements. The high-grade ores at the Aguas Claras Mine have at least a dual origin, involving hypogene and supergene processes. The occurrence of the hard, massive high-grade ore within ""fresh"" dolomitic itabirite is evidence of its hypogene origin. Despite the contention about the origin of the dolomitic itabirite (if this rock is a carbonate-rich facies of the Caue Formation or a hematite-carbonate precursor of the soft high-grade ore), mineralogical and geochemical features of the soft high-grade ore indicate that it was formed by leaching of dolomite from the dolomitic itabirite by meteoric water. The comparison of the Aguas Claras, Capao Xavier and Tamandua orebodies shows that the original composition of the itabiritic protore plays a major role in the genesis of high- and low-grade soft ores in the QF. Under the same weathering and structural conditions, the dolomitic itabirite is the more favorable to form high-grade deposits than siliceous itabirite. Field relations at the Aguas Claras and Capao Xavier deposits suggest that it is not possible to form huge soft high-grade supergene deposits from siliceous itabirite, unless another control, such as impermeable barriers, had played an important role. The occurrence in the Tamandua Mine of a large, soft, high-grade orebody formed from siliceous itabirite and closely associated with hypogene hard ore suggests that large, soft, high-grade orebodies of the Quadrilatero Ferrifero, which occur within siliceous itabirite, have a hypogene contribution in their formation.

The functions of Japanese Sound Symbolic Words in Different Types of Texts and Their Translation

Though sound symbolic words (onomatopoeia and mimetic words, or giongo and gitaigo in Japanese) exist in other languages, it would not be so easy to compare them to those in Japanese. This is because unlike in Japanese, in many other languages (here we see English and Spanish) sound symbolic words do not have distinctive forms that separate them immediately from the rest of categories of words. In Japanese, a sound symbolic word has a radical (that is based on the elaborated Japanese sound symbolic system), and often a suffix that shows subtle nuance. Together they give the word a distinctive form that differentiates it from other categories of words, though its grammatical functions could vary, especially in the case of mimetic words (gitaigo). Without such an obvious feature, in other languages, it would not be always easy to separate sound symbolic words from the rest. These expressions are extremely common and used in almost all types of text in Japanese, but their elaborated sound symbolic system and possibly their various grammatical functions are making giongo and gitaigo one of the most difficult challenges for the foreign students and translators. Studying the translation of these expressions into other languages might give some indication related to the comparison of Japanese sound symbolic words and those in other languages. Though sound symbolic words are present in many types of texts in Japanese, their functions in traditional forms of text (letters only) and manga (Japanese comics)are different and they should be treated separately. For example, in traditional types of text such as novels, the vast majority of the sound symbolic words used are mimetic words (gitaigo) and most of them are used as adverbs, whereas in manga, the majority of the sound symbolic words used (excluding those appear within the speech bubbles) are onomatopoeias (giongo) and often used on their own (i.e. not as a part of a sentence). Naturally, the techniques used to translate these expressions in the above two types of documents differ greatly. The presentation will focus on i) grammatical functions of Japanese sound symbolic words in traditional types of texts (novels/poems) and in manga works, and ii) whether their features and functions are maintained (i.e. whether they are translated as sound symbolic words) when translated into other languages (English and Spanish). The latter point should be related to a comparison of sound symbolic words in Japanese and other languages, which will be also discussed.

O Uso de operações linguístico-discursivas da crítica genética na reescritura de textos

As a professor in Curso de Licenciatura em Letras, from Campus Avançado Profa Maria Eliza Albuquerque Maia (CAMEAM),do Estado do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte (UERN), in the town of Pau do Ferros, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, we had the chance to carry out several writing activities , as well as guiding re-writing activities for the texts produced. From this experience, we started looking at the need of reflecting upon the writing process in higher education. Thus, we aim at analyzing, in this research, the methodology used in the moment of carrying out the writing practices activities in higher education, investigating, in particular, the rewriting practices, concerning the operations used for carrying out such activities, as well as the sense effects produced from the alterations which were made in the texts. Our theoretical foundation is grounded on a conception of text as a verbal action , what reveals a socio-interactional view of the language (MARCUSCHI, 2008; SAUTCHUK, 2003). As the production of written texts, our research focus, we assume that, for this activity, we deal with distinct figures (active writer and internal reader), so that we can, apart from writing, reflecting upon our writing and, this way, deciding about operations which are carried out to make the alterations which are necessary to the rewriting of our texts (SAUTCHUK, 2003). Still about the theoretical foundations used in this research, we made use of the theories from the Textual Analysis of Discourse (TAD) which discusses the belief on the evidence on the existence of the texts, which is opposite to the fixist view of textuality which believes that the texts exist by themselves. (ADAM, 2008; [2005]2010). Under this perspective, we have also adopted, the concepts which come from genetics criticism which is concerned about the relation between text and genesis, using as objects documents which bring traits of the text in progress, on the ground that the text is the result of work in progress, and the writing practice, on the other hand, as an activity in a continuous movement (HAY, [1975]2002; DE BIASI, [2000]2010; GRÉSILLON, 1989; [1990]2008; [1992]2002; SALLES, 2008a). The methodology in this research is an ethnography-based one, an approach which focuses on the process, as well as is meaning-based. To understand the objectives proposed in our research, we made use of different procedures of collecting data which include an ethnographic study, such as: observation, note-taking, document analysis. The data which were analyzed were collected during the semester of 2008.2, in a first term classroom of Curso de Letras from CAMEAM, when we were able to collect twenty-one written texts and all of them were rewritten based on rewriting activities, what provides a corpus of forty-two texts which will be analyzed based on the linguistics operations identified by Generative Grammar and adopted by Lebrave and Grésillon (2009). From these analyses, we were able to confirm that writing is a process, and rewriting has become an extremely important activity for this process. Still due to these data, we observed that substitution was the most used operation by text authors. We believe that this result is justified by the fact that the substitution, according to what proposes the Genetic Criticism, constitutes the source of all erasure, from which one can easily make a change in writing. Regarding the operations of addition and deletion, we found that they were used in quantitative terms, almost equivalently, which can be explained when we see that the two operations require, by the author of the text, different strategies from those used for the replacement, what includes , respectively, adding or removing a segment. Finally, we found out that the shift operation was the least used, since it works with a segment that will not be replaced, added or deleted, but transferred to another place of text, which requires a greater ability of the author to perform this operation and not compromising the meaning of his/her writing. As a result, we hope to contribute to the reflection on the teaching of writing, considering, in a particular way, those with a Bachelor in Arts. Our analysis will contribute to the teaching of Portuguese language, specifically for activities that guide the production of texts in order to explore with students the ability to rewrite their own text

Pancreas transplantation prevents cellular oxidative stress in kidneys of alloxan-induced diabetic rats

Purpose. Oxidative stress is one of the most important mechanisms to explain genesis of the complications in the chronic progression of diabetes. In this investigation we studied the effects of pancreas transplantation (PT) on the imbalance caused by excessive production of free oxygen radicals by antioxidant defenses of rats with serious chronic hyperglycemia induced by alloxan.Methods. Ninety inbred male Lewis rats were randomly distributed into three groups: NC-30 nondiabetic controls; DC-30 diabetic controls without any treatment; PT-30 diabetic rats undergoing syngeneic PT from normal donor Lewis rats. Each experimental group was then split into three subgroups of 10 animals for sacrifice after 1, 3, or 6 months. Clinical and laboratory parameters from all rats as well as lipid hydroperoxide (LPO) concentrations and renal tissue enzyme activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) were recorded for all rats.Results. Successful PT corrected clinical and laboratory alterations in diabetic rats with sustained normoglycemia throughout the study. A significant increase in LPO concentration and a marked reduction in SOD and CAT enzyme activity were observed in DC rats; there was no significant variation in renal tissue GSH-Px in this group. However, alterations in DC rats were completely restored from 1st month after PT; all evaluated enzyme levels did not significantly differ (P < .01) from those in NC controls.Conclusion. Successful PT controlled cellular oxidative stress in diabetic kidneys, which may prevent chronic lesions.

Correlation between antigenemia of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis and inhibiting effects of plasma in patients with paracoccidioidomycosis

Metabolites produced by pathogenic fungi may be involved in the pathogenesis of fungal infections consequently altering the defence mechanisms of the host. In this study the levels of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis antigens detected in the plasma of patients with paracoccidioidomycosis correlated with the suppression index detected by the low mitogenic response of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) to phytohaemaglutinin (PHA). This inhibitory effect on lymphoproliferation was observed in the plasma of 58% of the patients, suggesting the presence of inhibitory factors. Plasma samples from paracoccidioidomycosis patients having or not having inhibitory factors showed no significant effect on chromosomes of lymphocytes from healthy individuals, However, these plasmas had a suppressive activity on the blastogenic response of these lymphocytes stimulated with PHA, that was independent of a cytotoxic effect. P. brasiliensis antigens added to the proliferative response of PBMC from healthy individuals stimulated or not stimulated with PHA showed a dose-dependent suppressor effect, reproducing the inhibitory effect of patients' plasma. We suggest that the antigens of P, brasiliensis present in the plasma of patients, even at low concentrations, can play an important role in the reduction of the cellular immune response and in the genesis of the immuneregulatory disturbances observed in paracoccidioidomycosis.

Contribution to the discussions on the origin of the cerrado biome: Brazilian savanna

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Response activity of alveolar macrophages in pulmonary dysfunction caused by Leptospira infection

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)