Language in Acquisition : Early Lexical Development and Associations between Lexicon and Grammar Findings from Full-Term and Very-Low-Birth-Weight Finnish Children

The aim was to analyse the growth and compositional development of the receptive and expressive lexicons between the ages 0,9 and 2;0 in the full-term (FT) and the very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) children who are acquiring Finnish. The associations between the expressive lexicon and grammar at 1;6 and 2;0 in the FT children were also studied. In addition, the language skills of the VLBW children at 2;0 were analysed, as well as the predictive value of early lexicon to the later language performance. Four groups took part in the studies: the longitudinal (N = 35) and cross-sectional (N = 146) samples of the FT children, and the longitudinal (N = 32) and cross-sectional (N = 66) samples of VLBW children. The data was gathered by applying of the structured parental rating method (the Finnish version of the Communicative Development Inventory), through analysis of the children´s spontaneous speech and by administering a a formal test (Reynell Developmental Language Scales). The FT children acquired their receptive lexicons earlier, at a faster rate and with larger individual variation than their expressive lexicons. The acquisition rate of the expressive lexicon increased from slow to faster in most children (91%). Highly parallel developmental paths for lexical semantic categories were detected in the receptive and expressive lexicons of the Finnish children when they were analysed in relation to the growth of the lexicon size, as described in the literature for children acquiring other languages. The emergence of grammar was closely associated with expressive lexical growth. The VLBW children acquired their receptive lexicons at a slower rate and had weaker language skills at 2;0 than the full-term children. The compositional development of both lexicons happened at a slower rate in the VLBW children when compared to the FT controls. However, when the compositional development was analysed in relation to the growth of lexicon size, this development occurred qualitatively in a nearly parallel manner in the VLBW children as in the FT children. Early receptive and expressive lexicon sizes were significantly associated with later language skills in both groups. The effect of the background variables (gender, length of the mother s basic education, birth weight) on the language development in the FT and the VLBW children differed. The results provide new information of early language acquisition by the Finnish FT and VLBW children. The results support the view that the early acquisition of the semantic lexical categories is related to lexicon growth. The current findings also propose that the early grammatical acquisition is closely related to the growth of expressive vocabulary size. The language development of the VLBW children should be followed in clinical work.

HR Information Systems: Exploiting the Full Potential

[Excerpt] Human resource management has always faced a fundamental paradox: Top managers in any company will readily agree that the people are the keys to success, but few believe they know whether their people are well managed or if they are prepared to fortify and enhance the transformations facing the organization. The information tools applied to the employees of an organization pale by comparison with the tools used to analyze markets, financial resources and production design.

Biochemical and structural characterization of residue 96 mutants of Plasmodium falciparum triosephosphate isomerase: active-site loop conformation, hydration and identification of a dimer-interface ligand-binding site

Plasmodium falciparum TIM (PfTIM) is unique in possessing a Phe residue at position 96 in place of the conserved Ser that is found in TIMs from the majority of other organisms. In order to probe the role of residue 96, three PfTIM mutants, F96S, F96H and F96W, have been biochemically and structurally characterized. The three mutants exhibited reduced catalytic efficiency and a decrease in substrate-binding affinity, with the most pronounced effects being observed for F96S and F96H. The k(cat) values and K-m values are (2.54 +/- 0.19) x 10(5) min(-1) and 0.39 +/- 0.049 mM, respectively, for the wild type; (3.72 +/- 0.28) x 10(3) min(-1) and 2.18 +/- 0.028 mM, respectively, for the F96S mutant;(1.11 +/- 0.03) x 10(4) min(-1) and 2.62 +/- 0.042 mM, respectively, for the F96H mutant; and (1.48 +/- 0.05) x 10(5) min(-1) and 1.20 +/- 0.056 mM, respectively, for the F96W mutant. Unliganded and 3-phosphoglycerate (3PG) complexed structures are reported for the wild-type enzyme and the mutants. The ligand binds to the active sites of the wild-type enzyme (wtPfTIM) and the F96W mutant, with a loop-open state in the former and both open and closed states in the latter. In contrast, no density for the ligand could be detected at the active sites of the F96S and F96H mutants under identical conditions. The decrease in ligand affinity could be a consequence of differences in the water network connecting residue 96 to Ser73 in the vicinity of the active site. Soaking of crystals of wtPfTIM and the F96S and F96H mutants resulted in the binding of 3PG at a dimer-interface site. In addition, loop closure at the liganded active site was observed for wtPfTIM. The dimer-interface site in PfTIM shows strong electrostatic anchoring of the phosphate group involving the Arg98 and Lys112 residues of PfTIM.

Erich Gustav Baum (on right) with undientified man (maybe his father-in-law David Dublon?) standing next to a narrow cobblestone street full of horse-drawn carriages Portraits Men

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Identification of diverse full-length endogenous betaretroviruses in megabats and microbats

Background: Betaretroviruses infect a wide range of species including primates, rodents, ruminants, and marsupials. They exist in both endogenous and exogenous forms and are implicated in animal diseases such as lung cancer in sheep, and in human disease, with members of the human endogenous retrovirus-K (HERV-K) group of endogenous betaretroviruses (βERVs) associated with human cancers and autoimmune diseases. To improve our understanding of betaretroviruses in an evolutionarily distinct host species, we characterized βERVs present in the genomes and transcriptomes of mega- and microbats, which are an important reservoir of emerging viruses.Results: A diverse range of full-length βERVs were discovered in mega- and microbat genomes and transcriptomes including the first identified intact endogenous retrovirus in a bat. Our analysis revealed that the genus Betaretrovirus can be divided into eight distinct sub-groups with evidence of cross-species transmission. Betaretroviruses are revealed to be a complex retrovirus group, within which one sub-group has evolved from complex to simple genomic organization through the acquisition of an env gene from the genus Gammaretrovirus. Molecular dating suggests that bats have contended with betaretroviral infections for over 30 million years.Conclusions: Our study reveals that a diverse range of betaretroviruses have circulated in bats for most of their evolutionary history, and cluster with extant betaretroviruses of divergent mammalian lineages suggesting that their distribution may be largely unrestricted by host species barriers. The presence of βERVs with the ability to transcribe active viral elements in a major animal reservoir for viral pathogens has potential implications for public health. © 2013 Hayward et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Hydration numbers of some metal acetates, monochloroacetates and trichloroacetates in solution from ultrasonic velocity and conpressibility measurements

Ultrasonic velocities in aqueous solutions of some metal acetates, monochloroacelates and trichloroacetates, and the respective acids have been measured at 1 MHz frequency using the pulse technique. The ultrsonic velocity, adiabatic compressibility and apperent molal compressibility were measured as a function of concentration. The apparent molal compressibility values at infinite dilution were calculated and used to determine the hydration numbers.

Best practice full-stop: Anticipating the spillover effects of enterprise education

This paper considers the potential flow-on benefits that may arise from the increasing provision of enterprise education. The issue of vulnerability is proposed to be a factor associated with superior learning outcomes. Therefore, this paper aims to highlight the use of student and facilitator vulnerability to increase the capacity for learning in Higher Education. It is argued that students benefit from having to struggle to find their identity within a learning environment. That group work can assist the development of confidence through which improved learning behaviours are adopted. Also, the development of good learning practices in the domain of enterprise education have the potential to aid student learning outcomes in other areas of study. This paper provides another means of valuing the potential gains to be received from enterprise education.

Indexing Heterogeneous XML for Full-Text Search

XML documents are becoming more and more common in various environments. In particular, enterprise-scale document management is commonly centred around XML, and desktop applications as well as online document collections are soon to follow. The growing number of XML documents increases the importance of appropriate indexing methods and search tools in keeping the information accessible. Therefore, we focus on content that is stored in XML format as we develop such indexing methods. Because XML is used for different kinds of content ranging all the way from records of data fields to narrative full-texts, the methods for Information Retrieval are facing a new challenge in identifying which content is subject to data queries and which should be indexed for full-text search. In response to this challenge, we analyse the relation of character content and XML tags in XML documents in order to separate the full-text from data. As a result, we are able to both reduce the size of the index by 5-6\% and improve the retrieval precision as we select the XML fragments to be indexed. Besides being challenging, XML comes with many unexplored opportunities which are not paid much attention in the literature. For example, authors often tag the content they want to emphasise by using a typeface that stands out. The tagged content constitutes phrases that are descriptive of the content and useful for full-text search. They are simple to detect in XML documents, but also possible to confuse with other inline-level text. Nonetheless, the search results seem to improve when the detected phrases are given additional weight in the index. Similar improvements are reported when related content is associated with the indexed full-text including titles, captions, and references. Experimental results show that for certain types of document collections, at least, the proposed methods help us find the relevant answers. Even when we know nothing about the document structure but the XML syntax, we are able to take advantage of the XML structure when the content is indexed for full-text search.

Water, water everywhere: Dehydration in the midst of plenty: An observational study of barriers and enablers to adequate hydration in older hospitalized patients

While dehydration is common in older patients and is associated with poor outcomes, it has been infrequently studied in the hospital setting. Thus, the aim of this study was to identify potential barriers and enablers to the maintenance of adequate hydration in older patients in an acute hospital environment. An observational study, involving patients aged 60 years and older admitted to an acute care hospital in Queensland, Australia, was undertaken. Forty-four patients were observed during mealtimes, and chart and room audits were performed to identify hydration management strategies, weight records and the presence or absence of fluid balance charts. Results revealed a number of system and practice-related barriers including patient difficulties with opening fluid containers and low levels of documentation of hydration management strategies. Addressing these issues is an important first step towards improving the management of hydration in medically ill older hospital patients.

Pi-turns in proteins and peptides: Classification, conformation, occurrence, hydration and sequence.

The i + 5-->i hydrogen bonded turn conformation (pi-turn) with the fifth residue adopting alpha L conformation is frequently found at the C-terminus of helices in proteins and hence is speculated to be a "helix termination signal." An analysis of the occurrence of i + 5-->i hydrogen bonded turn conformation at any general position in proteins (not specifically at the helix C-terminus), using coordinates of 228 protein crystal structures determined by X-ray crystallography to better than 2.5 A resolution is reported in this paper. Of 486 detected pi-turn conformations, 367 have the (i + 4)th residue in alpha L conformation, generally occurring at the C-terminus of alpha-helices, consistent with previous observations. However, a significant number (111) of pi-turn conformations occur with (i + 4)th residue in alpha R conformation also, generally occurring in alpha-helices as distortions either at the terminii or at the middle, a novel finding. These two sets of pi-turn conformations are referred to by the names pi alpha L and pi alpha R-turns, respectively, depending upon whether the (i + 4)th residue adopts alpha L or alpha R conformations. Four pi-turns, named pi alpha L'-turns, were noticed to be mirror images of pi alpha L-turns, and four more pi-turns, which have the (i + 4)th residue in beta conformation and denoted as pi beta-turns, occur as a part of hairpin bend connecting twisted beta-strands. Consecutive pi-turns occur, but only with pi alpha R-turns. The preference for amino acid residues is different in pi alpha L and pi alpha R-turns. However, both show a preference for Pro after the C-termini. Hydrophilic residues are preferred at positions i + 1, i + 2, and i + 3 of pi alpha L-turns, whereas positions i and i + 5 prefer hydrophobic residues. Residue i + 4 in pi alpha L-turns is mainly Gly and less often Asn. Although pi alpha R-turns generally occur as distortions in helices, their amino acid preference is different from that of helices. Poor helix formers, such as His, Tyr, and Asn, also were found to be preferred for pi alpha R-turns, whereas good helix former Ala is not preferred. pi-Turns in peptides provide a picture of the pi-turn at atomic resolution. Only nine peptide-based pi-turns are reported so far, and all of them belong to pi alpha L-turn type with an achiral residue in position i + 4. The results are of importance for structure prediction, modeling, and de novo design of proteins.

Low ML-Decoding Complexity, Large Coding Gain, Full-Rate, Full-Diversity STBCs for 2 x 2 and 4 x 2 MIMO Systems

This paper deals with low maximum-likelihood (ML)-decoding complexity, full-rate and full-diversity space-time block codes (STBCs), which also offer large coding gain, for the 2 transmit antenna, 2 receive antenna (2 x 2) and the 4 transmit antenna, 2 receive antenna (4 x 2) MIMO systems. Presently, the best known STBC for the 2 2 system is the Golden code and that for the 4 x 2 system is the DjABBA code. Following the approach by Biglieri, Hong, and Viterbo, a new STBC is presented in this paper for the 2 x 2 system. This code matches the Golden code in performance and ML-decoding complexity for square QAM constellations while it has lower ML-decoding complexity with the same performance for non-rectangular QAM constellations. This code is also shown to be information-lossless and diversity-multiplexing gain (DMG) tradeoff optimal. This design procedure is then extended to the 4 x 2 system and a code, which outperforms the DjABBA code for QAM constellations with lower ML-decoding complexity, is presented. So far, the Golden code has been reported to have an ML-decoding complexity of the order of for square QAM of size. In this paper, a scheme that reduces its ML-decoding complexity to M-2 root M is presented.

Children and adolescents in full-time special education : an epidemiological and magnetic resonance imaging study

The need for special education (SE) is increasing. The majority of those whose problems are due to neurodevelopmental disorders have no specific aetiology. The aim of this study was to evaluate the contribution of prenatal and perinatal factors and factors associated with growth and development to later need for full-time SE and to assess joint structural and volumetric brain alterations among subjects with unexplained, familial need for SE. A random sample of 900 subjects in full-time SE allocated into three levels of neurodevelopmental problems and 301 controls in mainstream education (ME) provided data on socioeconomic factors, pregnancy, delivery, growth, and development. Of those, 119 subjects belonging to a sibling-pair in full-time SE with unexplained aetiology and 43 controls in ME underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Analyses of structural brain alterations and midsagittal area and diameter measurements were made. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis provided detailed information on regional grey matter, white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volume differences. Father’s age ≥ 40 years, low birth weight, male sex, and lower socio-economic status all increased the probability of SE placement. At age 1 year, one standard deviation score decrease in height raised the probability of SE placement by 40% and in head circumference by 28%. At infancy, the gross motor milestones differentiated the children. From age 18 months, the fine motor milestones and those related to speech and social skills became more important. Brain MRI revealed no specific aetiology for subjects in SE. However, they had more often ≥ 3 abnormal findings in MRIs (thin corpus callosum and enlarged cerebral and cerebellar CSF spaces). In VBM, subjects in full-time SE had smaller global white matter, CSF, and total brain volumes than controls. Compared with controls, subjects with intellectual disabilities had regional volume alterations (greater grey matter volumes in the anterior cingulate cortex bilaterally, smaller grey matter volume in left thalamus and left cerebellar hemisphere, greater white matter volume in the left fronto-parietal region, and smaller white matter volumes bilaterally in the posterior limbs of the internal capsules). In conclusion, the epidemiological studies emphasized several factors that increased the probability of SE placement, useful as a framework for interventional studies. The global and regional brain MRI findings provide an interesting basis for future investigations of learning-related brain structures in young subjects with cognitive impairments or intellectual disabilities of unexplained, familial aetiology.

Visual Impairment in Finnish Children : Prevalence, causes and morbidity of full-term and preterm children with visual impairment born from 1972 through 1989

The prevalence and the causes of childhood visual impairment in Finland during the 1970s and the 1980s were investigated, with special attention to risk factors and further prevention of visual impairment in children. The primary data on children with visual impairment were obtained from the Finnish Register of Visual Impairment, one of the patient registers kept up by the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (Stakes). The data were supplemented from other registers in Stakes and from patient records of the children in Finnish central hospitals. Visual impairment had been registered in 556 children from a population of 1,138,326 children between ages 0-17, born from 1972 through 1989. The age-specific prevalence of registered visual impairment was 49/100,000 in total. Of them, 23/100,000 were blind children and 11/100,000 were children born prematurely. Boys were impaired more often and more severely than girls. Congenital malformations (52%), systemic diseases (48%), and multiple impairments (50%) were common. The main ophthalmic groups of visual impairment were retinal diseases (35%), ocular malformations (29%), and neuro-ophthalmological disorders (29%). Optic nerve atrophy was the most common diagnosis of visual impairment (22%), followed by congenital cataract (11%), retinopathy of prematurity (10%), and cerebral visual impairment (8%). Genetic factors (42%) were the most common etiologies of visual impairment, followed by prenatal (30%) and perinatal (21%) factors. The highest rates of blindness were seen in cerebral visual impairment (83%) and retinopathy of prematurity (82%). Retinopathy of prematurity had developed in the children born at a gestational age of 32 weeks or earlier. Significant risks for visual impairment were found in the association with preterm births, prenatal infections, birth asphyxia, neonatal respiratory difficulties, mechanical ventilation lasting over two weeks, and hyperbilirubinemia. A rise in blind and multi-impaired children was seen during the study period, associating with increases in the survival of preterm infants with extremely low birth weight. The incidence of visual impairment in children born prematurely was seven times higher than in children born at full term. A reliable profile of childhood visual impairment was obtained. The importance of highly qualified antenatal, neonatal, and ophthalmological care was clearly proved. The risks associated with pre- and perinatal disorders during pregnancy must be emphasized, e.g. the risks associated with maternal infections and the use of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs during pregnancy. Obvious needs for gene therapies and other new treatments for hereditary diseases were also proved.

Signal set design for full-diversity low-decoding-complexity differential scaled-unitary STBCs

The problem of designing high rate, full diversity noncoherent space-time block codes (STBCs) with low encoding and decoding complexity is addressed. First, the notion of g-group encodable and g-group decodable linear STBCs is introduced. Then for a known class of rate-1 linear designs, an explicit construction of fully-diverse signal sets that lead to four-group encodable and four-group decodable differential scaled unitary STBCs for any power of two number of antennas is provided. Previous works on differential STBCs either sacrifice decoding complexity for higher rate or sacrifice rate for lower decoding complexity.