Code-switching in parents’ everyday speech to bilingual infants

Code-switching is a common phenomenon in bilingual communities, but little is known about bilingual parents’ code-switching when speaking to their infants. In a pre-registered study, we identified instances of code-switching in day-long at-home audio recordings of 21 French–English bilingual families in Montreal, Canada, who provided recordings when their infant was 10 and 18 months old. Overall, rates of infant-directed code-switching were low, averaging 7 times per hour (6 times per 1,000 words) at 10 months and increasing to 28 times per hour (18 times per 1,000 words) at 18 months. Parents code-switched more between sentences than within a sentence; this pattern was even more pronounced when infants were 18 months than when they were 10 months. The most common apparent reasons for code-switching were to bolster their infant's understanding and to teach vocabulary words. Combined, these results suggest that bilingual parents code-switch in ways that support successful bilingual language acquisition.

Respect and the reality of apparent reasons

Rationality requires us to respond to apparent normative reasons. Given the independence of appearance and reality, why think that apparent normative reasons necessarily provide real normative reasons? And if they do not, why think that mistakes of rationality are necessarily real mistakes? This paper gives a novel answer to these questions. I argue first that in the moral domain, there are objective duties of respect that we violate whenever we do what appears to violate our first-order duties. The existence of these duties of respect, I argue, ensures that apparent moral reasons are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality. I then extend these arguments to the domain of overall reason. Just as there are objective duties of respect for moral reasons that explain moral blameworthiness, so there are objective duties of respect for reasons (period) that explain blameworthiness in the court of overall reason. The existence of these duties ensures that apparent reasons (period) are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality.

Code-switching in parents’ everyday speech to bilingual infants

Code-switching is a common phenomenon in bilingual communities, but little is known about bilingual parents’ code-switching when speaking to their infants. In a pre-registered study, we identified instances of code-switching in day-long at-home audio recordings of 21 French–English bilingual families in Montreal, Canada, who provided recordings when their infant was 10 and 18 months old. Overall, rates of infant-directed code-switching were low, averaging 7 times per hour (6 times per 1,000 words) at 10 months and increasing to 28 times per hour (18 times per 1,000 words) at 18 months. Parents code-switched more between sentences than within a sentence; this pattern was even more pronounced when infants were 18 months than when they were 10 months. The most common apparent reasons for code-switching were to bolster their infant’s understanding and to teach vocabulary words. Combined, these results suggest that bilingual parents code-switch in ways that support successful bilingual language acquisition.

Modeling the Municipal Waste Collection Using Genetic Algorithms

Calculating adequate vehicle routes for collecting municipal waste is still an unsolved issue, even though many solutions for this process can be found in the literature. A gap still exists between academics and practitioners in the field. One of the apparent reasons why this rift exists is that academic tools often are not easy to handle and maintain by actual users. In this work, the problem of municipal waste collection is modeled using a simple but efficient and especially easy to maintain solution. Real data have been used, and it has been solved using a Genetic Algorithm (GA). Computations have been done in two different ways: using a complete random initial population, and including a seed in this initial population. In order to guarantee that the solution is efficient, the performance of the genetic algorithm has been compared with another well-performing algorithm, the Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS). Three problems of different sizes have been solved and, in all cases, a significant improvement has been obtained. A total reduction of 40% of itineraries is attained with the subsequent reduction of emissions and costs.

Four Distinctions Concerning Rationality

Disagreements about the plausibility of rationalist autonomy in bioethics are often attributable to misunderstandings about the nature of rationality. So, it is imperative to be clear about the understanding of rationality that one is invoking in one’s account of autonomy. This chapter makes some first steps in this regard, by drawing four key distinctions concerning the nature of rationality. The first, between theoretical and practical rationality, concerns the different norms of rationality governing beliefs and desires. The second, between real and apparent reasons, concerns whether our beliefs about our practical reasons map onto reason-giving facts that actually obtain. The third, between objectivism and subjectivism, concerns the fundamental source of our practical reasons. The fourth, between personal and impersonal reasons, concerns the different kinds of facts that can ground practical reasons. In outlining these distinctions, the author follows Derek Parfit in endorsing an objectivist account of reasons.

682. The Changing Epidemiology of Bacterial Meningitis During 2015–2017 in Turkey: A Hospital-Based Prospective Surveillance Study

Background The etiology of bacterial meningitis in Turkey has been changed after the implementation of conjugated vaccines against Streptococcus pneumonia and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) in Turkish national immunization schedule. Methods. This prospective study was conducted in 25 hospitals located seven regions of Turkey (representing 30% of Turkey population) and children aged between 1 month and 18 years with suspected meningitis and hospitalized were included. Cerebrospinal fluid samples were collected and bacterial identification was made according to the multiplex PCR assay results. Results. During the study period, 927 children were hospitalized for suspected meningitis and Hib (n:1), S. pneumonia (n:17) and Neisseria meningitidis (n:59) were detected in 77 samples (Figure 1, Table 1). During 2015–2016, N. meningitidis serogroup W, B, A, Y, X frequencies were as 5 (13.9%), 16 (44.4%), 1 (2.8%), 1 (2.8%), 1 (2.8%), respectively. There were 12 nongroupable N. meningitidis samples and serogroup C was not detected. In 2017, of meningococcal meningitis serogroup B, W, A, Y and X were identified in two (8.7%), 15 (65.2%), two (8.7%), 1 (4.3%) and 1 (4.3%) cases, respectively (Figure 2). There were four deaths in this study period, all of them were caused by N. meningitidis serogroup B and three of them were under 1 year old. Conclusion. The epidemiology of meningococcal diseases has been varied in time with or without any apparent reasons. Hajj is a well-known cause for serogroup W epidemics and serogorup W was the most common cause of meningitis in Turkey during 2009–2014 as in other Middle East countries. After the impact of serogroup W epidemics related to Hajj seen in 2010’s was diminished, serogroup B has been leading cause of childhood meningitis since 2015. In countries affected from Hajj like Turkey, vaccination of children with serogroup B meningococcal vaccine as well as quadrivalentconjugated vaccine seems to be very important. It should be kept in mind that meningococcal epidemiology is dynamic and needed to be closely monitored to detect changes in years Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.

Rationality, Appearances, and Apparent Facts

Ascriptions of rationality are related to our practices of praising and criticizing. This seems to provide motivation for normative accounts of rationality, more specifically for the view that rationality is a matter of responding to normative reasons. However, rational agents are sometimes guided by false beliefs. This is problematic for those reasons-based accounts of rationality that are also committed to the widespread thesis that normative reasons are facts. The critical aim of the paper is to present objections to recent proposed solutions to this problem, according to which the responses of deceived agents would be rationalized by facts about how things appear to them. My positive aim is to argue that accounts of reasons in terms of apparent reasons manage to capture the intuitions that seem to favor a normative account of rationality (more specifically, they capture the connection between attributions of rationality and praise and criticism).

Practical Reasoning

This chapter discusses two contemporary pictures of practical reasoning. According to the Rule-Guidance Conception, roughly, practical reasoning is a rule-guided operation of acquiring (or retaining or giving up) intentions to come to meet synchronic requirements of rationality. According to the Reasons-Responsiveness Conception, practical reasoning is, roughly, a process of responding to apparent reasons. Its standards of correctness derive from what we objectively have reason to do, if things are as we suppose them to be. I argue that a version of the latter has some significant advantages. This has some surprising consequences for how we should conceive of the structure and process of instrumental reasoning in particular.

The Why-Be-Rational Challenge

Besides the problems with detachment, proponents of the view that structural requirements of rationality are normative face the challenge to identify a reason that counts in favour of conforming to rational requirements. There are three possible ways to account for this challenge. The first is to present instrumental or other derivative reasons to conform to rational requirements (5.1). The second is to argue that rational requirements are themselves reasons (5.2). The third is to give some kind of buck-passing account of rational requirements, according to which such requirements are verdictive statements about reasons that exist independently of them (5.3–5.4). Chapter 5 argues that none of these strategies succeed. Finally, two accounts that have claimed to explain the normativity of structural rationality without assuming that rational requirements are necessarily accompanied by reasons, are discussed and rejected: the transparency account (5.5), and the apparent reasons account (5.6).

Serum zinc status of neonates with seizure

<p><strong>Background:</strong> Seizure is a common neurological disorder in neonatal age group!. Primary metabolic derangement is one of the important reason behind this convulsion during this period. Among primary metabolic derangement hypoglycemia, is most common followed by bypocalcaemia, hypomagnesaemia, low zinc status etc. As causes of many cases of convul­sion remain unknown in neonate. <strong>Objectives: </strong>To see the zinc status in the sera of neonate with convulsion. So that if needed early intervention can be taken up and thereby prevent complications. <strong>Method:</strong> A total of 50 neonates (1-28 days) who had convulsion with no apparent reasons of convulsion were enrolled as cases and 50 healthy age and sex matched neonates were enrolled as controls. After a quick clinical evaluation serum zinc status was estimated from venous blood by atomic absorption method in Chemistry Division, Atomic Energy Centre. Low zinc was considered if serum value was &lt;0.7mg/L. <strong>Results:</strong> Among a total of 50 cases 6% had low zinc value &amp; 2% of controls also had low zinc level. The mean serwu zinc level of cases and controls were 1.57±0.95 and 2.37±1.06 mmol/1 respectively (p&lt;0.01). <strong>Conclusion:</strong> From the study it is seen that low zinc value is an important cause of neonatal seizure due to primary metabolic abnormalities. So early recognition and treatment could save these babies from long term neurological sequelies.</p>