Exhaustive Capture of Ovarian Cancer Transcriptional and Genomic Variant Integrating Canonical and Mapping-Free Protocols

Ovarian cancer is the most frequent cause of deaths in gynecologic malignancies. Many possible mechanisms have been proposed via RNAseq and DNAseq technique recently. However, the driving factors are still obscure. The possible reasons are attributed to the incomplete human reference. This study integrated the canonical mapping-based and mapping-free protocols to extract reliable variations and novel events. We eventually obtained 450 reliable SNVs from the WES data and novel events from the RNAseq data, including 154 SNVs, 462 intron events, two repeats and six splice events. We identified six differentially expressed genes and six contigs that are significantly related to survival prognosis. The recurrent SNVs in significantly differentially expressed genes can be validated in an independent cohort of 20 Chinese ovarian cancer patients.

Argument Structure of Classifier Predicates: Canonical and Non-canonical Mappings in Four Sign Languages

We analyze argument structure of whole-entity and handling classifier predicates in four sign languages (Russian Sign Language, Sign Language of the Netherlands, German Sign Language, and Kata Kolok) using parallel datasets (retellings of the Canary Row cartoons). We find that all four languages display a systematic, or canonical, mapping between classifier type and argument structure, as previously established for several sign languages: whole-entity classifier predicates are mostly used intransitively, while handling classifier predicates are used transitively. However, our data sets also reveal several non-canonical mappings which we address in turn. First, it appears that whole-entity classifier predicates can be used unergatively, rather than unaccusatively, contrary to expectations. Second, our data contain some transitive uses of whole-entity classifier predicates. Finally, we find that handling classifier predicates can express various complex event structures. We discuss what these findings imply for existing theories of classifier predicates in sign languages.

Describing the Acquisition of the Passive Voice by a Child Learner of Japanese as a Second Language from a Processability Theory Perspective

This longitudinal case study reports on the acquisition of Japanese as a second language (L2) by a child learner with English as his first language (L1) who was acquiring Japanese naturalistically. In particular this study focusses on the acquisition by the child of a non-canonical mapping structure, namely the passive voice in relation to canonical mapping structures (e.g., the active voice) within the framework of the Unmarked Alignment Hypothesis (UAH) and the Lexical Mapping Hypothesis (LMH). These hypotheses are two of the main pillars of the extended Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2005). When compared to a large body of studies on the L1 acquisition of the passive voice, there have been only few theoretically motivated studies on the L2 acquisition of this structure, and further no studies to date have been undertaken using L2 child informants. The results of the earlier PT-based research (e.g., Wang, 2009) found that the acquisition of the passive voice by adult L2 learners occurred later than did the active voice. The results of the current child Japanese L2 study confirmed this, supporting Kawaguchi’s (2007) claim that the learner’s choice of a syntactic structure is restricted by developmental skills in argument-function mapping as predicted by UAH and LMH. Further, the results indicate that, prior to the emergence of the passive voice, a developmental period for the child to attempt non-canonical mapping existed and that the passive verbal morphology often appeared in a non-target like way until the end of the observation period.

On the Relationship between Pipe Dreams and Permutation Words

Pipe dreams represent permutations pictorially as a series of crossing pipes. Recent applications of pipe dreams include the calculation of Schubert polynomials, fillings of moon polyominoes, and in the combinatorics of antidiagonal simplicial complexes. These applications associate pipe dreams to words of elementary symmetric transpositions via a canonical mapping. However, this canonical mapping is by no means the only way of mapping pipe dreams to permutation words. We define sensical mappings from pipe dreams to words and prove sensical mappings are in bijection with standard shifted tableaux of triangular shape. We characterize the set of pipe dreams associated to a given word (under any sensical map) using step ladder moves. These moves induce a partial order on the set of pipe dreams mapping to a given word, yielding a distributive lattice.

ON THE GEOMETRY OF GRADED CONSTRAINT ALGEBRAS: VIELBEINS, METRIC TENSORS AND THE STRING VERTEX SUPEROPERATORS

The geometric interpretation of the vertex superoperators in the Neveu-Schwarz-Ramond (NSR) model is provided by associating them with a canonical mapping between abelian operators and generators of the super-Virasoro algebra. In this setting, the moments of the vertex superoperators are the corresponding vielbiens carrying graded indices. This geometric construction defines a natural metric tensor associated with the graded constraint algebra. Consequently, our approach yields the simple Batalin-Fradkin-Vilkovisky Hamiltonian for the NSR model as the “square” of a graded vector, manifestly invariant under OSP (1, 1|2).