Parents' and teachers' evaluations of the communicative abilities of deaf children

The authors compared evaluations by parents and teachers of the communicative abilities of deaf children. Such comparisons between parents' and professionals' assessments of the language development of children who are deaf can provide useful information on which to base ecologically valid intervention approaches. A secondary interest of the authors was to investigate the possible influences on language development of gender, the presence or absence of cochlear implantation, and communication modality (i.e., auditory-verbal or bilingual). The study included the mothers and teachers of 14 deaf children educated in auditory-verbal or bilingual programs. Two scales from a survey instrument, Profiles of the Hearing Impaired (Webster & Webster, 1995), were used. No significant differences between the teachers' and parents' evaluations were found. Gender, cochlear implantation, and communication modality were found to have no significant effect on the evaluations.     

German children's comprehension of word order and case marking in causative sentences

Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate whether German children are able to use the grammatical cues of word order and word endings (case markers) to identify agents and patients in a causative sentence and whether they weigh these two cues differently across development. Two-year-olds correctly understood only sentences with both cues supporting each other—the prototypical form. Five-year-olds were able to use word order by itself but not case markers. Only 7-year-olds behaved like adults by relying on case markers over word order when the two cues conflicted. These findings suggest that prototypical instances of linguistic constructions with redundant grammatical marking play a special role in early acquisition, and only later do children isolate and weigh individual grammatical cues appropriately.     

Multiobjective optimization and multivariable control of the beer fermentation process with the use of evolutionary algorithms

INTRODUCTIONThefermentationprocesshasgreatscientificandpracticalimportance.Forseveralreasons,qua-litycontrol,forexample,itisimportanttoincludeallkindsoftechnologicaladvancesintheindustrialprocesses.Thisisthemainaimofourresearch,whichisverycomplexduetothenon-linearityofthestudiedphenomena.Themathematicalmodelsfoundinliteratureincludeonlylaboratoyconditions.Amathematicalmodelhasbeendevelopedforthebeerfermentationprocessbecauseoftheadvantagesthatitprovides.Itallowssimulatingwhatcanhappenwhe…     

Nonverbatim captioning in Dutch television programs: a text linguistic approach

In the Netherlands, as in most other European countries, closed captions for the deaf summarize texts rather than render them verbatim. Caption editors argue that in this way television viewers have enough time to both read the text and watch the program. They also claim that the meaning of the original message is properly conveyed. However, many deaf people demand verbatim subtitles so that they have full access to all original information. They claim that vital information is withheld from them as a result of the summarizing process. Linguistic research was conducted in order (a) to identify the type of information that is left out of captioned texts and (b) to determine the effects of nonverbatim captioning on the meaning of the text. The differences between spoken and captioned texts were analyzed on the basis of on a model of coherence relations in discourse. One prominent finding is that summarizing affects coherence relations, making them less explicit and altering the implied meaning.     

Comparisons of achievement, effort, and self-perceptions among students with learning disabilities and their peers from different achievement groups

This study compared the social-emotional implications of academic achievement for students with and without learning disabilities (LD) and identified predictors of effort investment. Students with LD showed lower levels of achievement, effort investment, academic self-efficacy, sense of coherence, positive mood, and hope, and higher levels of loneliness and negative mood. When compared to peers without LD (n = 447) at four different academic achievement levels, students with LD showed higher achievement than the low-average group, but their social-emotional profiles were similar to the low and low-average groups. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that achievement, academic self-efficacy, negative mood, and hope predicted effort investment for students with LD. These results demonstrated the importance of hope in understanding the functioning of students with LD.     

淘淘的胡萝卜

很久很久以前，在一座小山上，发生过这样一个故事。有一头小毛驴，它的名字叫淘淘。淘淘特别爱吃胡萝卜，于是，在一年的春天，它拿着过年收到的压岁钱去集市上买了两包胡萝卜种子。淘淘回家后，在门前选了一块地，把胡萝卜种子撒了进去。为了让胡萝卜长得更红、更大，淘淘每天都去胡萝卜地浇水施肥、拔草除虫，干得特别卖力。有了淘淘的细心照顾，种子很快长出了嫩芽，绿绿的，特别逗人爱。淘淘看了这些小嫩芽，心里别提有多高兴了，它把本来就很干净的小芽吹了又吹，生怕染上一粒灰尘。可是，才过了几个星期，奇怪的事情就发生了：地里时…     

Adiponectin Gene Polymorphism and its Association with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Mutations in different regions of adiponectin gene have been reported to be associated with obesity, atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The present study was aimed to investigate the association among SNP 45 T > G of adiponectin gene and type 2 diabetes in South Indian population. 75 clinically diagnosed case of type 2 diabetes were studied and compared with 75 apparently healthy controls. The genotype frequency of SNP45 T > G in exon 2 of adiponectin gene was determined by PCR based restriction enzyme analysis using the restriction enzyme SmaI. (recognition site: CCC↓GGG). Three kind of genotypes: wild type TT (470 bp), heterozygous type TG (470 bp, 336 bp, 134 bp) and homozygote mutant type GG (336 bp, 134 bp) were studied. A positive association has been found between SNP45 T > G and type 2 diabetes in the study population (P = 0.010, OR = 3.797, 95% CI = 1.312–10.983). Therefore, SNP45T > G in adiponectin gene may be one of the risk factors for type 2 diabetes.     

博物馆之夜

夜闯博物馆我顿了顿,等侍者拿走菜单,才开口:“如果我们偷偷溜出旅馆,自己去博物馆,一定会出事的。”“不,不会的,托尼。”贾尼丝说,“我查过了,博物馆礼拜六晚上通常九点关门,我们只要赶在去看音乐剧的卡尔森小姐和其他同学回来之前回到旅馆就行了。”“来得及吗?”我有点担心。“这次作业我必须拿个好分数。”贾尼丝说,“否则,他们会把我从尖子班开除的。”“我也是。”贾森附和道,“上次我收集的资料不够,起码得再去一趟。”他们全都盯着我。点了点头:“好吧,反正我也要花更多的时间画我的动物草图,那些图要用在论文里。不过,在走之前,我…