রবিবার, ৩১ মার্চ, ২০১৩

The Single Secret To Maintaining Brilliant Brains

If you happened to be a student or a young professional or even an accomplished middle-aged person, you may have wondered how you can ever maintain an actively working mind when you get really old. Of course, the goal initially considered would have been to be able to reach a considerably old age, and then would come the desire to maintain youthful brilliance even in that stage of life. Some say that the single secret to making such a dream a reality is to keep the mind in the state of learning. With the golden opportunities of enrolling these days under training providers that make use of learning management systems, this dream may surely take hold on brighter hopes for their fulfillment among many individuals.

Learning More and Learning Again

Indeed, presently active RTOs or Registered Training Organizations all over the country are now able to provide a wider class of courses for a more expansive variety of individuals. RTO training and consulting, as they are being standardized, make certain that each of the strata of students may have their goals of maintaining the learning experience throughout their lifetime. Most RTOs do not impose severe restrictions on the allowed age brackets that could undergo certain training courses. As such, while there is still time and opportunity, anybody can pursue learning more and learning again.

After college graduation, some would choose to take up masters and study again, while others opt to proceed on their career life. At some points, the young professionals may feel that they still are lacking in terms of the knowledge that was supposed to equip them for professional life. This need may then be readily answered by the RTOs which do uphold the AQTF. Still, the others who may have pursued graduate studies in formal school may find it also interesting to undergo some vocational training, the benefits of which go beyond the intellectual level as it tries to explore more on the practical application of things. Again, the most interesting goal of such courses is that of keeping the mind expanding, working and learning something new.

Maintaining Healthy Brains

While the student may enjoy the learning experience provided through RTO training and consulting and also gain intellectual benefits from them, he also needs to maintain a physically healthy brain to enable his very access to maximum gains. This means that he has to not only be watchful of his mental health, but also to keep the body exercised and fed with nutritious food. He must also maintain his emotional well-being through old age so that he may not be easily disturbed when greater challenges face his later part of life. This may be done through healthy social relations and having freedom from guilt.

The author writes about training management systems, RTO training and consulting at http://www.scribd.com/waagchristian

Source: http://articles.submityourarticle.com/the-single-secret-to-maintaining-brilliant-brains-323198

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Banks win dismissal of most rate-rigging claims

(AP) ? A group of banks including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase have won dismissal of most of the claims in private lawsuits alleging that they rigged a key interest rate.

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in New York dismissed antitrust claims brought against the banks by a group of plaintiffs that included the City of Baltimore and some pension funds. The plaintiffs alleged that they had suffered losses because the banks had manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR.

The judge said that while the banks had already paid billions of dollars of penalties to government regulatory agencies, private plaintiffs had to satisfy many requirements which governments didn't.

LIBOR is the rate banks use to borrow from each other ? and it is critical. The rate indirectly affects the cost of loans that people pay when they take out loans. It provides the basis for trillions of dollars in contracts around the world, including bonds and consumer loans ? such as when consumers buy a home or car.

It is a self-policing system and relies on information that global banks submit to a British banking authority.

Cities and municipal agencies in the U.S. have filed a flurry of lawsuits against some of the banks that set the LIBOR. They have sought damages for losses they say they suffered as a result of an artificially low rate, which depressed the value of bonds and other investments pegged to the key interest rate.

Last fall a U.S. watchdog found that government-controlled mortgage giant Freddie Mac and its larger sibling Fannie Mae together may have lost more than $3 billion on their investments from banks' rate-rigging.

Last week Freddie Mac sued JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and 12 other big international banks in federal court in Alexandria, Va., claiming the lenders rigged the key interest rate, causing the lender to incur huge losses.

Two big British banks and Switzerland's largest have been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for manipulating LIBOR by U.S. and British regulators.

Calls placed to attorneys for plaintiffs in the case were not immediately returned.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-03-29-Banks-LIBOR/id-c2e0c072576f4112bee3d2bb1f0e7585

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Protective prion keeps yeast cells from going it alone

Friday, March 29, 2013

Most commonly associated with such maladies as "mad cow disease" and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, prions are increasingly recognized for their ability to induce potentially beneficial traits in a variety of organisms, yeast chief among them.

Now a team of scientists has added markedly to the job description of prions as agents of change, identifying a prion capable of triggering a transition in yeast from its conventional single-celled form to a cooperative, multicellular structure. This change, which appears to improve yeast's chances for survival in the face of hostile environmental conditions, is an epigenetic phenomenon?a heritable alteration brought about without any change to the organism's underlying genome.

This latest finding, reported in the March 28 issue of the journal Cell, has its origins in work begun several years ago in the lab of Whitehead Institute Member Susan Lindquist. In 2009, Randal Halfmann, then a graduate student in Lindquist's lab, identified dozens of proteins in yeast that have the ability to form prions. That research greatly expanded the known universe of prion elements in yeast, but it failed to answer a key question: What function, if any, do these prions actually have?

In search of an answer, Halfmann, now a fellow the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and colleagues in the Lindquist lab attempted to exploit the fact that several of the prion-forming proteins they had identified acted to modify transcription of yeast genes. It stood to reason that if they could identify which genes were being regulated, they might be able to determine the prions' function.

"We looked at the five transcriptional regulators that are known to be prions in yeast, and we found that in fact, only one gene in the entire yeast genome was regulated by all five transcription factors," says Halfmann.

That gene, as it turns out, was FLO11, a key player in multicellularity in yeast. Indeed changes in FLO11 expression have been shown to act as a toggle, switching yeast from spherical to filamentous form. Halfmann notes that FLO11, which has been shown to be regulated by epigenetic elements, is also highly responsive to environmental stress. Knowing that the prion form of a protein is essentially a misfolded form of that protein, and that stressful conditions increase the frequency of protein misfolding and prion formation, the scientists began to consider the possibility that the prions themselves might be among the epigenetic switches influencing the activity of FLO11.

The group focused on one transcription factor known as mot3, finding that yeast cells containing the prion form of this factor, [MOT3+], acquired a variety of multicellular growth forms known to require FLO11 expression. This was a clear indication that prion formation was causing the differentiation of the cells and their subsequent cooperation. But what about the stress aspect of the hypothesis?

By testing yeast cells against a variety of stressors, the scientists discovered that exposure to a concentration of ethanol akin to that occurring naturally during fermentation increased [MOT3+] formation by a factor of 10.They also found that as the cells exposed to ethanol shifted their metabolism to burn surrounding oxygen through respiration, the prions reverted to their non-prion conformation, [mot3-], and the yeast returned to the unicellular state. In essence, prion formation drove a shift to multicellularity, helping the yeast to ride out the ethanol storm.

"What we have in the end is two sequential environmental changes that are turning on a heritable epigenetic element and then turning it off," says Halfmann. "And between those two changes, the prion is causing the cells to acquire a multicellular growth form that we think is actually important for their survival."

Lindquist, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, has long argued that prions have played a vital role in yeast evolution and has amassed a body of strong supporting evidence.

"We see them as part of a bet-hedging strategy that allows the yeast to alter their biological properties quickly when their environments turn unfavorable," Lindquist says. She also theorizes that prions may play such roles beyond yeast, and her lab intends to take similar approaches in the hunt for prions and prion-like mechanisms that are potentially beneficial in other organisms.

For Lindquist lab postdoctoral scientist Alex Lancaster, who is also an author of the new Cell paper, these latest findings hint at a potentially novel approach to understanding basic mechanisms underlying the complexities of human diseases, including cancer, whose hallmarks include protein misfolding, epigenetic alterations, metabolic aberrations, and myriad changes in cell state, type, and function. Lancaster likens the opportunity to that of opening a black box.

"It's exciting to think that this could become another tool in the toolbox in the study of multicellularity," Lancaster says. "We know that some tumors are a heterogeneous population of cells and we know that tumor cells can evolve within in their environments to help ensure their own survival. This system could help us further understand the role of epigenetic inheritance within tumors and how it might be influencing cell-cell interactions and even affecting the effectiveness of drug therapies."

###

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research: http://www.wi.mit.edu/index.html

Thanks to Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 40 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127516/Protective_prion_keeps_yeast_cells_from_going_it_alone

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শুক্রবার, ২৯ মার্চ, ২০১৩

Hollywood Group Kills Hundreds of ?Pirate? TV and Movie Streaming ...

Hollywood Group Kills Hundreds of ?Pirate? TV and Movie Streaming Sites

The popular movie and TV streaming script TVstreamScript has shut down ?voluntarily? following pressure from movie industry group FACT. The script was used by hundreds of streaming sites, which have all been rendered useless overnight. FACT tells TorrentFreak that convincing site owners to sign over their domains is one of the strategies they use to tackle online piracy.

tvstreamscriptWith broadband connections becoming more prevalent, movie and TV streaming sites have become a growing problem for copyright holders.

These streaming sites come in all shapes and sizes, and there are scripts on the market that allow anyone to set up their own streaming index in just a few minutes.

TVstreamScript is one of these options and hundreds of sites, mostly smaller ones, run on this software. The script costs $99 for a basic one domain license and buyers can expand their sites with plugins or buy themes to make it more unique.


A TVstreamScript demo site

script-tv

However, yesterday, TVstreamScript shut down following pressure from Hollywood-backed UK anti-piracy group FACT. The site owner voluntarily signed over the TVstreamScript.com domain to FACT and it?s currently redirecting to a parked page.

As a result, hundreds of streaming sites that relied on the script have become unusable.

Tvsuperstream.com, Infinityshows.com, Cinesheet.com, Streamflix.org, Whatchon.me, Seriesvk.com, Yeahstream.com, Canaltv.ru, Tvshows2k.com, Watchtvstream.com, Online24tv.com, Movifan.net and Tvdrot.com/ are just a few examples of the sites that are affected, but there are many more.

Most streaming sites now display 404 errors, redirect elsewhere, or show the following license error. ?License Error: Invalid license key. Please contact your software vendor for support.?


Gone

invalid-key

Commenting to TorrentFreak, the movie industry anti-piracy group says that the current action is one of the many strategies the group employs to combat the ?growing problem? of online piracy.

?When contacted, some site owners agree to sign over their domains to FACT and we then use that domain to help direct visitors to legitimate ways of watching movies, TV programmes or sporting events,? FACT explained.

Previously the group told TorrentFreak that they?ve seen a change in attitudes since the owner of TV streaming links site SurfTheChannel was sentenced to four years jail-time last year.

FACT is using the Vickerman verdict to convince operators of other streaming related sites to ?voluntarily? hand over their domains to escape prosecution, which many have done since.

However, not all streaming sites that were hit by the domain takeover are willing to throw in the towel. Several site owners are trying to recover and come back online and some have done so successfully.

And so it continues?.

Source: http://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-group-kills-hundreds-of-pirate-tv-and-movie-streaming-sites-130328/

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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৮ মার্চ, ২০১৩

'Teen Mom 2' star Kailyn Lowry pregnant again, says sister-in-law

MTV

By Drusilla Moorhouse, TODAY contributor

"Teen Mom 2" star Kailyn Lowry is pregnant again, her sister-in-law told In Touch Weekly.?

The 21-year-old is said to be expecting her second child, first with husband Javi? Marroquin.

The news comes just a day after the reality star was shown assaulting then-boyfriend Marroquin in a controversial episode of the MTV docu-series. The couple reconciled shortly afterward and married in September 2012.

According to Lidia Marroquin, the 20-year-old military man's sister, "They're overjoyed! When Kailyn told Javi, he cried."

Although the baby, due this fall, wasn't planned, "they weren't preventing it, either," a friend of the reality star told the magazine.

Kailyn's co-star, Leah Calvert, 20, recently gave birth to her third daughter. She and her second husband, Jeremy, welcomed Adalynn on Feb. 4.

Related content:

More in The Clicker:

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35197/f/653459/s/2a07947f/l/0Ltheclicker0Btoday0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C260C174742920Eteen0Emom0E20Estar0Ekailyn0Elowry0Epregnant0Eagain0Esays0Esister0Ein0Elaw0Dlite/story01.htm

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বুধবার, ২৭ মার্চ, ২০১৩

Fewer children mean longer life?

Mar. 27, 2013 ? New research into ageing processes, based on modern genetic techniques, confirms theoretical expectations about the correlation between reproduction and lifespan. Studies of birds reveal that those that have offspring later in life and have fewer broods live longer. And the decisive factor is telomeres, shows research from The University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Telomeres are the protective caps at the end of chromosomes. The length of telomeres influences how long an individual lives. Telomeres start off at a certain length, become shorter each time a cell divides, decline as the years pass by until the telomeres can no longer protect the chromosomes, and the cell dies. But the length of telomeres varies significantly among individuals of the same age. This is partly due to the length of the telomeres that has been inherited from the parents, and partly due to the amount of stress an individual is exposed to.

?This is important, not least for our own species, as we are all having to deal with increased stress,? says Angela Pauliny, Researcher from the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Gothenburg.

Researchers have studied barnacle geese, which are long-lived birds, the oldest in the study being 22 years old. The results show that geese, compared to short-lived bird species, have a better ability to preserve the length of their telomeres. The explanation is probably that species with a longer lifespan invest more in maintaining bodily functions than, for example, reproduction.

?There is a clear correlation between reproduction and ageing in the animal world. Take elephants, which have a long lifespan but few offspring, while mice, for example, live for a short time but produce a lot of offspring each time they try,? says Angela Pauliny.

The geese studied by researchers varied in age, from very young birds to extremely old ones. Each bird was measured twice, two years apart. One striking result was that the change in telomere length varied according to gender.

?The study revealed that telomeres were best-preserved in males. Among barnacle geese, the telomeres thus shorten more quickly in females, which in birds is the sex with two different gender chromosomes. Interestingly, it is the exactl opposite in humans,? says Angela Pauliny.

The journal BMC Evolutionary Biology has classified the research article ?Telomere dynamics in a long-lived bird, the barnacle goose? as ?Highly Accessed?.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Gothenburg, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Angela Pauliny, Kjell Larsson, Donald Blomqvist. Telomere dynamics in a long-lived bird, the barnacle goose. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2012; 12 (1): 257 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2148-12-257

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/wo_0G9jQGjg/130327103045.htm

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Sen. Claire McCaskill Finally Endorses Gay Marriage

After years walking a tight line in the political circus of gay marriage, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., endorsed her full support of marriage equality when she posted an inauspicious Tumblr blog entry Sunday. To open the post, McCaskill quotes the famous passage of the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 13 about abiding "faith, hope [and] love" before writing four paragraphs on her decision. The Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader expounds on McCaskill's change from previous stances.

* The media outlet called the senator's announcement "a surprise turnabout" from stances as late as a year ago ahead of her election. In the past, she supported civil unions but not full marriage for gays. Yet she also opposed a 2004 amendment to the Missouri Constitution banning gay marriage.

* In her blog post, McCaskill said, "I have come to the conclusion that our government should not limit the right to marry based on who you love. While churches should never be required to conduct marriages outside of their religious beliefs, neither should the government tell people who they have a right to marry."

* The senator also said America was "founded on the principals [sic] of liberty and equality. Good people disagree with me." Part of her decision was based upon talking to gay and lesbian friends in long-term, committed relationship. Another important aspect of the announcement revolved around listening to her grown kids. In the end, McCaskill believes "history will agree with my children."

* In May, McCaskill said states ought to "take the lead in determining marriage equality," according to Bloomberg News. Former Rep. Todd Akin, McCaskill's opponent in November, disagreed with President Barack Obama's support of gay marriage at the time.

* The Washington Blade reveals other high-profile politicians announced their support of gay marriage in recent weeks. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, also said it is time for marriage equality. These positions are being brought forth ahead of Supreme Court rulings on California's controversial Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act.

* A.J. Bockelman, executive director of Missouri's PROMO equality lobbying group, praised McCaskill's revelation. "As we have seen with the president, our own [senator] has evolved on marriage equality," Bockelman told the Blade.

* According to Talking Points Memo, McCaskill was one of a few Democrats in conservative-leaning states that had yet to endorse marriage equality. The media outlet also pointed out the senator's post did not mention what government entity among states, Congress or the Supreme Court, should determine marriage rights for gays.

William Browning is a research librarian specializing in U.S. politics.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sen-claire-mccaskill-finally-endorses-gay-marriage-171100796.html

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Facebook Photobook-Maker SoSocio Raises $600k Second Round Funding To Grow Its Reach In Europe, Prepare For U.S. Push

SoSocioDutch startup SoSocio has raised $600,000 in second round funding from a European consortium of private investors to expand the reach of its Facebook Photobook application. The app lets users create digital and paper-based photo books and cards out of their social snaps. The consortium of investors is led by VC Brooklyn Ventures from The Netherlands, which also funded SoSocio's first round.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/D_Qs6J-LH9U/

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Hybrid ribbons a gift for powerful batteries

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Hybrid ribbons of vanadium oxide (VO2) and graphene may accelerate the development of high-power lithium-ion batteries suitable for electric cars and other demanding applications.

The Rice University lab of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan determined that the well-studied material is a superior cathode for batteries that could supply both high energy density and significant power density. The research appears online this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.

The ribbons created at Rice are thousands of times thinner than a sheet of paper, yet have potential that far outweighs current materials for their ability to charge and discharge very quickly. Cathodes built into half-cells for testing at Rice fully charged and discharged in 20 seconds and retained more than 90 percent of their initial capacity after more than 1,000 cycles.

"This is the direction battery research is going, not only for something with high energy density but also high power density," Ajayan said. "It's somewhere between a battery and a supercapacitor."

The ribbons also have the advantage of using relatively abundant and cheap materials. "This is done through a very simple hydrothermal process, and I think it would be easily scalable to large quantities," he said.

Ajayan said vanadium oxide has long been considered a material with great potential, and in fact vanadium pentoxide has been used in lithium-ion batteries for its special structure and high capacity. But oxides are slow to charge and discharge, due to their low electrical conductivity. The high-conductivity graphene lattice that is literally baked in solves that problem nicely, he said, by serving as a speedy conduit for electrons and channels for ions.

The atom-thin graphene sheets bound to the crystals take up very little bulk. In the best samples made at Rice, fully 84 percent of the cathode's weight was the lithium-slurping VO2, which held 204 milliamp hours of energy per gram. The researchers, led by Rice graduate student Yongji Gong and lead author Shubin Yang, said they believe that to be among the best overall performance ever seen for lithium-ion battery electrodes.

"One challenge to production was controlling the conditions for the co-synthesis of VO2 ribbons with graphene," Yang said. The process involved suspending graphene oxide nanosheets with powdered vanadium pentoxide (layered vanadium oxide, with two atoms of vanadium and five of oxygen) in water and heating it in an autoclave for hours. The vanadium pentoxide was completely reduced to VO2, which crystallized into ribbons, while the graphene oxide was reduced to graphene, Yang said. The ribbons, with a web-like coating of graphene, were only about 10 nanometers thick, up to 600 nanometers wide and tens of micrometers in length.

"These ribbons were the building blocks of the three-dimensional architecture," Yang said. "This unique structure was favorable for the ultrafast diffusion of both lithium ions and electrons during charge and discharge processes. It was the key to the achievement of excellent electrochemical performance."

In testing the new material, Yang and Gong found its capacity for lithium storage remained stable after 200 cycles even at high temperatures (167 degrees Fahrenheit) at which other cathodes commonly decay, even at low charge-discharge rates.

"We think this is real progress in the development of cathode materials for high-power lithium-ion batteries," Ajayan said, suggesting the ribbons' ability to be dispersed in a solvent might make them suitable as a component in the paintable batteries developed in his lab.

###

Rice University: http://media.rice.edu

Thanks to Rice University for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 56 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127455/Hybrid_ribbons_a_gift_for_powerful_batteries

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Crowd Surfing The Zombie Apocalypse, Or, Why Spotify's TV Ad Is So Creepy We Made A Parody

Zombie SpotifyI love you Spotify, but you're freaking me out. Today you showed off your first television commercial. It's supposed to introduce the mainstream world to the wonder of listening to almost any song ever on demand. Yet with a useful product to sell and all the emotional resonance of music to lean on, the ad comes off vague, haunting, and devoid of soul. So much so I could help but parody it.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/qvf6UZMHAU4/

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Looks Like Those 1M Mystery BlackBerry 10 Devices Went To A Verizon Distributor

blackberry logoBlackBerry delivered one of the world's most mysterious press releases a short time ago when it revealed that it had sold a cool 1 million BB10 devices to an unnamed partner, but now it looks like some sleuthing has turned up the real client. AllThingsD and Detwiler Fenton both report that the likely source of the order was Brightstar, an international distribution company that counts Verizon, along with carriers around the world as its partners.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/xQ84OAD-1cA/

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Nouns before verbs?

Nouns before verbs? [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 25-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Hilary Hurd Anyaso
h-anyaso@northwestern.edu
847-491-4887
Northwestern University

New research agenda could help shed light on early language, cognitive development

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Researchers are digging deeper into whether infants' ability to learn new words is shaped by the particular language being acquired.

A new Northwestern University study cites a promising new research agenda aimed at bringing researchers closer to discovering the impact of different languages on early language and cognitive development.

For decades, researchers have asked why infants learn new nouns more rapidly and more easily than new verbs. Many researchers have asserted that the early advantage for learning nouns over verbs is a universal feature of human language.

In contrast, other researchers have argued that early noun-advantage is not a universal feature of human language but rather a consequence of the particular language being acquired.

Sandra Waxman, lead author of the study and Louis W. Menk Professor of Psychology at Northwestern, shows in her research that even before infants begin to produce many verbs in earnest, infants acquiring either noun-friendly or verb-friendly languages already appreciate the concepts underlying both noun and verb meaning.

In all languages examined to date, researchers see a robust ability to map nouns to objects, Waxman said, but when it comes to mapping verbs to events, infants' performance is less robust and more variable. Their ability to learn new verbs varied not only as a function of the native language being acquired, but also with the particular linguistic context in which the verb was presented.

Based on new evidence, a shift in the research agenda is necessary, according to Waxman and her colleagues.

"We now know that by 24 months infants acquiring distinctly different languages can successfully map novel nouns to objects and novel verbs to event categories," Waxman said. "It is essential that we shift the research focus to include infants at 24 months and younger, infants who are engaged in the very process of acquiring distinctly different native languages."

Waxman said the implications are clear. "Rather than characterizing languages as either 'noun friendly' or 'verb friendly,' it would be advantageous to adopt a more nuanced treatment of the syntactic, semantic, morphologic and pragmatic properties of each language and the consequences of these properties on infants' acquisition of linguistic structure and meaning."

###

In addition to Waxman, co-authors include Xiaolan Fu, Sudha Arunachalam, Erin Leddon and Kathleen Geraghty. The article "Nouns before verbs? Fresh insights and new cross-linguistic evidence" will appear online in the next issue of Child Development Perspectives.

NORTHWESTERN NEWS: http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Nouns before verbs? [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 25-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Hilary Hurd Anyaso
h-anyaso@northwestern.edu
847-491-4887
Northwestern University

New research agenda could help shed light on early language, cognitive development

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Researchers are digging deeper into whether infants' ability to learn new words is shaped by the particular language being acquired.

A new Northwestern University study cites a promising new research agenda aimed at bringing researchers closer to discovering the impact of different languages on early language and cognitive development.

For decades, researchers have asked why infants learn new nouns more rapidly and more easily than new verbs. Many researchers have asserted that the early advantage for learning nouns over verbs is a universal feature of human language.

In contrast, other researchers have argued that early noun-advantage is not a universal feature of human language but rather a consequence of the particular language being acquired.

Sandra Waxman, lead author of the study and Louis W. Menk Professor of Psychology at Northwestern, shows in her research that even before infants begin to produce many verbs in earnest, infants acquiring either noun-friendly or verb-friendly languages already appreciate the concepts underlying both noun and verb meaning.

In all languages examined to date, researchers see a robust ability to map nouns to objects, Waxman said, but when it comes to mapping verbs to events, infants' performance is less robust and more variable. Their ability to learn new verbs varied not only as a function of the native language being acquired, but also with the particular linguistic context in which the verb was presented.

Based on new evidence, a shift in the research agenda is necessary, according to Waxman and her colleagues.

"We now know that by 24 months infants acquiring distinctly different languages can successfully map novel nouns to objects and novel verbs to event categories," Waxman said. "It is essential that we shift the research focus to include infants at 24 months and younger, infants who are engaged in the very process of acquiring distinctly different native languages."

Waxman said the implications are clear. "Rather than characterizing languages as either 'noun friendly' or 'verb friendly,' it would be advantageous to adopt a more nuanced treatment of the syntactic, semantic, morphologic and pragmatic properties of each language and the consequences of these properties on infants' acquisition of linguistic structure and meaning."

###

In addition to Waxman, co-authors include Xiaolan Fu, Sudha Arunachalam, Erin Leddon and Kathleen Geraghty. The article "Nouns before verbs? Fresh insights and new cross-linguistic evidence" will appear online in the next issue of Child Development Perspectives.

NORTHWESTERN NEWS: http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/nu-nbv032513.php

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রবিবার, ২৪ মার্চ, ২০১৩

Head of Western-backed Syria rebel coalition quits

FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013 file photo, Syrian opposition coalition leader Mouaz al-Khatib speaks during a press conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, not pictured, following an international conference on Syria at Villa Madama, Rome. The leader of the Western-based Syrian opposition coalition has resigned, citing frustrations with the body's ability to advance the fight against President Bashar Assad. Khatib said in a statement posted on his Facebook page Sunday that he would continue to serve the opposition's cause outside of the "the official institutions." (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca, File)

FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013 file photo, Syrian opposition coalition leader Mouaz al-Khatib speaks during a press conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, not pictured, following an international conference on Syria at Villa Madama, Rome. The leader of the Western-based Syrian opposition coalition has resigned, citing frustrations with the body's ability to advance the fight against President Bashar Assad. Khatib said in a statement posted on his Facebook page Sunday that he would continue to serve the opposition's cause outside of the "the official institutions." (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca, File)

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian doctors treat an injured man who was wounded at the Eman Mosque where a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti, an 84-year-old cleric known to all Syrians as a religious scholar, at the Mazraa district, in Damascus, Syria, Thursday, March 21, 2013. A suicide bomber blew himself up during evening prayers inside a mosque in Damascus Thursday, killing a top Sunni Muslim preacher and longtime supporter of President Bashar Assad and least 13 other people, state TV reported. Al-Buti's death is a big blow to Syria's embattled leader, who is fighting mainly Sunni rebels seeking his ouster. (AP Photo/SANA)

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, the Eman Mosque is seen destroyed after a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti, an 84-year-old cleric known to all Syrians as a religious scholar, at the Mazraa district, in Damascus, Syria, Thursday, March 21, 2013. A suicide bomber blew himself up during evening prayers inside a mosque in Damascus Thursday, killing a top Sunni Muslim preacher and longtime supporter of President Bashar Assad and least 13 other people, state TV reported. Al-Buti's death is a big blow to Syria's embattled leader, who is fighting mainly Sunni rebels seeking his ouster. (AP Photo/SANA)

(AP) ? The leader of the Western-backed Syrian opposition coalition resigned Sunday, citing what he called the insufficient lack of international support for those seeking to topple President Bashar Assad.

Mouaz al-Khatib, a respected preacher who has led the Syrian National Coalition since soon after its creation in November, said in a statement posted on his Facebook page that he was making good on a promise to quit if certain undefined "red lines" were crossed.

"I am keeping my promise today and announcing my resignation from the National Coalition so that I can work with freedom that is not available inside the official institutions," he said.

He also blamed world powers for providing inadequate support for the rebel cause and complained that many "international and regional parties" insisted on pushing the opposition toward dialogue with the regime. Most opposition leaders and activists say Assad's regime has killed too many people to be part of the conflict's solution.

"All that has happened to the Syrian people ? from destruction of infrastructure to the arrest of tens of thousands to the displacement of hundreds of thousands to other tragedies ? is not enough for an international decision to allow the Syrian people to defend themselves," the statement said.

Al-Khatib was chosen to serve as president of the opposition's Syrian National Coalition, which was formed in November of last year under international pressure to serve as the opposition's official liaison with other countries and coordinate anti-Assad forces inside and outside of Syria.

Despite electing a new, U.S.-educated prime minister to head a planned interim government last week, the coalition has failed to establish itself as the top rebel authority on the ground in Syria, where hundreds of independent rebel brigades are fighting a civil war against Assad's forces.

The Coalition did not immediately respond to al-Khatib's resignation.

Al-Khatib's spokesman could not be reached for further comment, but al-Khatib has often used his personal Facebook page to release statements.

The Syrian government has largely ignored the opposition coalition and says the civil war is an international conspiracy to weaken Syria.

The U.N. says more than 70,000 people have been killed since the crisis began in March, 2011.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-24-Syria/id-70bdb1d4baa9403aa874ccdc725fa67a

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