The new SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence accelerator is an engine that supports online analytical processing. It performs aggregation in memory and in query runtime over large volumes of structured data. This paper first briefly describes the accelerator and its main architectural features, and cites test results that indicate its power. Then it describes in detail how the accelerator may be used for data mining. The accelerator can perform data mining in the same large repositories of data and using the same compact index structures that it uses for analytical processing. A first such implementation of data mining is described and the results of a performance evaluation are presented. Association rule mining in a distributed architecture was implemented with a variant of the BUC iceberg cubing algorithm. Test results suggest that useful online mining should be possible with wait times of less than 60 seconds on business data that has not been preprocessed.

Overweight, a common health condition in adolescence, has been linked with difficulties in emotional processing. This study investigates associations between emotional processing, conceptualised through the model of Emotional Openness (EO), problematic eating behaviours, including Eating in the Absence of Hunger and disinhibited eating, and overweight in adolescents. Several self-report instruments were completed by 160 youngsters (mean age: 14.36 ± 0.61 years) from the community, including 39 overweight and obese adolescents (24.5%). In girls, bootstrap analyses supported a mediating effect of restrained eating on the relation between three EO dimensions and body mass index percentile, in particular the communication of emotions, the cognitive-conceptual representation of emotions, and the perception of bodily indicator of emotions. No mediating effect was found in boys. These results have important implications for psychological weight management interventions, as they underline the relevance of work on emotional processing in order to reduce problematic eating behaviours.

Sprachverstehen erfordert ein Zusammenspiel verschiedener mentaler Prozesse. Zuerst muss der kontinuierliche akustische Sprachstrom in einzelne Einheiten (z.B. Wörter) unterteilt werden. Segmentale und suprasegmentale linguistische Information unterstützt den Segmentierungsprozess. Wissen über die neuronalen Mechanismen dieser Prozesse ist wesentlich um Sprachverarbeitungs- und Sprachentwicklungsprozesse zu verstehen. Ziel der Dissertation ist die Charakterisierung neuronale Korrelate der Verarbeitung sprachrelevanter akustischer Information bei Erwachsenen und Säuglingen mittels kombinierter Nahinfrarot-Spektroskopie- und Elektroenzephalographie-Messungen. Studie I untersucht zeitliche und topographische Aspekte der phonotaktischen Verarbeitung bei Erwachsenen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass phonotaktische Information links-hemisphärisch verarbeitet wird. Ob diese Lateralisierung auf die linguistischen oder akustischen Eigenschaften der Reize zurückzuführen ist bleibt unklar. Erwachsenen-Studien zeigen, dass die lateralisierte Verarbeitung von Sprache aus der Spezialisierung des auditorischen Kortex für bestimmte zeitliche akustische Variationen im Sprachsignal resultiert. Studie II und III untersuchen, ob diese Asymmetrie bereits bei Säuglingen vorliegt. Dafür werden zeitlich variierte nicht-sprachliche akustische Reize präsentiert. Die zeitlichen Variationen entsprechen kritischen Modulationen im Sprachsignal. Studie II zeigt, dass bei Neugeborenen die zeitlichen Modulationen zu differenzierten und lateralisierten Verarbeitungsmustern führen, die über die ersten Lebensmonate konstant bleiben (Studie III). Die Ergebnisse unterstützen die Annahme, dass die lateralisierte Verarbeitung von Sprache mit einer Spezialisierung des auditorischen Kortex für bestimmte zeitliche Frequenzen zusammenhängt. Das Gehirn ist von Geburt auf die Wahrnehmung zeitlicher akustischen Variationen spezialisiert, die für die Entschlüsselung des Sprachsignals relevant sind. / The comprehension of spoken language requires the segmentation of the continuous acoustic speech stream into smaller units (e.g., words). Segmental and suprasegmental linguistic information guide the segmentation process. Investigating the underlying neuronal mechanisms is crucial for understanding the general nature of language perception, and language acquisition in infancy. This dissertation aimed to determine neuronal mechanisms underlying the perception of basic auditory cues relevant for the segmentation of speech in adults and infants using concurrent recordings of near-infrared spectroscopy and electroencephalography. Study I assessed temporal and topographic characteristics of phonotactic processing in adults, thus forming the basis for future studies in infants. The results show that phonotactic processing recruits a left hemispheric network. Whether these asymmetries are a function of linguistic attributes or of basic temporal signal properties is under debate. Studies in adults link hemispheric specialization for speech perception to an asymmetry in cortical tuning and reveal that the auditory cortices are differentially sensitive to temporal features of speech. Whether this asymmetry is already established in infancy is addressed by study II and III. These studies used acoustic non-linguistic sounds that vary in their temporal structure, thus sharing critical temporal features with language. Study II reveals that newborns process temporally varying stimuli in a differential and lateralized fashion. Study III indicates that this lateralization pattern remains constant over the first months of life. The findings support the notion that the lateralization of language functions might result from a specialization for different acoustic properties. The data provide further evidence that language acquisition is linked to basic capacities in auditory processing, and reveal that from birth the brain is tuned to critical temporal properties of linguistic signals.

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Fragestellung, ob die Frühgeburtlichkeit eine Auswirkung auf den Spracherwerb im ersten Lebensjahr hat. Insbesondere wurde der Frage nachgegangen, ob sich die Verarbeitung der rhythmisch-prosodischen Eigenschaften von Sprache im ersten Lebensjahr und deren weitere Ausnutzung für die Entwicklung des Lexikons bei sehr untergewichtigen Deutsch lernenden Frühgeborenen im Vergleich zu Reifgeborenen unterscheidet. Die besondere Spracherwerbssituation Frühgeborener liefert weitere Erkenntnisse bezüglich der Frage, inwieweit der frühe Spracherwerb durch prädeterminierte reifungsbedingte Mechanismen und Abläufe bestimmt wird und inwieweit dessen Verlauf und die relevanten Erwerbsmechanismen durch individuelle erfahrungsabhängige Faktoren beeinflusst werden. Damit liefern die Ergebnisse auch einen weiteren Beitrag zur Nature-Nurture-Diskussion. / This research addresses the question if and how premature birth effects language acquisition during the first year of life. In particular the study focus on whether prosodic processing of language and the utilization of this knowledge for the acquisition of the lexicon during the fist year of life differs between German learning very low birth weight infants and term born infants. The specific exposure and postnatal situation of premature infants provide insights on the determination of early language acquisition and processes, and on the determination of language acquisition and its relevant mechanisms by individual experience. The results contribute to the nature-nurture discussion.

We present an algorithm for deciding whether an arbitrary proper probabilistic context-free grammar is consistent, i.e., whether the probability that a derivation terminates is one. Our procedure has time complexity $\\\\mathcal O(n^3)$ in the unit-cost model of computation. Moreover, we develop a novel characterization of consistent probabilistic context-free grammars. A simple corollary of our result is that training methods for probabilistic context-free grammars that are based on maximum-likelihood estimation always yield consistent grammars.

No description available.

No description available.

Humboldt-Universiẗat, Diss.--Berlin.

Habituation is a filter that optimizes the processing of information by our brain in all sensory modalities. It results in an unconscious reduced responsiveness to continuous or repetitive stimulation. In olfaction, the main question is whether habituation works the same way for any odorant or whether we habituate differently to each odorant? In particular, whether chemical, physical or perceptual cues can limit or increase habituation. To test this, the odour intensity of 32 odorants differing in physicochemical characteristics was rated by 58 participants continuously during 120s. Each odorant was delivered at a constant concentration. Results showed odorants differed significantly in habituation, highlighting the multifactoriality of habituation. Additionally habituation was predicted from 15 physico-chemical and perceptual characteristics of the odorants. The analysis highlighted the importance of trigeminality which is highly correlated to intensity and pleasantness. The vapour pressure, the molecular weight, the Odor Activity Value (OAV) and the number of double bonds mostly contributed to the modulation of habituation. Moreover, length of the carbon chain, number of conformers and hydrophobicity contributed to a lesser extent to the modulation of habituation. These results highlight new principles involved in the fundamental process of habituation, notably trigeminality and the physicochemical characteristics associated.

Background: Based on the assumptions that depersonalization symptoms are relevant for test anxiety maintenance, we examined their frequency, psychological predictors, association with anxiety symptoms, and association with test performance. Sampling and Methods: In Study 1, 203 students rated their test anxiety severity and depersonalization in their last oral examination. In Study 2, we assessed test anxiety 1 week before an oral examination, depersonalization, safety behaviors, self-focused attention, and negative appraisals of depersonalization directly after the examination, and post-event processing 1 week later among 67 students. Results: In Study 1, 47.3% reported at least one moderate depersonalization symptom. In Study 2, test anxiety and negative appraisals of depersonalization significantly predicted depersonalization. Depersonalization was linked to a higher intensity of safety behaviors and post-event processing but not to self-focused attention. It was not related to performance. Conclusion: Results are limited by the non-random sampling and the small sample size of Study 2. However, by showing that depersonalization contributes to the processes the maintenance of test anxiety, the findings confirm that depersonalization – normally understood as an adaptive mechanism to cope with stressful events – can become maladaptive.