scholarly journals The meanings of focus: The significance of an interpretation-based category in cross-linguistic analysis

2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEJAN MATIĆ ◽  
DANIEL WEDGWOOD

Focus is regularly treated as a cross-linguistically stable category that is merely manifested by different structural means in different languages, such that a common focus feature may be realised through, for example, a morpheme in one language and syntactic movement in another. We demonstrate this conception of focus to be unsustainable on both theoretical and empirical grounds, invoking fundamental argumentation regarding the notions of focus and linguistic category, alongside data from a wide range of languages. Attempts to salvage a cross-linguistic notion of focus through parameterisation, the introduction of additional information-structural primitives such as contrast, or reduction to a single common factor are shown to be equally problematic. We identify the causes of repeated misconceptions about the nature of focus in a number of interrelated theoretical and methodological tendencies in linguistic analysis. We propose to see focus as a heuristic tool and to employ it as a means of identifying structural patterns that languages use to generate a certain number of related pragmatic effects, potentially through quite diverse mechanisms.

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Fabietti ◽  
Mufti Mahmud ◽  
Ahmad Lotfi

AbstractAcquisition of neuronal signals involves a wide range of devices with specific electrical properties. Combined with other physiological sources within the body, the signals sensed by the devices are often distorted. Sometimes these distortions are visually identifiable, other times, they overlay with the signal characteristics making them very difficult to detect. To remove these distortions, the recordings are visually inspected and manually processed. However, this manual annotation process is time-consuming and automatic computational methods are needed to identify and remove these artefacts. Most of the existing artefact removal approaches rely on additional information from other recorded channels and fail when global artefacts are present or the affected channels constitute the majority of the recording system. Addressing this issue, this paper reports a novel channel-independent machine learning model to accurately identify and replace the artefactual segments present in the signals. Discarding these artifactual segments by the existing approaches causes discontinuities in the reproduced signals which may introduce errors in subsequent analyses. To avoid this, the proposed method predicts multiple values of the artefactual region using long–short term memory network to recreate the temporal and spectral properties of the recorded signal. The method has been tested on two open-access data sets and incorporated into the open-access SANTIA (SigMate Advanced: a Novel Tool for Identification of Artefacts in Neuronal Signals) toolbox for community use.


2020 ◽  
Vol 92 (12) ◽  
pp. 105-119
Author(s):  
O. Yu. Fomenko ◽  
S. V. Morozov ◽  
S. Mark Scott ◽  
H. Charles Knowles ◽  
D. A. Morozov ◽  
...  

This manuscript summarizes consensus reached by the International Anorectal Physiology Working Group (IAPWG) for the performance, terminology used, and interpretation of anorectal function testing including anorectal manometry (focused on high-resolution manometry), the rectal sensory test, and the balloon expulsion test. Based on these measurements, a classification system for disorders of anorectal function is proposed. Aim to provide information about methods of diagnosis and new classification of functional anorectal disorders to a wide range of specialists general practitioners, therapists, gastroenterologists, coloproctologists all who face the manifestations of these diseases in everyday practice and determine the diagnostic and therapeutic algorithm. Current paper provides agreed statements of IAPWG Consensus and comments (in italics) of Russian experts on real-world practice, mainly on methodology of examination. These comments in no way intended to detract from the provisions agreed by the international group of experts. We hope that these comments will help to improve the quality of examination based on the systematization of local experience with the use of the methods discussed and the results obtained. Key recommendations: the International Anorectal Physiology Working Group protocol for the performance of anorectal function testing recommends a standardized sequence of maneuvers to test rectoanal reflexes, anal tone and contractility, rectoanal coordination, and rectal sensation. Major findings not seen in healthy controls defined by the classification are as follows: rectoanal areflexia, anal hypotension and hypocontractility, rectal hyposensitivity, and hypersensitivity. Minor and inconclusive findings that can be present in health and require additional information prior to diagnosis include anal hypertension and dyssynergia.


Author(s):  
A. Vasilyev ◽  
V. Zakharov ◽  
O. Chelebyan ◽  
O. Zubkova

Abstract At the ASME Turbo Expo 2018 conference held in Oslo (Norway) on the 11th-15th of June 2018, the paper GT2018-75419 «Experience of Low-Emission Combustion of Aviation and Bio Fuels in Individual Flames after Front Mini-Modules of a Combustion Chamber» was published. This paper continues the studies devoted to the low-emission combustion of liquid fuels in GTE combustors. The paper presents a description of more detailed studies of the front module with a staged pneumatic fuel spray. The aerodynamic computations of the front module were conducted, and the disperse characteristics of the fuel-air spray were measured. The experimental research was carried out in two directions: 1) probing of the 3-burner sector flame tube at the distance of one third of its length (temperature field and gas sampling); 2) numerical study of the model combustor with actual arrangement of the modules in the dome within a wide range of fuel-air ratio. The calculated and experimental data of velocity field behind the front module were compared. And new data about the flame structure inside the test sector were obtained. Experimental data confirm the results of preliminary studies of the 3-burner sector: combustion efficiency is higher than 99.8%, EiNOx is at the level of 2–3 g/fuel kg at the combustor inlet air temperature of 680K and fuel-air ratio of 0.0225. The conducted research allowed to receive additional information on the influence of some design units on the pollutant emission and to estimate the different elements of computational methods for simulation of a low-emission combustor with a multi-atomizer dome.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (22) ◽  
pp. 6664
Author(s):  
Letícia Fernandes ◽  
Sara Santos ◽  
Marília Barandas ◽  
Duarte Folgado ◽  
Ricardo Leonardo ◽  
...  

Infrastructure-free Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) are becoming popular due to their scalability and a wide range of applications. Such systems often rely on deployed Wi-Fi networks. However, their usability may be compromised, either due to scanning restrictions from recent Android versions or the proliferation of 5G technology. This raises the need for new infrastructure-free IPS independent of Wi-Fi networks. In this paper, we propose the use of magnetic field data for IPS, through Deep Neural Networks (DNN). Firstly, a dataset of human indoor trajectories was collected with different smartphones. Afterwards, a magnetic fingerprint was constructed and relevant features were extracted to train a DNN that returns a probability map of a user’s location. Finally, two postprocessing methods were applied to obtain the most probable location regions. We asserted the performance of our solution against a test dataset, which produced a Success Rate of around 80%. We believe that these results are competitive for an IPS based on a single sensing source. Moreover, the magnetic field can be used as an additional information layer to increase the robustness and redundancy of current multi-source IPS.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (33) ◽  
pp. 3947-3970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Seth ◽  
Hans Messersmith ◽  
Varinder Kaur ◽  
John M. Kirkwood ◽  
Ragini Kudchadkar ◽  
...  

PURPOSE To provide guidance to clinicians regarding the use of systemic therapy for melanoma. METHODS ASCO convened an Expert Panel and conducted a systematic review of the literature. RESULTS A systematic review, one meta-analysis, and 34 additional randomized trials were identified. The published studies included a wide range of systemic therapies in cutaneous and noncutaneous melanoma. RECOMMENDATIONS In the adjuvant setting, nivolumab or pembrolizumab should be offered to patients with resected stage IIIA/B/C/D BRAF wild-type cutaneous melanoma, while either of those two agents or the combination of dabrafenib and trametinib should be offered in BRAF-mutant disease. No recommendation could be made for or against the use of neoadjuvant therapy in cutaneous melanoma. In the unresectable/metastatic setting, ipilimumab plus nivolumab, nivolumab alone, or pembrolizumab alone should be offered to patients with BRAF wild-type cutaneous melanoma, while those three regimens or combination BRAF/MEK inhibitor therapy with dabrafenib/trametinib, encorafenib/binimetinib, or vemurafenib/cobimetinib should be offered in BRAF-mutant disease. Patients with mucosal melanoma may be offered the same therapies recommended for cutaneous melanoma. No recommendation could be made for or against specific therapy for uveal melanoma. Additional information is available at www.asco.org/melanoma-guidelines .


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 539-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Marzi ◽  
Andreas Wachter ◽  
Werner Nahm

AbstractFuture fully digital surgical visualization systems enable a wide range of new options. Caused by optomechanical limitations a main disadvantage of today’s surgical microscopes is their incapability of providing arbitrary perspectives to more than two observers. In a fully digital microscopic system, multiple arbitrary views can be generated from a 3D reconstruction. Modern surgical microscopes allow replacing the eyepieces by cameras in order to record stereoscopic videos. A reconstruction from these videos can only contain the amount of detail the recording camera system gathers from the scene. Therefore, covered surfaces can result in a faulty reconstruction for deviating stereoscopic perspectives. By adding cameras recording the object from different angles, additional information of the scene is acquired, allowing to improve the reconstruction. Our approach is to use a fixed four-camera setup as a front-end system to capture enhanced 3D topography of a pseudo-surgical scene. This experimental setup would provide images for the reconstruction algorithms and generation of multiple observing stereo perspectives. The concept of the designed setup is based on the common main objective (CMO) principle of current surgical microscopes. These systems are well established and optically mature. Furthermore, the CMO principle allows a more compact design and a lowered effort in calibration than cameras with separate optics. Behind the CMO four pupils separate the four channels which are recorded by one camera each. The designed system captures an area of approximately 28mm × 28mm with four cameras. Thus, allowing to process images of 6 different stereo perspectives. In order to verify the setup, it is modelled in silico. It can be used in further studies to test algorithms for 3D reconstruction from up to four perspectives and provide information about the impact of additionally recorded perspectives on the enhancement of a reconstruction.


2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 380-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynette Adamson ◽  
Glennys Parker

This study assessed a range of activities reported by older women in Australia. Women between 75 and 81 years of age (N= 3,955) from the older cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health responded to a request in a self-report survey for additional information concerning their health. Of these 3,955 women, 509 reported taking part in a variety of activities. Qualitative analysis of responses identified 55 coded categories of activities that were subsequently classified into four major themes: physical activities, creative pursuits, lifestyle, and social interaction. The data show that these older women are taking part in a wide range of activities.


2017 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Hošek ◽  
Kristýna Šebrlová ◽  
Petra Kaucká ◽  
Ondřej Peš ◽  
Eva Táborská

Quaternary benzophenanthridine alkaloids are known to have a wide range of biological effects, including antimicrobial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and antitumour activities. However, only sanguinarine and chelerythrine have been studied intensively. The aim of this study was to evaluate the anti-inflammatory potential of the five minor quaternary benzophenanthridine alkaloids sanguilutine, sanguirubine, chelirubine, chelilutine, and macarpine in vitro and to compare them with more thoroughly studied sanguinarine and chelerythrine. Before making cell-based assays, the cytotoxicity of the alkaloids was evaluated. The anti-inflammatory potential of the chosen alkaloids was evaluated as for their ability to modulate the lipopolysaccharide-induced secretion of tumour necrosis factor α (TNF-α) in the macrophage-like cell line THP-1. The cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 and COX-2 inhibitory activities were also measured. The results indicate that the presence of a methylenedioxy ring attached at carbon (C)7-C8 is important for reducing the secretion of TNF-α. Interestingly, this effect did not show a simple dependence on concentration. The selected alkaloids showed little or no anti-COX activity. The results obtained from the present experiments may provide additional information useful in understanding the structure-to-activity relationship of the quaternary benzophenanthridine alkaloids. The anti-inflammatory potential and the cytotoxic effect are driven by the presence of a methylenedioxy ring attached at C7-C8 and C2-C3, respectively.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramzi G. Salloum ◽  
Heather D'Angelo ◽  
Ryan Theis ◽  
Betsy Rolland ◽  
Sarah Hohl ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: The Cancer Center Cessation Initiative (C3I) was launched in 2017 as a part of the NCI Cancer Moonshot program to assist NCI-designated cancer centers in developing tobacco treatment programs for oncology patients. Participating centers have implemented varied evidence-based programs that fit their institutional resources and needs, offering a wide range of services including in-person and telephone-based counseling, point of care, interactive voice response systems, referral to the quitline, text- and web-based services, and medications.Methods: We used a mixed methods comparative case study design to evaluate system-level implementation costs across 15 C3I-funded cancer centers that reported for at least one six-month period between July 2018 and June 2020. We analyzed operating costs by resource category (e.g., personnel, medications) concurrently with transcripts from semi-structured key-informant interviews conducted during site visits. Personnel salary costs were estimated using Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data adjusted for area and occupation, and non-wage benefits. Qualitative findings provided additional information on intangible resources and contextual factors related to implementation costs.Results: Total monthly operating costs across funded centers ranged from $6,453 to $20,751. The largest operating cost category was personnel ($4,122-$19,794), with the highest personnel costs attributable to the provision of in-person program services. Monthly cost ranges for other categories were: medications ($17-$573), materials ($6-$435), training ($96-$516), technology ($171-$2,759), and equipment ($10-$620). Cost-per-participant ranged from $70 to $3,500 (median, $537) and cost-per-quit ranged from $330 to $9,799 (median, $2,699) with sites offering different combinations of program components, ranging from individually-delivered in-person counseling only to one program that offered all components. Site interviews provided context for understanding variations in program components and their cost implications.Conclusions: Among most centers that have progressed in tobacco treatment program implementation, cost-per-quit was modest relative to other prevention interventions. Although select centers have achieved similar average costs by offering program components of various levels of intensity, they have varied widely in program reach and effectiveness. Evaluating implementation costs of such programs alongside reach and effectiveness is necessary to provide decision makers in oncology settings with the important additional information needed to optimize resource allocation when establishing tobacco treatment programs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. e3488
Author(s):  
Brayan Morera Chacón ◽  
Víctor Montalvo Guadamuz ◽  
Ronald Sánchez Porras ◽  
Eduardo Carrillo Jiménez

 Introduction: The horse (Equus caballus) is an adaptable large herbivore distributed in a wide range of terrestrial biomes that negatively affects ecosystems around the world.  Most research on horse–ecosystems interactions have been focused on plants and soils, whereas horse effects on vertebrate species are poorly understanded. Objective: We aimed to synthesize, at a global scale, the effects of free-roaming horses on wild mammals. Methods: We conducted a systematic literature review that included these words; "feral horses + competition ", "feral horses + interactions", "feral horses + impacts", "feral horses + effects", based on the “Web of Science” internet search engine. Results: We located 366 articles in our search, but only 14 peer-reviewed documents described the effects of horses on local wild mammals. Most studies were published in the last decade (64%), and were located in United States (64%).  Additional information showed most studies used correlational approaches while experimental approaches were used less. The effect of horses on mammal taxonomic groups varied significantly, suggesting changes on habitat structure mostly affects vertebrate species such as small rodents. Nevertheless, large ungulates exhibited interference competition derived from presence of free-roaming horses. Conclusion: This review identified patterns and gaps in our current knowledge about the effect of horse presence on wild mammals, and can help to readdress further research. Therefore, we recommend careful monitoring of horses and their potential effects on wildlife by using species proxies such as ungulates and rodents to determine if the presence of horses in protected areas affects conservation objectives


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