The Lexical Availability of “Daily Activities” in Learners of Spanish (SFL)

The objective of the present work, which focuses on the teaching and learning of Spanish vocabulary, is to present the lexical availability of Slovene students of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) in the semantic category “daily activities”. The quantitative and qualitative differences and similarities of lexical availability output in this semantic category, as obtained by two groups of informants of different levels of SFL, are compared: 100 high school students (approximate level B1) and 100 university students (approximate level B2 +). The results obtained from this sample are compared with those of a study carried out by Sánchez-Saus Laserna (2011), which presents a sample of 322 SFL informants of different mother tongues in the same semantic category. This category, which is not one of those traditionally used in the studies of lexical availability, has been chosen since the lack of other grammatical categories than nouns is one of the main problems that has been attributed to the studies of lexical availability, which makes it impossible to closely reflect the vocabulary that SFL students know. Likewise, it is intended to check if the associations correspond to the grammatical category of the stimulus (in this case the verbs), since other semantic categories are indicated by the nouns. We intend to check the validity of the following hypotheses: 1) The production of lexical availability of high school students with less knowledge (B1) of Spanish is lower than that of university students (B2 +). 2) There is a qualitative similarity between the results of the two groups of Slovene SFL students. 3) For the most part, the associations correspond to the same grammatical category indicated by the cue words of the semantic category; in this case the verbs. 4) There is quantitative and qualitative similarity between the results of the present study and those of Sánchez-Saus Laserna (2011).

THE QUALITATIVE SIMILARITY HYPOTHESIS: A COMMENTARY

This article provides a summary of the historical background and basic tenets of the Qualitative Similarity Hypothesis (QSH), which has been applied to explore the language and literacy acquisition of d/Deaf and hard of hearing (d/Dhh) children and adolescents in the United States (and elsewhere, for example, South Korea and Saudi Arabia). The QSH is a developmental similarity model, influenced by the early investigations on language and literacy development of children with developmental/intellectual/cognitive or learning/language disabilities. It is argued that the acquisition of English (or any other phonemic language) by d/Deaf and hard of hearing children or other children in Special Education programs is developmentally or qualitatively similar to that of typical (non-disabled) language and literacy learners. This is also the case for second language learners of English, often labeled English language learners. The QSH can be used to provide indirect support for inclusive education programs and strong direct support for access to the general education curriculum.

Edaphic entomofauna associated with coconut crops in the eastern Amazon

In the Eastern Amazon is the largest continuous coconut crop area in the world. This region is known for its high precipitation levels and an ecosystem of extensive insect biodiversity. It is important to know the local entomofauna and to know whether there is a balance between the different insect groups. This study aimed to understand the influence of seasonality on the dynamics of edaphic insect families, comparing the environment as a whole and in different commercial coconut crop areas and riparian forests in the Eastern Amazon. Forty pitfall traps were installed in the ground at an average distance of 1 m from the coconut stipe. They were filled with 200 ml of an aqueous solution of liquid neutral soap and 70% alcohol. Traps were installed in eight areas: an area of riparian forest (A1) and seven in commercial coconut crop areas (A2 to A8), in the Amazon dry and rainy season. The similarity between the insects was measured using Euclidean distance. The abundance of families in each collection area used qualitative similarity. For family dominance, quantitative similarity was used. Diversity analyses were performed to justify the similarities of the clusters through the Shannon and Simpson Indices. In total, 252,313 individuals, 118 families, and 9 orders were collected. There were many Formicidae in both climatic periods because it is a social insect and has edaphic habits. The families with the most individuals in the collections were Drosophilidae, Staphylinidae, Bostrichidae, Phoridae, Nitidulidae, Scolytidae, Tenebrionidae, Scarabaeidae, Ceratopogomidae, and Platyogastridae. The riparian forest area (A1) showed the greatest diversity and least dominance. The oldest cultivated areas A2 and A3 (7 years) showed the greatest diversity in the dry season. In the rainy season, the most diversified areas were those with the highest land slope (A6 and A7). The most dominant areas were A5 and A8, where the largest number of Solenopsis spp. were found. This study showed the importance of obtaining basic information about coconut entomofauna and conducting research on insect dynamics in agricultural crops in the Amazon region.

PREDICTING DRIP IRRIGATION CONTOURS OF CHERNOZEMS OF THE STEPPE TYPE OF SOIL FORMATION

Purpose: development and testing of a method for determining the size and moisture characteristics of moisture contours formed in the southern chernozems of the steppe type of soil formation during drip irrigation. Materials and methods. Experimental studies were carried out on light, medium and heavy loamy medium thick ordinary and southern chernozems. The vertical sections of humidification zones with a system of in-contour moisture isopleths were considered. As indicators determining the contour parameters, the following are considered: the content of physical clay in the moistened soil layer, the soil density and its lowest moisture capacity. Results. In the process of studying the experimental vertical sections of soil drip moistening zones, dependences characterizing the existing functional relationships between the contour geometric parameters and the characteristics of soil, phytosoil and technological conditions of their formation were determined. On the basis of the obtained experimental dependences, a method for calculating the contours linear dimensions and graphically constructing their outlines has been developed. The proposed method for contour predicting was tested on actual data on their sizes and moisture distribution in the inner-contour space, obtained by other researchers experimentally. Comparison of the experimental and predicted contours of drip moistening testifies to their qualitative similarity both in terms of the external outline and in terms of the location of isopleths with different levels of soil moisture inside the wetted zone. The calculated value of the irrigation rate differs from the actual one by 2.2 %. Conclusions. The proposed method for predicting the sizes of moisture contours and intra-contour isopleths, formed in chernozems of the steppe type of soil formation, was developed to the level of calculations using the author's computer program. An example of approbation of the proposed method indicates its acceptability for use in the crops drip irrigation design and operational practice.

Typical Characteristics of the Earth’s Magnetic and Gravity Fields Related to Global and Regional Tectonics

—We present a summary and analysis of current views on the magnetic and gravity fields of the Earth as a reflection of global and regional tectonic processes. The discussion concerns the probable interconnection between the distribution of the geomagnetic field characteristics, gravity anomalies and the manifestations of mantle plume magmatism as the most remarkable geologic indicator of deep geodynamics. We demonstrate that the distribution of the characteristics of the main geomagnetic field has a qualitative similarity to anomalies of the gravity field. Brief variations of the geomagnetic field are due to high-frequency oscillations in the ionosphere, do not affect the general state of the field, and are useless when considering issues of global tectonics. On the contrary, variations with long periodicities, first of all geomagnetic reversals, can be among the main indicators of the evolution of the geodynamo – the heat mechanism controlling the entire series of global tectonic processes. The frequency of reversals is determined by the intensity of mantle plumes that cause the cooling of the core, increase the convection rate in the asthenosphere, and respectively, the periodic changes in the tectonosphere. We assume the existence of three modes of behavior for this system. The first one corresponds to steady convection, in which reversals are extremely rare or do not happen at all. These episodes – superchrons – compose no more than 20% of the duration of the Phanerozoic. The second mode occurs significantly more often in the geologic history and is characterized by active convection with frequent reversals happening at least once every 5 Myr. Finally, the third mode, which is rare for the Phanerozoic but was probably more prevalent in the early Precambrian, corresponds to hyperactive turbulent convection, when the frequency of reversals reached 20 and possibly more during one million years. Although the demonstrated qualitative similarity in the position of extreme values of the main geomagnetic field, the centers of free air gravity anomalies, and manifestations of large igneous provinces does not yet have a credible explanation, we consider it to be fundamental and requiring special study and detailed elaboration.

A Qualitative Similarity Framework for the Interpretation of Natural Language Similarity Expressions

In this paper, a representational framework is presented featuring a qualitative notion of similarity. It is aimed at issues of natural language semantics, in particular the semantics of expressions of similarity and sameness and their role in comparison and ad-hoc kind formation. The framework makes use of attribute spaces, which are well-established in AI and also in some branches of natural language semantics, e.g., frame-based approaches (Barsalou 1992). What distinguishes attribute spaces and representations as proposed in this paper is the idea of systems of predicates on attribute spaces corresponding to predicates on the domain. On the worldy side, a domain includes a set of relevant predicates talking about individuals. These predicates have counterparts on the representational side talking about points of an attribute space. Counterpart predicates are required to be consistent with their originals; more precisely, they have to agree in truth-value on the set of positive and negative exemplars thereby approximating the original predicates. Moreover, counterpart predicates will be assumed to have convex and open extensions. This system facilitates a qualitative notion of similarity which is suited to account for the meaning of natural language similarity expressions and, furthermore, their role in comparison and ad-hoc kind formation.

THE PECULIARITIES OF COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM AND DYSARTRIA

The peculiarities of communicative competence of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and dysarthria are discussed. The performed literature review has revealed that almost half of children with ASD show violations of both expressive and impressive speech, and moreover, ambiguous results were obtained regarding existing correlations between speech disorders of children with ASD and children with dysarthria. This necessitated the study on the speech competence of these two children categories. The experiment was attended by 75 preschool children from 4 to 6 years old from Lviv: 25 children with ASD (20 boys and 5 girls), 25 children with dysarthria and 25 children with typical development. The following techniques were used: 1) the technique “Examination of children’s speech readiness for school” to determine children’s communicative competencies; 2) the method “Profile of a child’s social development” to determine their interaction with adults and peers. Basing on the study results, we have found out that only middle or low levels of communicative competencies were observed at preschool children with ASD and children with dysarthria. No children with high or sufficient levels of communicative competence were identified. In terms of communicative activities, there was a qualitative similarity between the two categories of children. However, the study results suggest a significant difference between them: children with ASD interact better with adults than children with dysarthria, while children with dysarthria interact better with peers than children with ASD. Based on the obtained results, a corrective care strategy for the studied children categories has been proposed.

Memory and rejuvenation in a quasicrystal

The glassy features of a single crystal of the icosahedral quasicrystal i-GdCd7.5 were investigated by means of squid magnetometry. The temperature-dependent zero-field–cooled magnetization was recorded on re-heating from low temperatures after halts in the cooling. The results evidence dynamical features akin to those of archetypal spin glasses, such as aging, memory, and rejuvenation. The results are compared to those of model spin glasses with different spin dimensionality, suggesting a qualitative similarity to the behaviour of metallic RKKY “Heisenberg” spin glasses.

Thermo-emf anisotropy and thermoefficiency parameter of the elastically deformed germanium and silicon with different doping levels

The thermo-emf anisotropy and the thermoefficiency parameter are the most important characteristics that determine the suitability of thermoelectrically anisotropic materials for their practical use. Such characteristics determine the voltage generated by the anisotropic thermoelement, and the second one determines its efficiency coefficient. In this work, the features of changes in the thermo-emf anisotropy and the thermoefficiency parameter of the elastically deformed germanium and silicon crystals at 85 K depending on their doping level were investigated. It was revealed that in the case of a low doping level, the thermo-emf anisotropy of the deformed n-Si crystals exceeds Da of n-Ge crystals more than 4 times. It was shown that a rapid decrease in Da for n-Si is observed with an increase in the doping level. A qualitative similarity is obtained between the changes in the thermoefficiency parameter for elastically deformed germanium and for silicon with an increase in the charge carrier concentration; although in the case of n-Ge the maximum Za is much larger and is achieved at the higher doping level than in the case of n-Si. The results obtained can be useful in calculating effects based on the theory of anisotropic scattering in a wide range of concentrations.

The “speed” of acuity in scotopic vs. photopic vision

Purpose The effect of duration of optotype presentation on visual acuity measures has been extensively studied under photopic conditions. However, systematic data on duration dependence of acuity values under mesopic and scotopic conditions is scarce, despite being highly relevant for many visual tasks including night driving, and for clinical diagnostic applications. The present study aims to address this void. Methods We measured Landolt C acuity under photopic (90 cd/m2), mesopic (0.7 cd/m2), and scotopic (0.009 cd/m2) conditions for several optotype presentation durations ranging from 0.1 to 10 s using the Freiburg Acuity and Contrast Test. Two age groups were tested (young, 18–29 years, and older, 61–74 years). Results As expected, under all luminance conditions, better acuity values were found for longer presentation durations. Photopic acuity in young participants decreased by about 0.25 log units from 0.1 to 10 s; mesopic vision mimicked the photopic visual behavior. Scotopic acuities depended more strongly on presentation duration (difference > 0.78 log units) than photopic values. There was no consistent pattern of correlation between luminance conditions across participants. We found a qualitative similarity between younger and older participants, despite higher variability among the latter and differences in absolute acuity: Photopic acuity difference (0.1 vs. 10 s) for the older participants was 0.19 log units, and scotopic difference was > 0.62 log units. Conclusion Scotopic acuity is more susceptible to changes in stimulus duration than photopic vision, with considerable interindividual variability. The latter may reflect differences in aging and sub-clinical pathophysiological processes and might have consequences for visual performance during nocturnal activities such as driving at night. Acuity testing with briefly presented scotopic stimuli might increase the usefulness of acuity assessment for tracking of the health state of the visual system.