Word Roots in English: Learning English Words through Form and Meaning Similarity

<p>The research first proposes a vocabulary learning technique: the word part technique, and then tests its effectiveness in aiding vocabulary learning and retention. The first part of the thesis centers around the idea that the knowledge of the first 2000 words language learners already possess may give them easier access to words of other frequency levels because the root parts of the low frequency new words share form and meaning similarities with the high frequency known words. The research addresses the issue at two stages: to quantify the information concerning the number of words able to be accessed through the analysis of the word roots, and to analyze the pedagogical usefulness of the accessible words. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (Klein, 1966) was used as the source to show the possible formal and meaning connections among words. All the words in the first 2000 word list were first looked up individually and all the cognates provided under each of these words were collected and placed under each of the high frequency words if they meet the requirement that their roots share more than one letter and/or more than one phoneme with the roots of the first 2000 known words. After the data was roughly gathered, three criteria were applied to filter the data, namely, the frequency criterion, the meaning criterion and form criterion. In applying the frequency criterion, words with frequency levels lower than the tenth thousand were removed from the data. In applying the meaning criterion, hints were given to show the semantic relations between the higher frequency words and the first 2000 thousand words. The hints were then rated on the scale for measuring meaning transparency. Words that were rated at level 5 on the scale were considered inaccessible; words that were rated at levels 1, 2a, 2b, 2c, and 3a were considered easy to access. In applying the form criterion, calculations were done for each semantically accessible word to show their phonological similarity and orthographic similarity in relation to the known word. The words whose phonological or orthographical similarity scores were larger than 0.5 were considered to be phonologically or orthographically easy to access. Finally the "find" function of Microsoft Word was used to check the data by picking up any words that might have been missed in the first round of data gathering. The above procedures resulted in 2156 word families that are able to be accessed through the meaning and form relations with the first 2000 words in their root parts. Among the 2156 word families, 739 can be accessed easily and are therefore more pedagogically useful and 259 can be accessed, but with difficulty. 21 pedagogically useful form constants were selected because they can give access to more unknown lower frequency words than other form constants. In the second part of the thesis, an experiment was conducted to test the effectiveness of the word part technique in comparison with the keyword technique and self-strategy learning. The results show that with the experienced Chinese EFL learners, the keyword technique is slightly inferior to the word part technique and the self-strategy learning.</p>

Word Roots in English: Learning English Words through Form and Meaning Similarity

<p>The research first proposes a vocabulary learning technique: the word part technique, and then tests its effectiveness in aiding vocabulary learning and retention. The first part of the thesis centers around the idea that the knowledge of the first 2000 words language learners already possess may give them easier access to words of other frequency levels because the root parts of the low frequency new words share form and meaning similarities with the high frequency known words. The research addresses the issue at two stages: to quantify the information concerning the number of words able to be accessed through the analysis of the word roots, and to analyze the pedagogical usefulness of the accessible words. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (Klein, 1966) was used as the source to show the possible formal and meaning connections among words. All the words in the first 2000 word list were first looked up individually and all the cognates provided under each of these words were collected and placed under each of the high frequency words if they meet the requirement that their roots share more than one letter and/or more than one phoneme with the roots of the first 2000 known words. After the data was roughly gathered, three criteria were applied to filter the data, namely, the frequency criterion, the meaning criterion and form criterion. In applying the frequency criterion, words with frequency levels lower than the tenth thousand were removed from the data. In applying the meaning criterion, hints were given to show the semantic relations between the higher frequency words and the first 2000 thousand words. The hints were then rated on the scale for measuring meaning transparency. Words that were rated at level 5 on the scale were considered inaccessible; words that were rated at levels 1, 2a, 2b, 2c, and 3a were considered easy to access. In applying the form criterion, calculations were done for each semantically accessible word to show their phonological similarity and orthographic similarity in relation to the known word. The words whose phonological or orthographical similarity scores were larger than 0.5 were considered to be phonologically or orthographically easy to access. Finally the "find" function of Microsoft Word was used to check the data by picking up any words that might have been missed in the first round of data gathering. The above procedures resulted in 2156 word families that are able to be accessed through the meaning and form relations with the first 2000 words in their root parts. Among the 2156 word families, 739 can be accessed easily and are therefore more pedagogically useful and 259 can be accessed, but with difficulty. 21 pedagogically useful form constants were selected because they can give access to more unknown lower frequency words than other form constants. In the second part of the thesis, an experiment was conducted to test the effectiveness of the word part technique in comparison with the keyword technique and self-strategy learning. The results show that with the experienced Chinese EFL learners, the keyword technique is slightly inferior to the word part technique and the self-strategy learning.</p>

PATH-45. APOLLO: RAMAN-BASED PATHOLOGY OF MALIGNANT GLIOMA

BACKGROUND DNA methylation is an essential component for integrative diagnosis in glioma. Methylation subtype prediction of gliomas is currently done via sample extraction of high-quality of reasonable amount of DNA (~1ug), methylome profiling, followed by probe identification, curation and subsequent analysis via different random forest classifiers. However, the DNA methylation classification is not always available for all the samples. METHODS Raman Spectroscopy performed of the regions of interest using 1mm2 FFPE tissue spots from 45 patient samples with LGm1 to LGm6 methylation subtypes. Spectral information was then used to train a convolutional neural network (CNN) and develop a prediction algorithm. 70 % of dataset - model training while the remaining 30% for validation. Supervised wrapper methods and random forests were used to identify the top 109 most discriminatory Raman frequencies out of 1738. RESULTS We identified the most discriminatory features from these analyses and demonstrated that these frequencies show differential spectral intensities for these frequencies depending upon the glioma subtypes across the larger areas of the tissue. We compared the results of the Ward linkage clustering with the separation induced by the “frequency criterion”, an empirical observation that Raman spectra of tumor spots are characterized by intensities higher than 5000 on some of the frequencies from 1463 to 1473. For each of the 45 samples we ran Ward linkage clustering with a variable number of clusters (from 2 to 7), with the majority cluster corresponding to tumor spots and the others corresponding to (various types of) non-tumor spots. We found that the majority cluster matches very well the tumor spots characterized by the frequency criterion, The average accuracy over all samples was 90:3%, the average precision was 99:6% and the average recall was 90:2%. For most samples, two clusters were sufficient to distinguish between tumor and non-tumor spots with accuracy.

Conceptualization of the Kazakh language in the Linguistic Consciousness of the Kazakhs

The purpose of this study is to describe ways of conceptualizing the Kazakh language from the perspectives of the representatives of the Kazakh nation. Language is a very important phenomenon for the people, which reflects their national characteristics. Of great interest is the conceptualization of the Kazakh language by representatives of the Kazakh linguoculture in the context of the situation when public opinion recognizes its position in general and its status as unsatisfactory rather than satisfactory. A special contribution of the author to the study of the topic is to conduct a free-associative experiment among native speakers of the Kazakh language on the stimulus-word “қазақ тілі”. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the obtained associative data were distributed according to the frequency criterion with subsequent modeling of the associative field and its cognitive structure. A free associative experiment was carried out among the native speakers of the Kazakh language. The results of the study demonstrate that the Kazakh language reflects the origins of the nation, its history and customs. The native language for the Kazakh ethnic group is associated with Motherland, pride and patriotism. Analysis of proverbs, sayings and literary contexts have shown that the Kazakh language is very rich and actualizes the beginning of upbringing and morality.

Generalized Stability Criteria for Special Linear Automatic Control Systems with a Time Delay

Matters concerned with stability of special linear automatic control systems with a time delay are considered. The determining feature of such systems is that the control loop contains a link of pure (or transport) delay by time T (or for the path S) of the signal at its output with respect to the signal at its input. Apart from time delay links, these systems also contain other linear elements. Such systems include both longstudied systems for transporting various materials and relatively new selflearning repetitive control systems for accurately reproducing cyclically repeated motions or other signals with a period T (or S). The stability of special linear systems can be studied with fully resting on the Nyquist frequency criterion. According to the Nyquist frequency criterion, the stability of a closedloop system is judged by analyzing the frequency transfer function (FTF) loci of the openloop system that includes the controller and the controlled object with respect to the critical point (1, j0) on the complex plane. However, in the majority of cases, the presence of transcendental links results in that the FTF loci of the openloop system have the shape of a star with infinitely long rays, which makes it difficult to interpret the stability of systems with a time delay according to the Nyquist criterion. In such cases, it is more convenient to use a group of graphic criteria, the application of which makes it possible to establish sufficient stability conditions without examining the entire openloop system (the controller plus the object) by analyzing the relative position of the controlled object frequency response loci (obtained without taking into account the controller properties) and a certain stability region boundary, which is determined by the controller properties (obtained without taking into account the controlled object properties). To date, stability region boundaries have already been found for many types of specific structures of systems with a time delay. The problem is that an individually shaped stability region boundary has to be found for each specific type of controller. It is shown, based on a structural transposition of systems with a time delay, that their stability can be studied by using almost any stability boundaries that were previously proposed for some specific types of transcendental controllers. By generalizing the criteria it will be possible not only to estimate for the first time the stability of systems with a time delay in combination with a linear part of an arbitrary kind, but also to expand the variety of applied types of transcendental controllers.

KEY WORDS IN THE UKRAINIAN PUBLIC DISCOURSE: STATISTICAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS

The paper focuses on the theoretical issues of linguacultural studies / cultural linguistics / ethnolinguistics. The methodological aspects of revealing key cultural concepts in general and words of the year in particular are viewed. The quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the words of the year, determined within the Ukrainian linguacultural space, are analysed. Such Ukrainian words of the year as EuroMaidan, cyborg, blockade, corruption, visa-free travel are under analysis. Conclusions are made concerning the main problems of linguacultural studies / cultural linguistics / ethnolinguistics, as well as approaches to the detection of key cultural concepts and words of the year. Thus, an application of the frequency criterion allows to create a list of candidates for evaluation by experts or public; the frequency of words of the year should be compared with the frequency of neologisms, which makes it possible to predict the limits of frequency, detect candidates for the word of a year, taking into account so called important parts of the texts, as well as appearance of such words within hashtags, verbal parts of mems, cartoons. Ukrainian data shows, that the frequency of such words usage does not always correlate with announcing them words of the year. Not all words of the year have derivative potential. The conceptual content of such words increases, they are used metaphorically and become components of transformed phraseological and other types of intertext units; they are used as proper names. Creation of the new synonymic and antonymic relations is the optional characteristics of the studied words of the year.