Thesis (doctoral) - Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, 2005. / DatabaseEbrary. EAN: 9783110186338. Includes bibliographical references (p. [225]-242) and indexes.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: David M. Stone, Dept. of Art History. Includes bibliographical references.

Rumination is a maladaptive coping style that has been found to be associated with several negative outcomes, including depression and anxiety. In particular, rumination has been found to be associated with deficits in inhibiting irrelevant information. This study examined the relationship of rumination to depression, anxiety, and stress and examined gender differences in these relationships. It also examined inhibitory deficits in rumination using a negative priming task with both short- and long-term components and evaluated the efficacy of a negative priming paradigm which utilised single presentations of stimuli that were not confounded by stimulus-response bindings. The results found that rumination was associated with higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress, in line with the classification of rumination as maladaptive. It was also discovered that the predictors of rumination differed between males and females, with rumination being predicted by stress and depression for females and by anxiety for males, indicating possible gender differences in the explanation of rumination. The negative priming paradigm used in this study failed to produce any significant negative priming, and indeed produced significant positive priming meaning that no conclusions could be drawn from the data about inhibitory deficits and rumination. The results did however highlight the importance of the probe distractor in negative priming as it appears that a lack of competition between the probe distractor and the probe target may be a possible reason for the failure to observe negative priming.

Predicates KNOW, WANT, LIKE, HAVE, and GOOD have been reported to differ from other predicates in American Sign Language (ASL) in that they are typically negated by reversing the orientation of hand[s] in a twisting outward/downward movement. This phenomenon has been termed "negative incorporation." In this study, I examine semantic properties of negative-incorporation predicates. Specifically, I investigate whether these predicates also allow other negation strategies available in ASL and what the meanings conveyed by using these strategies are. I provide a detailed description of negative incorporation and demonstrate that it has a different status for the verbal predicates WANT, LIKE, and KNOW versus the adjectival predicate BAD. Using the data from a structured data collection procedure in the form of a production task and the elicitation of acceptability judgments, I identify various possibilities and preferred strategies for the investigated predicates, show that most signers do not accept negative incorporation with HAVE in contemporary ASL, demonstrate that nonmanual negation when a negative headshake is the only indicator of negation cannot be used with the verbal negative-incorporation predicates, and point out that there is variation among signers with respect to the preferred strategy of negation for LIKE that can be explained by historical change in progress. / text

This dissertation investigates the peculiar behavior of negative polarity items in questions and argues that a unified account of their distribution across declarative and interrogative constructions is feasible. These items are acceptable in questions, despite the fact that questions do not prima facie share anything in common with the other environments in which NPIs surface. Specifically, given current analyses of questions there is no way to argue that questions give rise to downward-entailing inferences, which is what otherwise unifies all other NPI licensing environments. In Chapter 2 I argue for a new semantics of questions wherein strength of exhaustivity is encoded not in different answer-hood operators (cf. Heim 1994), but rather in terms of the presence/absence of a null only that adjoins at the level of the question nucleus, building on an observation by Guerzoni and Sharvit (2007) that question strength appears to be the determining factor in whether or not a question allows NPIs. Chapter 3 focuses specifically on the distribution of NPIs in constituent questions and shows how the analysis put forward in Chapter 2 can account for an array of facts, namely their distribution both in the question nucleus, and in the restrictor of the wh-phrase. Further predictions related to NPIs that had not been discussed before are examined, such as how their scope relative to adjunct wh-phrases affects their acceptability, as well as the distributional differences between weak and strong NPIs. In Chapters 4 and 5 we turn to non-wh questions, namely alternate and polar questions. In Chapter 4 I argue that alternate questions can and should be given an analysis akin to that of wh-questions based on both old and new empirical evidence that the distribution of NPIs is sensitive to the same set of restrictions. In Chapter 5 I argue, contrary to previous analyses, that the acceptability of NPIs is not a function of strength, but rather of how polar questions are interpreted, namely as speech act conditionals. Lastly, Chapter 6 focuses on complex questions and puts forward an analysis of these questions that sets the stage for an arguably unified semantics of all types of questions. / Linguistics

The electronic structure and reaction dynamics of molecular and cluster anions in the gas phase has been investigated using negative ion velocity-map imaging photoelectron spectrometer. Photoelectron images provide important information about both energies and symmetries of the parent anion orbitals from which photoelectron originates. The symmetry and the ordering of several low-lying electronic states of neutral nitromethane (X¹A′, a³A″, b³A″, and A¹A″) are assigned based on a group theoretical analysis of the transitions angular distributions and the results of DFT calculations. The through-bond electronic coherence in meta- and para-dinitrobenzene anions is explored by recording a series of photoelectron images in 532-266 nm wavelength range. Photoelectron angular distributions for both isomers exhibit oscillatory behavior characteristic of the quantum interference effect, suggesting that dinitrobenzene anions retain their high symmetry electronic structures in the gas phase. Photoelectron imaging experiments on [O(N₂O)(n)]⁻, n =0–9 at 266 and 355 nm provide clear evidence of a switch from the cova)lent NNO₂⁻ cluster core to the atomic O⁻ core occurring between n = 3 and 4. The experimental results and theoretical modeling indicate that despite the greater stability of NNO₂⁻ relative to the O⁻ + N₂O⁻ dissociation limit, an O⁻ cluster core becomes energetically favored over NNO₂⁻ for n > 3, due to the more efficient solvation of the atomic anion. The photodissociation dynamics of I₂⁻ and IBr⁻ anions on the respective A' excited-state anion potentials is effectively unraveled in 780 nm pump - 390 nm probe time-resolve experiments. The time-dependent photoelectron spectra and classical trajectory calculations of the IBr⁻ dissociation provide the first rigorous dynamical test of the recently calculated A′ potential for this system. The photoelectron anisotropy cyclic variation observed in photodissociation of I₂⁻ is interpreted in the context of dual-center quantum interference model. The 390 nm pump – 390 nm probe experimental data reveal fast (≤100 fs) and delayed (~ 700 fs) appearance of the I⁻ channel in the photodissociation of I₂Cl⁻ and BrICl⁻ anions respectively. The difference in the reaction time-scales is attributed to the distinct dissociation pathways available for the anions to form I⁻ product.

Twenty-three marine and two terrestrial gram-negative bacteria were examined by electron microscopy for the effect on the outer membrane of the cells of washing the organisms successively in 0.5M NaCl and 0.5M sucrose. Six marine bacteria lost their outer membranes completely, three lost large segments but not all of their outer membranes, and six retained their outer membranes but with either gross distortions of the outer membrane and/or segments of outer membrane removed from some cells. The remaining eight marine and two terrestrial bacteria appeared to have continuous outer membranes after application of the wash procedure. / Eighteen of the twenty-three marine bacteria employed in the wash treatment study and two terrestrial bacteria were examined for the effect of washing and suspending the organisms in various solutions with respect to lysis of the cells and Optical Density (O.D.) changes of suspensions. / A spectrum of lytic susceptibility was observed among the marine bacteria ranging from those organisms which lysed in distilled water after exposure to Mg('2+) through organisms which lysed upon suspension in distilled water after pre-exposure to NaCl but which failed to lyse in distilled water if pre-exposed to Mg('2+) to organisms which failed to lyse in distilled water even after exposure to NaCl. E. coli and Ps. aeruginosa also fell within this spectrum. / After exposure to NaCl and subsequent suspension of these organisms in decreasing concentrations of either NaCl, KCl or MgCl(,2), concentrations of KCl two to three times that of NaCl or ten to four hundred times that of MgCl(,2) could protect most marine organisms from lysis or larger decreases in the O.D. of their suspensions. However, three marine and both terrestrial bacteria required only equal concentrations of KCl or NaCl to effect protection. / No overall distinction can therefore be made between marine and terrestrial bacteria with respect to the status of the outer membrane of these organisms after washing them in NaCl and sucrose solutions or the sensitivity of the two groups of organisms to lysis in distilled water after pre-exposure to NaCl or MgCl(,2).

No description available.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between stereotype confirmation concerns (SCC) and fear of negative evaluation (FNE). It is hypothesized that SCC will predict FNE, and that this effect will be moderated by race, such that SCC and FNE will be stronger among African Americans than among European Americans. A sample of 53 Caucasians and 41 African Americans were diagnosed with social anxiety. A hierarchical multiple regression was run to predict FNE with SCC, race, and the product of the two. The final model explained 27.9% of the variance in participants’ FNE. Race significantly moderated the effects of SCC on FNE; SCC had a stronger effect on FNE for Caucasian (b = .380, p < .01) than for African Americans (b = .140, p < .05). This study shows that it may be helpful in treatment of social anxiety to address stereotype confirmation concerns and to discuss social situations during which negative stereotypes become salient.

Based on two typological frameworks (Dahl, 1979 and Miestamo, 2007), I explore the various strategies used to negate declarative verbal main clauses (standard negation) in 28 languages in order to investigate the correlation between them and basic word order. The 28 languages are divided into three groups according to their basic word order as follows: 11 SOV, 10 SVO and 7 VSO. As much as possible, I have included languages from different language families and different geographical areas in order to eliminate the effect of genetic relationships and borrowings. The results suggest that negative strategies are probably morphological, where the negator is an affix, in SOV languages and frequently syntactic, where the negator is an independent morpheme, in SVO and VSO languages. I also show that symmetric negation, where no structural differences are observed between affirmatives and negatives other than the negative marker (s), is the most common type cross-linguistically.