Effects of Language Proficiency on Selective Attention Patterns at Segmenting Boundaries in English Audio Sentences.

Background/objectives: Normative perceptual segmentation facilitates event perception, comprehension, and memory. Given that native English listeners' normative perceptual segmentation of English speech streams coexists with a highly selective attention pattern at segmentation boundaries, it is significant to test whether Chinese learners of English have a different attention pattern at boundaries, thereby checking whether they perform a normative segmentation.

Methods: Thirty Chinese learners of English with relatively higher language proficiency (CLH) and 26 with relatively lower language proficiency (CLL) listened to a series of English audio sentences.

Cation-π Interactions Greatly Influence Ion Transportability of the Light-Driven Sodium Pump KR2: A Molecular Dynamics Study.

rhodopsin 2 (KR2) is a typical light-driven sodium pump. Although wild-type KR2 exhibits high Na selectivity, mutagenesis performed on the residues constituting the entrance enables permeation of K and Cs, while the underlying mechanism remains elusive. This study presents a comprehensive molecular dynamics investigation, including force field optimization, metadynamics, and alchemical free energy methods, to explore the N61L/G263F mutant of KR2, which exhibits transportability for K and Cs.