This paper addresses the controversy between Koeneman & Zeijlstra (K&Z) (2014) and Heycock & Sundquist (2017) concerning the viability of K&Z’s strong version of the Rich Agreement Hypothesis in the light of apparent counterexamples from the diachrony of Danish. It makes the general point that establishing whether or not cases of putative V-to-I movement in subordinate clauses can be reanalyzed as V-to-C, i.e. as embedded Verb Second (EV2), depends on the EV2-type of a language. The empirical discussion concerns appositive relatives and conditional protases, with V-to-C in the former being in principle compatible with ‘narrow’ nEV2 as displayed by Modern Mainland Scandinavian languages, and V-to-C in the latter with Old Norse-style ‘broad’ bEV2. It is concluded that the critical stages of Danish need to be scrutinized more closely before the above dispute can be settled.

This paper describes experiments in which I tried to distinguish between Flemish and Netherlandic Dutch subtitles, as originally proposed in the VarDial 2018 Dutch–Flemish Subtitle task. However, rather than using all data as a monolithic block, I divided them into two non-overlapping domains and then investigated how the relation between training and test domains influences the recognition quality. I show that the best estimate of the level of recognizability of the language varieties is derived when training on one domain and testing on another. Apart from the quantitative results, I also present a qualitative analysis, by investigating in detail the most distinguishing features in the various scenarios. Here too, it is with the out-of-domain recognition that some genuine differences between Flemish and Netherlandic Dutch can be found.

Disturbances in lipid metabolism are at the core of several health issues facing modern society, including fatty liver and obesity. The SREBP-1 is one important transcription factor regulating lipid metabolism, but the relevant mechanism still remains unknown. The present study determined the transcriptional regulation of SREBP-1 and its target genes (including accα, fas and scd1) in a freshwater teleost, grass carp Ctenopharyngodon idella. We cloned and characterized the 1988 bp, 2043 bp, 1632 bp and 1889 bp sequences of srebp-1, accα, scd1, and fas promoters, respectively. A cluster of putative binding sites of transcription factors, such as SP, YY1, NF-Y, SREs and E-box element, were predicted on their promoter regions. nSREBP-1 overexpression reduced srebp-1 promoter activity, increased scd1 and fas promoter activity, but did not influence accα promoter activity. The site mutation and EMSA analysis indicated that srebp-1, fas and scd1 promoters, but not accα promoter, possessed SREs. In CIK cells of grass carp, nSREBP-1 overexpression significantly reduced srebp-1 mRNA expression, and up-regulated miR-29 mRNA expression. The 3’UTR of srebp-1 possessed the potential miR-29 binding site and miR-29 up-regulated the luciferase activity of srebp-1 3’UTR and srebp-1 mRNA expression, implying a self-activating loop of SREBP-1 and miR-29 in grass carp. Based on these results above, we found two novel transcriptional mechanisms for SREBP-1 in grass carp: (1) the auto-regulation sited on the SREBP-1 promoter regions was suppressive; (2) there was a self-activating loop of SREBP-1 and miR-29.

Quasi-Sturmian words, which are infinite words with factor complexity eventually $n+c$ share many properties with Sturmian words. In this article, we study the quasi-Sturmian colorings on regular trees. There are two different types, bounded and unbounded, of quasi-Sturmian colorings. We obtain an induction algorithm similar to Sturmian colorings. We distinguish them by the recurrence function.

The choice of materials that constitute electrodes and the way they are interconnected, i.e., the microstructure, influences the performance of lithium-ion batteries. For batteries with high energy and power densities, the microstructure of the electrodes must be controlled during their manufacturing process. Moreover, understanding the microstructure helps in designing a high-performance, yet low-cost battery. In this study, we propose a systematic algorithm workflow for the images of the microstructure of anodes obtained from a focused ion beam scanning electron microscope (FIB-SEM). Here, we discuss the typical issues that arise in the raw FIB-SEM images and the corresponding preprocessing methods that resolve them. Next, we propose a Fourier transform-based filter that effectively reduces curtain artifacts. Also, we propose a simple, yet an effective, global-thresholding method to identify active materials and pores in the microstructure. Finally, we reconstruct the three-dimensional structures by concatenating the segmented images. The whole algorithm workflow used in this study is not fully automated and requires user interactions such as choosing the values of parameters and removing shine-through artifacts manually. However, it should be emphasized that the proposed global-thresholding method is deterministic and stable, which results in high segmentation performance for all sectioning images.

Extant medusozoans (phylum Cnidaria) are dominated by forms showing tetraradial symmetry, but stem-group medusozoans of early Cambrian age collectively exhibit tetra-, bi-, penta-, and hexaradial symmetry. Moreover, the developmental and evolutionary relationships between four-fold and other types of radial symmetry in medusozoans remain poorly understood. Here we describe a new hexangulaconulariid, Septuconularia yanjiaheensis new genus new species, from Bed 5 of the Yanjiahe Formation (Cambrian Stage 2) in the Three Gorges area of Hupei Province, China. The laterally compressed, biradially symmetrical periderm of this species possesses 14 gently tapered faces, the most of any hexangulaconulariid described thus far. The faces are bordered by longitudinal ridges and crossed by short, irregularly spaced transverse ribs. Longitudinally, the periderm consists of three regions that probably correspond, respectively, to an embryonic stage, a transient juvenile stage, and a long adult stage. Septuconularia yanjiaheensis may have been derived from six-faced Hexaconularia (Fortunian Stage), which is morphologically intermediate between Septuconularia yanjiaheensis and Arthrochites. Furthermore, conulariids sensu stricto, carinachitids, and hexangulaconulariids may constitute a monophyletic group united by possession of an organic or organophosphatic periderm exhibiting longitudinal (corner) sulci, a facial midline, and offset of transverse ribs along the facial midline.

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