Nondeclarative learning in children with Specific Language Impairment: Predicting regularities in the visuomotor, phonological, and cognitive domains.

Ullman (2004) suggested that Specific Language Impairment (SLI) results from a general procedural learning deficit. In order to test this hypothesis, we investigated children with SLI via procedural learning tasks exploring the verbal, motor, and cognitive domains. Results showed that compared with a Control Group, the children with SLI (a) were unable to learn a phonotactic learning task, (b) were able but less efficiently to learn a motor learning task and (c) succeeded in a cognitive learning task. Regarding the motor learning task (Serial Reaction Time Task), reaction times were longer and learning slower than in controls. The learning effect was not significant in children with an associated Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), and future studies should consider comorbid motor impairment in order to clarify whether impairments are related to the motor rather than the language disorder. Our results indicate that a phonotactic learning but not a cognitive procedural deficit underlies SLI, thus challenging Ullmans' general procedural deficit hypothesis, like a few other recent studies.

Audit report on Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2015

Audit report on Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2015

1015-009 Indian Creek Watershed Final Report

The focus of this project is "Indian Creek", a tributary to Cedar Creek which eventually empties into the Lower Skunk River. Indian Creek suffers from deteriorated water quality resulting from high volumes of urban stormwater runoff resulting in streambank erosion, combined sewer overflows and chemical and floatable litter pollution from roadways. The "Creative Solution for Indian Creek Water Quality" project will work with a local commercial business to create a model urban project The project will reduce the volume of urban stormwater by 930,000 gallons annually entering Indian Creek as well as reduce the volume of discharge water by 500,000 gallons annually. The local business will develop a system to divert stormwater from l acre of their roof as well as coolant discharge water from their factory into an existing retention pond. In addition, the project will reduce demand on the municipal water supply by 500,000 gallons annually by harvesting water from the retention pond for cooling operations.

[Archives de la Parole]. , Sohni (Indian Guitar) / William Sinkler Darby, collecteur ; Jmdad Khan [i.e. Ustad Imdad Khan], sitar

[Traditions. Asie. Inde]

Structural, metamorphic and geochronological relations between the Zanskar Shear Zone and the Miyar Shear Zone (NW Indian Himalaya): Evidence for two distinct tectonic structures and implications for the evolution of the High Himalayan Crystalline of Zanskar

The geologic structures and metamorphic zonation of the northwestern Indian Himalaya contrast significantly with those in the central and eastern parts of the range, where the high-grade metamorphic rocks of the High Himalayan Crystalline (HHC) thrust southward over the weakly metamorphosed sediments of the Lesser Himalaya along the Main Central Thrust (MCT). Indeed, the hanging wall of the MCT in the NW Himalaya mainly consists of the greenschist facies metasediments of the Chamba zone, whereas HHC high-grade rocks are exposed more internally in the range as a large-scale dome called the Gianbul dome. This Gianbul dome is bounded by two oppositely directed shear zones, the NE-dipping Zanskar Shear Zone (ZSZ) on the northern flank and the SW-dipping Miyar Shear Zone (MSZ) on the southern limb. Current models for the emplacement of the HHC in NW India as a dome structure differ mainly in terms of the roles played by both the ZSZ and the MSZ during the tectonothermal evolution of the HHC. In both the channel flow model and wedge extrusion model, the ZSZ acts as a backstop normal fault along which the high-grade metamorphic rocks of the HHC of Zanskar are exhumed. In contrast, the recently proposed tectonic wedging model argues that the ZSZ and the MSZ correspond to one single detachment system that operates as a subhorizontal backthrust off of the MCT. Thus, the kinematic evolution of the two shear zones, the ZSZ and the MSZ, and their structural, metamorphic and chronological relations appear to be diagnostic features for discriminating the different models. In this paper, structural, metamorphic and geochronological data demonstrate that the MSZ and the ZSZ experienced two distinct kinematic evolutions. As such, the data presented in this paper rule out the hypothesis that the MSZ and the ZSZ constitute one single detachment system, as postulated by the tectonic wedging model. Structural, metamorphic and geochronological data are used to present an alternative tectonic model for the large-scale doming in the NW Indian Himalaya involving early NE-directed tectonics, weakness in the upper crust, reduced erosion at the orogenic front and rapid exhumation along both the ZSZ and the MSZ.

Individual differences in control of language interference in late bilinguals are mainly related to general executive abilities

Background: Recent research based on comparisons between bilinguals and monolinguals postulates that bilingualism enhances cognitive control functions, because the parallel activation of languages necessitates control of interference. In a novel approach we investigated two groups of bilinguals, distinguished by their susceptibility to cross-language interference, asking whether bilinguals with strong language control abilities ('non-switchers") have an advantage in executive functions (inhibition of irrelevant information, problem solving, planning efficiency, generative fluency and self-monitoring) compared to those bilinguals showing weaker language control abilities ('switchers"). Methods: 29 late bilinguals (21 women) were evaluated using various cognitive control neuropsychological tests [e.g., Tower of Hanoi, Ruff Figural Fluency Task, Divided Attention, Go/noGo] tapping executive functions as well as four subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. The analysis involved t-tests (two independent samples). Non-switchers (n = 16) were distinguished from switchers (n = 13) by their performance observed in a bilingual picture-naming task. Results: The non-switcher group demonstrated a better performance on the Tower of Hanoi and Ruff Figural Fluency task, faster reaction time in a Go/noGo and Divided Attention task, and produced significantly fewer errors in the Tower of Hanoi, Go/noGo, and Divided Attention tasks when compared to the switchers. Non-switchers performed significantly better on two verbal subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (Information and Similarity), but not on the Performance subtests (Picture Completion, Block Design). Conclusions: The present results suggest that bilinguals with stronger language control have indeed a cognitive advantage in the administered tests involving executive functions, in particular inhibition, self-monitoring, problem solving, and generative fluency, and in two of the intelligence tests. What remains unclear is the direction of the relationship between executive functions and language control abilities.

Apertium Advanced Web Interface : A first step towards interactivity and language tools convergence

This documents sums up a projectaimed at building a new web interfaceto the Apertium machine translationplatform, including pre-editing andpost-editing environments. It containsa description of the accomplished workon this project, as well as an overviewof possible evolutions.

An Italian to Catalan RBMT system reusing data from existing language pairs

This paper presents an Italian to CatalanRBMT system automatically built bycombining the linguistic data of theexisting pairs Spanish-Catalan andSpanish-Italian. A lightweight manualpostprocessing is carried out in order tofix inconsistencies in the automaticallyderived dictionaries and to add very frequentwords that are missing accordingto a corpus analysis. The system isevaluated on the KDE4 corpus and outperformsGoogle Translate by approximatelyten absolute points in terms ofboth TER and GTM.

Hemispheric language asymmetry in first episode psychosis and schizotypy : the role of cannabis consumption and cognitive disorganization

Cannabis use has been related to an elevated psychosis risk and attenuated cognitive functioning. Cannabis-related cognitive impairments are also observed in populations along the psychosis dimension. We here investigated whether a potential behavioural marker of the psychosis dimension (attenuated functional hemispheric asymmetry) is even further attenuated in individuals using cannabis (CU) versus those not using cannabis (nCU). We tested 29 patients with first episode psychosis (FEP; 11 CU) and 90 healthy controls (38 CU) on lateralized lexical decisions assessing left hemisphere language dominance. In patients, psychotic symptoms were assessed (PANSS). In controls, self-reported schizotypy was assessed (O-LIFE questionnaire). Results indicated that nCU FEP patients had a relative reduced hemispheric asymmetry, as did controls with increasing cognitive disorganisation scores, in particular when belonging to the group of nCU controls. Positive, disorganised and negative PANSS scores in patients and negative and positive schizotypy in controls were unrelated to hemispheric asymmetry. These findings suggest that cannabis use balances rather than exacerbates uncommon hemispheric laterality patterns. Moreover, in healthy populations, the potential stabilisation of typical hemispheric asymmetry in CU might be most relevant to individuals with elevated cognitive disorganisation. We discuss the potential beneficial and harmful effects of cannabis use along the psychosis dimension together with propositions for future studies that should account for the mediating role of additional substances (e.g. nicotine), cannabis composition (e.g. cannabidiol content), and individual differences (e.g. physical health, or absence of significant polysubstance use).