published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This paper utilizes prior studies attempting to explain different possible phonological production errors among adults who learn American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language (L2). These studies have offered theoretical grounding to such production errors. One area of study in particular is further explored in this paper and that is how specific joints of the arm and hand are used in the production of signs (Mirus, et al., 2001, Meier, et al 2008). L2 learners of ASL are essentially learning a new language using a different modality and this new modality requires that they relearn how to use specific motor skills needed in order to produce sign vocabulary. To address this, an exploratory teaching module is proposed with the need for further action research to discuss its effectiveness. / text

With the emergence of the Internet and of the World Wide Web, the Web site has become a key communication channel in organizations. To satisfy the objectives of the Web site and of its target audience, adapting the Web site content to the users' expectations has become a major concern. In this context, Web usage mining, a relatively new research area, and Web analytics, a part of Web usage mining that has most emerged in the corporate world, offer many Web communication analysis techniques. These techniques include prediction of the user's behaviour within the site, comparison between expected and actual Web site usage, adjustment of the Web site with respect to the users' interests, and mining and analyzing Web usage data to discover interesting metrics and usage patterns. However, Web usage mining and Web analytics suffer from significant drawbacks when it comes to support the decision-making process at the higher levels in the organization. Indeed, according to organizations theory, the higher levels in the organizations need summarized and conceptual information to take fast, high-level, and effective decisions. For Web sites, these levels include the organization managers and the Web site chief editors. At these levels, the results produced by Web analytics tools are mostly useless. Indeed, most of these results target Web designers and Web developers. Summary reports like the number of visitors and the number of page views can be of some interest to the organization manager but these results are poor. Finally, page-group and directory hits give the Web site chief editor conceptual results, but these are limited by several problems like page synonymy (several pages contain the same topic), page polysemy (a page contains several topics), page temporality, and page volatility. Web usage mining research projects on their part have mostly left aside Web analytics and its limitations and have focused on other research paths. Examples of these paths are usage pattern analysis, personalization, system improvement, site structure modification, marketing business intelligence, and usage characterization. A potential contribution to Web analytics can be found in research about reverse clustering analysis, a technique based on self-organizing feature maps. This technique integrates Web usage mining and Web content mining in order to rank the Web site pages according to an original popularity score. However, the algorithm is not scalable and does not answer the page-polysemy, page-synonymy, page-temporality, and page-volatility problems. As a consequence, these approaches fail at delivering summarized and conceptual results. An interesting attempt to obtain such results has been the Information Scent algorithm, which produces a list of term vectors representing the visitors' needs. These vectors provide a semantic representation of the visitors' needs and can be easily interpreted. Unfortunately, the results suffer from term polysemy and term synonymy, are visit-centric rather than site-centric, and are not scalable to produce. Finally, according to a recent survey, no Web usage mining research project has proposed a satisfying solution to provide site-wide summarized and conceptual audience metrics. In this dissertation, we present our solution to answer the need for summarized and conceptual audience metrics in Web analytics. We first described several methods for mining the Web pages output by Web servers. These methods include content journaling, script parsing, server monitoring, network monitoring, and client-side mining. These techniques can be used alone or in combination to mine the Web pages output by any Web site. Then, the occurrences of taxonomy terms in these pages can be aggregated to provide concept-based audience metrics. To evaluate the results, we implement a prototype and run a number of test cases with real Web sites. According to the first experiments with our prototype and SQL Server OLAP Analysis Service, concept-based metrics prove extremely summarized and much more intuitive than page-based metrics. As a consequence, concept-based metrics can be exploited at higher levels in the organization. For example, organization managers can redefine the organization strategy according to the visitors' interests. Concept-based metrics also give an intuitive view of the messages delivered through the Web site and allow to adapt the Web site communication to the organization objectives. The Web site chief editor on his part can interpret the metrics to redefine the publishing orders and redefine the sub-editors' writing tasks. As decisions at higher levels in the organization should be more effective, concept-based metrics should significantly contribute to Web usage mining and Web analytics.

Despite claims by some theorists to the contrary, investigators have shown that information about grammatical errors is available to young children learning language via the conversational responses of their parents. The present study described five categories of responses in the conversations of working mothers and fathers to their normally developing two-year-old sons, and investigated whether any of these responses were differentially related to well-formed vs. ill-formed child utterances. Subjects were six middle-class, monolingual (English) parent-child dyads. Parents worked full-time jobs and the children were enrolled in full-time daycare. Within a two week period, four 20-minute conversational samples were audio and video recorded for each dyad in the subjects' homes during freeplay activities of the subjects' choice. Results indicated that the pattern of responses for these six parents was very similar to that reported for other parent-child dyads. The most frequent type of response for all parents was one that continued the conversation without either repeating or clarifying the child's previous utterance. The least frequent type of response was one that explicitly corrected portions of the child's utterance. Of all responses, repetitions--both clarifying and nonclarifying--appeared to be the type of response most differentially related to well-formed and ill-formed child utterances. Exact repetitions were more likely to follow well-formed utterances, while the remaining repetitions were more likely to follow ill-formed utterances. This pattern of differential responses was similar for all six dyads. Very few differences regarding the style or pattern of interaction were noted for fathers and mothers. Implications were drawn regarding the nature of linguistic input that is available to two-year-old children learning language.

Veiksmažodžių darybiniai sinonimai yra bendrašakniai, skirtingus darybos afiksus ir panašią arba tapačią leksinę reikšmę turintys vediniai. Iš Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodyno (2000, Vilnius) buvo išrinkti 1477 veiksmažodžių vediniai ir sudarytos 709 darybinių sinonimų eilės. Darybiniai sinonimai pagal darybos būdų santykiavimą suskirstyti į sinonimiškus priesagų vedinius ir sinonimiškus priešdėlių vedinius. Veiksmažodžių darybiniai sinonimai nepasižymi didele stilistine įvairove: tai dažniausiai neutralūs žodžiai (1412 vedinių), tačiau yra tokių vedinių, kurių bent vienas narys turi kokią nors pažymą: šnekamosios kalbos žodžiai (32 vediniai), tarmybės (12 vedinių). Veiksmažodžių vediniai gali turėti variantų (sudarytos 8 darybinių variantų poros). Veiksmažodžių darybiniai sinonimai gali skirtis vartosenos dažnumu. / Derivative synonyms of verbs are the kind of synonyms which have the same root, different derivational affixes and similar or identical lexical meaning. 1477 derivatives from the Dictionary of Modern Lithuanian published in 2000 were included into 709 rows of derivative synonyms. The rows of derivative synonyms are formed of the derivatives with various suffixes and prefixes. There are many derivative synonyms of verbs (1412 derivatives) which do not differ stylistically – all the synonyms belong to neutral lexicon. Stylistically marked items of the synonyms of verbs are colloquialism (32 derivatives), vernacularisms (12 derivatives). The derivatives of verbs can have variants (8 couple of derivative variants were formed). Derivative synonyms of verbs may be different in intensity – used frequently or seldom.

Darbo objektas - VDU Kauno botanikos sodo kolekcijoje auginamos paprastojo putino veislės (išvestos Rusijoje – ‘Krasnaja Grozd‘, ‘Leningradskaja Otbornaja‘, ‘Souzga‘, ‘Zarnica‘, ‘Šukšinskaja‘, Ukrainoje – ‘Kijevskaja Sadovaja‘) ir klonai ‘Zarnica 2‘, ‘Upninkai‘ bei dvi naujos Lietuvoje natūraliai neaptinkamos rūšys V. sargentii ir V. trilobum. Tyrimų tikslas ištirti ir įvertinti Lietuvoje natūraliai augančių ir intradukuotų putinų rūšis ir veisles, jų tinkamumą dekoratyviniam želdinimui ir uogų auginimui. Tikslui pasiekti numatyti uždaviniai: 1.Vertinti Lietuvoje auginamų putinų rūšis ir veisles, 2. Atrinkti ir pasiūlyti tinkamiausias putinų veisles uogų auginimui, 3. Atrinkti ir pasiūlyti tinkamiausias putinų rūšis ir veisles dekoratyvniam želdinimui. Darbui atlikti buvo: išanalizuoti informaciniai šaltiniai ir mokslinė literatūra, nustatytos sezoninio vystymosi ypatybės (fenologiniai stebėjimai), įvykdyti ūglių matavimo stebėjimai, nustatytas putino veislių ir rūšių produktyvumas, įvykdyti biometriniai matavimai jie apdoroti statistiškai. Išsiaiškinta, kad Lietuvoje sėkmingai gali būti auginamas ne tik čia savaime augantis paprastasis putinas, bet ir kitos (intodukuotos) putinų rūšys ir iš jų išvestos veislės. Paprastojo putino veislės ir klonai vaisiuose sukaupia antioksidacinėmis savybėmis pasižyminčių cheminių medžiagų: antocianinų, askorbo rūgšties, karotinoidų, flavonolių. Pagal fenologinių tarpsnių terminus ir vegetacijos laikotarpį galima išskirti ankstyvas... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Work object - VDU Kaunas botanical garden, in which the collection of simple cranberrybushes are cultivated (derived in Russia – ‘Krasnaja Grozd‘, ‘Leningradskaja Otbornaja‘, ‘Souzga‘, ‘Zarnica‘, ‘Šukšinskaja‘, Ukraine – ‘Kijevskaja Sadovaja‘), clones ‘Zarnica 2‘, ‘Upninkai‘ and two new species, which naturally are not growing in Lithuania - V. sargentii and V. Trilobum. Main research goal is to explore and estimate cranberry types and species growing naturally in Lithuania and derived in other countries, their suitability for decorative afforestation and berry cultivation. To achieve this goal fallowing tasks are performed: 1. Estimation of types and species of cranberrybushes growing in Lithuania, 2. Selection and offering the best cranberrybush species for berry cultivation, 3. Estimation and offering the best cranberrybush species for decorative afforestation. These task are performed by analysing literature and scientific articles, by estimating the seasonal evolutional property of cranberrybush, by making measures of growing shoots, by estimating productivity of the cranberrybush species and by making biometrical measures. The research showed, that by side simple cranberrybush Viburnum opulus may other species derived in foreign countries grown and could used for decorative afforestation. The cranberrybushes can be divided to early species as 'Šukšinskaja' and 'Zarnica ', middle species as 'Kijevskaja Sadovaja', 'Upninkai', 'Leningradskaja Otbornaja' 'Zarnica-2'... [to full text]

Synonymous codon usage bias has been extensively studied in Bacteria and Eukaryotes and yet there has been little investigation in the third domain of life, the Archaea. In this thesis I therefore examine the coding sequences of nearly 70 species of Archaea to explore patterns of codon bias. Heterogeneity in codon usage among genes was initially explored for a single species, Methanococcus maripaludis, where patterns were explained by a single major trend associated with expression level and attributed to natural selection. Unlike the bacterium Escherichia coli, selection was largely restricted to two-fold degenerate sites. Analyses of patterns of codon usage bias within genomes were extended to the other species of Archaea, where variation was more commonly explained by heterogeneity in G+C content and asymmetric base composition. By comparison with bacterial genomes, far fewer trends were found to be associated with expression level, implying a reduced prevalence of translational selection among Archaea. The strength of selected codon usage bias (S) was estimated for 67 species of Archaea, and revealed that natural selection has had less impact in shaping patterns of codon usage across Archaea than across many species of Bacteria. Variation in S was explained by the combined effects of growth rate and optimal growth temperature, with species growing at high temperatures exhibiting weaker than expected selection given growth rate. Such a relationship is expected if temperature kinetically modulates growth rate via its impact upon translation elongation, since rapid elongation rates at high temperatures reduce the selective benefit of optimal codon usage for the efficiency of translation. Consistent with this, growth temperature is negatively correlated with minimal generation time, and numbers of rRNA operons and tRNA genes are reduced at high growth temperatures. The large fraction of thermophilic Archaea relative to Bacteria account for the lower values of S observed. Two major trends were found to describe variation in codon usage among archaeal genomes; the first was attributed to GC3s and the second was associated with arginine codon usage and was linked both with growth temperature and the genome-wide excess of G over C content. The latter is unlikely to reflect thermophilic adaptation since the codon primarily underlying the trend appears to be selectively disfavoured. No correlations were observed with genome wide GC3s and optimal growth temperature and neither was GC3s associated with aerobiosis. The identities of optimal codons were explored and found to be invariant across U and C-ending two-fold degenerate amino acid groups. The identity of optimal codons and anticodons across four and six-fold degenerate amino acid groups was found to vary with mutational bias. As was first observed in M. maripaludis, selected codon usage bias was consistently greater across two-fold relative to four-fold degenerate amino acid groups across Archaea. This broad pattern could reflect ancestral patterns of optimal codon divergence, prevalent among four-fold but not two-fold degenerate amino acid groups. Consistent with this, the strength of selected codon usage bias was found to be reduced following the divergence of optimal codons, and implies that optimal codon divergence typically proceeds following the relaxation of selection. Finally, a method was developed to partition the strength of selection (S) into separate components reflecting selection for translational efficiency (Seff) and selection for translational accuracy (Sacc) by comparing the codon usage across conserved and nonconserved amino acid residues. While estimates of Sacc are somewhat sensitive to the designation of conserved sites, a general pattern emerged whereby accuracy-selected codon usage bias was consistently strongest across a subset of the most highly conserved sites. Several estimates of Sacc were consistently higher than the 95% range of null values regardless of the dataset, providing evidence for accuracy-selected codon usage bias in these species.

Der Marketing-Lehrstuhl der Universität Leipzig führte erstmals eine Online-Umfrage über Bedürfnisse von Internet-Nutzern durch.

This study analyzes the depiction of drug usage, cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption in movies in terms of character stereotyping and typecasting. Because movies are focused on making money they are being used as marketing tools by alcohol and cigarette conglomerates (Grube, 2004). The study also explores youth perception of such content and tries to determine the behavioral implications or influence of such content on young children. The goal of this research is to analyze the social cognitive influence of movies on the youth and the effects of censorship in movies today. The research compares this effect in the two largest movie markets - the American market (Hollywood) and the Indian market (Bollywood) and the effect of these depictions on the youth to see whether this issue warrants a global understanding and awareness. The aim of this study is to understand the nature of the movie markets and the depiction of such content in movies. It analyses the issue solely from the perspective of a youth audience to better understand how the youth today perceive movies and to see if depiction of cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption and drug usage has a positive or negative effect on the youth audience. A part of the analysis of the study is to also better understand censorship techniques employed for both movie markets to see if they are effective or need to be improved upon. Finally the study asks the question of social responsibility and whether movies and movie stars have a responsibility to maintain higher censorship standards or they are merely depiction art through the medium and should not be held accountable for their depictions on screen.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.