Effects of Orthographic Consistency on Bilingual Reading: Human and Computer Simulation Data.

English serves as today's lingua franca, a role not eased by the inconsistency of its orthography. Indeed, monolingual readers of more consistent orthographies such as Italian or German learn to read more quickly than monolingual English readers. Here, we assessed whether long-lasting bilingualism would mitigate orthography-specific differences in reading speed and whether the order in which orthographies with a different regularity are learned matters.

Odour properties of some 5-alkoxy and 5-aryloxymethylene-1,3,3-trimethyl-2-oxabicyclo[2.2.2]octan-6-ones.

Synopsis The synthesis of 5-alkoxy and 5-aryloxymethylene-1,3,3-trimethyl-2-oxabicyclo[2.2.2]octan-6-ones by reaction of (+)-5-hydroxymethylene-1,3,3-trimethyl-2-oxabicyclo[2.

Cycloocta[b]pyran derivatives with local anesthetic, platelet antiaggregating and other activities.

The synthesis of some N,N-disubstituted 4-amino-5,6,7,8,9,10-hexahydro-3- phenyl-2H-cycloocta[b]pyran-2-ones by reaction of phenylchloroketene with a series of N,N-disubstituted 2-aminomethylenecyclooctanones, followed by dehydrochlorination in situ of the primary adducts with DBN, is described. The dimethylamino derivative showed a local anesthetic activity in mice superior to that of lidocaine, and some compounds exhibited a platelet antiaggregating activity in vitro superior or comparable to that of acetylsalicylic acid, as well as weak antiarrhythmic and antiinflammatory activities in rats.

The role of the right hemisphere in the interpretation of figurative aspects of language. A positron emission tomography activation study.

We investigated cerebral activity in six normal volunteers using PET to explore the hypothesis that the right hemisphere has a specific role in the interpretation of figurative aspects of language such as metaphors. We also mapped the anatomical structures involved in sentence comprehension. During regional cerebral blood flow measurement subjects were asked to perform three different linguistic tasks: (i) metaphorical comprehension; (ii) literal comprehension of sentences; and (iii) a lexical-decision task.

Synthesis and pharmacological activities of ethyl 5-cyano-1,6-dihydro-6-oxo-2-(2,3,4-pyridyl)-3-pyridinecarboxylates and derivatives.

The synthesis of ethyl esters of 5-cyano-1,6-dihydro-6-oxo-3-pyridinecarboxylic acids carrying as 2-substituent the 2-,3- or 4-pyridyl group is described. By alkaline hydrolysis followed by acidification, these esters gave the corresponding carboxylic acids, which were decarboxylated to 1,2-dihydro-2-oxo-6-(2,3,4-pyridyl)-3-pyridinecarbonitriles. As milrinone analogues, the above compounds were tested on contractile activity and frequency rate of spontaneously beating atria from reserpine-treated guinea-pigs.