“Hold infinity in the palm of your hand.” A functional description of time expressions through fingers based on Chinese Sign Language naturalistic data

This paper investigates the relationship between fingers and time representations in naturalistic Chinese Sign Language (CSL). Based on a CSL Corpus (Shanghai Variant, 2016–), we offer a thorough description of finger configurations for time expressions from 63 deaf signers, including three main types: digital, numeral incorporation, and points-to-fingers. The former two were further divided into vertical and horizontal fingers according to the orientation of fingertips. The results showed that there were interconnections between finger representations, numbers, ordering, and time in CSL. Vertical fingers were mainly used to quantify time units, whereas horizontal fingers were mostly used for sequencing or ordering events, and their forms could be influenced by Chinese number characters and the vertical writing direction. Furthermore, the use of points-to-fingers (e.g., pointing to the thumb, index, or little finger) formed temporal connectives in CSL and could be patterned to put a conversation in order. Additionally, CSL adopted similar linguistic forms in sequential time and adverbs of reason (e.g., cause and effect: events that happened earlier and events that happen later). Such a cause-and-effect relationship was a special type of temporal sequence. In conclusion, fingers are essential for time representation in CSL and their forms are biologically and culturally shaped.

Identification and classification of barriers and benefits of requirements traceability in project development

Requirements are conditions that a product, service, or process must present and requirements management facilitates this realization. For this, the requirements traceability technique is used for the development of projects and systems and all management of the requirements life cycle. However, the literature recognizes the proven benefits of adherence to the technique, but the plurality of problems inhibits its adherence. Thus, this article aims to identify and classify the barriers and benefits of requirements traceability. For this purpose, it was elaborated a systematic literature review, and for the results´ analysis and codification, the MAXQDA software was used. A total of 15 barriers and 15 benefits were identified. It is possible to verify that both in the case of benefits and barriers, there is a cause and effect relationship between them. In other words, barriers such as “Low flexibility and integration of tools” lead to the emergence of other barriers such as “Management inefficiency”.

Conflict between decision-making subjects that arises during the investigation of careless crimes committed by medical staff

The diversity of the interpretation of the cause-and-effect relationship by various subjects of law enforcement activity leads to the birth of an absolutely newthing in itself a new process. Then the causal relationship, being a derived category, acquires a new meaning and a new essence, which leads to its modification, contradictions in judicial practice and conflicts between decision-making subjects.

Religious intolerance: the maximum denial of alterity

It analyses aspects of religious intolerance in Brazil, its cause-and-effect relationship with radical proselytism, negative consequences for the exercise of the right to religious freedom and other human rights, some manifestations in the Brazilian multireligious scenario, some potentially effective instruments for prevention intolerance, among which are the practices of alterity. It shows that Brazil, does not present a chaotic picture in terms of intolerance, but has worrying records of persecution, discrimination and acts of violence, for religious reasons, which should serve as a warning for implementation of affirmative actions and public policies regarding the duty of respect and solidarity with others.

APPLICATION OF INTERVAL TYPE-2 FUZZY SETS DEMATEL METHODS IN MARITIME TRANSPORTATION: THE CASE OF SHIP COLLISION

Accident analyse in marine industry is one of the critical issues for safety practitioners to prevent loss of life. Although considerable efforts were undertaken to prevent marine accident, numerous researches revealed that marine accidents are still on-going. In order to minimize accidents in the marine transportation, this paper presents a proactive decision- making tool which is integrating Decision-Making Trail and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method with interval type-2 fuzzy sets (IT2FSs). As the DEMATEL enables to analyse cause and effect relationship in decision-making, the IT2FSs overcome ambiguity and vagueness of linguistic assessment of decision-makers through the DEMATEL. Thus, significant accident causal factors and their effects can be analysed on the basis of cause-effect diagram. The application of proposed approach is demonstrated with a real ship collision case. Beside its theoretical contribution, the proposed approach provides practical benefits to ship owners and operators to perceive cause and effect relationship and to avoid marine accident.

Screening of Potential Thrombin and Factor Xa Inhibitors from the Danshen–Chuanxiong Herbal Pair through a Spectrum–Effect Relationship Analysis

In this study; a spectrum–effect relationship analysis combined with a high-performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) analysis was established to screen and identify active components that can inhibit thrombin and factor Xa (THR and FXa) in Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma–Chuanxiong Rhizoma (Danshen–Chuanxiong) herbal pair. Ten potential active compounds were predicted through a canonical correlation analysis (CCA), and eight of them were tentatively identified through an LC–MS analysis. Furthermore; the enzyme inhibitory activity of six available compounds; chlorogenic acid; Z-ligustilide; caffeic acid; ferulic acid; tanshinone I and tanshinone IIA; were tested to verify the feasibility of the method. Among them; chlorogenic acid was validated to possess a good THR inhibitory activity with IC50 of 185.08 µM. Tanshinone I and tanshinone IIA are potential FXa inhibitors with IC50 of 112.59 µM and 138.19 µM; respectively. Meanwhile; molecular docking results show that tanshinone I and tanshinone IIA; which both have binding energies of less than −7.0 kcal·mol−1; can interact with FXa by forming H-bonds with residues of SER214; GLY219 and GLN192. In short; the THR and FXa inhibitors in the Danshen–Chuanxiong herbal pair have been successfully characterized through a spectrum–effect relationship analysis and an LC–MS analysis.