Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) are known to be licensed in wh-questions. But not all wh-questions behave alike with respect to NPI licensing. As pointed out in Han and Siegel (1996), while all argument wh-questions with NPIs can have a RHETORICAL QUESTION reading, only a subset of them can have a true wh-question reading. In this paper, we point out that adjunct wh-questions with NPIs cannot ha...

Surprise is often defined in terms of disconfirmed expectations, whereby the surprisingness of an event is thought to be dependent on the degree to which it contrasts with a more likely, or expected, outcome. The authors investigated the alternative hypothesis that surprise is more accurately modeled as a manifestation of an ongoing sense-making process. In a series of experiments, participants...

endeavours, but should not be confused as crucial to our life on this planet. My colleagues and friends quickly point out that I am teaching people important things about the knowledge we have acquired through careful scientific exploration. Yeah, yeah. But the students I teach are already very well educated, and I often feel like the post-dinner entertainment, perhaps marginally better than MT...

Standard ultrasound has a poor accuracy in the detection of carotid plaque surface irregularities and ulcers, which are features of vulnerable lesions. Sonographic contrast agents can improve vessel wall lumen definition, thus potentially overcoming this limitation. Recent studies also suggest that contrast ultrasound can be used to study intraplaque neovascularizaion, a potential marker of hig...

To cite: Mani RK, Mishra V, Singh PK, et al. BMJ Case Rep Published online: [please include Day Month Year] doi:10.1136/bcr-2016218959 DESCRIPTION A 65 year-old man with diabetes presented with a brief febrile illness, extreme debility and respiratory distress. X-ray chest showed a right lower lobe consolidation. A clinical diagnosis of severe community-acquired pneumonia was made for which he ...

In many languages, the verbs take and go may combine with another predicate to yield an inceptive reading, where the onset of the event denoted by the main predicate is in some sense focalized. Some of these cases have a touch of surprise, unexpectedness, or suddenness to them. Using data mainly from Swedish, this paper seeks to identify the components that are responsible for this surprise rea...

The computation of surprise is one factor necessary for the computational detection of creativity in product design. An original computational model of surprise is proposed. A demonstration program was written to demonstrate the model’s validity. An experiment on human subjects was performed to test the program’s accuracy. The results of the experiment are analyzed, the model is assessed, and c...

This paper introduces a qualitative ranking function that uses signed integers to describe the surprise associated with the occurrence of events. The measure introduced, κ, is based on the κ calculus but differs from it in that its semantics enable an explicit representation of complements. As a result, the κ is more capable of enforcing probability theory-like constraints to carry on reasoning.

Notre Dame and St. Mary's stu~dents will not have to make up class days missed as a result of the blizzard which began last Wednesday night and crippled much of the midwest. The announcement came yesterday as a joint decision from Fr. Ferdinand Brown, acting provost at Notre Dame, and Dr. James Duggan, St. Mary's president. Notre Dame announced yesterday that classes will resumf' today. St. Mar...