Multiple Characters Research Articles

Comparing language samples of Bangla speakers using a colour photograph and a black-and-white line drawing.

A comprehensive aphasia assessment is necessary to diagnose the type and severity of aphasia differentially and guide appropriate interventions. One component of an aphasia assessment is the picture description task (PDT), designed to probe spontaneous speech fluency and information content. Most aphasia assessments use black-and-white line drawings (LD) to elicit spontaneous language samples from people with aphasia (PWA). However, recent studies reported two visuographic variables: (1) colour (over black and white) and (2) photograph (over LD), that tended to encourage easier and faster comprehension and increased overall naturalistic language production from neurologically healthy individuals as well as PWA. Additionally, a suitable stimulus for a PDT should always be culturally relevant to the target population. Therefore, we suggest that a new PDT must include a culturally appropriate colour photograph (CP). To investigate if a culturally appropriate CP elicits longer and more complex utterances than a culturally appropriate black-and-white LD from neurologically healthy native Bangla speakers. A total of 30 participants (mean age = 36.03 years) were recruited based on self-reports of no known impairments in cognition, language, vision and hearing. All were of middle socioeconomic status with at least 12 years of formal education. A culturally appropriate CP was selected showing multiple characters performing various functions. Later, an artist prepared the black-and-white LD of that CP. The elicited language samples using these two pictures were transcribed and coded following preset transcription and coding guidelines. The transcribed samples were further analysed using the Bangla adaptation of Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) software. To identify the differences in language production between these two picture types, investigators used four measurement variables: mean length of utterances (MLU), complexity index (CI), total number of words (TNW) and words per minute (WPM). Of the four measures, only MLU showed a statistically significant difference between the CP and the black-and-white LD. CI demonstrated a strong correlation with MLU for the CP, which indicates that the participants who produced higher MLU for the CP also produced a higher CI for the CP. There were no significant differences between the two picture types for CI, TNW and WPM. This study found that the grammatical complexity, as measured by MLU, of spontaneous language production of neurologically healthy adults was higher when a CP was used in a PDT. A CP may also be beneficial for PWA to produce complex language samples. What this paper adds What is already known on the subject There are studies on neurologically healthy individuals as well as on PWA that identified the impact of using different visuographic variables (colour and photograph) separately, which enhanced the picture comprehension and improved performances on associated language production tasks. To our knowledge, no studies have identified the combined impact of these two visuographic variables on spontaneous language production. Therefore, this initial study on neurologically healthy Bangla adults reports the impact of using a CP as a stimulus item for a PDT task to elicit spontaneous language samples. What this paper adds to existing knowledge This study reports that using a culturally appropriate CP for a PDT enhances the grammatical complexity of spontaneous language production of neurologically healthy adults. To our knowledge, this is the first study in Bangla that used the MLU as a measurement variable to analyse adults' spontaneous language production. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The development of future aphasia assessments should consider incorporating CPs as stimuli for PDTs, which may guide speech-language pathologists to provide accurate diagnoses for aphasia and related language disorders.

Producing the category of ‘Islamist’ women: a Deleuzian perspective

When addressing the Muslim women question, one of the problematic issues is the centrality of a religious tradition or a political ideology as a primary subject of inquiry. Muslim women are seen as the embodiment of a singular tradition or ideology, as in the case of Turkey, where the contemporary headscarf-wearing women are represented as ‘Islamist’. In this project, I aim to problematise this stereotyping categorisation through ontological conceptualisations, inspired by the French thinker Gilles Deleuze. To implement the relational ontology of Deleuze, I examine headscarf contestations in Turkey through interviews conducted in two women’s organisations in Turkey: Capital City Women’s Platform (Baskent Kadin Platformu) and Hazar. I argue that the world constantly ‘becomes’ through flows of relations between multiple elements; therefore, it is a multiplicity, an intensity and fractured. With this Deleuzian ontology in mind, I consider the quotidian physical, material and social resources of my interviews with the aim of elucidating relations between a female body and the commodities produced by multiple socio-economic and political factors in Turkey. Then I address a Deleuzian understanding of categorisations such as class, gender, race and ideology. These categorisations, for Deleuze, are aggregations of multiplicities and fluidities forming specific fixations according to a range of ascribed characteristics, such as income, education, employment or dress codes. In this regard, I conclude that the label ‘Islamist’ restrains the relational and multiple characters of headscarf practices within a unifying category by attributing certain features to particular embodiments and materials.

EXPOSING WYSPIAŃSKI

The purpose of the paper is to show the designer’s perspective on the story and a broader context of the creation of a monograph exhibition dedicated to the oeuvre of Stanisław Wyspiański at the National Museum in Cracow. Composed of two parts: ‘Wyspiański’ and ‘Wyspiański. Unknown’, the Exhibition held between 28 November 2017 and 5 May 2019 was the largest to-date presentation of the works of the versatile artist, while from the point of view of its arrangement, it served as an attempt at finding adequate contemporary expression means to show the multiple and varied character of his oeuvre. A wide range of inspirations are presented: beginning with carefully selected motifs derived from Wyspiański’s art, up to indirect echoing of the activity of some selected artists, mainly affiliated with minimal art. That temporary implementation is thus not analyzed merely in the local context, but also a broader, global one, taking into account carefully selected pieces of world art and architecture, while the paper itself can be regarded as a completion and perpetuation of the no longer existing Exhibition.

Two constructions of asymptotically optimal codebooks via the trace functions

In this paper, we present two new constructions of complex codebooks with multiplicative characters, additive characters and trace functions over finite fields, and determine the maximal cross-correlation amplitude of these codebooks. We prove that the codebooks we constructed are asymptotically optimal with respect to the Welch bound. Moreover, in the first construction, we generalize the result in [28]. In the second construction, we generalize the results in [12], we can achieve Welch bound for any odd prime p, we also derive the whole distribution of their inner products. The parameters of these codebooks are new.

A new tiger beetle from the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (Coleoptera, Cicindelidae, Cicindelini).

A new tiger beetle species, Cicindelidia cyanipleura Duran and Roman n. sp., of the tribe Cicindelini, is described from the southwestern section of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. Superficially, it appears to be most closely related to C. rufiventris (Dejean, 1825) but is distinguished on the basis of multiple morphological characters and behavior. Given the rock-loving natural history of the species, escape behavior, polished pronotum, and small body size, it may be more closely related to the petrophiles C. laetipennis (Horn, 1913) or C. politula (LeConte, 1875), from which it is distinguished on the basis of multiple morphological characters and biogeography.

Evaluation of Fused Aromatic-Substituted Diketopyrrolopyrrole Derivatives for Singlet Fission Sensitizers.

Singlet fission (SF) is a spin-allowed carrier multiplication process that has potential to overcome the Shockley-Queisser limit of solar energy conversion efficiency for single-junction solar cells. It is of importance to prescreen appropriate SF candidates for both basic research and practical applications of SF. Besides common polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) derivatives also undergo efficient SF. A series of DPP derivatives with fused aromatic substituents were investigated considering their conjugation length, constitution, and the introduction of terminal substituents. A comparison of SF properties between nonfused and fused aromatic-substituted DPP derivatives was carried out. Detailed analysis focused on elucidating the relationship between the frontier molecular orbital energies, multiple diradical characters, and SF-relevant excited-state energy levels. Compared to nonfused aromatic-substituted DPP derivatives, fused aromatic-substituted DPP derivatives which contain three aromatic units (thiophene or furan) still share more appropriate energy levels for SF sensitizers. Changing the five-membered aromatic units with benzene ring and introducing -F, -OMe, and -COOH as terminal substituents are both effective ways to improve their performance as SF sensitizers. The results of this research help us to understand the SF properties of DPP derivatives deeply and are beneficial for the design of new DPP-based SF sensitizers.

Educação Física escolar e inclusão: um estudo de caso no Brasil sob a óptica do modelo bioecológico

A inclusão escolar de alunos com deficiência abarca múltiplas variáveis, personagens e contextos. Esse estudo analisou a inclusão em aulas de Educação Física de uma escola regular do Mato Grosso do Sul, Brasil, a partir do modelo bioecológico. Desenvolveu-se um estudo de caso por observação de 15 aulas de Educação Física de uma turma do 3° ano do ensino fundamental, que possuía uma aluna com deficiência. Para coleta de dados, utilizou-se o “Instrumento de avaliação da interação entre alunos com e sem deficiência na educação física escolar”, com dados apreciados por categorização. O sistema escolar tem se adaptado para atuar conjuntamente ao familiar e cultural, de forma consonante às promulgações políticas. Houve aspectos favoráveis ao processo inclusivo - interações positivas e participação ativa dos alunos -, entremeados por dificultadores - fragilidades na acessibilidade arquitetônica. A inclusão na Educação Física Escolar pode ser facilitada pela compreensão da complexidade dos aspectos abarcados.

Molecular Phylogeny and taxonomy of a new Myxobolus species from the endangered ornamental fish, Otocinclus cocama endemic to Peru: A host-parasite coextinction approach

A new Myxobolus species is described infecting gill filaments of the endangered ornamental fish Otocinclus cocama from Peruvian Amazon. In a total of 35 fish examined, five (14.3%) had myxozoan plasmodia. Taxonomic analysis was performed integrating multiple characters, including morphometrical, biological traits, ssrDNA sequence data and host ecological characters. Myxospores of M. iquitoensis n. sp. were ovoid in shape from the frontal view and measured 17.6±1.2 µm (16.2–19.8 µm) in length and 10.5±0.7 µm (9.8–12 µm) in width. The two polar capsules were elongate in shape, equal in size and occupying almost half of the myxospore body. They measured 8.7±0.4 µm (6.9–9.3 µm) in length and 3.3±0.2 µm (3–3.6 µm) in width. The polar tubules presented six to seven turns. Molecular phylogenetic analysis revealed that the obtained ssrDNA sequence did not match any existing sequences in GenBank but showed M. iquitoensis n. sp. to be a close species of M. figueirae. Nonetheless, the ssrDNA sequences of those species show large genetic divergence. This is the first description and phylogenetic study of a myxozoan parasitizing fish of the genus Otocinclus from South America, as well the first report of these parasites infecting a fish belonging to the Loricariidae family from Amazon basin. Considering the endangered status of the host, the high degree of host-specificity of freshwater histozoic myxobolids, the low occurrence shown by the new myxozoan, and the fact that this is the only host known for this myxozoan, the conservation status of the new species of myxozoan is likely to be connected to the future survival of its host.

Factors driving sexual dimorphism and colour variability in the Achala Copper Lizard (Pristidactylus achalensis), an endemic species to the highland mountains in central Argentina

The intensity of mating competition varies according to the temporal and spatial distribution of individuals. Measuring sexual dimorphism over time and interpreting the association between individuals is therefore important if we aim to understand how sexual traits are influenced. We examined sex differences in the Achala Copper Lizard (Pristidactylus achalensis (Gallardo, 1964)), an endemic species from the highest part of mountains of central Argentina. Over 4 years, we explored sex-specific variation in body size, head size, interlimb length, and body colouration. Furthermore, we evaluated how these traits varied temporally, and we also explored whether the spatial distribution of individuals is explained by variation in these traits. We found that P. achalensis is a species with sexual dimorphism in multiple characters, including body size, head size, and colouration. Interestingly, some traits related to mating, such as head width, show a temporal variability in both sexes, whereas other traits, such as colouration, varies seasonally only in males. Our results underline the intriguing possibility of seasonal morphological changes related to mating, and more broadly that sex differences are influenced by sexual selection pressures mediated by temporal variation in mate competition.

Review of current approaches to spatially explicit urban vulnerability assessments: hazard complexity, data sources, and cartographic representations

Abstract Socio-ecological hazards are processes that − depending on the vulnerability of societal systems − may have profound adverse impacts. For this reason, the current discourse in disaster risk reduction (DRR) has been experiencing a shift toward a vulnerability-led paradigm, raising new questions about how to address (i) the complexity of vulnerabilities to multiple hazards, (ii) their cultural, dynamic, and subjective character, and (iii) the effectiveness and legitimacy of vulnerability assessments as decision-support tools. In this paper, we present a review of 707 vulnerability studies (derived from the Clarivate WoS database; 1988−2018) with a particular focus on urban settings and spatially explicit assessments in order to evaluate current efforts to meet the aforementioned issues. The reviewed studies assessed vulnerabilities to 35 hazard types that were predominantly (n=603, 85%) analysed as single hazards (mostly seismic, flood, and groundwater contamination hazards, as well as climate change), whereas only 15% (n=104) of studies focused on multiple hazards (mostly atmospheric hazards). Within the spatially explicit vulnerability studies, almost 60% used data collected by the study itself (mostly seismic hazards), while statistical and combined data were both employed in 20% of cases (mostly floods, climate change, and social and political hazards). Statistical data were found to have only limited transferability, often being generalised to be applicable in small-scale studies, while reducing the role of cultural and contextual factors. Field research data provided high-resolution information, but their acquisition is time-consuming, and therefore fixed at a local scale and single temporal stage. Underlying hazard types and suitable data sources resulting in other differences found a preference towards the specific coverage and resolution of vulnerability maps that appeared in 44% of all reviewed studies. Altogether, the differences we found indicated a division of spatially explicit vulnerability research in two major directions: (i) geological and geomorphological studies focusing on physical vulnerability, using their own data surveys at a detailed scale and lacking links to other hazards, and (ii) other studies (mostly atmospheric hazards and socialpolitical hazards) focusing on social or combined vulnerabilities, using primarily statistical or combined data at a municipal, regional, and country scale with occasional efforts to integrate multiple hazards. Finally, although cartographic representations have become a frequent component of vulnerability studies, our review found only vague rationalisations for the presentation of maps, and a lack of guidelines for the interpretation of uncertainties and the use of maps as decision-support tools.

L-functions of twisted exponential sums over finite fields

Let $${\mathbb {F}}_{q}$$ be the finite field of q elements and $$\chi _{1},\ldots ,\chi _{n}$$ the multiplicative characters of $${\mathbb {F}}_{q}$$ . Given a Laurent polynomial $$f(X)\in {\mathbb {F}}_q[x_1^{\pm 1},\dots ,x_n^{\pm 1}]$$ , the corresponding L-function is defined to be $$\begin{aligned} L^{*}(\chi _{1},\ldots ,\chi _{n},f;T) =\exp \Big (\sum \nolimits _{h=1}^{\infty }S^{*}_{h}(\chi _{1},\ldots ,\chi _{n},f)\frac{T^{h}}{h}\Big ), \end{aligned}$$ where $$S^{*}_{h}(\chi _{1},\ldots ,\chi _{n},f)$$ is the twisted exponential sum defined in the extension of $${\mathbb {F}}_{q}$$ of degree h. In this paper, we obtain the explicit formulae for $$L^{*}(\chi _{1},\ldots ,\chi _{n},f;T)$$ for the Laurent polynomials with full column rank exponent matrix in terms of p-adic gamma functions, which generalizes the results of Wan, Hong and Cao. We also evaluate the slopes of the reciprocal zeros and reciprocal poles of $$L^{*}(\chi _{1},\ldots ,\chi _{n},f;T)$$ and determine the p-adic Newton polygons of the polynomials associated to the L-function $$L^{*}(\chi _{1},\ldots ,\chi _{n},f;T)$$ .

Tebbe-like and Phosphonioalkylidene and -alkylidyne Complexes of Scandium.

The bonding between scandium and carbon in a series of alkylidene- and alkylidyne-like moieties is compared. The Tebbe analogue complex (PNP)Sc(μ2-CHSiMe3)(μ2-CH3)[Al(CH3)(CH2SiMe3)] (2) (PNP- = N[2-PiPr2-4-methylphenyl]2) could be formed by adding AlMe3 to (PNP)Sc(CH2SiMe3)2 (1). The fluxional behavior of 2 is studied by a combination of 2D 13C-1H HMQC, HMBC, and other heteronuclear NMR spectroscopic experiments. The phosphonioalkylidene complex (PNP)Sc(CHPPh3)(CH3) (3) could be prepared from 2 by treatment with 2 equiv of the ylide H2CPPh3 or by methane elimination from (PNP)Sc(CH3)2 and 1 equiv of H2CPPh3. The reactivity of the alkylidene in 2 was further explored with N3Ad, which gave insertion at the Sc-C bond, yielding (PNP)Sc(CH3)[η2-N3AdCHSiMe3Al(CH3)(CH2SiMe3)] (4), while DMAP provided C-H activation across the alkylidene with loss of the Al-C bond to form (PNP)Sc(η2-NC5H3NMe2)(CH2SiMe3) (5). Utilizing the same approach that yielded 2, methane elimination in 3 could further be promoted with Al(CH3)3 to furnish the first example of a scandium phosphonioalkylidyne complex, (PNP)Sc(μ2-CPh3)(μ2-CH3)Al(CH3)2 (6). Experimental and theoretical studies were combined to compare the bonding in 2, 3, and 6, in order to understand the legitimacy of Sc-C multiple bond character.

Multiple character of non-monotonic size-dependence for relaxation dynamics in polymer-particle and binary mixtures

Adding plasticizers is a well-known procedure to reduce the glass transition temperature in polymers. It has been recently shown that this effect shows a non-monotonic dependence on the size of additive molecules (2019 J. Chem. Phys. 150 024903). In this work, we demonstrate that, as the size of the additive molecules is changed at fixed concentration, multiple extrema emerge in the dependence of the system’s relaxation time on the size ratio. The effect occurs on all relevant length scales including single monomer dynamics, decay of Rouse modes and relaxation of the chain’s end-to-end vector. A qualitatively similar trend is found within mode-coupling theoretical results for a binary hard-sphere mixture. An interpretation of the effect in terms of local packing efficiency and coupling between the dynamics of minority and majority species is provided.

Characterization of Pomegranate Cultivators: A Linear Discriminant Analysis

ABSTRACT In the study, an attempt was made to focus and identify the distinct characteristics of the two contrast groups affecting pomegranate yield. It examined the difference between the two groups of pomegranate growers based on some socio-economic characteristics, input application factors, managerial factors, and labour characteristics. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) was used to discriminate against the pomegranate cultivators belonging to two groups (high yielding and low yielding groups) based on multiple characters simultaneously with an objective that which factors were prospective to yield attributing characters. Out of 48 different factors, it were found that 22 factors had a significant role in pomegranate production. Observed significant correlation between adoption index and realization index in case of high and low yielding groups it also indicated that high yielding farmers who belonged to lower size group were good adopters of technology. The pomegranate is a capital intensive orchard crop, the level of adoption depends not only on the quantum of inputs but also on the appropriate know-how practices at the farm level. This study would be helpful to the pomegranate growers for making decisions related to pomegranate production.

Partitions of the lines in PG[formula omitted] into multifold spreads for [formula omitted

In 2012, Momihara et al. (2012) showed that the 2-design formed by the planes (2-flats) in AG(2n,3) can be decomposed into more subdesigns than a previously known decomposition. They restricted the group stabilizing the resulting subdesigns to the affine general linear group AGL(1,32n) and its subgroups, and then gave the best decomposition in the sense that the total number of subdesigns is maximum as long as n is odd. They further demonstrated a way to count the exact number of the subdesigns resulting from their decomposition.In this article, translating their problem setting as a partition problem of the lines in PG(2n−1,s) into as many multifold spreads as possible, we will show that their restriction is not necessary and provide a way to get theoretically maximum partition for any n when s=3,4. Since the technique in Momihara et al. (2012) for counting the number of the resulting multifold spreads is no longer applied for even n, another approach will be also presented through the use of Weil sums on a multiplicative character and, for some series of n, express the numbers of the resulting multifold spreads as functions of n according to their multiplicities.

Virtual Human Motion Extension Based on Bayesian Network

Aiming at the problem of virtual human motion reuse, the concept of motion extension is proposed, which includes lengthways extension and transverse extension. The lengthways extension extends motion along the time, and generates more frames from existing motion. The transverse extension extends motion to other characters, and multiple characters motion is generated by single character motion. Each motion in the group is similar and different from each other. Motion extension provides unified solution to important issues such as motion prediction, motion repair, and group motion. We construct the Bayesian network of the virtual human motion, which studies and reduces the dimension of the virtual human motion, and propose a method of motion extension based on Bayesian network. Experiments show that our method can generate more realistic virtual human motion based on existing motion, and provide support for the application of virtual human in the fields of bio-engineering, medicine and military.

Six constructions of asymptotically optimal codebooks via the character sums

In this paper, using additive characters of finite field, we find a codebook which is equivalent to the measurement matrix in [20]. The advantage of our construction is that it can be generalized naturally to construct the other five classes of codebooks using additive and multiplicative characters of finite field. We determine the maximal cross-correlation amplitude of these codebooks by the properties of characters and character sums. We prove that all the codebooks we constructed are asymptotically optimal with respect to the Welch bound. The parameters of these codebooks are new.

Synthesis of cis-Cu(gly)2·H2O, trans-Cu(gly)2, and cis-Ni(gly)2(H2O)2 and their Characterization Using Thermal and Spectroscopic Techniques—A Capstone Inorganic Laboratory

Capstone teaching laboratory activities can serve as a crucial part of the undergraduate learning experience. With this in mind, a laboratory activity that combines synthesis and multiple character...

On smooth square‐free numbers in arithmetic progressions

A. Booker and C. Pomerance (2017) have shown that any residue class modulo a prime $p\ge 11$ can be represented by a positive $p$-smooth square-free integer $s = p^{O(\log p)}$ with all prime factors up to $p$ and conjectured that in fact one can find such $s$ with $s = p^{O(1)}$. Using bounds on double Kloosterman sums due to M. Z. Garaev (2010) we prove this conjecture in a stronger form $s \le p^{3/2 + o(1)}$ and also consider more general versions of this question replacing $p$-smoothness of $s$ by the stronger condition of $p^{\alpha}$-smoothness. Using bounds on multiplicative character sums and a sieve method, we also show that we can represent all residue classes by a positive square-free integer $s\le p^{2+o(1)}$ which is $p^{1/(4e^{ /2})+o(1)}$-smooth. Additionally, we obtain stronger results for almost all primes $p$.

Integration of an actor-critic model and generative adversarial networks for a Chinese calligraphy robot

As a combination of robotic motion planning and Chinese calligraphy culture, robotic calligraphy plays a significant role in the inheritance and education of Chinese calligraphy culture. Most existing calligraphy robots focus on enabling the robots to learn writing through human participation, such as human–robot interactions and manually designed evaluation functions. However, because of the subjectivity of art aesthetics, these existing methods require a large amount of implementation work from human engineers. In addition, the written results cannot be accurately evaluated. To overcome these limitations, in this paper, we propose a robotic calligraphy model that combines a generative adversarial network (GAN) and deep reinforcement learning to enable a calligraphy robot to learn to write Chinese character strokes directly from images captured from Chinese calligraphic textbooks. In our proposed model, to automatically establish an aesthetic evaluation system for Chinese calligraphy, a GAN is first trained to understand and reconstruct stroke images. Then, the discriminator network is independently extracted from the trained GAN and embedded into a variant of the reinforcement learning method, the “actor-critic model”, as a reward function. Thus, a calligraphy robot adopts the improved actor-critic model to learn to write multiple character strokes. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model successfully allows a calligraphy robot to write Chinese character strokes based on input stroke images. The performance of our model, compared with the state-of-the-art deep reinforcement learning method, shows the efficacy of the combination approach. In addition, the key technology in this work shows promise as a solution for robotic autonomous assembly.