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OFFICE POLITICS WILFRID SHEED 320pp. McNally Editions. $18. If Joseph Heller, Henry James, Evelyn Waugh and Kingsley Amis collaborated on a scathing novel of cubicle mutiny, it might resemble Wilfrid [...]

ANTONIO SKARMETA The Names of the Things That Were There Trans. Curtis Bauer. New York. Other Press. 2023.352 pages. THE THIRTEEN EXEMPLARY character-driven stories in Chilean author Antonio Skarmeta's The [...]

Domenico Starnone The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl from Milan Trans. Oonagh Stransky. New York. Europa. 2024. 144 pages. LIFELONG REPERCUSSIONS of an obsessive, unrequited love mingle with [...]

MAXIM OSIPOV Kilometer 101 Ed. Boris Dralyuk. Trans. Boris Dralyuk, Nicolas Pasternak Slater & Alex Fleming. New York. New York Review Books Classics. 2022.296 pages. MAXIM OSIPOV'S stunning second collection [...]

Alex Christofi Dostoevsky in Love: An Intimate Life London. Bloomsbury Continuum. 2021. 256 pages. ALEX CHRISTOFI'S ENTICING literary biography, Dostoevsky in Love: An Intimate Life, takes a unique approach to [...]

Vigdis Hjorth Long Live the Post Horn! Trans. Charlotte Barslund. New York. Verso. 2020. 196 pages. FOR HER SPLENDID Will and Testament (2019), Vigdis Hjorth allegedly based her narrative on [...]

Siobhan Phillips Benefit New York. Bellevue Literary Press. 2022. 320 pages. SCHOLARLY RESEARCH INTO the work of Henry James is the literary linchpin that drives the characterization and plot of [...]

Shahriar Mandanipour Seasons of Purgatory Trans. Sara Khalili. New York. Bellevue Literary Press. 2022. 208 pages. THE NINE BLISTERING, sometimes fantastical short stories in exiled Iranian writer Shahriar Mandanipour's first [...]

Domenico Starnone Trust Trans. Jhumpa Lahiri. New York. Europa. 2021. 176 pages. TRUST, DOMENICO STARNONE'S sleek novel of confidentiality and incipient blackmail, traces the lifelong consequences of the conflict of [...]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the underlying phonological impairment in dyslexia is associated with a deficit in categorizing regional dialects. Method: Twenty adults with dyslexia, 20 school-age children with dyslexia, and 40 corresponding control listeners with average reading ability listened to sentences produced by multiple talkers (both sexes) representing two dialects: Midland dialect in Ohio (same as listeners' dialect) and Southern dialect in Western North Carolina. Participants' responses were analyzed using signal detection theory. Results: Listeners with dyslexia were less sensitive to talker dialect than listeners with average reading ability. Children were less sensitive to dialect than adults. Under stimulus uncertainty, listeners with average reading ability were biased toward Ohio dialect, whereas listeners with dyslexia were unbiased in their responses. Talker sex interacted with sensitivity and bias differently for listeners with dyslexia than for listeners with average reading ability. The correlations between dialect sensitivity and phonological memory scores were strongest for adults with dyslexia. Conclusions: The results imply that the phonological deficit in dyslexia arises from impaired access to intact phonological representations rather than from poorly specified representations. It can be presumed that the impeded access to implicit long-term memory representations for indexical (dialect) information is due to less efficient operations in working memory, including deficiencies in utilizing talker normalization processes., Dyslexia is a lifelong complex neurobiological condition that is characterized by difficulty with accurate and fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities (National Institute of Child Health [...]

Jon Fosse The Other Name: Septology I-II Trans. Damion Searls. Oakland, California. Transit Books. 2020. 340 pages. JON FOSSE is a well-known and revered multiple award-winning writer in his native [...]

Vigdis Hjorth Will and Testament Trans. Charlotte Barslund. London. Verso. 2019. 330 pages. ADD VIGDIS HJORTH to the growing list of writers of significant autofiction, reality literature whose characters depend [...]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate how linguistic knowledge interacts with indexical knowledge in older children's perception under demanding listening conditions created by extensive talker variability. Method: Twenty-five 9- to 12-year-old children, 12 from North Carolina (NC) and 13 from Wisconsin (WI), identified 12 vowels in isolated /hVd/ words produced by 120 talkers representing the 2 dialects (NC and WI), both genders, and 3 age groups (generations) of residents from the same geographic locations as the listeners. Results: Identification rates were higher for responses to talkers from the same dialect as the listeners and for female speech. Listeners were sensitive to systematic positional variations in vowels and their dynamic structure (formant movement) associated with generational differences in vowel pronunciation resulting from sound change in a speech community. Overall identification rate was 71.7%, which is 8.5% lower than for the adults responding to the same stimuli in Jacewicz and Fox (2012). Conclusion: Typically developing older children were successful in dealing with both phonetic and indexical variation related to talker dialect, gender, and generation. They were less consistent than the adults, most likely because of less efficient encoding of acoustic-phonetic information in the speech of multiple talkers and relative inexperience with indexical variation. Key Words: speech perception, children, dialect, Research on children's development of speech perception has naturally focused on the early formative years, from infancy through middle childhood. Admittedly, our knowledge of perceptual development in infants and young [...]

Purpose: To evaluate potential contributions of broadband spectral integration in the perception of static vowels. Specifically, can the auditory system infer formant frequency information from changes in the intensity weighting across harmonics when the formant itself is missing? Does this type of integration produce the same results in the lower (first formant [F1]) and higher (second formant [F2]) regions? Does the spacing between the spectral components affect a listener's ability to integrate the acoustic cues? Method: Twenty young listeners with normal hearing identified synthesized vowel-like stimuli created for adjustments in the F1 region (/[??]/-/a/, /I/-/E/) and in the F2 region (/[??]/-/ae/). There were 2 types of stimuli: (a) 2-formant tokens and (b) tokens in which 1 formant was removed and 2 pairs of sine waves were inserted below and above the missing formant; the intensities of these harmonics were modified to cause variations in their spectral center of gravity (COG). The COG effects were tested over a wide range of frequencies. Results: Obtained patterns were consistent with calculated changes to the spectral COG, in both the F1 and F2 regions. The spacing of the sine waves did not affect listeners responses. Conclusion: The auditory system may perform broadband integration as a type of auditory wideband spectral analysis. Key Words: auditory spectral integration, center of gravity (COG), vowel perception, For more than 50 years, speech scientists and phoneticians have been examining the nature of the relevant acoustic cues that underlie vowel perception (see Delattre, Liberman, Cooper, & Gerstman, 1952, [...]

Purpose: To investigate regional dialect variation in the vowel systems of typically developing 8- to 12-year-old children. Method: Thirteen vowels in isolated h_d words were produced by 94 children and 93 adults (males and females). All participants spoke American English and were born and raised in 1 of 3 distinct dialect regions in the United States: western North Carolina (Southern dialect), central Ohio (Midland dialect), and southeastern Wisconsin (Northern Midwestern dialect). Acoustic analysis included formant frequencies (F1 and F2) measured at 5 equidistant time points in a vowel and formant movement (trajectory length). Results: Children's productions showed many dialect-specific features comparable to those in adult speakers, both in terms of vowel dispersion patterns and formant movement. Different features were also found, including systemic vowel changes, significant monophthongization of selected vowels, and greater formant movement in diphthongs. Conclusions: The acoustic results provide evidence for regional distinctiveness in children's vowel systems. Children acquire not only the systemic relations among vowels but also their dialect-specific patterns of formant dynamics. Directing attention to the regional variation in the production of American English vowels, this work may prove helpful in better understanding and interpreting the development of vowel categories and vowel systems in children. Key Words: dialect acquisition, regional vowel systems, formant movement, Acoustic characteristics of American English vowels have been widely studied since the seminal work by Peterson and Barney (1952). However, only relatively recently has sociophonetic research recognized that vowels in [...]

Underlying auditory processes in speech perception were explored. Specifically of interest were the stages of auditory processing involved in the integration of dynamic information in nontraditional speech cues such as the virtual formant transitions. These signals utilize intensity ratio cues and changes in spectral center-of-gravity (instead of the actual formant frequency transitions) to produce perceived F3 glides. 6 men and 8 women (M age =24.2 yr., SD=2.1), recruited through posted materials from graduate students at The Ohio State University, participated in two experiments. The results for frequency-based formant transitions (Exp. 1 ) indicated that spectral cues to syllable identification are combined at more central levels of auditory processing. However, when the components of the virtual formant stimuli were divided between the ears in a dichotic listening task (Exp. 2), the results indicated that auditory spectral integration may occur above the auditory periphery but at stages more intermediate rather than central. DOI 10.2466/10.15.24.27.PMS.111.5.543-558

Maxim Osipov Rock, Paper, Scissors and Other Stories Trans. Boris Dralyuk, Alexandra Fleming & Anne Marie Jackson. New York. New York Review Books. 2019. 304 pages. The twelve scintillating short [...]

Iwaki KeiFarewell, My Orange Trans. Meredith McKinney. New York. Europa Editions. 2018. 128 pages.The orange in the title of Iwaki Kei's stunning debut novel, Farewell, My Orange , does [...]

The ACTH receptor, also known as the melanocortin-2 receptor (MC2R), is critical for ACTH-mediated adrenal glucocorticoid release. Human MC2R (hMC2R) has 10 cysteine residues, which are located in extracellular loops (ELs), transmembrane domains (TMs), and intracellular loops (ILs). In this study, we examined the importance of these cysteine residues in receptor function and determined their involvement in disulfide bond formation. We replaced these cysteines with serine and expressed the mutated receptors in adrenal OS3 cells, which lack endogenous MC2R. Our results indicate that four mutations, C21S in N[H.sub.2] terminus, C245S, C251S, and C253S in EL3, resulted in significant decrease both in receptor expression and receptor function. Mutation of cysteine 231 in TM6 significantly decreased ACTH binding affinity and potency. In contrast, the five other mutated receptors (C64S, C158S, C191S, C267S, and C293S) did not significantly alter ACTH binding affinity and potency. These results suggest that extracellular cysteine residue 21, 245, 251, and 253, as well as transmembrane cysteine residue 231 are crucial for ACTH binding and signaling. Further experiments suggest that a disulfide bond exists between the residue C245 and C251 in EL3. These findings provide important insights into the importance of cysteine residues of hMC2R for receptor function. familial glucocorticoid deficiency; melanocortin 2 receptor; melanocortin receptor; G protein-coupled receptor

This investigation is a comprehensive acoustic study of 4 voiceless fricatives (/f [theta] s [integral]/) in English produced by adults and pre- and postpubescent children aged 6-14 years. Vowel duration, amplitude, and several different spectral measures (including spectral tilt and spectral moments) were examined. Of specific interest was the pattern of normal development of the acoustic properties of fricatives and the nature of sex-specific patterns of fricative articulation in prepubescent children. Little evidence of amplitude or duration differences was found between speakers that was related to sex of the speaker. However, significant sex-specific differences in fricative articulation were found in all groups of speakers--even in the youngest children (ages 6-7 years)--although there was an indication that some of the acoustic differences between females and males is reduced or absent in the youngest children. Results from discriminant analysis demonstrated that a discriminant function based on the adult male tokens was generally better at classifying fricatives produced by male speakers than female speakers, regardless of age. This showed that sex-related differences (presumably a function of sex-linked vocal tract variation) were present even in the youngest speaker group. However, the classification accuracy of the female model showed a steady improvement with the increased age of the female speakers and may provide support for the claim that sex-related developmental differences may just be emerging in the youngest age group. KEY WORDS: fricatives, fricative development, phonetic development, sex differences, speech production, spectral moments, It has been well documented that the acoustic characteristics of speech vary systematically as a function of the sex of the speaker. These differences are in part the result of [...]

Juan José Millás From the Shadows Trans. Thomas Bunstead & Daniel Hahn. New York. Bellevue Literary Press. 2019. 208 pages. THE INVISIBLE BUTLER did it. That's the high-concept vision of [...]

Haruki Murakami Killing Commendatore Trans. Phillip Gabriel & Ted Goossen. New York. Knopf. 608 pages. Haruki Murakamis massive, elegantly eerie sixteenth novel, Killing Commendatore , is a successful, surreal mashup [...]

Journalists came too late to Wounded Knee, SD, scene of a massacre of 200 native Americans at the hands of US military forces, in 1890. Although the story about native activism should have been covered earlier, they nevertheless, did a good job of it. Their attention was riveted to the place due to the open display of firearms and presence of armored personnel carriers all over the place. Media have a role to play in the termination or extension of the Wounded Knee or Bureau of Indian Affairs occupation.

Dennis McAuliffe's book, 'The Deaths of Sybil Bolton', is not merely an attempt to determine if his grandmother, Sybil Bolton, was a victim of the Osage Reign of Terror during the Great Depression, but is a description of his coming to terms with his ancestry. This book has been received well by the Osage community unlike John Joseph Matthew's book, 'Sundown' and Linda Hogan's book, 'Mean Spirit'. However, McAuliffe's interpretation is problematic in that there are errors about Osage history in his book and he rarely communicates the disparity of the Osage experiences during the Reign of Terror.

This study examined age-related differences in the use of dynamic acoustic information (in the form of formant transitions) to identify vowel quality in CVCs. Two versions of 61 naturally produce commonly occurring, monosyllabic English words were created: a control version (the unmodified whole word) and a silent-center version (in which approximately 62% of the medial vowel was replaced by silence). A group of normal-hearing young adults (19-25 years old) and older adults (61-75 years old) identified these tokens. The older subjects were found to be significant worse than the younger subjects at identifying the medial vowel and the initial and final consonants in th silent-center condition. These results support the hypothesis of an age-related decrement in the ability to process dynamic perceptual cues in the perception of vowel quality.