Aspiration 'dissimilation' in Tangkhul Naga prefixation

In Tangkhul Naga, obstruent-initial prefixes are strictly unaspirated if followed by any stem-initial obstruent, and aspirated before stem-initial sonorants (Arokianathan 1987, Mortensen 2003, Shosted 2007). I argue that this pattern is best modeled as the interaction of apparently contradictory penalties on both agreement and disagreement, and that this may be problematic for theoretical approaches in which assimilation and dissimilation do not arise independently, but instead are driven by the same mechanism

Nasal-lateral assimilations: typology and structure

In this work, I show that assimilatory nasalization and lateralization in sequences of nasals and laterals (NL and LN) are driven neither by sonority nor by feature sharing, but by a markedness constraint penalizing non-identical but phonologically similar adjacent segments – which I formalize here in an asymmetric implementation of Agreement by Correspondence (ABC; Walker 2000, 2001; Hansson 2001; Rose & Walker 2004). Typological evidence from a survey of 46 languages provides consistent implicational generalizations regarding the distribution of targets of assimilation; penalties on similarity correctly predect the relative lack of assimilation in heterorganic (ML, LM) sequences and in stop-lateral (TL) sequences. I further show that implementions of ABC in which correspondence is symmetric do not predict the observed preference for NL assimilation over LN assimilation; implementing the correspondence relation asymmetrically solves this problem. Analyses predicated on other considerations do not correctly predict the typology

Using post-measurement information in state discrimination

We consider a special form of state discrimination in which after the measurement we are given additional information that may help us identify the state. This task plays a central role in the analysis of quantum cryptographic protocols in the noisy-storage model, where the identity of the state corresponds to a certain bit string, and the additional information is typically a choice of encoding that is initially unknown to the cheating party. We first provide simple optimality conditions for measurements for any such problem, and show upper and lower bounds on the success probability. For a certain class of problems, we furthermore provide tight bounds on how useful post-measurement information can be. In particular, we show that for this class finding the optimal measurement for the task of state discrimination with post-measurement information does in fact reduce to solving a different problem of state discrimination without such information. However, we show that for the corresponding classical state discrimination problems with post-measurement information such a reduction is impossible, by relating the success probability to the violation of Bell inequalities. This suggests the usefulness of post-measurement information as another feature that distinguishes the classical from a quantum world.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, revtex, v2: published version, minor change

Geospatial distributions reflect temperatures of linguistic features.

Quantifying the speed of linguistic change is challenging because the historical evolution of languages is sparsely documented. Consequently, traditional methods rely on phylogenetic reconstruction. Here, we propose a model-based approach to the problem through the analysis of language change as a stochastic process combining vertical descent, spatial interactions, and mutations in both dimensions. A notion of linguistic temperature emerges naturally from this analysis as a dimensionless measure of the propensity of a linguistic feature to undergo change. We demonstrate how temperatures of linguistic features can be inferred from their present-day geospatial distributions, without recourse to information about their phylogenies. Thus, the evolutionary dynamics of language, operating across thousands of years, leave a measurable geospatial signature. This signature licenses inferences about the historical evolution of languages even in the absence of longitudinal data

Anterior Segment Trauma: The Fundamentals of Management

Anterior segment trauma is the one of most common ocular condition seen in accident and emergency The ocular trauma may vary from minor injury such as a corneal abrasion to a grievous sight threatening injury such as a corneo-scleral tear or a chemical injury. The most crucial element in the management of ocular injuries is a thorough examination to identify all possible injuries to the eye and institute the appropriate treatment. The initial management plays a very important role in determining the prognosis of the vision, the need for further surgeries and also provide us with a realistic goals of visual rehabilitaion. In this chapter we aim to enumerate the common modes of ocular injury, manifestations of ocular trauma, the diagnostic features and provide the reader with a comprehensive overview of the treatment instituted. We will also include the accepted international trauma scoring systems and their utility in prognosticating the visual rehabilitation

Estimating transmission noise on networks from stationary local order

In this paper we study networks of nodes characterised by binary traits that change both endogenously and through nearest-neighbour interaction. Our analytical results show that those traits can be ranked according to the noisiness of their transmission using only measures of order in the stationary state. Crucially, this ranking is independent of network topology. As an example, we explain why, in line with a long-standing hypothesis, the relative stability of the structural traits of languages can be estimated from their geospatial distribution. We conjecture that similar inferences may be possible in a more general class of Markovian systems. Consequently, in many empirical domains where longitudinal information is not easily available the propensities of traits to change could be estimated from spatial data alone.Comment: 6+78 pages, 4+23 figure

NetPath: a public resource of curated signal transduction pathways

NetPath, a novel community resource of curated human signaling pathways is presented and its utility demonstrated using immune signaling data

Global, regional, and national burden of disorders affecting the nervous system, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND: Disorders affecting the nervous system are diverse and include neurodevelopmental disorders, late-life neurodegeneration, and newly emergent conditions, such as cognitive impairment following COVID-19. Previous publications from the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factor Study estimated the burden of 15 neurological conditions in 2015 and 2016, but these analyses did not include neurodevelopmental disorders, as defined by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-11, or a subset of cases of congenital, neonatal, and infectious conditions that cause neurological damage. Here, we estimate nervous system health loss caused by 37 unique conditions and their associated risk factors globally, regionally, and nationally from 1990 to 2021. METHODS: We estimated mortality, prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs), years of life lost (YLLs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), with corresponding 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs), by age and sex in 204 countries and territories, from 1990 to 2021. We included morbidity and deaths due to neurological conditions, for which health loss is directly due to damage to the CNS or peripheral nervous system. We also isolated neurological health loss from conditions for which nervous system morbidity is a consequence, but not the primary feature, including a subset of congenital conditions (ie, chromosomal anomalies and congenital birth defects), neonatal conditions (ie, jaundice, preterm birth, and sepsis), infectious diseases (ie, COVID-19, cystic echinococcosis, malaria, syphilis, and Zika virus disease), and diabetic neuropathy. By conducting a sequela-level analysis of the health outcomes for these conditions, only cases where nervous system damage occurred were included, and YLDs were recalculated to isolate the non-fatal burden directly attributable to nervous system health loss. A comorbidity correction was used to calculate total prevalence of all conditions that affect the nervous system combined. FINDINGS: Globally, the 37 conditions affecting the nervous system were collectively ranked as the leading group cause of DALYs in 2021 (443 million, 95% UI 378–521), affecting 3·40 billion (3·20–3·62) individuals (43·1%, 40·5–45·9 of the global population); global DALY counts attributed to these conditions increased by 18·2% (8·7–26·7) between 1990 and 2021. Age-standardised rates of deaths per 100 000 people attributed to these conditions decreased from 1990 to 2021 by 33·6% (27·6–38·8), and age-standardised rates of DALYs attributed to these conditions decreased by 27·0% (21·5–32·4). Age-standardised prevalence was almost stable, with a change of 1·5% (0·7–2·4). The ten conditions with the highest age-standardised DALYs in 2021 were stroke, neonatal encephalopathy, migraine, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, diabetic neuropathy, meningitis, epilepsy, neurological complications due to preterm birth, autism spectrum disorder, and nervous system cancer. INTERPRETATION: As the leading cause of overall disease burden in the world, with increasing global DALY counts, effective prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation strategies for disorders affecting the nervous system are needed

Global, regional, and national burden of disorders affecting the nervous system, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

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