The primary goal of Evolutionary Phonology is to explain recurrent sound patterns in spoken languages across time and space. One domain of explanation is diachronic, and much of my own work has focused on diachronic explanations (e.g. Blevins 2004, 2006a, To appear a, To appear b, To appear c, this volume). Another domain of explanation is synchronic. A range of synchronic factors, from the mec...

My father suffered from bipolar disorder. His illness placed an enormous strain on our relationship which, for the most part, was filled with turbulence. Although our family physician played an integral role in supporting my parents throughout the disease, I did not receive the same support and suffered as a consequence. In this essay, I describe my father's manic and major depressive episodes,...

To my wife and son iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Reflecting upon my graduate career, I am deeply grateful to the many people whose help, insight, and guidance has brought me to where I am at today. I would first like to thank Dr. Ty Newell, who helped a former student find his direction and motivated him to enter graduate school. Next, I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Michael Goldfarb for taking me o...

ii DEDICATION Dedicated to my wife Sanju and my sons Vishnu and Arjun. You are the reasons why I smile, thank you for everything. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Shawn Levy as well as my advisory committee, for their wonderful guidance in this project as well as their very helpful advice both professional and beyond. I would like to thank the Department of Biomedic...

ii To my wife Arshin, who is always there for me whether she knows it or not. To my father Habib, who is always my inspiration for attaining higher education. To my mother Fatimah, who made me the person I am today. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First I would like to thank Dr. Anstoetter for bringing my attention to and helping me attain the NIH T32 grant that financially supported both me and the projec...

Imagine a family going out for a walk. The mother reasons beyond what she is seeing: she may guess “why her husband suddenly looks at their son”, “what his gesture means”, and “where to move next”. The son riding a bicycle may reason about “how hard I would pedal my way up the slope”. My research goal is identifying such deep reasoning based on my conjecture—a wearable camera can tap into their...

This is an inquiry into the “actionable credibility” of information values in informing and how it depends on other attributes of data and information quality. Empirical survey-based research by Wang and Strong (1996) ignores the multidimensional aspects of credibility. Studies that ignore them may produce unreliable results. Most publications discuss these attributes as independent quality fac...

when stretcher came to unit and i was put in my bed, nursing personnel of surgical ward said to me hello. i had seen their face from yesterday night when they were transferring patients from emergency ward to this unit.  in that time, i had the role of emergency ward assistant manager. today, i am a weak patient that even is unable for smallest movement. cause of my admission to hospital is mus...