We outline an unsupervised language acquisition algorithm and offer some psycholinguistic support for a model based on it. Our approach resembles the Construction Grammar in its general philosophy, and the Tree Adjoining Grammar in its computational characteristics. The model is trained on a corpus of transcribed child-directed speech (CHILDES). The model’s ability to process novel inputs makes...

Does the historical macroeconomic environment affect preferences for redistribution? We find that individuals who experienced a recession when young believe that success in life depends more on luck than effort, support more government redistribution, and tend to vote for left-wing parties. The effect of recessions on beliefs is long-lasting. We support our findings with evidence from three dif...

Analysts typically use a variety of techniques to forecast inflation. These include both ‘bottom-up’ approaches, for near-term forecasting, as well as econometric methods (such as mark-up models of inflation, which have been found to perform quite well for Australia – see de Brouwer and Ericsson (1998)). One of the econometric approaches to inflation forecasting which is sometimes considered is...

The diphthamide on eukaryotic translation elongation factor 2 (eEF2) is the target of ADPribosylating toxins and -derivatives that serve as payloads in targeted tumor therapy. Diphthamide is generated by seven DPH proteins; cells deficient in these (DPHko) lack diphthamide and are toxin-resistant. We have established assays to address the functionality of DPH1 (OVCA1) and DPH5 variants listed i...

The encounter of a Ca(2+) ion with a protein and its subsequent binding to specific binding sites is an intricate process that cannot be fully elucidated from experimental observations. We have applied Molecular Dynamics to study this process with atomistic details, using Calbindin D9k (CaB) as a model protein. The simulations show that in most of the time the Ca(2+) ion spends within the Debye...

In mammalian cerebrum there exist two distinct types of interneurons expressing nitric oxide synthase (NOS). Type I neurons are large in size and exhibit heavy nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate diaphorase (NADPH-d) histochemical reaction, while type II cells are small with light NADPH-d reactivity. The time of origin of these cortical neurons relative to corticogenesis remains largely...

The PAX6 gene plays a crucial role in development of the eye, brain, olfactory system and endocrine pancreas. Consistent with its pleiotropic role the gene exhibits a complex developmental expression pattern which is subject to strict spatial, temporal and quantitative regulation. Control of expression depends on a large array of cis-elements residing in an extended genomic domain around the co...

Participation of beneficiaries in the monitoring of public services is increasingly seen as a key to improving their efficiency. In India, the current government flagship program on universal primary education organizes both locally elected leaders and parents of children enrolled in public schools into committees and gives these groups powers over resource allocation, and monitoring and manage...

When a society wants to control aggregate emission under a certain target level, is it more desirable to impose a tax or a regulatory standard on emission? To answer this question, we explore a model where plants are heterogeneous in productivity and monopolistically competitive in the production of a set of varieties of (dirty-) goods whose by-product is emission. We establish three main resul...