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Category: Research Blogging
I know (1) that you think (2) it's funny, and you know (3) that I know (4) that, too.
A large part of human humour depends on understanding that the intention of the person telling the joke might be different to what they are actually saying. The person needs to tell the joke so that you understand that they're telling a joke, so they need to to know that you know that they do not intend to convey the meaning they are about to utter… Things get even more complicated when we are telling each other jokes that involve other people having thoughts and beliefs about other people. We call this knowledge nested intentions, or recursive mental attributions. We can already see, based on my complicated description, that this is a serious matter and requires scientific investigation. Fortunately, a recent paper by Dunbar, Launaway and Curry (2015) investigated whether the structure of jokes is restricted by the amount of nested intentions required to understand the joke and they make a couple of interesting predictions on the mental processing that is involved in processing humour, and how these should be reflected in the structure and funniness of jokes. In today's blogpost I want to discuss the paper's methodology and some of its claims.
Continue reading "I know (1) that you think (2) it's funny, and you know (3) that I know (4) that, too."
Author ChristianPosted on 15 June, 2016 16 June, 2016 Categories Linguistics, Research Blogging, Science NewsTags communication, humour, Jokes, linguistics, Mental representations, theory of mindLeave a comment on I know (1) that you think (2) it's funny, and you know (3) that I know (4) that, too.
Posture helps robots learn words, and infants, too.
What kind of information do children and infants take into account when learning new words? And to what extent do they need to rely on interpreting a speakers intention to extract meaning? A paper by Morse, Cangelosi and Smith (2015), published in PLoS One, suggests that bodily states such as body posture might be used by infants to acquire word meanings in the absence of the object named. To test their hypothesis, the authors ran a series of experiments using a word learning task with infants—but also a self-learning robot, the iCub.
Continue reading "Posture helps robots learn words, and infants, too."
Author ChristianPosted on 2 October, 2015 1 October, 2015 Categories Developmental Linguistics & Psychology, Research Blogging1 Comment on Posture helps robots learn words, and infants, too.
Languages adapt to their contextual niche (Winters, Kirby & Smith, 2014)
Last week saw the publication of my latest paper, with co-authors Simon Kirby and Kenny Smith, looking at how languages adapt to their contextual niche (link to the OA version and here's the original). Here's the abstract:
It is well established that context plays a fundamental role in how we learn and use language. Here we explore how context links short-term language use with the long-term emergence of different types of language systems. Using an iterated learning model of cultural transmission, the current study experimentally investigates the role of the communicative situation in which an utterance is produced (situational context) and how it influences the emergence of three types of linguistic systems: underspecified languages (where only some dimensions of meaning are encoded linguistically), holistic systems (lacking systematic structure) and systematic languages (consisting of compound signals encoding both category-level and individuating dimensions of meaning). To do this, we set up a discrimination task in a communication game and manipulated whether the feature dimension shape was relevant or not in discriminating between two referents. The experimental languages gradually evolved to encode information relevant to the task of achieving communicative success, given the situational context in which they are learned and used, resulting in the emergence of different linguistic systems. These results suggest language systems adapt to their contextual niche over iterated learning.
Context clearly plays an important role in how we learn and use language. Without this contextual scaffolding, and our inferential capacities, the use of language in everyday interactions would appear highly ambiguous. And even though ambiguous language can and does cause problems (as hilariously highlighted by the 'What's a chicken?' case), it is also considered to be communicatively functional (see Piantadosi et al., 2012). In short: context helps in reducing uncertainty about the intended meaning.
If context is used as a resource in reducing uncertainty, then it might also alter our conception of how an optimal communication system should be structured (e.g., Zipf, 1949). With this in mind, we wanted to investigate the following questions: (i) To what extent does the context influence the encoding of features in the linguistic system? (ii) How does the effect of context work its way into the structure of language? To get at these questions we narrowed our focus to look at the situational context: the immediate communicative environment in which an utterance is situated and how it influences the distinctions a speaker needs to convey.
Of particular relevance here is Silvey, Kirby & Smith (2014): they show that the incorporation of a situational context can change the extent to which an evolving language encodes certain features of referents. Using a pseudo-communicative task, where participants needed to discriminate between a target and a distractor meaning, the authors were able to manipulate which meaning dimensions (shape, colour, and motion) were relevant and irrelevant in conveying the intended meaning. Over successive generations of participants, the languages converged on underspecified systems that encoded the feature dimension which was relevant for discriminating between meanings.
The current work extends upon these findings in two ways: (a) we added a communication element to the setup, and (b) we further explored the types of situational context we could manipulate. Our general hypothesis, then, is that these artificial languages should adapt to the situational context in predictable ways based on whether or not a distinction is relevant in communication.
Continue reading "Languages adapt to their contextual niche (Winters, Kirby & Smith, 2014)"
Author James WintersPosted on 2 December, 2014 5 December, 2014 Categories Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Linguistics, Research BloggingLeave a comment on Languages adapt to their contextual niche (Winters, Kirby & Smith, 2014)
QWERTY: The Next Generation
[This is a guest post by
Oh wait, I'm not a guest anymore. Thanks to James for inviting me to become a regular contributor to Replicated Typo. I hope I will have to say some interesting things about the evoution of language, cognition, and culture, and I promise that I'll try to keep my next posts a bit shorter than the guest post two weeks ago.
Today I'd like to pick up on an ongoing discussion over at Language Log. In a series of blog posts in early 2012, Mark Liberman has taken issue with the so-called "QWERTY effect". The QWERTY effect seems like an ideal topic for my first regular post as it is tightly connected to some key topics of Replicated Typo: Cultural evolution, the cognitive basis of language, and, potentially, spurious correlations. In addition, Liberman's coverage of the QWERTY effect has spawned an interesting discussion about research blogging (cf. Littauer et al. 2014).
But what is the QWERTY effect, actually? According to Kyle Jasmin and Daniel Casasanto (Jasmin & Casasanto 2012), the written form of words can influence their meaning, more particularly, their emotional valence. The idea, in a nutshell, is this: Words that contain more characters from the right-hand side of the QWERTY keyboard tend to "acquire more positive valences" (Jasmin & Casasanto 2012). Casasanto and his colleagues tested this hypothesis with a variety of corpus analyses and valence rating tasks.
Whenever I tell fellow linguists who haven't heard of the QWERTY effect yet about these studies, their reactions are quite predictable, ranging from "WHAT?!?" to "asdf". But unlike other commentors, I don't want to reject the idea that a QWERTY effect exists out of hand. Indeed, there is abundant evidence that "right" is commonly associated with "good". In his earlier papers, Casasanto provides quite convincing experimental evidence for the bodily basis of the cross-linguistically well-attested metaphors RIGHT IS GOOD and LEFT IS BAD (e.g. Casasanto 2009). In addition, it is fairly obvious that at the end of the 20th century, computer keyboards started to play an increasingly important role in our lives. Also, it seems legitimate to assume that in a highly literate society, written representations of words form an important part of our linguistic knowledge. Given these factors, the QWERTY effect is not such an outrageous idea. However, measuring it by determining the "Right-Side Advantage" of words in corpora is highly problematic since a variety of potential confounding factors are not taken into account.
Finding the Right Name(s)
Frequencies of some (almost) randomly selected names in the USA.
In a new CogSci paper, Casasanto, Jasmin, Geoffrey Brookshire, and Tom Gijssels present five new experiments to support the QWERTY hypothesis. Since I am based at a department with a strong focus on onomastics, I found their investigation of baby names particularly interesting. Drawing on data from the US Social Security Administration website, they analyze all names that have been given to more than 100 babys in every year from 1960 to 2012. To determine the effect of keyboard position, they use a measure they call "Right Side Adventage" (RSA): [(#right-side letters)-(#left-side letters)]. They find that
"that the mean RSA has increased since the popularization of the QWERTY keyboard, as indicated by a correlation between the year and average RSA in that year (1960–2012, r = .78, df = 51, p =8.6 × 10-12"
In addition,
"Names invented after 1990 (n = 38,746) use more letters from the right side of the keyboard than names in use before 1990 (n = 43,429; 1960–1990 mean RSA = -0.79; 1991–2012 mean RSA = -0.27, t(81277.66) = 33.3, p < 2.2 × 10-16 […]). This difference remained significant when length was controlled by dividing each name's RSA by the number of letters in the name (t(81648.1) = 32.0, p < 2.2 × 10-16)"
Mark Liberman has already pointed to some problematic aspects of this analysis (but see also Casasanto et al.'s reply). They do not justify why they choose the timeframe of 1960-2012 (although data are available from 1880 onwards), nor do they explain why they only include names given to at least 100 children in each year. Liberman shows that the results look quite different if all available data are taken into account – although, admittedly, an increase in right-side characters from 1990 onwards can still be detected. In their response, Casasanto et al. try to clarify some of these issues. They present an analysis of all names back to 1880 (well, not all names, but all names attested in every year since 1880), and they explain:
"In our longitudinal analysis we only considered names that had been given to more than 100 children in *every year* between 1960 and 2012. By looking at longitudinal changes in the same group of names, this analysis shows changes in names' popularity over time. If instead you only look at names that were present in a given year, you are performing a haphazard collection of cross-sectional analyses, since many names come and go. The longitudinal analysis we report compares the popularity of the same names over time."
I am not sure what to think of this. On the one hand, this is certainly a methodologically valid approach. On the other hand, I don't agree that it is necessarily wrong to take all names into account. Given that 3,625 of all name types are attested in every year from 1960 to 2013 and that only 927 of all name types are attested in every year from 1880 to 2013 (the total number of types being 90,979), the vast majority of names is simply not taken into account in Casasanto et al.'s approach. This is all the more problematic given that parents have become increasingly individualistic in naming their children: The mean number of people sharing one and the same name has decreased in absolute terms since the 1960s. If we normalize these data by dividing them by the total number of name tokens in each year, we find that the mean relative frequency of names has continuously decreased over the timespan covered by the SSA data.
Mean frequency of a name (i.e. mean number of people sharing one name) in absolute and relative terms, respectively.
Thus, Casasanto et al. use a sample that might be not very representative of how people name their babies. If the QWERTY effect is a general phenomenon, it should also be found when all available data are taken into account.
As Mark Liberman has already shown, this is indeed the case – although some quite significant ups and downs in the frequency of right-side characters can be detected well before the QWERTY era. But is this rise in frequency from 1990 onwards necessarily due to the spread of QWERTY keyboards – or is there an alternative explanation? Liberman has already pointed to "the popularity of a few names, name-morphemes, or name fragments" as potential factors determining the rise and fall of mean RSA values. In this post, I'd like to take a closer look at one of these potential confounding factors.
Sonorous Sounds and "Soft" Characters
When I saw Casasanto et al.'s data, I was immediately wondering if the change in character distribution could not be explained in terms of phoneme distribution. My PhD advisor, Damaris Nübling, has done some work (see e.g. here [in German]) showing an increasing tendency towards names with a higher proportion of sonorous sounds in Germany. More specifically, she demonstrates that German baby names become more "androgynous" in that male names tend to assume features that used to be characteristic of (German) female names (e.g. hiatus; final full vowel; increase in the overall number of sonorous phonemes). Couldn't a similar trend be detectable in American baby names?
Names showing particularly strong frequency changes among those names that appear among the Top 20 most frequent names at least once between 1960 and 2013.
If we take a cursory glance at those names that can be found among the Top 20 most frequent names of at least one year since 1960 and if we single out those names that experienced a particularly strong increase or decrease in frequency, we find that, indeed, sonorous names seem to become more popular. Those names that gain in popularity are characterized by lots of vowels, diphthongs (Aiden, Jayden, Abigail), hiatus (Liam, Zoey), as well as nasals and liquids (Lily, Liam).
To be sure, these cursory observations are not significant in and of themselves. To test the hypothesis if phonological changes can (partly) account for the QWERTY effect in a bit more detail, I basically split the sonority scale in half. I categorized characters typically representing vowels and sonorants as "soft sound characters" and those typically representing obstruents as "hard sound characters". This is of course a ridiculously crude distinction entailing some problematic classifications. A more thorough analysis would have to take into account the fact that in many cases, one letter can stand for a variety of different phonemes. But as this is just an exploratory analysis for a blog post, I'll go with this crude binary distinction. In addition, we can justify this binary categorization with an argument presented above: We can assume that the written representations of words are an important part of the linguistic knowledge of present-day language users. Thus, parents will probably not only be concerned with the question how a name sounds – they will also consider how it looks like in written form. Hence, there might be a preference for characters that prototypically represent "soft sounds", irrespective of the sounds they actually stand for in a concrete case. But this is highly speculative and would have to be investigated in an entirely different experimental setup (e.g. with a psycholinguistic study using nonce names).
Distribution of "hard sound" vs. "soft sound" characters on the QWERTY keyboard.
Note that the characters representing "soft sounds" and "hard sounds", respectively, are distributed unequally over the QWERTY keyboard. Given that most "soft sound characters" are also right-side characters, it is hardly surprising that we cannot only detect an increase in the "Right-Side Advantage" (as well as the "Right-Side Ratio", see below) of baby names, but also an increase in the mean "Soft Sound Ratio" (SSR – # of soft sound characters / total # of characters). This increase is significant for the time from 1960 to 2013 irrespective of the sample we use: a) all names attested since 1960, b) names attested in every year since 1960, c) names attested in every year since 1960 more than 100 times.
"Soft Sound Ratio" in three different samples: a) All names attested in the SSA data; b) all names attested in every year since 1960; c) all names attested in every year since 1960 at least 100 times.
Note that both the "Right-Side Advantage" and the "Soft Sound Ratio" are particularly high in names only attested after 1990. (For the sake of (rough) comparability, I use the relative frequency of right-side characters here, i.e. Right Side Ratio = # of right-side letters / total number of letters.)
"Soft Sound Ratio" and "Right-Side Ratio" for names only attested after 1990.
Due to the considerable overlap between right-side and "soft" characters, both the QWERTY Effect and the "Soft Sound" Hypothesis might account for the changes that can be observed in the data. If the QWERTY hypothesis is correct, we should expect an increase for all right-side characters, even those that stand for "hard" sounds. Conversely, we should expect a decrease in the relative frequency of left-side characters, even if they typically represent "soft" sounds. Indeed, the frequency of "Right-Side Hard Characters" does increase – in the time from 1960 to the mid-1980s. In the QWERTY era, by contrast, <h>, <p>, <k>, and <j> suffer a significant decrease in frequency. The frequency of "Left-Side Soft Characters", by contrast, increases slightly from the late 1960s onwards.
Frequency of left-side "soft" characters and right-side "hard" characters in all baby names attested from 1960 to 2013.
Further potential challenges to the QWERTY Effect and possible alternative experimental setups
The commentors over at Language Log have also been quite creative in coming up with possible alternative explanations and challenging the QWERTY hypothesis by showing that random collections of letters show similarly strong patterns of increase or decrease. Thus, the increase in the frequency of right-side letters in baby names is perhaps equally well, if not better explained by factors independent of character positions on the QWERTY keyboard. Of course, this does not prove that there is no such thing as a QWERTY effect. But as countless cases discussed on Replicated Typo have shown, taking multiple factors into account and considering alternative hypotheses is crucial in the study of cultural evolution. Although the phonological form of words is an obvious candidate as a potential confounding factor, it is not discussed at all in Casasanto et al.'s CogSci paper. However, it is briefly mentioned in Jasmin & Casasanto (2012: 502):
"In any single language, it could happen by chance that words with higher RSAs are more positive, due to sound–valence associations. But despite some commonalities, English, Dutch, and Spanish have different phonological systems and different letter-to-sound mappings."
While this is certainly true, the sound systems and letter-to-sound mappings of these languages (as well as German and Portugese, which are investigated in the new CogSci paper) are still quite similar in many respects. To rule out the possibility of sound-valence associations, it would be necessary to investigate the phonological makeup of positively vs. negatively connotated words in much more detail.
Right-Side Advantage (RSA) for male vs. female names in two different samples (all names attested in the SSA data and all names attested in every year since 1960).
The SSA name lists provide another means to critically examine the QWERTY hypothesis since they differentiate between male and female names. If the QWERTY effect does play a significant role in parents' name choices, we would expect it to be equally strong for boys names and girls names – or at least approximately so.
Right-Side Ratio for three different samples (all names attested in the SSA lists, all names attested in every year since 1960, all years attested in every year since 1960 at least 100 times).
On the hypothesis that other factors such as trend names play a much more important role, by contrast, differences between the developments of male vs. female names are to be expected. Indeed, the data reveal some differences between the RSA / RSR development of boys vs. girls names. At the same time, however, these differences show that the "Soft Sound Hypothesis" can only partly account for the QWERTY Effect since the "Soft Sound Ratios" of male vs. female names develop roughly in parallel.
"Soft Sound Ratio" of male vs. female names .
Given the complexity of cultural phenomena such as naming preferences, we would of course hardly expect one factor alone to determine people's choices. The QWERTY Effect, like the "Soft Sound" Preference, might well be one factor governing parents' naming decisions. However, the experimental setups used so far to investigate the QWERTY hypothesis are much too prone to spurious correlations to provide convincing evidence for the idea that words with a higher RSA assume more positive valences because of their number of right-side letters.
Granted, the amount of experimental evidence assembled by Casasanto et al. for the QWERTY effect is impressive. Nevertheless, the correlations they find may well be spurious ones. Don't get me wrong – I'm absolutely in favor of bold hypotheses (e.g. about Neanderthal language). But as a corpus linguist, I doubt that such a subtle preference can be meaningfully investigated using corpus-linguistic methods. As a corpus linguist, you're always dealing with a lot of variables you can't control for. This is not too big a problem if your research question is framed appropriately and if potential confounding factors are explicitly taken into account. But when it comes to a possible connection between single letters and emotional valence, the number of potential confounding factors just seems to outweigh the significance of an effect as subtle as the correlation between time and average RSA of baby names. In addition, some of the presumptions of the QWERTY studies would have to be examined independently: Does the average QWERTY user really use their left hand for typing left-side characters and their right hand for typing right-side characters – or are there significant differences between individual typing styles? How fluent is the average QWERTY user in typing? (The question of typing fluency is discussed in passing in the 2012 paper.)
The study of naming preferences entails even more potentially confounding variables. For example, if we assume that people want their children's names to be as beautiful as possible not only in phonological, but also in graphemic terms, we could speculate that the form of letters (round vs. edgy or pointed) and the position of letters within the graphemic representation of a name play a more or less important role. In addition, you can't control for, say, all names of persons that were famous in a given year and thus might have influenced parents' naming choices.
If corpus analyses are, in my view, an inappropriate method to investigate the QWERTY effect, then what about behavioral experiments? In their 2012 paper, Jasmin & Casasanto have reported an experiment in which they elicited valence judgments for pseudowords to rule out possible frequency effects:
"In principle, if words with higher RSAs also had higher frequencies, this could result in a spurious correlation between RSA and valence. Information about lexical frequency was not available for all of the words from Experiments 1 and 2, complicating an analysis to rule out possible frequency effects. In the present experiment, however, all items were novel and, therefore, had frequencies of zero."
Note, however, that they used phonologically well-formed stimuli such as pleek or ploke. These can be expected to yield associations to existing words such as, say, peak connotated) and poke, or speak and spoke, etc. It would be interesting to repeat this experiment with phonologically ill-formed pseudowords. (After all, participants were told they were reading words in an alien language – why shouldn't this language only consist of consonants?) Furthermore, Casasanto & Chrysikou (2011) have shown that space-valence mappings can change fairly quickly following a short-term handicap (e.g. being unable to use your right hand as a right-hander). Considering this, it would be interesting to perform experiments using a different kind of keyboard, e.g. an ABCDE keyboard, a KALQ keyboard, or – perhaps the best solution – a keyboard in which the right and the left side of the QWERTY keyboard are simply inverted. In a training phase, participants would have to become acquainted with the unfamiliar keyboard design. In the test phase, then, pseudowords that don't resemble words in the participants' native language should be used to figure out whether an ABCDE-, KALQ-, or reverse QWERTY effect can be detected.
Casasanto, D. (2009). Embodiment of Abstract Concepts: Good and Bad in Right- and Left-Handers. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 138, 351–367.
Casasanto, D., & Chrysikou, E. G. (2011). When Left Is "Right". Motor Fluency Shapes Abstract Concepts. Psychological Science 22, 419–422.
Casasanto, D., Jasmin, K., Brookshire, G., & Gijssels, T. (2014). The QWERTY Effect: How typing shapes word meanings and baby names. In P. Bello, M. Guarini, M. McShane, & B. Scassellati (Eds.), Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Jasmin, K., & Casasanto, D. (2012). The QWERTY Effect: How Typing Shapes the Meanings of Words. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 19, 499–504.
Littauer, R., Roberts, S., Winters, J., Bailes, R., Pleyer, M., & Little, H. (2014). From the Savannah to the Cloud. Blogging Evolutionary Linguistics Research. In L. McCrohon, B. Thompson, T. Verhoef, & H. Yamauchi, The Past, Present, and Future of Language Evolution Research. Student Volume following the 9th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (pp. 121–131).
Nübling, D. (2009). Von Monika zu Mia, von Norbert zu Noah. Zur Androgynisierung der Rufnamen seit 1945 auf prosodisch-phonologischer Ebene. Beiträge zur Namenforschung 44.
Author Stefan HartmannPosted on 25 May, 2014 Categories Linguistics, Research Blogging6 Comments on QWERTY: The Next Generation
The Myth of Language Universals at Birth
[This is a guest post by Stefan Hartmann]
"Chomsky still rocks!" This comment on Twitter refers to a recent paper in PNAS by David M. Gómez et al. entitled "Language Universals at Birth". Indeed, the question Gómez et al. address is one of the most hotly debated questions in linguistics: Does children's language learning draw on innate capacities that evolved specifically for linguistic purposes – or rather on domain-general skills and capabilities?
Lbifs, Blifs, and Brains
Gómez and his colleagues investigate these questions by studying how children respond to different syllable structures:
It is well known that across languages, certain structures are preferred to others. For example, syllables like blif are preferred to syllables like bdif and lbif. But whether such regularities reflect strictly historical processes, production pressures, or universal linguistic principles is a matter of much debate. To address this question, we examined whether some precursors of these preferences are already present early in life. The brain responses of newborns show that, despite having little to no linguistic experience, they reacted to syllables like blif, bdif, and lbif in a manner consistent with adults' patterns of preferences. We conjecture that this early, possibly universal, bias helps shaping language acquisition.
More specifically, they assume a restriction on syllable structure known as the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), which has been proposed as "a putatively universal constraint" (p. 5837). According to this principle, "syllables maximize the sonority distance from their margins to their nucleus". For example, in /blif/, /b/ is less sonorous than /l/, which is in turn less sonorous than the vowel /i/, which constitues the syllable's nucleus. In /lbif/, by contrast, there is a sonority fall, which is why this syllable is extremely ill-formed according to the SSP.
A simplified version of the sonority scale
In a first experiment, Gómez et al. investigated "whether the brains of newborns react differentially to syllables that are well- or extremely ill-formed, as defined by the SSP" (p. 5838). They had 24 newborns listen to /blif/- and /lbif/-type syllables while measuring the infant's brain activities. In the left temporal and right frontoparietal brain areas, "well-formed syllables elicited lower oxyhemoglobin concentrations than ill-formed syllables." In a second experiment, they presented another group of 24 newborns with syllables either exhibiting a sonority rise (/blif/) or two consonants of the same sonority (e.g. /bdif/) in their onset. The latter option is dispreferred across languages, and previous behavioral experiments with adult speakers have also shown a strong preference for the former pattern. "Results revealed that oxyhemoglobin concentrations elicited by well-formed syllables are significantly lower than concentrations elicited by plateaus in the left temporal cortex" (p. 5839). However, in contrast to the first experiment, there is no significant effect in the right frontoparietal region, "which has been linked to the processing of suprasegmental properties of speech" (p. 5838).
In a follow-up experiment, Gómez et al. investigated the role of the position of the CC-patterns within the word: Do infants react differently to /lbif/ than to, say, /olbif/? Indeed, they do: "Because the sonority fall now spans across two syllables (ol.bif), rather than a syllable onset (e.g., lbif), such words should be perfectly well-formed. In line with this prediction, our results show that newborns' brain responses to disyllables like oblif and olbif do not differ."
How much linguistic experience do newborns have?
Taken together, these results indicate that newborn infants are already sensitive for syllabification (as the follow-up experiment suggests) as well as for certain preferences in syllable structure. This leads Gómez et al. to the conclusion "that humans possess early, experience-independent linguistic biases concerning syllable structure that shape language perception and acquisition" (p. 5840). This conjecture, however, is a very bold one. First of all, seeing these preferences as experience-independent presupposes the assumption that newborn infants do not have linguistic experience at all. However, there is evidence that "babies' language learning starts from the womb". In their classic 1986 paper, Anthony DeCasper and Melanie Spence showed that "third-trimester fetuses experience their mothers' speech sounds and that prenatal auditory experience can influence postnatal auditory preferences." Pregnant women were instructed to read aloud a story to their unborn children when they felt that the fetus was awake. In the postnatal phase, the infants' reactions to the same or a different story read by their mother's or another woman's voice were studied by monitoring the newborns' sucking behavior. Apart from the "experienced" infants who had been read the story, a group of "untrained" newborns were used as control subjects. They found that for experienced subjects, the target story was more reinforcing than a novel story, no matter if it was recited by their mother's or a different voice. For the control subjects, by contrast, no difference between the stories could be found. "The only experimental variable that can systematically account for these findings is whether the infants' mothers had recited the target story while pregnant" (DeCasper & Spence 1986: 143).
Continue reading "The Myth of Language Universals at Birth"
Author MichaelPosted on 11 May, 2014 15 May, 2014 Format ImageCategories Evolution, language evolution, Research Blogging3 Comments on The Myth of Language Universals at Birth
On the entangled banks of representations (pt.1)
Lately, I took time out to read through a few papers I'd put on the backburner until after my first year review was completed. Now that's out of the way, I found myself looking through Berwick et al.'s review on Evolution, brain, and the nature of language. Much of the paper manages to pull off the impressive job of making it sound as if the field has arrived on a consensus in areas that are still hotly debated. Still, what I'm interested in for this post is something that is often considered to be far less controversial than it is, namely the notion of mental representations. As an example, Berwick et al. posit that mind/brain-based computations construct mental syntactic and conceptual-intentional representations (internalization), with internal linguistic representations then being mapped onto their ordered output form (externalization). From these premises, the authors then arrive at the reasonable enough assumption that language is an instrument of thought first, with communication taking a secondary role:
In marked contrast, linear sequential order does not seem to enter into the computations that construct mental conceptual-intentional representations, what we call 'internalization'… If correct, this calls for a revision of the traditional Aristotelian notion: language is meaning with sound, not sound with meaning. One key implication is that communication, an element of externalization, is an ancillary aspect of language, not its key function, as maintained by what is perhaps a majority of scholars… Rather, language serves primarily as an internal 'instrument of thought'.
If we take for granted their conclusions, and this is something I'm far from convinced by, there is still the question of whether or not we even need representations in the first place. If you were to read the majority of cognitive science, then the answer is a fairly straight forward one: yes, of course we need mental representations, even if there's no solid definition as to what they are and the form they take in our brain. In fact, the notion of representations has become a major theoretical tenet of modern cognitive science, as evident in the way much of field no longer treats it as a point of contention. The reason for this unquestioning acceptance has its roots in the notion that mental representations enriched an impoverished stimulus: that is, if an organism is facing incomplete data, then it follows that they need mental representations to fill in the gaps.
Continue reading "On the entangled banks of representations (pt.1)"
Author James WintersPosted on 30 September, 2013 30 September, 2013 Categories Developmental Linguistics & Psychology, Ecological Psychology, Research Blogging, Science7 Comments on On the entangled banks of representations (pt.1)
Ways To Protolanguage 3 Conference
Today is the first day of the "Ways to Protolanguage 3" conference. which takes place on 25–26 May in in Wrocław, Poland. The Plenary speakers are Robin Dunbar, Joesp Call, and Peter Gärdenfors
Both Hannah and I are at the conference and we're also live-tweeting about the conference using the hashtag #protolang3
Hannah's just given her talk
Jack J. Wilson, Hannah Little (University of Leeds, UK; Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium) – Emerging languages in esoteric and exoteric niches: evidence from rural sign languages (abstract here)
And I'm due tomorrow.
Michael Pleyer (Heidelberg University, Germany) – Cooperation and constructions: looking at the evolution of language from a usage-based and construction grammar perspective (abstract here)
The Programme can be found here: (Day 1 / Day 2)
Author MichaelPosted on 25 May, 2013 25 May, 2013 Categories Conference, Research Blogging, Science, UncategorizedLeave a comment on Ways To Protolanguage 3 Conference
Sticking the tongue out: Early imitation in infants
Albert Einstein sticking out the tongue to a neonate in an attempt to test their imitation of tongue protrusion.
The nativism-empiricism debate haunts the fields of language acquisition and evolution on more than just one level. How much of children's social and cognitive abilities have to be present at birth, what is acquired through experience, and therefore malleable? Classically, this debate resolves around the poverty of stimulus. How much does a child have to take for granted in her environment, how much can she learn from the input?
Research into imitation has its own version of the poverty of stimulus, the correspondence problem. The correspondence problem can be summed up as follows: when you are imitating someone, you need to know which parts of your body map onto the body of the person you're trying to imitate. If they wiggle their finger, you can establish correspondence by noticing that your hand looks similar to theirs, and that you can do the same movement with it, too. But this is much trickier with parts of your body that are out of your sight. If you want to imitate someone sticking their tongue out, you first have to realise that you have a tongue, too, and how you can move it in such a way that it matches your partner's movements.
Continue reading "Sticking the tongue out: Early imitation in infants"
Author ChristianPosted on 6 April, 2013 6 April, 2013 Categories Research Blogging, UncategorizedTags Associative Sequence Learning, developmental psychology, emulation, imitation, mirror neurons, Nativism, pragmatics4 Comments on Sticking the tongue out: Early imitation in infants
The New Pluralistic Approach
There has been a lot of talk round these parts recently of the merits of pluralistic approaches to problems in language evolution, and condemning the assignment of too much explanatory power to statistical correlations away from other forms of evidence, such as cultural learning experiments. Sean and James recently published a paper about this here which includes some commentary on Hay & Bauer (2007), who find that speaker population size and phoneme inventory size correlate (the more speakers a language has, the bigger its phoneme inventory is). James has blogged about this extensively here. More recently Moran, McCloy & Wright presented a critical analysis of Hay & Bauer's (2007) findings here along with a statistical analysis of their own which uses more languages than Hay & Bauer (2007), and finds little to no correlation between speaker population and various measures of the phonological system, I hope James will do a blog about this as the resident expert.
As I've just mentioned, doing further statistical analysis is one good way of disputing or confirming the results of large scale statistical studies. But turning to experimental evidence is also a good way to back up the findings of statistical results and to tease out patterns of causation. I discuss this briefly here.
Recently, I was reading Selten & Warglien (2007) (mentioned by James here and covered by John Hawks here), which is a study which looks at how simple languages emerge within a coordination task with no initial shared language. The experiment uses pairwise interactions in which participants had to refer to figures which could be distinguished using features on three levels of outer shape, inner shape and colour (see picture). Participants were given a code which had a limited number of letters which they were to use to communicate with one another. However, the use of letters within this code had a cost within the language game the participants were playing, so the less letters they used the higher their score. Also, the more communicatively successful they were, the higher their score.
The study was primarily interested in what enhanced the emergence of structure in this code via the communication game. They looked at the effects of 2 variables, the number of letters available and variability in the set of figures. I am only going to discuss the effects of the first variable here. Selten & Warglien (2007) start off with an experiment where only two (and then three) letters were available which showed very little convergence to a common code. A common code is defined as being a code where the signals for all figures agree between the two participants. However, when given a larger inventory of letters to play with, participants were much more successful at creating a common code. This is not surprising as more symbols permit a higher degree of cost efficiency within the language game as you can use more distinct, shorter expressions. Selten & Warglien (2007) also make the point that the human capability to produce a large variety of phonetic signals seems to be at the root of the emergence of most linguistic structure, because if you only have a small inventory of individual units, you have to rely more on positional structure. Positional systems are systems like the Arabic number notation which are more likely invented rapidly rather than the product of slow emergence via cultural evolution, but can be easily used once they have emerged.
This is all very interesting in its own right, but the reason I brought it up in this post is that Selten & Warglien (2007) have shown that you can experimentally explore the effects of the size of inventory on an artificial language in a laboratory setting. I know that the natural direction of causation is to assume that demographic structure (e.g. the size of a population) affects the linguistic structure (e.g. the size of the phoneme inventory), but it might be possible to see whether a common code can be more easily reached within a small language community using only a small number of phonemes, than with a larger speaker community. I'm also not sure how one might create an experimental proxy for size of population in an experiment such as this (perhaps repeated interaction between the same participants compared with interaction within changing pairs). It might also be possible to look at the effects that the size of inventory can have on other linguistic features that have been hypothesised to correlate with population size, e.g. how regular the compositional structure of an emerging language is given difference inventory sizes.
Hay, J., & Bauer, L. (2007). Phoneme inventory size and population size Language, 83 (2), 388-400 DOI: 10.1353/lan.2007.0071
Roberts, S. & Winters, J. (2012). Social Structure and Language Structure: the New Nomothetic Approach. Psychology of Language and Communication, 16(2), pp. 79-183. Retrieved 12 Feb. 2013, from doi:10.2478/v10057-012-0008-6
Selten, R., & Warglien, M. (2007). The emergence of simple languages in an experimental coordination game Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104 (18), 7361-7366 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0702077104
Author HannahPosted on 12 February, 2013 Categories language evolution, Research BloggingLeave a comment on The New Pluralistic Approach
Is ambiguity dysfunctional for communicatively efficient systems?
Based on yesterday's post, where I argued degeneracy emerges as a design solution for ambiguity pressures, a Reddit commentator pointed me to a cool paper by Piantadosi et al (2012) that contained the following quote:
The natural approach has always been: Is [language] well designed for use, understood typically as use for communication? I think that's the wrong question. The use of language for communication might turn out to be a kind of epiphenomenon… If you want to make sure that we never misunderstand one another, for that purpose language is not well designed, because you have such properties as ambiguity. If we want to have the property that the things that we usually would like to say come out short and simple, well, it probably doesn't have that property (Chomsky, 2002: 107).
The paper itself argues against Chomsky's position by claiming ambiguity allows for more efficient communication systems. First of all, looking at ambiguity from the perspective of coding theory, Piantadosi et al argue that any good communication system will leave out information already in the context (assuming the context is informative about the intended meaning). Their other point, and one which they test through a corpus analysis of English, Dutch and German, suggests that as long as there are some ambiguities the context can resolve, then ambiguity will be used to make communication easier. In short, ambiguity emerges as a result of tradeoffs between ease of production and ease of comprehension, with communication systems favouring hearer inference over speaker effort:
The essential asymmetry is: inference is cheap, articulation expensive, and thus the design requirements are for a system that maximizes inference. (Hence … linguistic coding is to be thought of less like definitive content and more like interpretive clue.) (Levinson, 2000: 29).
If this asymmetry exists, and hearers are good at disambiguating in context, then a direct result of such a tradeoff should be that linguistic units which require less effort should be more ambiguous. This is what they found in results from their corpus analysis of word length, word frequency and phonotactic probability:
We tested predictions of this theory, showing that words and syllables which are more efficient are preferentially re-used in language through ambiguity, allowing for greater ease overall. Our regression on homophones, polysemous words, and syllables – though similar – are theoretically and statistically independent. We therefore interpret positive results in each as strong evidence for the view that ambiguity exists for reasons of communicative efficiency (Piantadosi et al., 2012: 288).
At some point, I'd like to offer a more comprehensive overview of this paper, but this will have to wait until I've read more of the literature. Until then, here's some graphs of the results from their paper:
Continue reading "Is ambiguity dysfunctional for communicatively efficient systems?"
Author James WintersPosted on 14 November, 2012 14 November, 2012 Categories Research Blogging, ScienceLeave a comment on Is ambiguity dysfunctional for communicatively efficient systems?


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https://www.sfgate.com/warriors/article/Andre-Iguodala-durant-klay-knicks-warriors-14039440.php
Andre Iguodala says he's been in contact with Kevin Durant, trolls Knicks fans about free agency
By Eric Ting, SFGATE
The Warriors' Kevin Durant slaps hands with teammate Andre Iguodala.
Andre Iguodala believes both Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson will re-sign with the Golden State Warriors in the coming weeks, and couldn't stop himself from taking a jab at New York Knicks fans who have been drooling over Durant since last fall.
During a Monday appearance on CNBC's "Power Lunch," Iguodala said he's been in contact with Thompson and Durant, and "apologized" to Knicks fans.
"I think they'll both be back with the Golden State Warriors," he said. "We're like brothers, we keep in contact, but regardless of any of that, if both did decide to leave they would still be my brother. I would still keep in contact with them as much as possible. I'm just wishing the best for those guys and they come back full strength."
RELATED: Warriors GM to meet soon with Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson
"Nobody's going to the Knicks, sorry."@andre is keeping it real with the city of New York pic.twitter.com/oWP0DcLTPd
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) June 24, 2019
After being told he was crushing the hopes of Knicks fans, Iguodala laughed and said, "Nobody is going to the Knicks, sorry."
He may be right.
There was a time in the spring when it looked like the Knicks could have a trio of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Zion Williamson leading the team back to relevance next season, but now there's a good chance they get none of the three.
The Knicks missed out on Williamson after losing the NBA Draft lottery to the New Orleans Pelicans, and according to multiple reports, Kyrie Irving is "expected" to sign with the Brooklyn Nets when free agency opens next week. That would leave only Durant available for the Knicks, although Irving is reportedly trying to convince Durant to sign with the Nets instead.
ALSO: Warriors add Jimmer Fredette to summer league team
On Monday, Brooklyn became betting favorites at Caesars Palace to land the former MVP, with oddsmakers giving them -125 odds of signing him away from the Warriors.
The Warriors are given the second-best odds at +200, and are followed by the Knicks and Los Angeles Clippers at +500 and +800, respectively.
Free agents can begin negotiating with interested teams on June 30.
Eric Ting is an SFGATE staff writer. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting
Start receiving breaking news emails on floods, wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Etoposide treats testicular cancer and a certain type of lung cancer. Etoposide can cause sores in the mouth and throat.
Etoposide is a prescription medication used to treat small cell lung cancer and testicular cancer. Etoposide belongs to a group of drugs called podophyllotoxin derivatives, which slow or stop the growth of cancer cells.
This medication comes as a capsule and is taken by mouth. It is usually taken once a day for 4 or 5 days in a row. This cycle may be repeated once every 3 to 4 weeks, depending on your response to the medication.
This medication comes in an injectable form to be given directly into a vein (IV) by a healthcare provider. It is usually given in cycles, once a day or every other day, for up to 5 days.
Some of the common side effects of etoposide include nausea, vomiting, hairloss, and low counts of certain blood cells.
How was your experience with Etopofos?
What tips would you provide a friend before taking Etopofos?
What are you taking Etopofos for?
How well did Etopofos work for you?
How likely would you be to recommend Etopofos to a friend?
Etoposide is a prescription medication used to treat cancer of the testicles that has not improved or that has worsened after surgery and treatment with other medications and radiation therapy. Etoposide is also approved to treat small cell lung cancer (SCLC).
Etoposide is used in combination with other chemotherapy medications.
E.R. Squibb & Sons, L.L.C.
Etoposide may cause serious and potentially life-threatening side effects. See "Etoposide Precautions."
This is not a complete list of etoposide side effects. Ask your doctor or pharmacist for more information.
This is not a complete list of etoposide drug interactions. Ask your doctor or pharmacist for more information.
Etoposide can affect the ability of the bone marrow to produce red and white blood cells as well as platelets, potentially leading to serious side effects such as anemia, infections, and bleeding. Your doctor will order laboratory tests regularly before and during your treatment.
Abnormally low blood pressure can occur if this medication is administered too quickly. Signs of low blood pressure include dizziness and fainting.
Etoposide may increase the risk that you will develop other cancers.
Medicines can interact with certain foods. In some cases, this may be harmful and your doctor may advise you to avoid certain foods. In the case of etoposide there are no specific foods that you must exclude from your diet when receiving Toposar.
This medication falls into category D. Etoposide may harm your unborn baby and is generally not recommended for use in pregnant women. In some circumstances, the benefits of this medication to the woman may outweigh the possible risks to the unborn baby.
If you become pregnant while receiving etoposide, tell your doctor right away.
Tell your doctor if you are breastfeeding. It is not known if etoposide is excreted in human breastmilk or if it will harm your nursing baby.
Etoposide comes as a capsule and is taken by mouth. It is usually taken once a day for 4 or 5 days in a row. This cycle may be repeated once every 3 to 4 weeks, depending on your response. The length of treatment depends on the types of drugs you are taking, how well your body responds to them, and the type of cancer you have.
Take etoposide at around the same time(s) every day. Follow the directions on your prescription label carefully. Take etoposide exactly as directed. Do not take more or less of it or take it more often than prescribed by your doctor.
Etoposide is a liquid medication that is infused (slowly injected into a vein) by a healthcare provider in a medical facility, in combination with other chemotherapy medicines. The infusions usually last 30 to 60 minutes. Etoposide is usually given in cycles - once a day or every other day for five days, followed by a three or four week break. The number of cycles you receive will be determined by your healthcare provider.
If you are experiencing potentially serious side effects, your doctor may reduce your dosage or interrupt your therapy.
For example: two times 35 mg/m2/day for 4 days to 50 mg/m2/day for 5 days.
The etoposide dosage is highly individualized and is based on the cancer being treated, your height and weight, how well your body responds to the medication, and other medications and other medical conditions you have.
The etoposide dose ranges from 50 to 100 mg per m² a day for 5 days to 100 mg per m² a day every other day for 3 doses (days 1, 3, and 5 of a treatment cycle).
The etoposide dose ranges from 35 mg per m² a day for 4 days to 50 mg per m² a day for 5 days.
Doses are reduced in patients with kidney disease.
Etoposide capsules must be stored under refrigeration 2° to 8°C (36° to 46°F).
The capsules are stable for 36 months under such refrigeration conditions.
Keep this and all other medications out of the reach of children.
Keep all infusion and laboratory appointments and notifiy your doctor right away if you have to reschedule an appointment. Etoposide works best if given on schedule.
Etoposide should be administered under the supervision of a qualified physician experienced in the use of cancer chemotherapeutic agents. Severe myelosuppression with resulting infection or bleeding may occur.


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Home/BizNEWS/Tucson Police Chief Receives National Leadership Award
Tucson Police Chief Receives National Leadership Award
BizTUCSON October 27, 2020
The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) has announced that it will present its 2020 Leadership Award to Tucson, AZ Chief of Police Chris Magnus.
PERF's Leadership Award is presented annually to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of law enforcement, and who exemplify the highest principles and standards of true leaders in policing on a national level. (In addition to Chief Magnus, two other people will receive the 2020 Leadership Award: Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo and Pinellas County, FL Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.)
During his time in Tucson, as well as his earlier service as police chief in Richmond, CA and Fargo, ND, Chief Magnus has created new programs that serve as models for police agencies across the country, such as the following:
The importance of first-line supervisors: Chief Magnus recognizes that sergeants play an important role in the daily work of policing. In Tucson, when police officers qualify for promotion to sergeant, they are sent to a 40-hour Sergeants Academy before they are promoted. Each day of this training begins with lessons on leadership, team-building, and tactical leadership. The training consists mostly of scenario-based exercises, where aspiring sergeants demonstrate how they would handle incidents such as a suicide-by-cop situation, an unruly person at a bar, a hit-and-run traffic incident with a fleeing suspect, etc.
Tucson police lieutenants and sergeants evaluate the aspiring sergeants' performance in the scenarios, discussing what went well and what needs improvement. This program is innovative in another way: The Sergeants Academy invites community members to volunteer to do role- playing in the scenario training exercises. A cadre of 30 community members regularly participate. This provides an additional benefit of giving community members insight into the work of policing. This program was detailed in a 2018 PERF report.
Police accountability and reform: In 2020, Chief Magnus launched a new process for evaluating critical incidents called the Sentinel Event Review Board. This Board is designed to conduct a process similar to the National Transportation Safety Board's review of transportation accidents. Its goal is not to consider criminal charges or assign blame to individuals, but rather to
1120 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 930 Washington, DC 20036 202-466-7820 TTY: 202-466-2670 www.policeforum.org
identify underlying systemic weaknesses in policies, training, or practices. The Board recently released its first report, which identified 32 contributing factors that led to the deaths of two men in Tucson police custody.
Officer wellness: Chief Magnus has been a forward-thinking leader on issues that are beginning to receive widespread national attention. While Chief in Fargo more than 15 years ago, Magnus created a Peer Assistance Counseling Team to provide critical incident stress debriefing and peer counseling to officers. Chief Magnus understands the value of people and the need to provide them support and services to thrive.
"Despite his many groundbreaking achievements, Chris is kind and humble," said Retired Police Chief Fred Fletcher, who nominated Magnus for the Leadership Award. "He has an unshakeable inner strength, deep compassion, and unwavering moral compass, and he never hesitates to promote what's right or to call out what's wrong, even when it would be easier to avoid those conversations. He considers honest conversations about difficult topics essential to his role as police chief."
PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler noted that Chief Magnus's leadership in Richmond, CA was critically important to that city. "Chris took a department that had strained relations with the community and rebuilt it as a model for community engagement. He also focused like a laser on crime rates, establishing a COMPSTAT-style model that contributed to a drop in homicides, from 49 in 2007 to 11 in 2014. Richmond has a significantly different police department today than when Chris started there. He showed with can be done with leadership and determination."
The Leadership Award will be presented to Chief Magnus at PERF's Virtual Town Hall Meeting on October 20. The Award has been presented every year since 1984. Recent recipients include retired Denver Police Chief Robert White; former Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck; former Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole; and Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown.
The Police Executive Research Forum is a Washington, D.C.-based national organization of executives from city, county and state law enforcement agencies; federal agency officials; academics; and others with an interest in criminal justice issues. PERF is dedicated to improving policing and advancing professionalism through research and involvement in public policy debate. For additional information, go to www.policeforum.org.
Patio Pools & Spas Brings Poolwerx to Oro Valley
Raytheon Systems at Heart of Successful Warship Test


No, you do not need a big fund . Usually a Mutual Fund has a minimum investment requirement, but the amount is relatively small compared to many portfolios. Usually the minimum requirement for every decrement in between is IDR 500,000 until IDR 5,000,000.


In this episode of the PopMatters Progcast, we reflect on our top albums of 2017, as well as discuss some of the major releases arriving this year.
The next 12 months offer superb new releases from several genre heavyweights.
Forthcoming releases from Steven Wilson, Neal Morse, and many others highlight what is bound to be an excellent year for progressive rock.
Many diehard prog rock enthusiasts dismiss modern bands as inferior imitators. These three releases prove there are still a few visionaries out there.


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LBA-ECO TG-07 Forest Soil P, C, and N Pools, km 83 Site, Tapajos National Forest
This data set reports phosphorus (P), carbon (C), and nitrogen (N) nutrient pool concentrations for forest soils and roots and P pool concentrations for forest floor litter, soil solutions, and microbial extracts. Soils samples were also extracted using the Hedley sequential fractionation method and the extracts analyzed for P. Nutrient pool concentrations are presented on an areal basis of 1 hectare to a depth of 10 cm, as calculated from soil bulk densities and respective pool biomass quantities. There is one comma-delimited ASCII file with this data set. These measurements were made during a soil P addition fertilization experiment conducted at the km 83 site, Tapajos National Forest, Para, Brazil. Control and fertilized plots were established in both sandy loam and clay soils. Soil cores were collected every 4 months from August 1999 through April 2000 (McGroddy et al. 2008).
BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES
McGroddy, M.E. 2012. LBA-ECO TG-07 Forest Soil P, C, and N Pools, km 83 Site, Tapajos National Forest. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1085
TG07_Soil_Nutrients.pdf


If you want to improve and win the casino games, then you should know about different tips and tricks so that you can bring out the best for you. Here in the further paragraphs, we will talk about some of the information in which you will find some tricks and tips which will help you to win the casino games. So those who want to go with the casino gambling can take help from the information and can make their gambling better. There is some new online casino which is helpful in letting you gamble properly with having better features also. It is up to you that which site you will pick. So let's start talking about the tips and tricks to win the games.
It is the most important and primary thing which you have to learn when you will go with the online casino gambling. You should have patience in you so that you will be able to decide that what is right for you and what is not. At the time, when you will start losing the match continuously, you have to be patient with the game and stop playing. Wait for that time when the time will also be in favor with you, and for that, you have to be patient.
Playing with your own mind and thinking is common but if you want to win the match then try to play with the mind of the opponent. You should set out next move on the basis of the thinking of your opponent. Keep a rain check on your opponent's moves so that you can understand his strategy and what the next bid he is going to place.


The earliest box office predictions for Star Wars: The Last Jedi have the anticipated sequel pegged for $215 million in its first three days, which would be the second-highest opening weekend of all-time. Unsurprisingly, the big screen revival of the galaxy far, far away (which started in 2015 with The Force Awakens) has proven to be quite lucrative for Lucasfilm, with both Episode VII and spinoff Rogue One crossing the coveted $1 billion mark worldwide. In the Golden Age of superhero cinema, the galaxy far, far away is the only franchise that can best the Avengers and the Justice League, with the last two years seeing a Star Wars film top the domestic charts.
That streak will most likely continue in 2017, as The Last Jedi is poised to dominate the holiday season. The hype for writer/director Rian Johnson's film has reached a fever pitch - especially with the release of the latest theatrical trailer. Tickets for the blockbuster are already on sale, with eager fans securing their seats well in advance so they don't get sold out. This fervent demand to see the Skywalker saga continue means Episode VIII should make a pretty penny when it finally opens, and now we know what kind of numbers Lucasfilm is looking at.
Per Box Office Pro, the long range forecast for The Last Jedi indicates it will make $215 million in its opening weekend. While this will come up short of topping the whopping $247.9 million posted by The Force Awakens (an unprecedented movie event that will likely never be beat commercially), studio executives won't be complaining. Should this projection prove true, Star Wars 8 would be just the fourth film in history to cross $200 million in one weekend and knock Jurassic World from the #2 position on the all-time chart. This figure would also be considerably higher than Rogue One, which debuted to the tune of $155 million last December.
It doesn't take an experienced box office analyst to figure out why $215 million is very much in the realm of possibility. Star Wars continues to be one of the biggest brands in the pop culture zeitgeist, drawing much interest from both die-hard fans and casual moviegoers. The Last Jedi is the direct followup to Force Awakens, which currently holds the title of highest-grossing film domestically ($936.6 million). Ever since 2015, viewers have been speculating about a number of topics, including Rey's heritage, what happened to Luke Skywalker, and the truth behind Supreme Leader Snoke. With Episode VIII answering many of these questions, people won't want to miss out on the event. This sadly is also the last time fans can see Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa, following the actress' tragic passing late last year. Films that went through similar experiences, like The Dark Knight and Furious 7, broke records upon their release, so there's a strong chance the Fisher situation impacts The Last Jedi in the same way.
Also helping Star Wars 8 (as if it needed more assistance), is the fact that it faces minimal competition. Animated film Ferdinand has the bad fortune of taking Last Jedi on head-to-head and won't pose much of a challenge. It will also be the first major studio tentpole in theaters after Justice League in November, so it will be able to monopolize its target demographic and dominate the marketplace. Whichever way one skews it, The Last Jedi is sitting in the driver's seat to be the biggest film of the year.


text:
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# annotations
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Rhona isn't up for it when passion strikes as Pierce, once again, plays rough with her. When she points out to her boyfriend that she's not keen on his aggressive advances, how will he react?
At the Dingles', Cain is upset – who's got him in a such a funk?
It's Ashley's last night at home prior to going into full-time care. Lashing out at his loved ones, the vicar, who has dementia, claims he's being booted out of his own house. After a last supper together at Mulberry as a family unit, Laurel sobs as she takes on the enormity of what's about to happen.
When Rakesh stands up to Nicola, Priya's impressed by her husband's chutzpah and considers giving their marriage a second shot.


text:
@interface UIImage (QuickImage)

+ (UIImage *)imageWithColor:(UIColor *)color;

@end


text:
Testicle Eating Fish
Now this is a scary story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/11/pacu-testicle-biting-fish-spotted-scandinavia_n_3739478.html
"If you're going swimming in Scandinavia, wear your trunks -- no ifs, ands or nuts.
Authorities are warning skinny dippers about the Pacu, a fish similar to the piranha that really enjoys cracking nuts with its strong jaws. They've also been known to mistake testicles for something nice and crunchy, and they're strong enough to take off a finger.
Fisherman discovered the horrifying little creature, which is native to South America, in the Danish/Swedish strait of Oresund, CNN reports. The Pacu can grow to 55 pounds, has giant teeth and looks angry, but is usually the more friendly cousin of the piranha. That is, until it sees a testicle.
Experts at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, who were notified of the Pacu sighting, warn: "Anyone choosing to bathe in the Oresund these days had best keep their swimsuits well tied."
Locals in Papua New Guinea say they have firsthand knowledge of a fatal testicle bite. Two fisherman are said to have died of blood loss after a Pacu chomped off their testicles, according to Metro. That said, such attacks are uncommon.
Last year, two Pacus were reportedly spotted in Lake Lou Yaeger in Illinois. Officials think amateur exotic fish collectors are the ones releasing their pets into waters where they don't belong. Anyone caught dumping exotic fish can be criminally charged.
It's unclear how the fish got into Scandinavian waters."
Cypress Point Golf Club
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Hidden Valley Golf Course
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Rush Limbaugh and the F Word
The Moab Love Triangle
Some Favorite Movies


The digital publishing industry has seen a 48% rise in the use of Ad Blocking software in the last 12 months, and Apple is clearly now embracing the technology for its mobile devices. Some major online publishers are reporting a 25% decrease in the revenue from traditional advertising and for some smaller publishers and blog owners, the whole commercial footing of their sites is at risk.
Many are turning to other methods of paying their way and introducing branded content or offering targeted complementary merchandise to support their work. The problem with merchandise is that many site owners don't have the physical facilities or skills to provide a wide enough or relevant range of products.
www.ekkiekki.com was launched in 2015, by the company behind several successful e-commerce brands and already has multiple partners generating substantial additional revenue. The advantages of the EKKI approach are the speed of set-up, the range of products and the merchandising platform behind the proposition. A publisher can choose from over 20,000 available products – many of which can be specific to their readers' interests and the store can be set up within hours.
The EKKI team look after all fulfilment and customer service and then share the revenue from the transactions. Unlike an affiliate arrangement, the website owner controls the branding, the product range, the pricing and also several other important aspects of the store.
This entry was posted in Articles, Press Release. Bookmark the permalink.


Tiny Growl was established in January, 2008. During my daily walks with my dog Riley, two things always came to mind – that there had to be a better way to deal with the inevitable task of picking up dog poop and that once picked up, there must be a nicer way to finish your walk, without having to carry that nasty bag in your hand. So, I invented TheScooPup Pocket. After spending the past two decades in film, video and television production, I decided to follow my heart, and my passion for dogs and enter into the world of pet product manufacturing.
1) One dollar from every ScooPup Pocket sold is donated to those animal welfare charities who are making a positive difference in the lives of dogs in need.
2) Using the ScooPup Pocket means that you are being respectful to your neighbors and to your environment.


The UNSW Business School in collaboration with the Social Impact Hub are offering students an opportunity to undertake the COMM3030 Social Entrepreneurship Practicum at The Social Impact Hub enabling students to put their business skills and knowledge to use in planning and implementing a real project in a field of social impact. Your team will be supervised by an expert in the field who is focused both on the project work and helping you to develop your consulting and business skills.
COMM3030 SIH Sydney is offered in intensive mode over the summer, T1, T2 and T3 for 2019. Students are required to attend the Social Impact Hub and work with a social enterprise or not-for-profit organisation on a real-world project in a field of social impact such as a social enterprise development, impact investing, impact measurement, philanthropy and human rights. You will gain invaluable practical experience while making a positive difference at the same time!
This course may count as a Business School free elective, OR as a major elective within some schools. It is recommended you complete a progression check prior to enrolling.
COMM3030 is also a General Education course for students from other Faculties.


text:
Батюки — етнографічна група українців, що компактно живуть в околицях  Яворова, Угнова, Рави-Руської, Жовкви та Городка. На півночі вони межують з волинянами-бужанами, на півдні- з ополянами, на схід від Яворова граничать з вересюками, а на заході- з долинянами. Батюцький говір є частиною опільського.

Назва
Відомий український мовознавець та етнограф Іван Верхратський вважав, що назву свою батюки отримали від майже скрізь менш або більш вживаного слова "батько". У підтвердження цьому він наводить паралелі з іншими етнонімами мешканців Галичини: бемки (назва походить від розмовного "бем" замість "будемо"), юкавці (названі через те, що кажуть "ю" замість "уже", "вже"), бойки (від вживаної частки "бо є") тощо.

Особливості говору
Говір батюків лиш незначною мірою відрізняється від загального опільського. Зокрема, можна виділити декілька значущих рис:

1) Слова, що починаються з голосної літери, найчастіше отримують придих [в] або [г] (рідко [л]): вобід, вобраз, вовес, воко, вунук, вухо, вутроба, гинчий, гиржа, готава, лотава, локунь;

2) [й е] або ['і] замість [й а],  ['а], [а]: пшеницє, молодицє, телє, чаплі, поті;

3) Старослов'янській сполуці лъ відповідає сполука ло, котра часом переходить в лу : блоха, блуха; або ле: слеза; або ли: лижка, або оў: жоўтий, доўбати;

4) Старослов'янському ръ відповідає рі: дріва;

5) [й е] та [е] в іменниках середнього роду: зілє, здоровлє, волосє, насінє, збіже;

6) [ц] замість [ц'] в кінці деяких слів: хлопец, воробец;

7) [р] замість первинного [а р'] в кінці іменника: косар, бондар;

8) В прикметниках, що закінчуються на -ськ, -цьк, звуки [с] та [ц] не пом'якшуються: руский, німецкий.

Джерела
 Іван Верхратський. Говір Батюків — Львів: Наукове товариство ім. Шевченка, 1912.
 Володимир Кубійович, Зенон Кузеля. Енциклопедія українознавства — Мюнхен: Наукове Товариство ім. Шевченка, 1949-1952.

Етнографічні групи українців

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
5 Subtle Ways Climate Change Can Affect Your Finances
Climate Change, Finances
According to research, the Earth's annual average near-surface temperature for each year between 2022 and 2026 is predicted to be between 1.1°C and 1.7°C higher than pre-industrial levels (the average over the years 1850-1900)[1].
We've already discussed at length the many ways climate change affects us all.
But it may surprise you that climate change is also bad for your savings.
Here are five ways that climate change can affect your finances.
#1: Higher Electricity Bills For Cooler Rooms
The World Bank reported that: "Between 1970-2013, Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak experienced surface mean temperature increases of 0.14-0.25°C per decade.
Surface maximum temperatures increased by 0.17-0.22°C per decade during the same period, while surface minimum temperatures increased by 0.20-0.32°C per decade".[2]
And surface temperature mapping conducted by Think City has shown that things have only gotten hotter since. Kuala Lumpur, for example, experienced a rise in temperature from 29.40 degree Celsius (°C) at its highest in 1989 to 31.04°C in October 2019[3].
Suffice it to say, this will all lead to more expensive electricity bills, as we increase our air conditioner usage. This, in turn, will lead to a greater demand for energy that prompts power plants to burn more fossil fuels to meet this demand, adding more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as a consequence of a vicious cycle.
At the end of last year, the price of coal surged to US$200 (RM846) per tonne, up from around US$50 per tonne in mid-2020; by the end of May 2022, coal prices had risen to US$434 per tonne, with coal accounting for 59% of Malaysia's key source of electricity generation[4].
(Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB)) has to make sure the business is sustainable (as a corporate entity), but I hope there will be some form of targeted subsidies for the bottom 40 (B40) group with regards to the electricity tariff. – Ahmed Razman Abdul Latiff, Putra Business School economic analyst[4]
#2: Costly Damage Cause By Floods
Source: The Straits Times
With rising temperatures come changes in the weather, leading to more frequent rainstorms and flash floods.
Though once considered to be 'one-every-100-year' events, it is clear that these floods have become more frequent in recent years. In 2021, the Klang Valley experienced one of the worst floods in recent history on December 17 and 18, after two-day continuous rainfall, followed by (minor) floods on March 7 and April 25, 2022[5].
Living in KL is not relevant anymore. It floods after rain, I am wasting my life in traffic. Living costs are high. It is causing so much stress that it may turn into burnout. We want a long life. – Syamil Yusri, Twitter user[6]
Recovering from flood damage is an expensive endeavour. The floods of mid-December and early January, for example, have caused an estimated RM6.1 billion (S$1.97 billion) in overall losses, according to a government report on Friday (Jan 28th). The Department of Statistics has further stated damage to public assets and infrastructure caused losses of RM2 billion, followed by RM1.6 billion in damage to homes[7].
Floods and other natural disasters resulted in damages to Malaysia amounting to RM8 billion, equivalent to 15.5 Equanimity yachts (based on Genting Malaysia Bhd's purchase price of RM514 million), with the average damage suffered over the last two decades amounting to 0.13% of GDP[8].
It took more than 20 years to build up the business, but within a few hours, everything was gone. It will take time to recover. – Tommy Ng, store-owner in Taman Sri Muda whose business was affected by the December 2021 floods[9]
Indeed, about 73% of the damage suffered by Malaysia over the past 20 years from natural disasters was due to floods. And in the last two decades, floods have affected over 770,000 people in the country[8].
#3: Rise In Insurance Premiums
With the damaging repercussions of natural disasters, many are looking to get insured and safeguard their properties. And with the flood risk in Malaysia expected to rise by 65% in the next 50 years, more people are turning to get insured against damages[10]. While most insurers will be fair, others will likely raise their premiums to compensate for higher environment-related risks.
In its report on property insurance, Swiss Re forecasted that premiums will rise 22% by 2040 owing to weather-related catastrophes[11].
Even health costs will rise with higher temperatures leading to health problems such as heatstroke, respiratory diseases and mosquito-borne illnesses.
For those who often work outside, be careful if the weather is too hot. The risks from a high temperature or heatwave include dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heatstroke which can worsen a person's health condition. – Muhammad Helmi Abdullah, Director-general of the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia)[12]
Between 2030 and 2050, WHO estimates climate change to cause about 250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress. The direct damage costs to health are expected to be between US$2 billion (RM9.15 billion) and US$4 billion (RM18.3 billion) a year by 2030[13].
#4: Income Loss For Some, Particularly Farmers
Farmer Naviin Thiagarajan grows long beans, cucumbers and okra in his farm in Kota Tinggi. (Photo: CNA/Amir Yusof)/Source: CNA
Climate change won't just hurt the planet but also our jobs and incomes.
Climate change won't just hurt the planet but also our jobs and incomes. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) of the UN, climate change will result in thermal stress that will result in an economic loss of USD 2.400 trillion (RM109.92 trillion) and 80 million jobs worldwide by 2030[14].
Malaysia's rural farmers are already bearing the brunt of this problem.
Farmers like Naviin Thiagarajan have strict planting seasons, based on an understanding of decades-long established weather patterns, for vegetables like long beans, okra and cucumbers, rotating between the different crops across the rainy and hot seasons. But climate change is throwing those seasonal patterns off, causing these once reliable plans to fall into disarray[15].
From last year (2021) onwards, we started to see how unpredictable the weather has become. And over the last month, the weather has truly epitomised what I have read about climate change. – Naviin Thiagarajan, a vegetable farmer[15]
Heavy rainfall led to devastating floods in Johor, destroying many crop fields. While long dry periods with no rain in sight had also resulted in significant losses, Naviin recounts that he'd lost all 2,000 of his cucumber plants to the intense heat[15].
The floods have of course destroyed many crops. But the last two weeks of no rain and high temperatures have been just as bad. I planted 2,000 cucumbers and all of them died because of the heat. – Naviin Thiagarajan, a vegetable farmer[15]
#5: Rise In Food Prices
Food security is a problem caused by climate change and will lead to malnutrition and based on findings by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Malaysia has one of the highest malnutrition rates in the ASEAN region. – Dr Milton Lum, past president of the Federation of Private Medical Associations[16]
A decline in the yields of staple crops like rice and vegetables will lead to shortages and rising prices. Such is the case in 2021 when heavier-than-usual monsoon rain badly affected vegetable farmers in Cameron Highlands. The poorer harvest led to the price of vegetables increasing between 30 and 40% in 2021[17].
The heavy rains simply make it unsuitable for vegetables to grow. The fertilisers are washed away and the roots are exposed, the extra moisture makes them susceptible to rot, and they do not get enough sunshine to grow. – Chay Ee Mong, Cameron Highlands Vegetable Growers Association secretary[17]
This is especially troublesome for B40 communities who will now find it more difficult to afford a healthy, balanced diet and thus resort to processed foods to get by.
We used to have meat at least once every one or two weeks when both of us were working. But now, we only have it on special occasions like Deepavali. Even chicken or fish is once in a while. – Sushila M., housewife and babysitter[18]
Explore our sources
MyPF. (2022). 6 ways climate change can affect your finances. FMT. Link.
Dr M. Lum. (2022). The effects of climate change in Malaysia. The Star. Link.
Think City. (2021). Surface temperature mapping shows Malaysian cities are getting hotter. Construction+. Link.
Bernama. (2022). Electricity tariff hike inevitable amid rising costs, say economists. FMT. Link.
A. Yeo. (2022). Will Kuala Lumpur become the next flooding city like Jakarta? Emir Research. Link.
M. Kaur. (2022). Social media users rage over another flash flood in KL. Sinar Daily. Link.
Reuters. (2022). Malaysia floods caused nearly $2 billion in losses. The Straits Time. Link.
The Edge. (2019). Climate change in Malaysia a costly phenomenon. Link.
R.S. Bedi. (2022). 'Rebuilding not going to be easy': Malaysia's recent floods caused extensive damage and economic losses. CNA. Link.
N.H. Azman. (2022). Flood risk expected to increase 65% on climate change. The Malaysian Reserve. Link.
AFP. (2021). Climate change fuelling surge in property insurance: Swiss Re. New Straits Times. Link.
S. Halid. (2022). Hot weather to stay until May. New Straits Times. Link.
R. Ravimalar. (2022). Health: Public healthcare in the spotlight. The Edge. Link.
L. Schlein. (2019). ILO: Climate Change Will Lead to Huge Job, Economic Losses. VOA. Link.
A. Yusof. (2022). 'All 2,000 cucumbers died': Shortage of vegetables, durians from Johor as crops destroyed by floods and heat. Channel News Asia. Link.
Bernama. (2022). M'sia needs to establish independent commission on climate change. New Straits Times. Link.
V. Tan. (2021). Price hike of vegetables in Malaysia due to weather, labour shortage and production costs, say, farmers. Channel News Asia. Link.
W. Li Za & M. Teoh. (2022). Urban poor Malaysians forced to skip meals, sacrifice nutrition due to rising food costs. The Star. Link.
Stories You May Also Like:
6 Horrible Realities Faced By Unwed Mothers And Their Children In Malaysia
Daylight Scams: Bogus Health Products A Big Hit Among Malaysians
ESG Uptake, Increase In Eco-tourism And Other Environmental And Sustainability Trends In 2023
9 Malaysian Who Don't Mince Their Words And Fights For Those Who Can't
Malaysians Want To Use Playgrounds, Parks and Recreational Areas, But Who Takes Care Of Them?
A Muddy Mess That Can Turn Fatal - The Truth About Landslides in Malaysia
7 Things You Need To Know About The New UN Biodiversity Agreement Signed By 190 Countries
Good News: A Gift Of A Healthy Heart And Five More Hopeful Stories
The Golden Era of Cameron Highlands Is Over Because Of Climate Change
Does Malaysia Need To Declare A Climate Emergency?


Outside, the cottage has a garden with patio picnic table and a small, private courtyard area at the back, both with garden dining furniture. This area of North/West Norfolk is now renowned for its superb restaurants and standards of cuisine - a must for foodies!
From A148 B1153/55 or B1355.
24 miles bus from Kings Lynn station.


The different action of NSL and MSL complexes on ES cells genome.
Mof-associated complexes have overlapping and unique roles in regulating pluripotency in embryonic stem cells and during differentiation.
Ravens S(1), Fournier M(1), Ye T(2), Stierle M(1), Dembele D(2), Chavant V(3), Tora L(1).
The team of Laszlo Tora has just highlighted the roles of an enzyme, MOF, in both complexes MSL and NSL, in the growth and differentiation of embryonic stem cells. Published in the journal eLife on June 4th 2014, these results push the frontiers of knowledge on these cells with a very great therapeutic potential.
Embryonic stem cells are "pluripotent" cells derived from an early embryo. Actually, they are able to differentiate into multiple cells with radically different functions (neurons, muscle or skin cells, etc.). Their therapeutic potential is huge, since this property would give them the power to regenerate or repair damaged or diseased organs, which explains the current enthusiasm of researchers to better understand the special features of these cells.
In this new study, the team of Laszlo Tora focused on the MOF enzyme, already known to be essential for embryonic stem cells, both for the maintenance of pluripotency, but also to trigger their differentiation into specialized cells. This enzyme is a subunit of two protein complexes, MSL and NSL. The researchers got interested in the respective roles of these two complexes in the maintenance of embryonic stem cells and their differentiation. With the technique of ChIP-seq, researchers were able to determine the binding sites of these complexes throughout the genome of stem cells, comparing them with the modulation of expression of downstream genes. They demonstrated that they had an action on common sites but that their binding was mainly localized on different genes. Thus, the researchers found that NSL primarily bound on the constituent genes (genes expressed in the same way in all cells of an organism), while MSL stimulated more genes involved in differentiation. Moreover, they showed that NSL was fixed exclusively on promoters while MSL more targeted the middle of genes.
This study provides new evidence for the understanding and control of embryonic stem cells and suggests new hopes for the use of these cells for therapeutic purposes.


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text:
Hoda Kotb named new 'Today' co-anchor
Meghan Giannotta
"There's no one I would rather be sitting next to in 2018 …"
Hoda Kotb has taken over Matt Lauer's role as co-anchor of "Today," just over one month after the longtime host was fired from his post at the morning show for "inappropriate sexual behavior."
"We are kicking off the year right because Hoda is officially the co-anchor of 'Today,' " Savannah Guthrie said at the start of Tuesday's show. "This has to be the most popular decision that NBC has ever made."
Kotb, 53, will serve as co-anchor during the first two hours of the show, beginning at 7 a.m., and continue to appear on the fourth hour alongside Kathy Lee Gifford.
"There's no one I would rather be sitting next to in 2018 than you," Kotb said, grabbing Guthrie's hand with a smile.
Kotb had stepped in as guest host on the show in Lauer's absence. Kotb and Guthrie announced Lauer's termination on air together on Nov. 29, reading a statement that had been emailed to the NBC team. The complaint against Lauer reportedly revolved around an incident that took place between the former host and a female colleague while they were on assignment at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia. Following his firing, other accusations, including summoning a female employee to his office, dropping his pants and reprimanding her for not engaging in a sexual act, were brought forward against him in a Variety article.
"Over the past several weeks, Hoda has seamlessly stepped into the co-anchor role alongside Savannah, and the two have quickly hit the ground running," NBC News Chairman Andy Lack said in an email to the staff Tuesday, according to Deadline. "They have an undeniable connection with each other and most importantly, with viewers, a hallmark of 'Today.' "
NBC offered Kotb the role just before the start of the holidays, according to a People exclusive published Tuesday morning.
"Weirdly, it doesn't feel like the headline because we've worked together for a long time," Kotb told the publication.
Guthrie, who had called Lauer a longtime friend, added that it was "a shock to wake up one day and not have Matt," but having Kotb step in is "the most natural and comforting thing in the world."
Spike Lee's 'She's Gotta Have It' returning for second season
Escapist reads for those stuck in the city this winter
NBC streamer with original series to start at $5 a month
EntertainmentTransportation
Queens-born actress Awkwafina will voice 7 train announcements for a week before her new show premieres
BroadwayEntertainment
amBroadway: Cynthia Nixon directing 'Cove,' 'Chicago' casting contest and more
Enjoy a sinful Sunday at Sapphire Gentlemen's Club in Midtown this weekend
Review: 'Lucy Barton,' Broadway's first new play of 2020, a heavy & discomforting drama
BronxCelebritiesEntertainmentMusic
Fat Joe returns to The Bronx for hip-hop awards ceremony
EntertainmentNewsPolice & Fire
Lawyers at Weinstein trial work to whittle jury pool
Arts & EntertainmentEntertainmentTV
For 'Jeopardy' fans, Ken Jennings is the greatest
Eat it. Drink it. Do it. Tackle the city, with our help.
Copyright © 2020 Schneps Media. All rights reserved.
Jim Margulies


The Chilean forward has struggled to make an impact at Old Trafford since his move from Premier League rivals Arsenal in January and was among United's most disappointing performers against Sevilla on Tuesday night as they crashed out of he UEFA Champions League.
Sanchez started on the left hand side of a three-man attack with Marcus Rashford, who had starred in that position against Liverpool at the weekend, pushed out to the right and Romelu Lukaku operating as the central striker.
All three failed to shine against Sevilla and Scholes believes Mourinho must now sacrifice Sanchez to get his team firing again.
"Rashford was frightening on that left side on Saturday, but he moved him to bring Sanchez into what he thinks is his best position," the former United midfielder said, speaking on BT Sport.
"[Sanchez] gave the ball away so often and his manager has to see that in the 10 games he has played, he has not been good.
Scholes' former Manchester United teammate Rio Ferdinand also questioned Sanchez's worth to the United team.
"Sanchez looks like a shadow of his former self," Ferdinand said. "When he was at Arsenal he was a player everyone looked to for inspiration.


When first impressions matter, so does a professional catalog design.
This client understood she needed a high quality design to showcase her products. However, she also had specific budget constraints. We were able to discuss the project during her free design consultation and create a design concept that reduced the need for image editing. The result was a branded catalog design with cohesive elements and a solid presentation of her products.
Addie is the best! She goes above and beyond to provide excellent results! I would highly recommend her to my family & friends and I will definitely use her for my future projects! She designed a Catalog for our Clothing line. The finished product was very professional and stylish. She was very quick to respond and quickly finished the task. She was also very easy to work with and helpful in her creative way.


TEHRAN, Apr. 09 (MNA) – Iranian lawmakers on Tue. passed a 'double-urgency' bill on strengthening IRGC against US.
From among the present 198 Parliament members, 189 ones voted in favor of the double urgent bill on backing and reinforcing IRGC against US measures.
According to this ratification, all the legal and real persons and troops of the United States and its allies operating in the West Asian region are recognized terrorist by Iran and any financial, technical, and etc. aid to them is regarded a terrorist act.
Additionally, it is a must for the Iranian government to defuse US act of listing IRGC as a terrorist group via conducting bilateral and multi-lateral negotiations with international bodies and organization.
The government is also required not to let American troops and other terrorists to use available facilities against the interests of the Islamic Republic.
The measures come as the administration of US President Donald Trump in a Monday statement designated the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization.


text:
Poulenc and the Painters
Guardian Cartoonist Martin Rowson will come to Southampton on June 12th to imagine portraits to Poulenc's music, drawing on-the-spot as David Owen Norris plays Poulenc's Les soirées de Nazelles, a series of ironically-titled portraits - a sort of French Enigma Variations.
In the darkly hectic Thirties, the composer Francis Poulenc would drive to the next château down the Loire from his own, for jovial evenings with the neighbour he called Tante Liénard. And then Poulenc would sit at the piano, and improvise a portrait of some lucky guest. As the clouds gathered over Europe, he crystallized these portraits into a set of variations. We don't know exactly who they represent (except for the Finale  that's the man himself), but we have Poulenc's evocative titles. Spurred on by them, Martin Rowson will create new people as he listens to their variation  a remarkable act of willed synaesthesia to be preserved on film.
Rowson and Norris will spend the day working in the University's keyboard room, and their interaction will be filmed. The film and the images, commissioned by the Southern Cathedrals Festival, will form part of a multi-media concert, Poulenc & the Painters, at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester on July 19th at 11.30am and 2.30pm. Projected images will also include paintings by Poulenc's friends Picasso, Chagall, Braque and others, to accompany Poulenc's song-cycle Le travail du peintre, sung by David Wilson-Johnson, which provides musical portraits of each of these painters.
Related Staff Member
Professor David Owen Norris
Head of Classical Performance and Professor of Music
Professor David Owen Norris is the Head of Classical Performance and Professor of Music at the University of Southampton.
Illustration by Martin Rowson