We offer a new explanation for the difference between cases where an auxiliary verb can and cannot contract, such as Kim is coming versus Kim is. Rather than a banning constraint, we argue that there is a positive syntactic licensing constraint. We consider, and reject, both the familiar Gap Restriction and a range of phonological explanations. Our analysis rests on the category of grammatical relations, valent, which includes all non-adjuncts (i.e. all subjects and complements); the analysis consists of a single claim, the Following Valent Constraint: that a contracted auxiliary has an overt following valent. We show how this analysis explains the full range of data that has been discussed in the literature and how a minor variant of the constraint captures the data of the Scots locative discovery expressions. We also propose a sociolinguistic explanation for the inability of auxiliaries to contract in certain environments, such as after a preposed negative. Finally, we suggest a functional explanation for the proposed constraint: It allows the hearer to predict the presence of a following valent and thereby to manage the burden of processing.

Optimising stellarators for quasisymmetry leads to strongly reduced collisional transport and energetic particle losses compared with unoptimised configurations. Although stellarators with precise quasisymmetry have been obtained in the past, it remains unclear how broad the parameter space is where good quasisymmetry may be achieved. We study the range of aspect ratios and rotational transform values for which stellarators with excellent quasisymmetry on the boundary can be obtained. A large number of Fourier harmonics is included in the boundary representation, which is made computationally tractable by the use of adjoint methods to enable fast gradient-based optimisation and by the direct optimisation of vacuum magnetic fields, which converge more robustly compared with solutions from magnetohydrostatics. Several novel configurations are presented, including stellarators with record levels of quasisymmetry on a surface, three field period quasiaxisymmetric stellarators with substantial magnetic shear, and compact quasisymmetric stellarators at low aspect ratios similar to tokamaks.

It is now nearly twenty years since Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures appeared, and during these twenty years many things have changed in linguistics—not least, the interest that the rest of the world now takes in what we linguists do. The reason for this is clearly because Chomsky claimed to have discovered a window into the human mind, via the study of the structure of languages. The argument is a simple one: a linguist can write a grammar for a language, with some degree of confidence that his grammar is the “ right “ one for that language, but since the language only exists in the heads of its speakers until linguists or other grammar-writers come along, the grammar that he has written must correspond in some direct sense, and in detail, to the knowledge that exists in the speaker's mind. Therefore, in order to study that particular part of our minds, all we need to do is to write grammars, making sure that they are right, of course, and then study the grammars instead. “We can also compare the grammars for radically different languages and see to what extent they are similar or different, and then draw conclusions about general properties of all human beings’ minds— and we can even speculate as to how our minds have developed that way, whether by genetic programming or by other means. It is no wonder that linguists are not the only people who think linguistics is important.

Adjoint methods can speed up stellarator optimisation by providing gradient information more efficiently compared with finite-difference evaluations. Adjoint methods are herein applied to vacuum magnetic fields, with objective functions targeting quasi-symmetry and a rotational transform value on a surface. To measure quasi-symmetry, a novel way of evaluating approximate flux coordinates on a single flux surface without the assumption of a neighbourhood of flux surfaces is proposed. The shape gradients obtained from the adjoint formalism are evaluated numerically and verified against finite-difference evaluations.

Cushing argues that government policy in the UK is prescriptive and encourages similar policies at school level (as reported in the press), which in turn encourage the ‘policing’ of language by school teachers. I offer an alternative reading of the evidence in which government policy, as stated in official documents, generally avoids prescriptivism, as do an unknown number of schools and school teachers; where prescriptivism persists it reflects a prescriptive culture in society, not government policy. The conclusion is that government policy is only one influence on teachers’ behaviour, so if government wants to eliminate prescriptivism it needs to take a stronger position than simply avoiding prescriptivism in its own documents. (Education, prescriptivism, policy, Britain)

This article examines the collapse of the citrus industry in València, Spain during the last years of World War I. In it, I argue that the strikes represent a key moment in the proletarianization of the region's agricultural working classes. By 1914, citrus had become one of Spain's most profitable exports, and prior to the 1917 crash, the landed and monied interests in control of the industry had enforced the notion of inter-class cooperation, which broke down under the economic stress of the War. In the wake of the collapse and the strikes that followed, workers began to organize in earnest and began to work towards improving working conditions and establishing fairer work contracts.

As Branigan & Pickering (B&P) argue, structural priming has important implications for the theory of language structure, but these implications go beyond those suggested. Priming implies a network structure, so the grammar must be a network and so must sentence structure. Instead of phrase structure, the most promising model for syntactic structure is enriched dependency structure, as in Word Grammar.

Analysis of in situ neutron powder diffraction data collected for the porous framework material Zn(hba) during gas adsorption reveals a two-stage response of the host lattice to increasing CO2 guest concentration, suggesting progressive occupation of multiple CO2 adsorption sites with different binding strengths. The response of the lattice to moderate CH4 guest concentrations is virtually indistinguishable from the response to CO2, demonstrating that the influence of host–guest interactions on the Zn(hba) framework is defined more strongly by the concentration than by the identity of the guests.

The paper offers an analysis of pied-piping within the theoretical framework of Word Grammar. This framework combines cognitive linguistics with dependency grammar, so it assumes that the full power of domain-general cognition is available for syntax, and that syntactic structure can be conceived as a network of relations between individual words. In this network, words are related by at least two kinds of link: dependencies and ‘landmark’ links that determine word order. To handle the special characteristics of pied-piping, the analysis also includes a single special relation, ‘pipee’, which links the ‘piper’ (the wh-type word) to the word which replaces it in the landmark structure. The analysis is applied in detail to English, and then compared with previous analyses and extended to accommodate both the pied-piping with inversion found in Meso-American languages, and the boundary markers found in other languages.

Because individuals develop dementia as a manifestation of neurodegenerative or neurovascular disorder, there is a need to develop reliable approaches to their identification. We are undertaking an observational study (Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative [ONDRI]) that includes genomics, neuroimaging, and assessments of cognition as well as language, speech, gait, retinal imaging, and eye tracking. Disorders studied include Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and vascular cognitive impairment. Data from ONDRI will be collected into the Brain-CODE database to facilitate correlative analysis. ONDRI will provide a repertoire of endophenotyped individuals that will be a unique, publicly available resource.

The Livingstone's fruit bat Pteropus livingstonii is endemic to the small islands of Anjouan and Mohéli in the Comoros archipelago, Indian Ocean. The species is under threat from anthropogenic pressure on the little that remains of its forest habitat, now restricted to the islands’ upper elevations and steepest slopes. We report the results of the most comprehensive survey of this species to date, and present recommendations for ongoing field conservation efforts and monitoring. Morning counts were conducted at roost sites in the wet and dry seasons during 2011–2013. Habitat structure around the roosting sites was characterized and roost numbers compared, to investigate the potential effect of habitat loss and degradation. We estimate the population to comprise c. 1,260 individuals distributed across 21 roosts on the two islands. All occupied roosting sites were restricted to a narrow altitudinal range, and roosting populations in agroforestry areas were smaller than those found in degraded and undisturbed forest. Only one of the 16 roosts on Anjouan was found in undisturbed, old-growth forest with no nearby signs of clearance for agriculture or landslides following tree-felling upslope. Following a suspected severe population decline as a result of widespread and long-term forest loss Livingstone's fruit bat has been recategorized as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List.

Poly[sulfur-random-1,3-diisopropenylbenzene (DIB)] copolymers synthesized via inverse vulcanization form electrochemically active polymers used as cathodes for high-energy density Li–S batteries, capable of enhanced capacity retention (1005 mAh/g at 100 cycles) and lifetimes of over 500 cycles. In this prospective, we demonstrate how analytical electron microscopy can be employed as a powerful tool to explore the origins of the enhanced capacity retention. We analyze morphological and compositional features when the copolymers, with DIB contents up to 50% by mass, are blended with carbon nanoparticles. Replacing the elemental sulfur with the copolymers improves the compatibility and interfacial contact between active sulfur compounds and conductive carbons. There also appears to be improvements of the cathode mechanical stability that leads to less cracking but preserving porosity. This compatibilization scheme through stabilized organosulfur copolymers represents an alternative strategy to the nanoscale encapsulation schemes which are often used to improve the cycle life in high-energy density Li–S batteries.