This research probed how classifiers marking an object’s membership in the grammar of classifier languages like Mandarin Chinese and Korean may influence their speakers to categorize objects differently compared to speakers of non-classifier languages like English. Surveys in multiple-choice format were given to native speakers of the three languages. Analysis of the results demonstrated that significant proportions of Mandarin Chinese and Korean speakers behaved differently from English speakers due to the classifier-based strategy influencing classifier language speakers’ categorization. Adopting the Competition Model, we suggest that among the various categorizing strategies available to language users, the one with the greatest strength at the moment of performing the task wins the categorization competition. Classifiers that are grammaticalized in classifier languages may be providing their speakers with a powerful cognitive tool to notice diverse characteristics shared between objects, which is usually unavailable to non-classifier languages. Therefore, the strength of classifier-based strategy in the minds of classifier language speakers is strong enough to win some of the categorization competitions, which guides them to make different categorizing decisions from non-classifier language users.

In this paper, we study a two-component Lotka–Volterra competition systemon a one-dimensional spatial lattice. By the comparison principle, together with the weighted energy, we prove that the traveling wavefronts with large speed are exponentially asymptotically stable, when the initial perturbation around the traveling wavefronts decays exponentially as $j\,+\,ct\,\to \,-\,\infty $, where $j\,\in \,\mathbb{Z}$, $t\,>\,0$, but the initial perturbation can be arbitrarily large on other locations. This partially answers an open problem by J.-S. Guo and C.-H.Wu.

According to Grime's model, velvetleaf can be classified as a competitive-ruderal species. Its biological and ecological characteristics make it particularly competitive and persistent in cultivated fields. Herbicide control is difficult and, once established, it is almost impossible to avoid seed production. The economic threshold, on a single year basis, varies between 0.3 and 1.7 plants m–2. When the competitive relationships and their effects are evaluated, it is very difficult to apply a weed management system based on a single-season threshold. When one considers the agronomic implications of the ecological characteristics of velvetleaf over a longer period, it can be concluded that the use of a single-season economic threshold is probably not the best management strategy.

The impact of invasive weed management on plant community composition is highly dependent on location-specific factors. Therefore, treatment means from experiments conducted at a given set of locations will not reliably predict community response to weed management elsewhere. We developed a model that rescales treatment means to better match local conditions. The goal of this paper was to determine if this rescaling improves predictions. We used our model to predict leafy spurge stem length density and grass biomass data from field experiments. The experiments consisted of herbicide-treated plots, untreated controls, and, in some cases, grass seeding treatments. When herbicides suppressed leafy spurge, the model explained 21 to 48% more variation in grass response than did mean grass response to the same or similar herbicide treatments applied at other sites. When herbicides killed grass, the model explained 53% more variation in leafy spurge response than did mean leafy spurge response to the same herbicide treatment applied at other sites. We regressed model predictions against observed data and tested the null hypothesis that resulting slope terms were equal to 1.0. Because the null hypothesis was rejected in two of four tests, the model may systematically over- or underpredict in some situations. However, measurement error in the observed data, unintended herbicide injury, or an inaccurate allometric relationship may account for a major proportion of the systematic deviations, and these factors would not cause prediction error in some management applications. Because the model tends to be better than the means from experiments at predicting plant community composition, we conclude that the model could advance managers' ability to predict plant community responses to invasive weed management.

Invasive weed managers are presented with a complicated and ever-enlarging set of management alternatives. Identifying the optimal weed management strategy for a given set of conditions requires predicting how candidate strategies will affect plant community composition. Although field experiments have advanced our ability to predict postmanagement composition, extrapolation problems limit the prediction accuracy achieved by interpreting treatment means as predictions. Examples of extrapolation problems include nonlinear relationships between competing plants, site-to-site variation in plant population growth rates, and the carrying capacities of desired species and weeds. Our objective was to develop a model that improves predictions of weed management outcomes by overcoming a subset of these problems. To develop the model, we used data from two field experiments in which four Kentucky bluegrass, six western wheatgrass, and six invasive plant (i.e., leafy spurge) densities were combined in field plots. Graphs of our model's predictions vs. observed field experiment data indicate that the model predicted the data accurately. Our model may improve predictions of plant community response to invasive weed management actions.

The present study follows the role of the first (L1, English) and second (L2, Japanese or Spanish) languages in ab initio third language (L3, Latin) acquisition. Participants (N = 25) were L2 classroom learners without immersion experience. In order to complement previous generativist studies and to offer a fuller developmental account of how transfer operates at the morphosyntactic level, the Competition Model (CM) was adopted as theoretical framework. Positive changes in overall accuracy and sentence processing patterns in role assignment in L3 Latin show L3 development as largely modulated by the L1, suggesting that higher levels of L2 resonance are necessary for integrated patterns of L1 and L2 cues to emerge.

Competition Model studies of second language learners have demonstrated that there is a gradual replacement of first language cues for thematic role assignment by second language cues. The current study introduced two methodological innovations in the investigation of this process. The first was the use of mouse-tracking methodology (Spivey, 2007) to assess the online process of thematic role assignment. The second was the inclusion of both a task with language-specific cues and a task with language-common cues. The results of the language-common cue task indicated that, as English-dominant learners become more balanced between English and Spanish, they rely increasingly on a coalition between the animacy cue and the subject–verb agreement cue. However, the results of the language-specific cue task reveal that learners also rely on the cue of prepositional case marking in Spanish and nominal case marking in English. These results provide evidence of forward transfer, backward transfer, and rapid acquisition of cue-based sentence interpretation strategies in second language learning.

In this paper, we introduce a generalization of the two-color multitype contact process intended to mimic a biological process called allelopathy. To be precise, we have two types of particle. Particles of each type give birth to particles of the same type, and die at rate 1. When a particle of type 1 dies, it gives way to a frozen site that blocks particles of type 2 for an exponentially distributed amount of time. Specifically, we investigate in detail the phase transitions and the duality properties of the interacting particle system.

The first purpose of this article is to study the phase transitions of a new interacting particle system. We consider two types of particle, each of which gives birth to particles of the same type as the parent. Particles of the second type can die, whereas those of the first type mutate into the second type. We prove that the three possible outcomes of the process, that is, extinction, survival of the type-2s, or coexistence, may each occur, depending on the selected parameters. Our second, and main, objective, however, is to investigate the duality properties of the process; the corresponding dual process exhibits a structure somewhat different to that of well-known particle systems.