Enhancement of laryngeal contrasts in non-native English clear speech: a comparison between L2-immersed sequential bilinguals and L1-immersed speakers.

Clear speech, a speaking style used to mitigate communicative circumstances affecting the transmission or decoding of speech signal, often involves the enhancement of language-specific phonological contrasts, including laryngeal contrasts. This study investigates the role of language dominance in the implementation of language-specific laryngeal contrasts in L2 clear speech. Two groups of Korean-English speakers (L1 Korean) were tested: a relatively less Korean-dominant L2-immersed group of sequential bilinguals ( = 30) and a strongly Korean-dominant L1-immersed group ( = 30), with dominance assessed based on the results of the Bilingual Language Profile.

Changes in coastal ecosystems affected by overburden dumping from amber open-cut mining on the Sambia Peninsula (Baltic Sea).

The Sambia Peninsula (Kaliningrad region) is historically well known for its amber mining. The 2019 year was the last year of direct overburden disposal into the Baltic Sea as a part of technological amber mining process. The extremely high-suspended particulate matter concentrations during that disposal were recorded immediately after the discharge of significant volumes of pulp and reached 200 mg/L.

Non-native talkers and listeners and the perceptual benefits of clear speech.

This study examined the intelligibility benefit of native and non-native clear speech for native and non-native listeners when the first language background of non-native talkers and listeners is matched. All four combinations of talkers and listeners were tested: native talker-native listener, non-native talker-native listener, native talker-non-native listener, and non-native talker-non-native listener. Listeners were presented with structurally simple but semantically anomalous English sentences produced clearly or casually and mixed with speech-shaped noise at 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio and asked to write down what they heard.

The effect of allophonic variability on L2 contrast perception: Evidence from perception of English vowels.

Current frameworks of L2 phonetic acquisition remain largely underspecified with respect to the role of L1 allophonic variability in acquisition. Examining the role of L1 allophonic variability, the current study compared the perceptual discrimination of English /i-ɪ/ and /ɛ-æ/ by L1 Korean and L1 Mandarin speakers. Korean and Mandarin vowel inventories differ in that Mandarin employs significantly greater allophonic variation of the mid-region /E/ vowel.

[Influenza vaccination and prognosis for patients with high cardiovascular risk].

Cardiovascular and respiratory diseases have been one of the leading causes of mortality in the world for over 15 years. According to the results of various studies, a clear connection was revealed between the incidence of influenza and the decompensation of cardiovascular diseases, which leads to the development of acute coronary syndrome, acute heart failure and myocardial infarction. Also, the incidence of influenza is associated with an increase in the length of hospitalization, treatment costs and patient mortality.

More Is Not Always Better: Local Models Provide Accurate Predictions of Spectral Properties of Porphyrins.

The development of new functional materials based on porphyrins requires fast and accurate prediction of their spectral properties. The available models in the literature for absorption wavelength and extinction coefficient of the Soret band have low accuracy for this class of compounds. We collected spectral data for porphyrins to extend the literature set and compared the performance of global and local models for their modelling using different machine learning methods.

A Sorbent with Synthetic Ligand for Removing Pro-atherogenic and Pro-inflammatory Components from Human Blood Plasma.

Elevated levels of apoB-100 containing lipoproteins and markers of systemic inflammation are often observed in patients with cardiovascular diseases. The concentrations can be reduced by pharmacotherapy or extracorporeal treatment. The sorbent, which removes CRP and atherogenic lipoproteins, simultaneously reduces the bloodstream concentration of these components.

[The periprocedural myocardial infarction and probability of the developing of the contrast-induced acute kidneys injury in clinical practice. Case report].

Nowadays, taking into account the number of elderly patients with sеveral associated diseases requiring percutaneous transluminal balloon coronary angioplasty (PTCA), the risk of the development of unwanted complications is also growing. In this article we present the clinical case, where the PTCA had complications with myocardial infarction of the 4a type without contrast-induced acute kidney injury (contrast-induced nephropathy).

Tactile cortical responses and association with tactile reactivity in young children on the autism spectrum.

Background: Unusual behavioral reactions to sensory stimuli are frequently reported in individuals on the autism spectrum (AS). Despite the early emergence of sensory features (< age 3) and their potential impact on development and quality of life, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying sensory reactivity in early childhood autism.

Methods: Here, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate tactile cortical processing in young children aged 3-6 years with autism and in neurotypical (NT) children.

Molecular Recognition of Imidazole Derivatives by Co(III)-Porphyrinsin Phosphate Buffer (pH = 7.4) and Cetylpyridinium Chloride Containing Solutions.

Bymeans of spectrophotometric titration and NMR spectroscopy, the selective binding ability ofthe Co(III)-5,15-bis-(3-hydroxyphenyl)-10,20-bis-(4-sulfophenyl)porphyrin (Со(III)Р1) andCo(III)-5,15-bis-(2-hydroxyphenyl)-10,20-bis-(4-sulfophenyl)porphyrin (Со(III)Р2) towards imidazole derivatives of various nature (imidazole (L1), metronidazole (L2), and histamine (L3)) in phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) has been studied. It was found that in the case of L2, L3 the binding of the "first" ligand molecule by porphyrinatesCo(III)P1 and Co(III)P2 occurs with the formation of complexes with two binding sites (donor-acceptor bond at the center and hydrogen bond at the periphery of the macrocycle), while the "second" ligand molecule is added to the metalloporphyrin only due to the formation of the donor-acceptor bond at the macrocycle coordination center.

Fluorescence properties and quantum-chemical modeling of tert-butyl-substituted porphyrazines: Structural and ionization effect.

Synthesis and identification of tetrakis-[5,6-bis(4-tert-butylphenyl)pyrazino] porphyrazine, tetra-(4-tert-butyl)phthalocyanine and octakis-(4-tert-butylphenyl)porphyrazine were carried out. Spectrophotometric method was used to study the spectral, acidic and fluorescence properties of the synthesized compounds. It was determined that the synthesized tert-butyl-substituted porphyrazines exhibit a high sensitivity of fluorescence to the molecule ionization.

Correction to: Spectral-Fluorescence Properties of Zn(II)-Octaphenyltetraazaporphyrins.

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. In the section of 'Acknowledgements' the grant number is incorrectly indicated. The corrected grant number is given below.

Spectral-Fluorescence Properties of Zn(II)-Octaphenyltetraazaporphyrins.

Zn(II)-octa-(4-chlorophenyl)- and Zn(II)-octa-(4-bromophenyl)tetraazaporphyrins were synthesized by the reaction of cyclotetramerization of di-(4-chlorophenyl)- and di-(4-bromophenyl)maleonitriles with zinc(II) chloride. The obtained compounds were identified by UV-vis, IR, NMR H spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. Geometry optimization of the series of halogenated Zn(II)-octaaryltetraazaporphyrins was performed using the density functional method with the BP86 functional and the def2-TZVP basis set.

Covalently immobilized chemically modified lysozyme as a sorbent for bacterial endotoxins (lipopolysaccharides).

Chemical modification of lysozyme was carried out using benzaldehyde and anisaldehyde. It was shown that chemical modification affects only 1-2 amino groups of the protein molecule which does not prevent further covalent immobilization of lysozyme using the remaining free amino groups. The bacteriolytic activity of lysozyme is preserved after chemical modification and after subsequent covalent immobilization.

Vowel-to-Vowel Coarticulation in Spanish Nonwords.

The present study examined vowel-to-vowel (VV) coarticulation in backness affecting mid vowels /e/ and /o/ in 36 Spanish nonwords produced by 20 native speakers of Spanish, aged 19-50 years (mean = 30.7; SD = 8.2).

Acoustic Correlates of the Four-Way Laryngeal Contrast in Marathi.

The study examines acoustic correlates of the four-way laryngeal contrast in Marathi, focusing on temporal parameters, voice quality, and onset f0. Acoustic correlates of the laryngeal contrast were investigated in the speech of 33 native speakers of Marathi, recorded in Mumbai, India, producing a word list containing six sets of words minimally contrastive in terms of laryngeal specification of word-initial velar stops. Measurements were made for the duration of prevoicing, release, and voicing during release.

New Sorbent on the Basis of Covalently Immobilized Lysozyme for Removal of Bacterial Lipopolysaccharide (Endotoxin) from Biological Fluids.

It was demonstrated for the first time that immobilized lysozyme can efficiently remove Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa lipopolysaccharides (endotoxins) from solutions. Experimentally confirmed sorption capacity for the developed sorbent was at least 400 ng of endotoxin per ml sorbent. The new sorbent is compatible with the whole human blood and can be potentially used in extracorporeal therapy in the treatment of sepsis.

The Role of Perception in the Typology of Geminate Consonants: Effects of Manner of Articulation, Segmental Environment, Position, and Stress.

The present study seeks to answer the question of whether consonant duration is perceived differently across consonants of different manners of articulation and in different contextual environments and whether such differences may be related to the typology of geminates. The results of the cross-linguistic identification experiment suggest higher perceptual acuity in labeling short and long consonants in sonorants than in obstruents. Duration categories were also more consistently and clearly labeled in the intervocalic than in the preconsonantal environment, in the word-initial than in the word-final position, and after stressed vowels than between unstressed vowels.

Evidence for cooperative Na and Cl binding by strongly hydrated l-proline.

In nature the amino acid l-proline (Pro) is a ubiquitous and highly effective osmolyte protecting cells against osmotic stress. To understand this effect knowledge of the hydration of Pro and its interactions with dissolved salts is essential. We studied these properties by combining statistical mechanics and broadband dielectric spectroscopy and found that Pro remains strongly hydrated up to high amino-acid concentrations.

Anti-inflammatory natural product goniothalamin reduces colitis-associated and sporadic colorectal tumorigenesis.

The tumor microenvironment offers multiple targets for cancer therapy, including pro-tumorigenic inflammation. Natural compounds represent an enormous source of new anti-inflammatory and anticancer agents. We previously showed that the styryl lactone goniothalamin (GTN) has promising antiproliferative and anti-inflammatory activities.

Interleukins 1 and 6 as Main Mediators of Inflammation and Cancer.

The idea of a potential link between cancer and inflammation was first proposed by R. Virchow in the nineteenth century. However, clear evidence regarding a key role of inflammation in oncogenesis appeared only during the last decade.

Proline hydration at low temperatures: its role in the protection of cell from freeze-induced stress.

The natural amino acid L-α-proline (Pro) is a compatible osmolyte which accumulates in the cell cytoplasm to protect structure and function of various proteins and enzymes under abiotic stress, like for instance, freezing. It is assumed that the interactions of Pro with intracellular water play an important role in the protection mechanism. However, until now the details of these interactions are far from being fully understood.

Lowering of lipoprotein(a) level under niacin treatment is dependent on apolipoprotein(a) phenotype.

Background: Lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] is a cardiovascular risk factor; in addition to being a low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-like particle, it contains highly heterogeneous apolipoprotein(a) [apo(a)]. No prior studies have evaluated extended-release (ER) niacin effect on Lp(a) level depending on apo(a) phenotype.

Methods: For this 24-week, prospective, open-label clinical trial we recruited 30 men (mean age 46.