Blocking of word-boundary consonant lengthening in Sienese Italian

This paper examines an aspect of Raddoppiamento sintattico (RS), the lengthening of word-initial consonants following certain words e.g. tre [mm]ele ‘three apples’ in Italian. Most phonological accounts claim the phenomenon is predictable and obligatory (e.g. Nespor & Vogel 1986). However, descriptive sources on Italian (e.g. Camilli 1941) have long claimed that RS interacts with and can be blocked by other phenomena operative in natural speech e.g. pausing. In this paper we outline the phonetic details of the RS blocking phenomena and present the results of an auditory and preliminary acoustic analysis of the interaction between RS and these other phenomena based on a corpus of spontaneous speech data

Hierarchical Knowledge-Gradient for Sequential Sampling

We consider the problem of selecting the best of a finite but very large set of alternatives. Each alternative may be characterized by a multi-dimensional vector and has independent normal rewards. This problem arises in various settings such as (i) ranking and selection, (ii) simulation optimization where the unknown mean of each alternative is estimated with stochastic simulation output, and (iii) approximate dynamic programming where we need to estimate values based on Monte-Carlo simulation. We use a Bayesian probability model for the unknown reward of each alternative and follow a fully sequential sampling policy called the knowledge-gradient policy. This policy myopically optimizes the expected increment in the value of sampling information in each time period. Because the number of alternatives is large, we propose a hierarchical aggregation technique that uses the common features shared by alternatives to learn about many alternatives from even a single measurement, thus greatly reducing the measurement effort required. We demonstrate how this hierarchical knowledge-gradient policy can be applied to efficiently maximize a continuous function and prove that this policy finds a globally optimal alternative in the limit

Loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) nest predation at Cape Range National Park

Most of the existing sea turtle populations worldwide are in decline. In particular, loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) are listed as endangered and loggerhead nesting populations in Eastern Australia have declined by 86% since the 1970s. However, whilst Eastern Australian loggerhead populations have been extensively studied and monitored, not much is known about the Western Australian nesting population

THE PROGRESSIVEISM OF THE MUCKRAKERS

Photograph of the 2nd floor Ironing Room of Nu-Way Cleaners Dyers Hatters, 811 North Western Avenue, Oklahoma City, OK. Photo by Waterhouse, Oklahoma City, OK, c. 1929-1933

Identifying Student Difficulties with Entropy, Heat Engines, and the Carnot Cycle

We report on several specific student difficulties regarding the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the context of heat engines within upper-division undergraduates thermal physics courses. Data come from ungraded written surveys, graded homework assignments, and videotaped classroom observations of tutorial activities. Written data show that students in these courses do not clearly articulate the connection between the Carnot cycle and the Second Law after lecture instruction. This result is consistent both within and across student populations. Observation data provide evidence for myriad difficulties related to entropy and heat engines, including students' struggles in reasoning about situations that are physically impossible and failures to differentiate between differential and net changes of state properties of a system. Results herein may be seen as the application of previously documented difficulties in the context of heat engines, but others are novel and emphasize the subtle and complex nature of cyclic processes and heat engines, which are central to the teaching and learning of thermodynamics and its applications. Moreover, the sophistication of these difficulties is indicative of the more advanced thinking required of students at the upper division, whose developing knowledge and understanding give rise to questions and struggles that are inaccessible to novices

Using a Logic Programming Framework to Control Database Query Dialogues in Natural Language

We present a natural language question/answering system to interface the University of Évora databases that uses clarification dialogs in order to clarify user questions. It was developed in an integrated logic programming framework, based on constraint logic programming using the GnuProlog(-cx) language [2,11] and the ISCO framework [1]. The use of this LP framework allows the integration of Prolog-like inference mechanisms with classes and inheritance, constraint solving algorithms and provides the connection with relational databases, such as PostgreSQL. This system focus on the questions’ pragmatic analysis, to handle ambiguity, and on an efficient dialogue mechanism, which is able to place relevant questions to clarify the user intentions in a straightforward manner. Proper Nouns resolution and the pp-attachment problem are also handled. This paper briefly presents this innovative system focusing on its ability to correctly determine the user intention through its dialogue capability