Digital Commons Network^™

Cortical Microstructural Changes Associated With Treated Aphasia Recovery, Allen J. Chang, Janina Wilmonskoetter, Julius Fridriksson, Emilie R. Mckinnon, Lorelei P. Johnson, Alexandra Basilakos, Jens H. Jensen, Chris Rorden, Leonardo Bonilha

Faculty Publications

Objectives

To investigate the hypothesis that language recovery in post-stroke aphasia is associated with structural brain changes.

Methods

We evaluated whether treatment-induced improvement in naming is associated with reorganization of tissue microstructure within residual cortical regions. To this end, we performed a retrospective longitudinal treatment study using comprehensive language-linguistic assessments and diffusion MRI sequences optimized for the assessment of complex microstructure (diffusional kurtosis imaging) to evaluate the relationship between language treatment response and cortical changes in 26 individuals with chronic stroke-induced aphasia. We employed elastic net statistical models controlling for baseline factors including age, sex, and time since the stroke, …

Modern Archaeology And The Brass Plates, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

Contemporary Palestinian archaeology has produced two major threats to traditional interpretations of the history of ancient Israel. Scientific discomfort with the exodus story as an explanation for the sudden population expansion in southern Palestine at the beginning of the Iron Age (c.1200 BCE) has led to a wide variety of theories about how these Israelites could have been drawn from existing populations in the general area. And a glaring mismatch between the biblical glorification of David and Solomon’s “empire” and disparagement of the northern kingdom combined with the archaeological finding that the cities of the northern kingdom were far larger …

An Everlasting Witness: Ancient Writings On Metal, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

After reviewing and updating the best studies of writing on metals in the ancient world, the paper examines scholarly and scriptural texts that explain what writing on metal meant to ancient scribes. Finally, the paper turns to what writing on metal meant to the Nephites.

Lehi And Nephi As Trained Manassite Scribes, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

This paper brings contemporary ANE scholarship in several fields together to construct an updated starting point for interpretation of the teachings of the Book of Mormon. It assembles findings from studies of ancient scribal culture, historical linguistics and epigraphy, Hebrew rhetoric, and the history and archaeology of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant, together with the traditions of ancient Israel to construct a contextualized perspective for understanding Lehi, Nephi, and their scribal training as they would have been understood by their contemporaries. Lehi and Nephi are shown to be the beneficiaries of the most advanced scribal training available in 7th century …

Independent Contributions Of Structural And Functional Connectivity: Evidence From A Stroke Model, Lynsey M. Keator, Grigori Yourganov, Alexandra Basilakos, Argye E. Hillis, Gregory Hickok, Leonardo Bonilha, Chris Rorden, Julius Fridriksson

Faculty Publications

Altered functional connectivity is related to severity of language impairment in poststroke aphasia. However, it is not clear whether this finding specifically reflects loss of functional coherence, or more generally, is related to decreased structural connectivity due to cortical necrosis. The aim of the current study was to investigate this issue by factoring out structural connectivity from functional connectivity measures and then relating the residual data to language performance poststroke. Ninety-seven participants with a history of stroke were assessed using language impairment measures (Auditory Verbal Comprehension and Spontaneous Speech scores from the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised) and MRI (structural, diffusion tensor …

Adaptation Of The Agency For Healthcare Research And Quality’S ‘Hospital Survey On Patient Safety Culture’ To The Bosnia And Herzegovina Context, Šehad Draganović, Guido Offermanns, Rachel E. Davis

Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVES: Measuring staff perspectives on patient safety culture (PSC) can identify areas of concern that, if addressed, could lead to improvements in healthcare. To date, there is no validated measure to assess PSC that has been tested and adapted for use in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This research addresses the gap in the evidence through the psychometric assessment of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's: 'Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture' (HSOPSC), to determine its suitability for the health system in BiH. SETTING: Nine hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: Healthcare professionals (n=1429); nurse (n=823), doctors (n=328), other clinical personnel (n=111), non-clinical personnel …

The Brass Plates In Context: A Book Of Mormon Backstory, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

This paper brings contemporary ANE scholarship in several fields together with the ancient scriptures restored through Joseph Smith to construct an updated starting point for interpretation of the teachings of the Book of Mormon. It assembles findings from studies of ancient scribal culture, historical linguistics and epigraphy, and the history and archaeology of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant, together with the traditions of ancient Israel and the ancient scriptures restored to Joseph Smith, to construct a contextualized perspective for understanding Lehi, Nephi, and the Brass Plates as they would have been understood by their contemporaries—as prominent bearers of the Josephite …

Individualized Response To Semantic Versus Phonological Aphasia Therapies In Stroke, Sigfus Kristinsson, Alexandra Basilakos, Jordan Elm, Leigh Ann Spell, Leonardo Bonilha, Chris Rorden, Dirk Den Ouden Ph.D., Christy Cassarly, Souvik Sen, Argye Hillis, Gregory Hickok, Julius Fridriksson Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Attempts to personalize aphasia treatment to the extent where it is possible to reliably predict individual response to a particular treatment have yielded inconclusive results. The current study aimed to (i) compare the effects of phonologically versus semantically focussed naming treatment and (ii) examine biographical and neuropsychological baseline factors predictive of response to each treatment. One hundred and four individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia underwent 3 weeks of phonologically focussed treatment and 3 weeks of semantically focussed treatment in an unblinded cross-over design. A linear mixed-effects model was used to compare the effects of treatment type on proportional change in …

The Neural Underpinnings Of Processing Newly Taught Semantic Information: The Role Of Retrieval Practice, Eileen Haebig, Laurence B. Leonard, Patricia Deevy, Jennifer Schumaker, Jeffrey D. Karpicke, Christine Weber

Faculty Publications

Purpose: Recent behavioral studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of implementing retrieval practice into learning tasks for children. Such approaches have revealed that repeated spaced retrieval (RSR) is particularly effective in promoting children’s learning of word form and meaning information. This study further examines how retrieval practice enhances learning of word meaning information at the behavioral and neural levels. Method: Twenty typically developing preschool children were taught novel words using an RSR learning schedule for some words and an immediate retrieval (IR) learning schedule for other words. In addition to the label, children were taught two arbitrary semantic features for each …

On The Relationship Between Frequency, Features, And Markedness In Inflection: Experimental Evidence From Russian Nouns, Jeffrey R. Parker

Faculty Publications

Markedness has a long tradition in linguistics as a way to describe linguistic asymmetries. In this paper, I investigate an argument about the necessity of markedness as a tool for capturing the structural distribution of inflectional affixes and predicting the behavioral consequences of that distribution. Based on evidence from German adjectives, Clahsen et al. argue that the number of specified features of inflectional affixes (which I argue represents a type of markedness) affects reaction times in lexical access. Affixes’ features, however, overlap with how frequently they occur. Clahsen et al. investigate only three affixes in German, leaving open questions about …

Spoken Word Learning In Children With Developmental Language Disorder Or Dyslexia, Suzanne M. Adlof, Lauren S. Baron, Bethany A. Bell, Joanna Scoggins

Faculty Publications

Purpose Word learning difficulties have been documented in multiple studies involving children with dyslexia and developmental language disorder (DLD; see also specific language impairment). However, no previous studies have directly contrasted word learning in these two frequently co-occurring disorders. We examined word learning in second-grade students with DLD-only and dyslexia-only as compared to each other, peers with both disorders (DLD + dyslexia), and peers with typical development. We hypothesized that children with dyslexia-only and DLD-only would show differences in word learning due to differences in their core language strengths and weaknesses. Method Children ( = 244) were taught eight novel …

"Haré Temblar Los Cielos Y La Tierra": Daniel Y La Escatología De Hebreos, Félix H. Cortez

Faculty Publications

“‘Shaking the Heavens and the Earth’: Daniel and the Eschatology of Hebrews”— Hebrews 12:28 contains an allusion to Daniel 7:18. This allusion may seem vague at first, but its study reveals that this last passage feeds into the eschatology of Hebrews. The purpose of this article is to explore the role that the allusion to Daniel 7:18 plays in the argument of Hebrews 12:18-28 and in the understanding of the eschatology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. To this end, the article is divided into two sections. The first section examines the reasons for holding that there is an allusion …

Perceptions Of Endocrine Therapy In African-American Breast Cancer Survivors: Mixed Methods Study, Sara Donevant, Sue P. Heiney, Cassandra Wineglass, Benjamin Schooley, Akanksha Singh, Jingxi Sheng

Faculty Publications

Background: Although the incidence of breast cancer is lower in African-American women than in White women, African-American women have a decreased survival rate. The difference in survival rate may stem from poor endocrine therapy adherence, which increases breast cancer recurrence. Therefore, accessible and culturally sensitive interventions to increase endocrine therapy adherence are necessary. Objective: The purpose of this concurrent convergent mixed methods study was to provide further data to guide the development of the proposed culturally sensitive mHealth app, STORY+ for African-American women with breast cancer. Methods: We recruited 20 African-American women diagnosed with estrogen-positive breast cancer and currently prescribed …

Prioritizing Facilities Linked To Corporate Strategic Objectives Using A Fuzzy Model, Devin Depalmer, Steven J. Schuldt, Justin D. Delorit

Faculty Publications

Excerpt: Limited facilities operating and modernization budgets require organizations to carefully identify, prioritize and authorize projects to ensure allocated resources align with strategic objectives. Traditional facility prioritization methods using risk matrices can be improved to increase granularity in categorization and avoid mathematical error or human cognitive biases. These limitations restrict the utility of prioritizations and if erroneously used to select projects for funding, they can lead to wasted resources. This paper aims to propose a novel facility prioritization methodology that corrects these assessment design and implementation issues.

Manipulations Of List Type In The Drm Paradigm: A Review Of How Structural And Conceptual Similarity Affect False Memory, Jennifer H. Coane, Dawn M. Mcbride, Mark J. Huff, Kai Chang, Elizabeth M. Marsh, Kendal A. Smith

Faculty Publications

The use of list-learning paradigms to explore false memory has revealed several critical findings about the contributions of similarity and relatedness in memory phenomena more broadly. Characterizing the nature of “similarity and relatedness” can inform researchers about factors contributing to memory distortions and about the underlying associative and semantic networks that support veridical memory. Similarity can be defined in terms of semantic properties (e.g., shared conceptual and taxonomic features), lexical/associative properties (e.g., shared connections in associative networks), or structural properties (e.g., shared orthographic or phonological features). By manipulating the type of list and its relationship to a non-studied critical item, …

Current Approaches To The Treatment Of Post-Stroke Aphasia, Julius Fridriksson Ph.D., Argye Elizabeth Hillis

Faculty Publications

Aphasia, impairment of language after stroke or other neurological insult, is a common and often devastating condition that affects nearly every social activity and interaction. Behavioral speech and language therapy is the mainstay of treatment, although other interventions have been introduced to augment the effects of the behavioral therapy. In this narrative review, we discuss advances in aphasia therapy in the last 5 years and focus primarily on properly powered, randomized, controlled trials of both behavioral therapies and interventions to augment therapy for post-stroke aphasia. These trials include evaluation of behavioral therapies and computer-delivered language therapies. We also discuss outcome …

Covid-19: A Syndemic Requiring An Integrated Approach For Marginalized Populations, Rosemary M. Caron, Amanda Rodrigues Amorim Adegboye

Faculty Publications

The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, has challenged healthcare systems globally. The health inequities experienced by immigrants, refugees, and racial/ethnic minorities have been aggravated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The socioeconomic, political, and demographic profile of these vulnerable populations places them at increased risk of contracting COVID-19 and experiencing significant morbidity and mortality. Thus, the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionally higher among these at-risk groups. The purpose of this perspective is to: (1) highlight the interactions among the social determinants of health (SDoH) and their bi-directional relationship with the COVID-19 pandemic which results in the current …

Speech Sound Disorders Syllabus And Unit Plan: Mini-Unit, Basic Ssd Assessment., Jenica Joseph

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Benefit Of Gratitude: Trait Gratitude Is Associated With Effective Economic Decision-Making In The Ultimatum Game, Gewnhi Park, Charlotte Vanoyen-Witvliet, Jorge A. Barraza, Benjamin U. Marsh

Faculty Publications

The current research investigated the role of gratitude in economic decisions about offers that vary in fairness yet benefit both parties if accepted. Participants completed a trait/dispositional gratitude measure and then were randomly assigned to recall either an event that made them feel grateful (i.e., induced gratitude condition) or the events of a typical day (i.e., neutral condition). After the gratitude induction task, participants played the ultimatum game (UG), deciding whether to accept or reject fair offers (i.e., proposer: responder ratio $5:5) and unfair offers (i.e., proposer: responder ratios of $9:1, $8:2, or $7:3) from different proposers. Results showed that …

Maternal Pragmatic Language Difficulties In The Fmr1 Premutation And The Broad Autism Phenotype: Associations With Individual And Family Outcomes, Jessica Klusek, Angela John Thurman, Leonard Abbeduto

Faculty Publications

Broader phenotypes associated with genetic liability, including mild difficulties with pragmatic language skills, have been documented in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and mothers of children with fragile X syndrome (FXS). This study investigated the relationship between pragmatic difficulties and indicators of maternal well-being and family functioning. Pragmatic difficulty was associated with loneliness in mothers of children with ASD or FXS, and with depression, decreased life satisfaction, and poorer family relationship quality but only in mothers of children with FXS. Results suggest that subtle maternal pragmatic language difficulties are a risk factor that that may contribute to …

“When They Say Weed Causes Depression, But It’S Your Fav Antidepressant”: Knowledge-Aware Attention Framework For Relationship Extraction, Shweta Yadav, Usha Lokala, Raminta Daniulaityte, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Francois Lamy, Amit P. Sheth

Faculty Publications

With the increasing legalization of medical and recreational use of cannabis, more research is needed to understand the association between depression and consumer behavior related to cannabis consumption. Big social media data has potential to provide deeper insights about these associations to public health analysts. In this interdisciplinary study, we demonstrate the value of incorporating domain-specific knowledge in the learning process to identify the relationships between cannabis use and depression. We develop an end-to-end knowledge infused deep learning framework (Gated-K-BERT) that leverages the pre-trained BERT language representation model and domain-specific declarative knowledge source (Drug Abuse Ontology) to jointly extract entities …

"Exploring The Composition Of The Pentateuch" Project And Book, Roy E. Gane

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

An Automated Tool For Comparing Phonetic Transcriptions, Dallin J. Bailey, Marisha Speights Atkins, Ishaan Mishra, Sicheng Li, Yaoxuan Luan, Cheryl Seals

Faculty Publications

Many computerized tools for comparing phonetic transcriptions have been proposed and shared in the past; however, previous tools are relatively difficult to access and incorporate into clinical and research practice, or require users to learn additional phonetic symbol systems. The purpose of this project was to develop and test a readily available web-based application for quantitatively comparing phonetic transcriptions that are input using International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols. A web-based computer application was developed to allow for IPA phonetic transcription comparison. A point-and-click keyboard was developed to provide support for character input of the full IPA, as well as most …

Effects Of Background Noise On Speech And Language In Young Adults, Tyson G. Harmon, Christopher Dromey, Brenna Nelson, Kacy Chapman

Faculty Publications

Purpose: To investigate how different types of background noise that differ in their level of linguistic content affect speech acoustics, speech fluency, and language production for young adult speakers when performing a monologue discourse task.

Method: Forty young adults monologued by responding to open ended questions in a silent baseline and five background noise conditions (debate, movie dialogue, contemporary music, classical music, pink noise). Measures related to speech acoustics (intensity and frequency), speech fluency (speech rate, pausing, and disfluencies), and language production (lexical, morphosyntactic, and macro-linguistic structure) were analyzed and compared across conditions. Participants also reported on which conditions they …

A Light In Students’ Lives: K-12 Teachers’ Experiences (Re)Building Caring Relationships During Remote Learning, Karyn E. Miller

Faculty Publications

This study illuminates the experiences of K-12 educators as they strove to (re)build caring relationships with students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted during a graduate course for experienced K-12 teachers in the spring of 2020 at a four-year comprehensive university in the United States. Data was collected from reflective learning journals and asynchronous peer discussions, which captured educators’ experiences as they transitioned to remote learning in real-time. Qualitative content analysis was used to identify pertinent themes. Findings suggest that remote learning revealed relationships in need of repair. Educators practiced authentic care and cultivated connectedness by (a) acting …

Second Languange Acquisition Of /S/ -Weakinging In A Study Abroad Context, Earl K. Brown, Alicia Harley, Bret Linford

Faculty Publications

This study examines the second language (L2) development of variable /s/-weakening in the spontaneous speech of L2 learners of Spanish who studied abroad in either Dominican Republic, where /s/-weakening is widespread, or central Spain, where /s/-weakening is much less common. Learners’ realizations of /s/ were coded impressionistically and acoustically by measuring voicing, center of gravity, and duration. The results show that regardless of the study abroad location, students did not change the amount of sibilance they produced over time. However, they became more nativelike with respect to /s/-voicing and duration. Additionally, whereas some linguistic factors were found to significantly constrain …

Identifying Differences Between Anna Karenina Translations: Midway Findings And Next Steps, Sarah H. Theimer

Faculty Publications

A Presentation at the Connecticut Digital Humanities 2021 Conference. Translations are one way that people learn about unfamiliar cultures. Creating a translation is complicated, as words often have different connotations in different cultures that must be understood and conveyed. A good translator pays attention to the style, language and vocabulary unique to the two languages. Translators often differ when deciding how to convey the original work’s meanings, images and themes. Many prominent foreign language titles have been addressed by different translators. In the case of Anna Karenina, Constance Garnett is the most famous and commonly read translation. In “The Translation …

The Development Of A Measure Of Orthographic Processing In The Arabic Language: A Psychometric Evaluation, Sana Tibi, Lisa Fitton, Autumn L. Mcilraith

Faculty Publications

Although Arabic is an official language in 27 countries, standardized measures to assess Arabic literacy are scarce. The purpose of this research was to examine the item functioning of an assessment of Arabic orthographic knowledge. Sixty novel items were piloted with 201 third grade Arabic-speaking students. Participants were asked to identify the correctly spelled word from a pair of two words. Although the assessment was designed to be unidimensional, competing models were tested to determine whether item performance was attributable to multidimensionality. No multidimensional structure fit the data significantly better than the unidimensional model. The 60 original items were evaluated …

Validity Of The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (Fies) For Use In League Of Arab States (Las) And Characteristics Of Food Insecure Individuals By The Human Development Index (Hdi), Olfat B. Sheikomar, Wesley Dean, Hala Ghattas Ph.D., Nadine R. Sahyoun

Faculty Publications

Background

The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) is a UN FAO Voices of the Hungry (FAO-VoH) experiential metric of food insecurity (FI). It was pilot tested in some countries but not in Arab speaking ones and validated using global data. Yet, its psychometric properties may vary in the League of Arab States (LAS) due to cultural and linguistic differences.

Objectives

1) assess the validity of FIES for use in the LAS region, 2) determine the prevalence of FI, by gender, age group, and the human development index (HDI), and 3) examine sociodemographic characteristics of severe FI individuals.

Methods

To assess …

Greater Pain Severity Is Associated With Higher Glucocorticoid Levels In Hair Among A Cohort Of People Living With Hiv, Quan Zhang, Xiaoming Li Ph.D., Shan Qiao Ph.D., Shuaifeng Liu, Zhiyong Shen, Yuejiao Zhou

Faculty Publications

Background: Pain is a common occurrence and persistent symptom, which has an adverse impact on individual well-being and quality of life among people living with HIV (PLHIV). Alteration in the activity of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis resulting in abnormal glucocorticoid levels had been proposed to play important roles in those associations. Purpose: This study aimed to investigate whether pain severity was associated with hair glucocorticoid levels, a novel method of measuring long-term glucocorticoid exposure, among a large cohort of Chinese PLHIV. Methods: A measure of pain severity and hair samples were collected from 431 adults PLHIV in Guangxi, China. Glucocorticoid …