Selon la théorie du syntagme nominal développée par Wilmet (2003), la notion de caractérisant est une notion fonctionnelle qui désigne tous les « accompagnateurs » du nom (ou déterminants) qui modifient l’extension du nom. Cette notion est indépendante des catégories morpho-syntaxique puisqu’on trouve parmi les caractérisants des adjectifs, des syntagmes prépositionnels, des noms, des adverbes, des propositions relatives voire des phrases entières. Les linguistes du français se sont surtout intéressés à la position absolue de l’adjectif (antéposition ou postposition au nom), mais peu à leur ordre relatif. Il était intéressant d’étendre le point de vue à tous les caractérisants parce que le mélange de caractérisants de différentes natures, en particulier la séquence relative de l’adjectif et du complément du nom, pose d’intéressantes questions linguistiques. La notion fonctionnelle montre également sa valeur dans un cadre comparatiste, car différentes langues ne rendent pas le même concept avec la même catégorie morpho-syntaxique. Notre théorie est que la séquence des caractérisants, tant en antéposition qu’en postposition, est régie par une hiérarchie de critères morpho-syntaxiques et sémantiques, en particulier par leur valeur classificatrice, descriptive ou spécificatrice. On a souvent classé les adjectifs en fonction de leur appartenance à une classe sémantique ontologique (couleur, forme, matière…). En réalité, de très nombreux adjectifs et caractérisants n’entrent pas dans ces catégories et ce type de classification n’est pas le premier critère à l’œuvre dans l’ordre des mots. Le syntagme nominal apparaît dès lors comme structuré en différentes couches concentriques autour du nom ; il est délimité en antéposition par les quantifiants et en postposition par les caractérisants spécificateurs qui lui font en quelque sorte pendant. On observera dès lors d’intéressants phénomènes de sens et d’acceptabilité grammaticale dans le jeu des quantifiants et des caractérisants. Inversement, la position relative d’un caractérisant influe sur sa valeur. On pourrait résumer ces effets de sens par la formule : on dit d’abord ce que c’est, ensuite comment c’est, et enfin lequel c’est. De manière très générale donc, on observe que l’orientation des déterminants se fait selon un axe intrinsèque-extrinsèque ou objectif-subjectif. L’étude d’expressions dans d’autres langues et dans des domaines spécialisés (cuisine, appellations officielles incluant des adjectifs géographiques, localisation de logiciels et chimie organique) permet de valider cette hypothèse tout en montrant que l’ordre des mots est un phénomène de génération, propre à chaque langue car la traduction modifie la nature morpho-syntaxique et peut modifier la valeur des caractérisants. La partie technique de la thèse a exploité des techniques de traduction assistée par ordinateur, de traduction automatique et de traitement du langage, elle a fait appel aux langages de balisage standards de la famille XML pour la représentation des corpus et des règles ainsi que pour la réalisation des procédures. Les corpus spécialisés ont été constitués par alignement de corpus monolingues ou par traduction. Ils ont tous été mis au format XML ; les règles de traduction ont été formalisées dans le même format et elles ont été implémentées en XSLT. La formalisation des corpus en assure la portabilité et facilite les recherches de structures grammaticales sur un corpus catégorisé. Les corpus parallèles sont en outre d’une grande aide pour les traducteurs. Enfin, l’automatisation permet de valider les règles linguistiques proposées.

UV spectrometry (187–380 nm) with charge coupled device (CCD) detection was used to study the evolution of absorption spectra during the vaporization of various species in the pyrocoated graphite furnace, with electrodeposited Ir and Rh as modifiers. In order to mimic a typical matrix composition, various salts of aluminum, manganese, copper, magnesium, sodium, and lead were used in microgram amounts. Changes in spectra and vapor release rate, along with aging of the tubes in the repetitive temperature cycles, were observed. Compared to the unmodified pyrocoated tubes, the presence of Ir or Rh causes a significant reduction in the vaporization efficiency, especially for microgram amounts of copper and aluminum introduced as nitrates, and manganese introduced as a sulfate. The vaporization efficiency, for magnesium and sodium as chlorides, and for lead as a sulfate, remained unchanged. Interestingly, the aging of the tubes was accompanied by partial restoration of the spectral characteristics for unmodified tubes. For example, with unmodified pyrocoated tubes, the vaporization spectrum, appearing as a consequence of the decomposition of aluminum nitrate, consisted of Al2O bands overlapped by Al atomic lines. In the freshly modified tubes, intensities of those lines and bands were substantially reduced, and in this case, the dominance of AlO molecules was observed. The efficiency of vaporization of aluminum species increased in the aged modified tubes. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the modified surfaces for the new and aged tubes indicated that aging of the tubes is accompanied by the destruction of the pyrocoating, formation of pyrographite shells around the areas where the modifier was electrodeposited, and finally, complete substitution of the metal on the graphite surface by pyrographite debris.

No description available.

This paper offers an alternative philosophy of whole number in which number-words are treated as being of the semantic-type modifier. Other accounts of number in which number-words are treated as names, syncategoremata, determiners, and predicates are considered and rejected based on their failure to provide number-words with the necessary compositional semantics. This leaves only modifiers as plausible candidates to play number-words' role in natural language. After the semantic-type modifier is chosen, a decision between number-words' being adjectival or adverbial modifiers must then be made. I argue that due to a lack of entities to be ascribed adjectival numerical properties we must settle on an adverbial treatment. After developing this treatment, I close with an attempt to explain seemingly singular-term uses of number-words in arithmetical statements like '2 + 2 = 4' in terms of these claims' stating the rules for substituting equivalent modifier-phrases in non-mathematical usages. / Master of Arts

One of the main characteristics of German technical language is the nominal style, which includes complex pre-nominal and post-nominal extended modifiers. A commonly held view is that these are less common in Swedish due to language-specific restrictions and preferences. As such, they may pose a challenge to Swedish translators. This essay examines this particular problem and focuses on the translation of four different complex extended modifiers: adjectival, participial, genitival and prepositional.The aim of this study was to determine which syntactic structures are used when these modifiers are translated into Swedish and to identify shifts using the concept “grammatical metaphor”, thereby focusing on the degree of grammatical metaphoricity. For the purposes of this study, a chapter of the technical book Neues Bauen mit Stroh in Europa by Gruber, Gruber and Sentler was translated into Swedish and then analysed with the above-mentioned aims in mind.The study showed that out of the 117 noun phrases with extended complex modifiers in the source text 21 were transposed into a less explicit, direct structure and more metaphorical language. The metaphorization was in some cases a result of simplification/omission of less dense semantic material and/or the translation into compounds. In 46 cases, the extended modifiers showed the same degree of grammatical metaphoricity as the source language expression and thus were re-metaphorized. In the remaining cases, a verbal or more explicit structure was chosen in the translation. This especially proved to be the case with pre-nominal extended adjectival and participial modifiers.

Wax crystal formation in diesel and related hydrocarbon fuels during cold weather is a long standing problem. Current polymeric additives to diesel fuel modify the crystal habit of the wax, in a variety of ways, to improve its performance at low temperature. These wax crystal modifiers (WCM) have to operate at low concentrations (0.01-0.1%) to make their use economical, so it is critical that their structures are optimised for the application. The objectives of this work was to synthesise, characterise and test some new polymeric additives which are anticipated to effect the crystallisation of the wax from the fuel and to prepare a model ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) polymer to gain insights into the mode of action of the EVA co-polymers which are currently in use as WCM. Ring opening metathesis polymerisation was chosen as the method of preparation for these new polymeric additives. An introduction to wax crystallisation in diesel fuel and some proposals for the preparation of these new polymeric additives are given in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 discusses olefin metathesis and ring opening metathesis polymerisation reactions. The synthesis and characterisation of monomers and polymers are given in Chapters 3 and 4 respectively. Results from fuel tests are described in Chapter 5.

Lubricants are used in numerous applications to control friction and protect moving parts from fatigue. These fluids consist of a variety of surface active chemistries competing for the surface to provide performance. In order to develop fluids that meet the ever-increasing requirements (from legislation and manufacturers), techniques that can provide insight into surface adsorption, in real time, and relate it back to performance are critical. The objective of this work is to determine if Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation (QCM-D) is an effective technique to investigate surfactant adsorption in regimes that are common to the transportation lubricant industry. QCM-D is employed to quantify the mass, characterize the morphology, and quantify the kinetics of adsorption of common friction modifiers. The adsorption information is then compared to macroscopic properties (friction and corrosion prevention) to determine if this technique can aid in formulating future lubricants.

A fundamental question in the study of memory is: Why do we remember some events but forget others? It has been proposed that people preferentially remember motivationally relevant information, as these memories may be useful in guiding choices in the future, a framework called adaptive memory. This dissertation examined the brain mechanisms that support adaptive memory, specifically focusing on how memory is shaped by rewards and dopamine, using a combination of pharmacological manipulations and behavioral assays. First, we found that rewards retroactively prioritize memory for preceding neutral events, and consistent with models of hippocampal replay, two periods of consolidation are necessary for this effect: a period of rest immediately following encoding and overnight consolidation. Second, motivated by research showing that neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, potentiate motivationally relevant memories to endure over long durations, we administered d-amphetamine (a dopamine agonist) before encoding. We found that when hippocampus dependent memory is tested after a short delay, working memory best accounts for memory performance, but when tested after a long delay, d-amphetamine level directly predicts memory performance. And third, we tested how d-amphetamine modulates different memory systems after a delay, using two different behavioral paradigms in which participants learned about overlapping associations using either stimulus-response learning or deliberate associative encoding. In both experiments, we found that d-amphetamine during encoding enhanced test performance on the trained items a week later; however, we did not detect any evidence that d-amphetamine modulates the integration of the overlapping pairs. Together, the work reported in this dissertation suggests that memory for motivationally relevant information is prioritized, dopamine enhances performance across different memory and learning systems, the effect of both reward and dopamine on memory and learning emerge after consolidation, and dopamine does not bias the hippocampus to encode memories in an integrated manner.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2007. / "Graduate Program in Food Science." Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-91).

Thesis (M.Sc.)--York University, 2009. Graduate Programme in Chemistry. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-145). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR51628