86 research outputs found
Long Duration Balloon flights development (Italian Space Agency)
No full textStratospheric balloons are rapidly becoming the vehicle of choice for near space investigations and earth observations by a variety of science disciplines. With the ever increasing research into climatic change, earth observations, near space research and commercial component testing, instruments suspended from stratospheric balloons offer the science team a unique, stable and reusable platform that can circle the Earth in the polar region or equatorial zone for thirty days or more. The Italian Space Agency (ASI) in collaboration with Andoya Rocket Range (Andenes, Norway) has opened access in the far northern latitudes above 78o N from Longyearbyen, Svalbard. In 2006 the first Italian UltraLite Long Duration Balloon was launched from Baia Terra Nova, Mario Zuchelli station in Antarctica and now ASI is setting up for the their first equatorial stratospheric launch from their satellite receiving station and rocket launch site in Malindi, Kenya. For the equatorial missions we have analysed the statistical properties of trajectories considering the biennial oscillation and the seasonal effects of the stratospheric winds. Maintaining these launch sites offer the science community 3 point world coverage for heavy lift balloons as well as the rapidly deployed Ultra-light payloads and TM systems ASI developed to use for test platforms, micro experiments, as well as a comprehensive student pilot program. This paper discusses the development of the launch facilities and international LDB development
Time reference teased apart from tense:Thinking beyond the present
No full text<p>Reference to a time frame in which an event takes place can be done by verb inflection. lithe time frame (past, present, future) is set by a temporal adverb, the verb inflection should correspond (yesterday he walked; today he walks). Temporal violations by simple verbs (single, lexical verbs inflected with tense) in the present tense and with present time reference elicit a P600 effect (Baggio, 2008; Dragoy, Stowe, Bos, & Bastiaanse, 2012). However tense does not always coincide with time reference: in languages such as Dutch and English, reference to the past can be established by using the present tense in the present perfect (e.g. 'he has eaten the cake'). The current study investigates whether the P600 effects described by Dragoy et al. and Baggio are caused by tense or time reference violations of the verb. In the context of a past adverb, ERP responses to auxiliaries in present tense with either congruent past time reference or incongruent non-past time reference were compared. The findings show that the P600 effect for violations of the temporal context is caused by the time reference of the complete verb form, rather than by the tense. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.</p>
Aspects of time:Time reference and aspect production in Russian aphasic speakers
No full text<p>Cross-linguistic data suggest that the grammatical categories of tense and aspect are not generally impaired in individuals with aphasia (see Bastiaanse et al., 2011 for a review). Rather, and more specifically, verb forms expressing reference to the past or conveying perfective semantics are more impaired than verb forms expressing reference to the non-past (present or future) or conveying imperfective semantics, both in comprehension and production. The present study used some structural properties of Russian to systematically test the interaction of time reference and aspect in non-fluent and fluent aphasia.</p><p>The Test for Assessment of Reference of Time (TART; Bastiaanse, Jonkers, & Thompson, 2008; Russian version Dragoy & Bastiaanse, 2010) was used to elicit production of four verb forms in sentence context: past perfective, non-past perfective, past imperfective and non-past imperfective. The results showed that non-past time reference had a general advantage over past time reference, all aspectual forms being collapsed. However, an interaction between time reference and aspect was found: imperfective verbs were better produced in the non-past, whereas production of perfective verbs was better preserved in the past time frame. Non-fluent and fluent aphasic speakers showed largely overlapping performance.</p><p>These results demonstrated that the advantage of a particular time reference depends on aspectual characteristics of the verb. The performance of both non-fluent and fluent aphasic speakers can be explained in terms of prototypical and non-prototypical matches of time reference and aspectual semantics: perfectives primarily refer to completed, past events while imperfectives prototypically describe ongoing, non-past events. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.</p>
Complex phonological tasks predict reading in 7 to 11 years of age typically developing Russian children
No full textBackground The important role of phonological processing for reading has been demonstrated by many studies. The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of phonological processing for reading in Russian. Specifically, we tested whether the overall complexity of a phonological task predicts reading fluency and reading comprehension. Method We used seven phonological tests ranked according to the number of linguistic processes involved in each task. We examined the relative difficulty of the tests and the relationship between phonological processing and reading skills (reading fluency and comprehension of simpler and more difficult texts) in 90 typically developing 7 to 11 years-of-age Russian-speaking children. Results Phonological tests that involved more linguistic processes had lower response accuracies. At the individual level, a greater estimated cost of adding a linguistic process to a phonological test was associated with a reliable decrease in reading fluency but not reading comprehension. Conclusions Our findings confirmed the substantial role of phonological processing in reading acquisition while stressing a higher predictive value of more complex phonological tests for reading fluency. The relationship between phonological processing and reading comprehension, in Russian, needs further investigations.This study was performed with financial support from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Project No. 17-29-09122. The contribution of Victoria Reshetnikova and Wim Tops was funded by the Center for Language and Brain NRU Higher School of Economics, RF Government Grant, ag. No. 14.641.31.0004.Dorofeeva, SV (corresponding author), Natl Res Univ Higher Sch Econ, Ctr Language & Brain, Moscow, Russia.
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PEGASO . Polar Explorer for Geomagnetic And other Scientific Observation
No full textPEGASO (Polar Explorer for Geomagnetic And other Scientific Observation) program has been created to conduct small experiments in as many disciplines on-board of small stratospheric balloons. PEGASO uses the very low expensive pathfinder balloons. Stratospheric pathfinders are small balloons commonly used to explore the atmospheric circumpolar upper winds and to predict the trajectory for big LDBs (Long Duration Balloons). Installing scientific instruments on pathfinder and using solar energy to power supply the system, we have the opportunity to explorer the Polar Regions, during the polar summer, following circular trajectory. These stratospheric small payload have flown for 14 up to 40 days, measuring the magnetic field of polar region, by means of 3-axis-fluxgate magnetometer. PEGASO payload uses IRIDIUM satellite telemetry (TM). A ground station communicates with one or more payloads to download scientific and house-keeping data and to send commands for ballast releasing, for system resetting and for operating on the separator system at the flight end. The PEGASO missions have been performed from the Svalbard islands with the logistic collaboration of the Andoya Rocket Range and from the Antarctic Italian base. Continuous trajectory predictions, elaborated by Institute of Information Science and Technology (ISTI-CNR), were necessary for the flight safety requirements in the north hemisphere. This light payloads (<10 Kg) are realized by the cooperation between the INGV and the Physics department "La Sapienza" University and it has operated five times in polar areas with the sponsorship of Italian Antarctic Program (PNRA), Italian Space Agency (ASI). This paper summarizes important results about stratospheric missions
Ієрархія життєвих цінностей та стратегій сучасної української молоді (на прикладі дослідження учнівської молоді м. Орджонікідзе)
No full textPeculiarities of the formation of life strategies of youth in the modern Ukrainian society are regarded in the article. Young people are the force that has a huge potential resource. this is said by various sociological studies. youth is rapidly turned to the active force of socioeconomic, political and cultural transformations in certain social situations. This situation can arise only on condition that the young generation especially pupils, adequately prepared for life. Therefore, the study of the essence of youth as a specific sociodemographic community, their nature and characteristics of socialization has great theoretical and practical significance. This allows, on the one hand, to create the conditions for selfdevelopment and selfrealization of students, on the other to include them in all social processes to the progressive development of society.Life strategies and social practices of the modern youth, as well as other public actors, now is under the influence of processes of social transformation of modern Ukrainian society. Value orientation as an essential element of life strategies occupy an important place among the factors that contribute to the process of social selfdetermination of students.Youth is often based on a values such as personal growth, love and commitment, interpersonal relations and communication, autonomy, safety and security during constructing a life plan. This was showed by the results of study students life strategies and valuable component. Young people articulate key goals in life their lives and organize their behavior according to these values. In conclusion we can mention that modern student youth focused on their own problems, don’t focused on social problems in constructing their own life strategies. social dynamics of paradigm of life strategies basic directions is carried contradictory and inconsistent.У даній статті розглянуті особливості формування життєвих стратегій учнівської молоді в сучасному українському суспільстві. Згідно з соціологічними уявленнями, саме молодь є тією силою, яка має величезний потенційний ресурс і за певних соціальних обставин швидко перетворюється на активну силу соціальноекономічних, політичних і культурних трансформацій. Така ситуація може скластися лише за умови, якщо молоде покоління, особливо учнівська молодь, відповідним чином підготовлене до життя. Тому дослідження сутності молоді як специфічної соціальнодемографічної спільноти, характеру і особливостей її соціалізації має велике теоретичне і практичне значення. Це дає змогу, з одного боку, створити умови для саморозвитку і самореалізації учнівської молоді, а з іншого – включити її в усі суспільні процеси з метою прогресивного поступу суспільства.Життєві стратегії та соціальна практика сучасної учнівської молоді, як і інших масових акторів, зараз перебуває під впливом процесів соціальної трансформації сучасного українського суспільства. Серед чинників, що зумовлюють процес соціального самовизначення учнівської молоді, важливе місце займають ціннісні орієнтації як найважливіший елемент життєвих стратегій.Результати дослідження життєвих стратегій учнівської молоді та ціннісного компонента, зокрема, показали, що в побудові плану свого життя молодь найчастіше спирається на такі цінності, як особистісне зростання, прихильність та любов, міжособистісні відносини та спілкування, автономність, безпека та захищеність. Відповідно до цих цінностей молоді люди формулюють ключові життєві цілі власного життя та організовують свою поведінку. Робиться висновок, що сучасна учнівська молодь при побудові власної життєвої стратегії орієнтується на власні, а не суспільні проблеми, а соціальна динаміка базових напрямів парадигми життєвих стратегій здійснюється суперечливо й непослідовно.У даній статті розглянуті особливості формування життєвих стратегій учнівської молоді в сучасному українському суспільстві. Згідно з соціологічними уявленнями, саме молодь є тією силою, яка має величезний потенційний ресурс і за певних соціальних обставин швидко перетворюється на активну силу соціальноекономічних, політичних і культурних трансформацій. Така ситуація може скластися лише за умови, якщо молоде покоління, особливо учнівська молодь, відповідним чином підготовлене до життя. Тому дослідження сутності молоді як специфічної соціальнодемографічної спільноти, характеру і особливостей її соціалізації має велике теоретичне і практичне значення. Це дає змогу, з одного боку, створити умови для саморозвитку і самореалізації учнівської молоді, а з іншого – включити її в усі суспільні процеси з метою прогресивного поступу суспільства.Життєві стратегії та соціальна практика сучасної учнівської молоді, як і інших масових акторів, зараз перебуває під впливом процесів соціальної трансформації сучасного українського суспільства. Серед чинників, що зумовлюють процес соціального самовизначення учнівської молоді, важливе місце займають ціннісні орієнтації як найважливіший елемент життєвих стратегій.Результати дослідження життєвих стратегій учнівської молоді та ціннісного компонента, зокрема, показали, що в побудові плану свого життя молодь найчастіше спирається на такі цінності, як особистісне зростання, прихильність та любов, міжособистісні відносини та спілкування, автономність, безпека та захищеність. Відповідно до цих цінностей молоді люди формулюють ключові життєві цілі власного життя та організовують свою поведінку. Робиться висновок, що сучасна учнівська молодь при побудові власної життєвої стратегії орієнтується на власні, а не суспільні проблеми, а соціальна динаміка базових напрямів парадигми життєвих стратегій здійснюється суперечливо й непослідовно
Continuum/spectrum model in children with DLD (Gomozova et al., 2024)
No full textPurpose: Previously, Lancaster and Camarata (2019) showed that the continuum/spectrum model of the developmental language disorder (DLD) best explained the high heterogeneity of symptoms in children with DLD. We hypothesize that the continuum/spectrum approach can include not only children with DLD but also typically developing (TD) children with different timelines and patterns of language acquisition. This model can explain individual language profiles and deficits in children.Method: We assessed language abilities in a group of Russian-speaking children with DLD aged 4–7 years (n = 53) and their age- and gender-matched peers without speech and language diagnoses (n = 53, TD). We evaluated the children’s performance at four language levels in production and comprehension domains, using 11 subtests of the standardized language assessment for Russian: Russian Child Language Assessment Battery (RuCLAB). Using the k-means cluster method and RuCLAB scores, we obtained two clusters of children and analyzed their language performance in individual subtests.Results: The analysis revealed that the two clusters of children both included DLD and TD participants: Group 1, with higher test scores (TD = 45, DLD = 24 children), and Group 2, with lower scores (TD = 8, DLD = 29). Children from Group 1 mostly had lower scores at one of the language levels, whereas those from Group 2 struggled at several language levels. Furthermore, children with DLD from both groups tended to be more sensitive to linguistic features such as word length, noun case, and sentence reversibility compared to TD children.Conclusions: The presence of two mixed groups shows that children with diagnosed DLD could perform on par with TD children, whereas some younger TD children could perform similarly to children with DLD. Our findings support the continuum/spectrum model: Linguistic skills in preschool children are a continuum, varying from high to poor skills at all language levels in comprehension and production. To describe a child’s language profile, the tasks assessing all language levels should be used.Supplemental Material S1. Distribution of accuracy scores for all participants at phonological (panel 1), lexical (panel 2), morphosyntactic (panel 3), and discourse levels (panel 4).Supplemental Material S2. Models outcome for the phonological level.Supplemental Material S3. Models outcome for the lexical level.Supplemental Material S4. Models outcome for the morphosyntactic level.Supplemental Material S5. Models outcome for the four parameters of the Sentence production subtest.Supplemental Material S6. Models outcome for the discourse level.Gomozova, M., Lezzhova, V., Dragoy, O., & Lopukhina, A. (2024). Testing the continuum/spectrum model in Russian-speaking children with and without developmental language disorder. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 67(5), 1461–1477. https://doi.org/10.1044/2024_JSLHR-23-00596</p
Time reference and aspect in agrammatic aphasia: Evidence from Greek
No full textTime reference, which has been found to be selectively impaired in agrammatic aphasia (e.g., Bastiaanse et al., 2011), is often interwoven with grammatical aspect. Dragoy and Bastiaanse (2013) investigated the relationship between time reference/tense and aspect focusing on Russian aphasia and found that the two interact: past reference was less impaired when tested within perfective aspect (compared to when tested within imperfective aspect), and reference to the nonpast was less impaired when tested within imperfective aspect (compared to when tested within perfective aspect). To account for this pattern, Dragoy and Bastiaanse (2013: 114) claimed that “perfectives primarily refer to completed, past events while imperfectives prototypically describe ongoing, non-past events”. This study explores the relationship between time reference and aspect focusing on Greek aphasia. In Greek, verb forms referring to the past and future encode the perfective-imperfective contrast. Dragoy and Bastiaanse (2013) would make predictions PR1–PR4 for Greek. (PR1) past reference within perfective aspect > past reference within imperfective aspect; (PR2) future reference within perfective aspect imperfective aspect within past reference; (PR4) perfective aspect within future reference < imperfective aspect within future reference. Methods Eight Greek-speaking persons with agrammatic aphasia (PWA) and eight controls were administered a sentence completion task consisting of 128 experimental source sentence (SS)-target sentence (TS) pairs. There were eight subconditions, each of which consisted of 16 items: past reference within perfective aspect; past reference within imperfective aspect; future reference within perfective aspect; future reference within imperfective aspect; perfective aspect within past reference; imperfective aspect within past reference; perfective aspect within future reference; imperfective aspect within future reference. Participants were auditorily presented with a SS and the beginning of the TS, and were asked to orally complete the TS producing the missing Verb Phrase. We fitted generalized linear mixed-effect models and employed Fisher’s exact tests to make within-participant comparisons. Results Overall, the aphasic group fared significantly worse than the control group (p < 0.001). At the group level, none of the four relevant comparisons (see PR1–PR4) yielded significant differences for PWA (Table 1). Four PWA (P1, P3, P7, P8) exhibited dissociations, with three of them making up a double dissociation: P1 performed better on imperfective aspect-future reference than on perfective aspect-future reference (p < 0.001), and P7 and P8 exhibited the opposite pattern (p = 0.016 and p < 0.001 for P7 and P8, respectively). Discussion Results are not consistent with Dragoy and Bastiaanse’s (2013) findings, which challenges the idea of prototypical and non-prototypical associations between time reference and aspect. The double dissociation that emerged in the aspect condition indicates that a given time reference-aspect combination may be relatively easy to process for some PWA but demanding for some others. Thus, studies investigating tense/time reference in aphasia should ensure that this grammatical/semantic category is not confounded by aspect
Fishing is not wrestling: Neural underpinnings of the verb instrumentality effect
No full textPrevious clinical research has shown a positive effect of instrumentality on verb retrieval in individuals with aphasia. Performance on instrumental verbs incorporating an obligatory tool into their conceptual representation (e.g., to cut) is more accurate compared to non instrumental verbs (e.g., to tear), possibly due to more specific conceptual representations of instrumental verbs. Seeking the neural correlates of the differences between instrumental and non-instrumental verbs, we conducted an fMRI study with 16 German speakers who performed a verb-object matching task with instrumental and non instrumental verbs. We found that an extensive neural network. including but not limited to frontal and temporal language-related areas was more involved in the semantic processing of non-instrumental compared to instrumental verbs. We argue that this reflects a greater load associated with the processing of less semantically structured/restricted representations of non-instrumental verbs. The unavailability of additional neural resources needed for the processing of non-instrumental verbs in individuals with aphasia may lead to better behavioral performance on instrumental than non instrumental verbs. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Bavarian State Ministry of Sciences, Research and the Arts, Germany; Russian Academic Excellence Project [5-100]SCI(E)[email protected]
Phonological skills as predictors of dyslexia (Dorofeeva et al., 2022)
No full textPurpose: The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether the performance on each of seven phonological processing (PP) tests from the Russian Test of Phonological Processing (RuToPP), with their varying levels of linguistic complexity and composite phonological indices, are significant predictors of developmental dyslexia (DD) and can reliably differentiate children with and without reading impairment. Additionally, we examined the general contribution of phonological skills to text reading fluency in children with various levels of reading performance.
Method: A total of 173 Russian-speaking 7- to 11-year-old children participated in this study: 124 who were typically developing (TD) and 49 who had been diagnosed with DD. We assessed reading fluency with a standardized reading test and PP with the RuToPP. We investigated the potential of phonological skills to predict the presence or absence of a dyslexia diagnosis using multinomial logistic regression, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, and calculations of the sensitivity and specificity of each test and index. The contribution of phonological skills to reading fluency was also assessed in a mixed group of children.
Results: Six of seven RuToPP tests were significant predictors of dyslexia. However, while the RuToPP correctly identified 93%–99% of TD children, for children with dyslexia, it ranged from 4% to 47% depending on the test. In a mixed group of children with and without dyslexia, performance in the more complex phonological tests was a stronger predictor of reading fluency.
Conclusions: Our findings are consistent with the literature on predictors of literacy skills and dyslexia while uniquely demonstrating the impact of the complexity level of the phonological tests on the classification outcome. PP is a significant and necessary predictor of reading skills, but it is not sufficient for diagnostic purposes.
Supplemental Material S1. The factor and the correlation analyses for the behavioral data of children with dyslexia.
Supplemental Material S2. Boxplots for the results in the reading test and in all Russian Test of Phonological Processing (RuToPP) tests.
Dorofeeva, S. V., Iskra, E., Goranskaya, D., Gordeyeva, E., Serebryakova, M., Zyryanov, A., Akhutina, T. V., & Dragoy, O. (2022). Cognitive requirements of the phonological tests affect their ability to discriminate children with and without developmental dyslexia. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00687</p
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