Be Careful When Assuming the Obvious

Reply to the commentary "Be careful when assuming the obvious", by P. Alday

Here we respond to some comments by Alday concerning headedness in linguistic theory and the validity of the assumptions of a mathematical model for word order. For brevity, we focus only on two assumptions: the unit of measurement of dependency length and the monotonicity of the cost of a dependency as a function of its length. We also revise the implicit psychological bias in Alday’s comments...

Be Careful When Assuming the Obvious: Commentary on "The placement of the head that minimizes online memory: a complex systems approach"

Ferrer-i-Cancho (in press) presents a mathematical model of both the synchronic and diachronic nature of word order based on the assumption that memory costs are a never decreasing function of distance and a few very general linguistic assumptions. However, even these minimal and seemingly obvious assumptions are not as safe as they appear in light of recent typological and psycholinguistic evi...

Correcting hypotension: be careful!

To cite: Foran E, Abkur TM. BMJ Case Rep Published online: [please include Day Month Year] doi:10.1136/ bcr-2015-212904 DESCRIPTION A 42-year-old woman presented with a 2-day history of vomiting. She was drowsy, dehydrated, tachycardic and hypotensive with a blood pressure (BP) of 52/37. The immediate management included infusion of 4 L of normal saline and inotropic support. Investigations sho...

Let's be careful out there.

If we are to change the way these services are regulated, we first must know what the trade-offs are. Consumers need to know what they are giving up if they exchange the certainty of their regulated, monopoly provider for the harsh world of the competitive marketplace. Make no mistake, there is a vast difference in cultures between a monopoly, regulated utility run with the ratepayer uppermost ...

Can We Be Too Careful?