Neurolinguistic measure of typological effects in multilingual transfer: introducing an ERP methodology

This article has two main objectives. First, we offer an introduction to the subfield of generative third language (L3) acquisition. Concerned primarily with modeling initial stages transfer of morphosyntax, one goal of this program is to show how initial stages L3 data make significant contributions toward a better understanding of how the mind represents language and how (cognitive) economy constrains acquisition processes more generally. Our second objective is to argue for and demonstrate how this subfield will benefit from a neuro/psycholinguistic methodological approach, such as event-related potential experiments, to complement the claims currently made on the basis of exclusively behavioral experiments. Palabras clave

Effects of an emotional intelligence program in variables related to the prevention of violence

In recent decades, numerous studies have shown a significant increase in violence during childhood and adolescence. These data suggest the importance of implementing programs to prevent and reduce violent behavior. The study aimed to design a program of emotional intelligence (El) for adolescents and to assess its effects on variables related to violence prevention. The possible differential effect of the program on both genders was also examined. The sample comprised 148 adolescents aged from 13 to 16 years. The study used an experimental design with repeated pretest-posttest measures and control groups. To measure the variables, four assessment instruments were administered before and after the program, as well as in the follow-up phase (1 year after the conclusion of the intervention). The program consisted of 20 one-hour sessions. The pretest-posttest ANCOVAs showed that the program significantly increased: (1) El (attention, clarity, emotional repair); (2) assertive cognitive social interaction strategies; (3) internal control of anger; and (4) the cognitive ability to analyze negative feelings. In the follow-up phase, the positive effects of the intervention were generally maintained and, moreover, the use of aggressive strategies as an interpersonal conflict-resolution technique was significantly reduced. Regarding the effect of the program on both genders, the change was very similar, but the boys increased assertive social interaction strategies, attention, and emotional clarity significantly more than the girls. The importance of implementing programs to promote socio-emotional development and prevent violence is discussed.

Effects of El Niño events on energy demand and egg production of rockfish (Scorpaenidae: Sebastes): a bioenergetics approach

Fish bioenergetics models estimate relationships between energy budgets and environmental and physiological variables. This study presents a generic rockfish (Sebastes) bioenergetics model and estimates energy consumption by northern California blue rockf ish (S. mystinus) under average (baseline) and El Niño conditions. Compared to males, female S. mystinus required more energy because they were larger and had greater reproductive costs. When El Niño conditions (warmer temperatures; lower growth, condition, and fecundity) were experienced every 3−7 years, energy consumption decreased on an individual and a per-recruit basis in relation to baseline conditions, but the decrease was minor (<4% at the individual scale, <7% at the per-recruit scale) compared to decreases in female egg production (12−19% at the individual scale, 15−23% at the per-recruit scale). When mortality in per-recruit models was increased by adding fishing, energy consumption in El Niño models grew more similar to that seen in the baseline model. However, egg production decreased significantly — an effect exacerbated by the frequency of El Niño events. Sensitivity analyses showed that energy consumption estimates were most sensitive to respiration parameters, energy density, and female fecundity, and that estimated consumption increased as parameter uncertainty increased. This model provides a means of understanding rockfish trophic ecology in the context of community structure and environmental change by synthesizing metabolic, demographic, and environmental information. Future research should focus on acquiring such information so that models like the bioenergetics model can be used to estimate the effect of climate change, community shifts, and different harvesting strategies on rockfish energy demands.

Effects of turbulent reynolds number on the displacement speed statistics in the thin reaction zones regime of turbulent premixed combustion

The effects of turbulent Reynolds number on the statistical behaviour of the displacement speed have been studied using three-dimensional Direct Numerical Simulation of statistically planar turbulent premixed flames. The probability of finding negative values of the displacement speed is found to increase with increasing turbulent Reynolds number when the Damkhler number is held constant. It has been shown that the statistical behaviour of the Surface Density Function, and its strain rate and curvature dependence, plays a key role in determining the response of the different components of displacement speed. Increasing the turbulent Reynolds number is shown to reduce the strength of the correlations between tangential strain rate and dilatation rate with curvature, although the qualitative nature of the correlations remains unaffected. The dependence of displacement speed on strain rate and curvature is found to weaken with increasing turbulent Reynolds number when either Damkhler or Karlovitz number is held constant, but the qualitative nature of the correlation remains unaltered. The implications of turbulent Reynolds number effects in the context of Flame Surface Density (FSD) modelling have also been addressed, with emphasis on the influence of displacement speed on the curvature and propagation terms in the FSD balance equation. © 2011 Nilanjan Chakraborty et al.

Effects of Lewis number on scalar variance transport in premixed flames

The influences of differential diffusion rates of heat and mass on the transport of the variances of Favre fluctuations of reaction progress variable and non-dimensional temperature have been studied using three-dimensional simplified chemistry based Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) data of statistically planar turbulent premixed flames with global Lewis number ranging from Le = 0.34 to 1.2. The Lewis number effects on the statistical behaviours of the various terms of the transport equations of variances of Favre fluctuations of reaction progress variable and non-dimensional temperature have been analysed in the context of Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) simulations. It has been found that the turbulent fluxes of the progress variable and temperature variances exhibit counter-gradient transport for the flames with Lewis number significantly smaller than unity whereas the extent of this counter-gradient transport is found to decrease with increasing Lewis number. The Lewis number is also shown to have significant influences on the magnitudes of the chemical reaction and scalar dissipation rate contributions to the scalar variance transport. The modelling of the unclosed terms in the scalar variance equations for the non-unity Lewis number flames have been discussed in detail. The performances of the existing models for the unclosed terms are assessed based on a-priori analysis of DNS data. Based on the present analysis, new models for the unclosed terms of the active scalar variance transport equations are proposed, whenever necessary, which are shown to satisfactorily capture the behaviours of unclosed terms for all the flames considered in this study. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Aging effects on early-stage face perception: An ERP study

We compared early stages of face processing in young and older participants as indexed by ERPs elicited by faces and non-face stimuli presented in upright and inverted orientations. The P1 and N170 components were larger in older than in young participant

Different masking effects on "hole" and "no-hole" figures

Global information is considered the primitive of visual perception in Gestalt psychology. Further, L. Chen ( 2005) proposed a new theory of topological visual perception. According to this theory, the perception of topological difference is faster than o

Effects of unconditioned and conditioned aversive stimuli in an intense fear conditioning paradigm on synaptic plasticity in the hippocampal CA1 area in vivo

Repeated vivid recalls or flashbacks of traumatic memories and memory deficits are the cardinal features of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The underlying mechanisms are not fully understood yet. Here, we examined the effects of very strong fear conditioning (20 pairings of a light with a 1.5-mA, 0.5-s foot shock) and subsequent reexposure to the conditioning context (chamber A), a similar context (chamber B), and/or to the fear conditioned stimulus (CS) (a light) on synaptic plasticity in the hippocampal CA1 area in anesthetized Sprague-Dawley rats. The conditioning procedure resulted in very strong conditioned fear, as reflected by high levels of persistent freezing, to both the contexts and to the CS, 24 h after fear conditioning. The induction of long-term potentiation ON was blocked immediately after fear conditioning. It was still markedly impaired 24 h after fear conditioning; reexposure to the conditioning chamber A (CA) or to a similar chamber 13 (CB) did not affect the impairment. However, presentation of the CS in the CA exacerbated the impairment of LTP, whereas the CS presentation in a CB ameliorated the impairment so that LTP induction did not differ from that of control groups. The induction of long-term depression (LTD) was facilitated immediately, but not 24 h, after fear conditioning. Only reexposure to the CS in the CA, but not reexposure to either chamber A or B alone, or the CS in chamber B, 24 h after conditioning, reinstated the facilitation of LTD induction. These data demonstrate that unconditioned and conditioned aversive stimuli in an intense fear conditioning paradigm can have profound effects on hippocampal synaptic plasticity, which may aid to understand the mechanisms underlying impairments of hippocampus-dependent memory by stress or in PTSD. (c) 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

A priori assessment of algebraic flame surface density models in the context of large eddy simulation for nonunity lewis number flames in the thin reaction zones regime

The performance of algebraic flame surface density (FSD) models has been assessed for flames with nonunity Lewis number (Le) in the thin reaction zones regime, using a direct numerical simulation (DNS) database of freely propagating turbulent premixed flames with Le ranging from 0.34 to 1.2. The focus is on algebraic FSD models based on a power-law approach, and the effects of Lewis number on the fractal dimension D and inner cut-off scale η i have been studied in detail. It has been found that D is strongly affected by Lewis number and increases significantly with decreasing Le. By contrast, η i remains close to the laminar flame thermal thickness for all values of Le considered here. A parameterisation of D is proposed such that the effects of Lewis number are explicitly accounted for. The new parameterisation is used to propose a new algebraic model for FSD. The performance of the new model is assessed with respect to results for the generalised FSD obtained from explicitly LES-filtered DNS data. It has been found that the performance of the most existing models deteriorates with decreasing Lewis number, while the newly proposed model is found to perform as well or better than the most existing algebraic models for FSD. © 2012 Mohit Katragadda et al.

Reynolds number effects on scalar dissipation rate transport and its modeling in turbulent premixed combustion

The effects of turbulent Reynolds number, Ret, on the transport of scalar dissipation rate of reaction progress variable in the context of Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes simulations have been analyzed using three-dimensional simplified chemistry-based direct numerical simulation (DNS) data of freely propagating turbulent premixed flames with different values of Ret. Scaling arguments have been used to explain the effects of Ret on the turbulent transport, scalar-turbulence interaction, and the combined reaction and molecular dissipation terms. Suitable modifications to the models for these terms have been proposed to account for Ret effects, and the model parameters include explicit Ret dependence. These expressions approach expected asymptotic limits for large values of Ret. However, turbulent Reynolds number Ret does not seem to have any major effects on the modeling of the term arising from density variation. Copyright © Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

On the effects of turbulence modelling in design optimisation for high-lift devices

Aerodynamic shape optimisation is being increasingly utilised as a design tool in the aerospace industry. In order to provide accurate results, design optimisation methods rely on the accuracy of the underlying CFD methods applied to obtain aerodynamic forces for a given configuration. Previous studies of the authors have highlighted that the variation of the order of accuracy of the CFD solver with a fixed turbulence model affects the resulting optimised airfoil shape for a single element airfoil. The accuracy of the underlying CFD model is even more relevant in the context of high-lift configurations where an accurate prediction of flow is challenging due to the complex flow physics involving transition and flow separation phenomena. This paper explores the effect of the fidelity of CFD results for a range of turbulence models within the context of the computational design of aircraft configurations. The NLR7301 multi-element airfoil (main wing and flap) is selected as the baseline configuration, because of the wealth of experimental an computational results available for this configuration. An initial validation study is conducted in order to establish optimal mesh parameters. A bi-objective shape optimisation problem is then formulated, by trying to reveal the trade-off between lift and drag coefficients at high angles of attack. Optimisation of the airfoil shape is performed with Spalart-Allmaras, k - ω SST and k - o realisable models. The results indicate that there is consistent and complementary impact to the optimum level achieved from all the three different turbulence models considered in the presented case study. Without identifying particular superiority of any of the turbu- lence models, we can say though that each of them expressed favourable influence towards different optimality routes. These observations lead to the exploration of new avenues for future research. © 2012 AIAA.

On the effects of turbulence modelling in design optimisation for high-lift devices

Aerodynamic shape optimisation is being increasingly utilised as a design tool in the aerospace industry. In order to provide accurate results, design optimisation methods rely on the accuracy of the underlying CFD methods applied to obtain aerodynamic forces for a given configuration. Previous studies of the authors have highlighted that the variation of the order of accuracy of the CFD solver with a fixed turbulence model affects the resulting optimised airfoil shape for a single element airfoil. The accuracy of the underlying CFD model is even more relevant in the context of high-lift configurations where an accurate prediction of flow is challenging due to the complex flow physics involving transition and flow separation phenomena. This paper explores the effect of the fidelity of CFD results for a range of turbulence models within the context of the computational design of aircraft configurations. The NLR7301 multi-element airfoil (main wing and flap) is selected as the baseline configuration, because of the wealth of experimental an computational results available for this configuration. An initial validation study is conducted in order to establish optimal mesh parameters. A bi-objective shape optimisation problem is then formulated, by trying to reveal the trade-off between lift and drag coefficients at high angles of attack. Optimisation of the airfoil shape is performed with Spalart-Allmaras, k - ω SST and k - ε realisable models. The results indicate that there is consistent and complementary impact to the optimum level achieved from all the three different turbulence models considered in the presented case study. Without identifying particular superiority of any of the turbu- lence models, we can say though that each of them expressed favourable influence towards different optimality routes. These observations lead to the exploration of new avenues for future research. © 2012 by the authors.

Negative Effects of Relative Proximity and Absolute Geography on Open Innovation Practices in High-tech SMEs in the UK

© 2014 IEEE. This exploratory study addresses a gap in management literature by addressing the role of location in the continuously expanding field of open innovation research. In this context, we analyze potential negative effects of absolute geography and relative proximity on open innovation practices in high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United Kingdom. Drawing upon cluster theory and business ecosystem literature, the analysis from three SME case studies in the East of England suggests that presumed 'favorable' location variables, such as close relative proximity between partners and the presence of economic clusters, can have certain negative effects on open innovation practices.

Changes in innovation styles - comprehensive study of the changes in innovation styles to identify the causes and effects of different influencing factors and capabilities to create a general innovation pattern.

An investigation in innovation management and entrepreneurial management is conducted in this thesis. The aim of the research is to explore changes of innovation styles in the transformation process from a start-up company to a more mature phase of business, to predict in a second step future sustainability and the probability of success. As businesses grow in revenue, corporate size and functional complexity, various triggers, supporters and drivers affect innovation and company's success. In a comprehensive study more than 200 innovative and technology driven companies have been examined and compared to identify patterns in different performance levels. All of them have been founded under the same formal requirements of the Munich Business Plan Competition -a research approach which allowed a unique snapshot that only long-term studies would be able to provide. The general objective was to identify the correlation between different factors, as well as different dimensions, to incremental and radical innovations realised. The 12 hypothesis were formed to prove have been derived from a comprehensive literature review. The relevant academic and practitioner literature on entrepreneurial, innovation, and knowledge management as well as social network theory revealed that the concept of innovation has evolved significantly over the last decade. A review of over 15 innovation models/frameworks contributed to understand what innovation in context means and what the dimensions are. It appears that the complex theories of innovation can be described by the increasing extent of social ingredients in the explanation of innovativeness. Originally based on tangible forms of capital, and on the necessity of pull and technology push, innovation management is today integrated in a larger system. Therefore, two research instruments have been developed to explore the changes in innovations styles. The Innovation Management Audits (IMA Start-up and IMA Mature) provided statements related to product/service development, innovativeness in various typologies, resources for innovations, innovation capabilities in conjunction to knowledge and management, social networks as well as the measurement of outcomes to generate high-quality data for further exploration. In obtaining results the mature companies have been clustered in the performance level low, average and high, while the start-up companies have been kept as one cluster. Firstly, the analysis exposed that knowledge, the process of acquiring knowledge, interorganisational networks and resources for innovations are the most important driving factors for innovation and success. Secondly, the actual change of the innovation style provides new insights about the importance of focusing on sustaining success and innovation ii 16 key areas. Thirdly, a detailed overview of triggers, supporters and drivers for innovation and success for each dimension support decision makers in putting their company in the right direction. Fourthly, a critical review of contemporary strategic management in conjunction to the findings provides recommendation of how to apply well-known management tools. Last but not least, the Munich cluster is analysed providing an estimation of the success probability of the different performance cluster and start-up companies. For the analysis of the probability of success of the newly developed as well as statistically and qualitative validated ICP Model (Innovativeness, Capabilities & Potential) has been developed and applied. While the model was primarily developed to evaluate the probability of success of companies; it has equal application in the situation to measure innovativeness to identify the impact of various strategic initiatives within small or large enterprises. The main findings of the model are that competitor, and customer orientation and acquiring knowledge important for incremental and radical innovation. Formal and interorganisation networks are important to foster innovation but informal networks appear to be detrimental to innovation. The testing of the ICP model h the long term is recommended as one subject of further research. Another is to investigate some of the more intangible aspects of innovation management such as attitude and motivation of mangers. IV

The benefit of context for facial composite construction.

Purpose - The aim of this study was to investigate whether the presence of a whole-face context during facial composite production facilitates construction of facial composite images. Design/Methodology - In Experiment 1, constructors viewed a celebrity face and then developed a facial composite using PRO-fit in one of two conditions: either the full-face was visible while facial features were selected, or only the feature currently being selected was visible. The composites were named by different participants. We then replicated the study using a more forensically-valid procedure: In Experiment 2 non-football fans viewed an image of a premiership footballer and 24 hours later constructed a composite of the face with a trained software operator. The resulting composites were named by football fans. Findings - In both studies we found that presence of the facial context promoted more identifiable facial composite images. Research limitations/implications – Though this study uses current software in an unconventional way, this was necessary to avoid error arising from between-system differences. Practical implications - Results confirm that composite software should have the whole-face context visible to witnesses throughout construction. Though some software systems do this, there remain others that present features in isolation and these findings show that these systems are unlikely to be optimal. Originality/value - This is the first study to demonstrate the importance of a full-face context for the construction of facial composite images. Results are valuable to police forces and developers of composite software.