Speech intelligibility problems of Sudanese learners of English : an experimental approach

This is a study on the pronunciation and perception of English sounds and words by university students of English in Sudan, whose native language is Sudanese Arabic. The study aims to establish the intelligibility of Sudanese-Arabic (SA) accented English for native English (British and American) listeners and Dutch listeners who use English as a lingua franca. The intelligibility of SA-accented English is compared with that of native English. The study also investigates how well the SA students of English identify English sounds and recognize English words in simple sentences spoken by a native English speaker. The perception tests show that the intelligibility of SA-accented English is predominantly compromised by incorrect pronunciation of the English vowels. This finding was predicted from a contrastive analysis of the Arabic and English sound inventories. The SA students of English produced the vowels consonants and consonant clusters of English in controlled materials. Acoustic analyses were carried out in order to establish the differences in pronunciation between SA-accented and native British pronunciation. The comparison revealed substantial discrepancies between the native and non-native varieties, which can be used to explain the degraded intelligibility of SA-accented English. Written questionnaires were administered in which both SA students of English and their instructors were asked to identify strengths and weaknesses in the students’ production and perception of English sounds and words, and to speculate on the underlying causes of the difficulties. The results show that the SA students as well as their instructors have clear intuitions on where the weaknesses are, and that these intuitions correspond closely to the experimental findings of the perception experiments and the acoustic analyses. This book is of relevance to (applied) linguists and language teachers in general and to specialists on the teaching of English pronunciation and listening skills to university students with an Arabic native language background.LEI Universiteit LeidenMinistry of Education, Republic of Sudan; Leiden University FundTheoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Classical and Variant Approaches to Synthesis of N-Mannich Bases of Phenyl Hydroxyl Ketones, Their Characterization, Urease Inhibition and Antioxidant Activities

In continuation of our synthesis and investigation of bioactivities of Mannich bases, synthesized N - Mannich bases were evaluated for their urease inhibition and antioxidant properties. Characterization was achieved by Ultraviolet/visible (UV), Infrared (IR), Nuclear magnetic resonance (1HNMR) and Mass spectrophotometries. Elemental analysis, optical rotation (OR) and circular dichroism (CD) measurement also confirmed and provided information about the structure of these compounds. Synthesis of novel 2-hydroxy-1,2,3-triphenyl-3-(phenylamino) propan-1-one, 2-hydroxy-1,2-diphenyl-3-(phenylamino) propan-1-one, 2-hydroxy-3-(2-hydroxyethylamino)-1,2,3-triphenylpropan-1-one and  2-hydroxy-1,2,3-triphenyl-3-(p-tolylamino)propan-1-one are newly reported along with 3-(2-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)ethylideneamino)-3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-1-(2,4,6-trimethoxy phenyl) propan-1-one prepared by a variant approach involving use of tertiary amine. Jack bean Urease was used for Urease inhibition assay while in vitro antioxidant screening of the compounds was carried out using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH).  IC50 values obtained showed that the compounds showed significant activities as urease inhibitors and antioxidants when compared with Thiourea, Ascorbic acid and Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) used as standards in the two assays. Kinetics of inhibition of H. pylori urease by 1-Phenylaminomethyl-naphthalen-2-ol (GK1) and 2-(3-Phenylaminopropionyloxy)-benzoic acid (GK5) indicated that enzyme activity decreased as concentration of test compound increased. The IC50 value of 14.5 ± 0.71 mM (GK1)  and 14.3± 0.32 (GK5) indicated better activity when compared to thiourea (21.6 ± 0.12) used as standard. Keywords: Benzoin; tertiary amine; urease; thiourea; antioxidant; butylated hydroxyanisol

The aromatase inhibitor letrozole enhances the effect of doxorubicin and docetaxel in an MCF7 cell line model

Introduction: Post-menopausal women with estrogen receptor (ER) positive breast cancer receive adjuvant chemotherapy and endocrine therapy sequentially since tamoxifen may antagonise the cytotoxicity of chemotherapy drugs. With increased use of aromatase inhibitors (AIs) in place of tamoxifen, the potential use of concomitant chemo-endocrine treatments with the AI letrozole, before clinical trials are undertaken, requires evaluation. Methods: MCF7-aro cells expressing the aromatase gene were treated with letrozole, doxorubicin and docetaxel. The effects of different drug concentrations, drug combinations and scheduling on cytotoxicity and aromatase activity were investigated. Key receptor, cell cycle regulation and apoptosis proteins were examined by immunoblotting. Results: Administration of letrozole with either doxorubicin or docetaxel resulted in increased levels of cytotoxicity under all treatment schedules (add in, sequential or simultaneous drug administration) with the greatest anti-proliferative effect observed using concomitant treatment (letrozole first with chemotherapy added in). The inhibitory effect of letrozole on aromatase activity was unchanged by the addition of doxorubicin or docetaxel. Letrozole treatment resulted in decreased HER2 expression and addition of doxorubicin and docetaxel to letrozole led to elevated ER-ß levels. Conclusions: In vitro, letrozole, unlike tamoxifen, enhances the cytotoxicity of both doxorubicin and docetaxel. This supports the prospect of trials using letrozole with chemotherapy in postmenopausal women with ER positive breast cancer

Segmental analysis of speech intelligibility problems among Sudanese listeners of English

Interdisciplinary domains LUC

Two New Fish Records from the Mediterranean Sea, of the Libyan coast: The undulate ray Raja undulata (Lac´ep`ede,1802) and the Atlantic wreckfish, Polyprion americanus (Bloch and Schneider,1801)

  The discovery of new alien species in Libyan waters, whether introduced by Lessepsian migration from the Red Sea or the Atlantic Ocean, has recently received much attention. This shows that marine life is still thriving in Libyan waters. Raja undulata (SL: 47cm, TL: 51 cm), weighing 18 kg, was caught from Derna coast by a bottom trawl haul on 20th July 2022, at a depth of 100 m. On the other hand, a single Polyprion americanus specimen (SL: 79 cm, TL: 97 cm) weighing 16.447 kg was caught by longline on the coast of Tripoli on 19th June 2022, at a depth of 500 m. The present study aims to document the first record of Raja undulate and the second record of Atlantic wreckfish, Polyprion americanus, from Libyan waters. This observation is detailed in this note

On the Truncated Pareto Distribution with applications

The Pareto probability distribution is widely applied in different fields such us finance, physics, hydrology, geology and astronomy. This note deals with an application of the Pareto distribution to astrophysics and more precisely to the statistical analysis of mass of stars and of diameters of asteroids. In particular a comparison between the usual Pareto distribution and its truncated version is presented. Finally a possible physical mechanism that produces Pareto tails for the distribution of the masses of stars is suggested.Comment: 10 pages 6 figure

The Efficacy of Canagliflozin on Type 2 Diabetic Nephropathy in Male Rats

Background: Sodium-glucose Cotransporter-2 inhibitors [SGLT2Is] are new antidiabetic group. Canagliflozin is the first member in this drug class approved for management of patient with type 2 diabetes (T2DM), that affects reabsorption of glucose from kidney, but its impact on kidney structure and function has not been clarified. Objectives: The target of this study is assessment of the canagliflozin effect on body weight, blood glucose, serum creatinine, urea and evaluation of the possibility of urinary tract infection (UTI) development in type 2 diabetic rats. Materials and Methods: The search was carried out on 24 male Wistar rats of weighting 160-300 g and ageing 2.5-3 months. They were splitted into 3 equal groups each of eight rats: negative control, positive control (diabetic) and Diabetic-canagliflozin treated groups. The positive control group was given a single dose intraperitoneal (IP) Streptzotocin (STZ) (35mg/kg diluted in 1ml of 0.1 M citrate buffer in 4.5 PH). The diabetic-canagliflozin treated group which received STZ was given canagliflozin (30 mg/kg/day, orally) for 12 weeks. Blood samples were collected and used for estimation of blood glucose, creatinine and urea levels. Urine samples were collected for urine analysis and urinary albumin creatinine ratio assessment. Kidney tissue samples were obtained for histopathological screening. Results: Diabetic-canagliflozin treated group had highly significantly decrease in body weight (287 ± 34.6) in comparison with positive control group (309.3 ± 21.1) at the end of the study as their weight were (234.2 ± 15.7 and 232.2 ± 11.01, respectively) at the srart. In addition to the highly significant decrease in blood glucose (255 ± 5.7) in Canagliflozin-treated group after treatment compared to (515.7 ± 49.2) before treatment. Also, there were a high significant decrease in urinary albumin (1.8 ± 0.2) and urinary albumine/creatinine ratio (1.1 ± 0.18) after treatment by canagliflozin. Adding to this, canagliflozin increase the level of urinary glucose excretion (875 ± 104) and development of UTIs (13.75 ± 3.5). However, no significant difference (p-value = 0.149) in serum creatinine or urea levels were detected (p-value = 0.112). Treatment with canagliflozin improved histological structure changes in the kidney. Conclusions: Canagliflozin has a renoprotective effect. It improves renal tissue damage and decreases blood glucose levels

Contrasting patterns of isotype-1 β-tubulin allelic diversity in Haemonchus contortus and Haemonchus placei in the southern USA are consistent with a model of localised emergence of benzimidazole resistance

The benzimidazoles are one of the most important broad-spectrum anthelmintic drug classes for parasitic nematode control in domestic animals and humans. They have been widely used in livestock, particularly in small ruminants for over 40 years. This has resulted in widespread resistance in small ruminant gastrointestinal nematode parasite species, especially Haemonchus contortus. Benzimidazole resistance mutations have also been reported in Haemonchus placei, but only at low frequencies, suggesting resistance is at a much earlier stage of emergence than is the case for H. contortus. Here, we investigate the haplotype diversity of isotype-1 β-tubulin benzimidazole resistance mutations and the population genetic structure of H. contortus and H. placei populations from sheep and cattle from the southern USA. Microsatellite genotyping revealed a low level of genetic differentiation in six H.placei and seven H. contortus populations examined. This is consistent with several previous studies from other regions, mainly in H. contortus, supporting a model of high gene flow between parasite populations. There was a single F200Y(TAC) haplotype present in all six H. placei populations across Georgia, Florida and Arkansas. In contrast, there were at least two different F200Y(TAC) haplotypes (up to four) and two different F167Y(TAC) haplotypes across the seven H. contortus populations studied. These results provide further evidence to support a model for benzimidazole resistance in Haemonchus spp, in which resistance mutations arise from a single, or the small number of locations, in a region during the early phases of emergence, and subsequently spread due to animal movement

Nonresonant Contributions in B->rho pi Decay

We consider nonresonant contributions in the Dalitz plot analysis of B->rho pi->pi^+ pi^- pi^0 decay and their potential impact on the extraction of the CKM parameter alpha. In particular, we examine the role of the heavy mesons B^* and B_0, via the process B->pi (B^*, B_0)->pi^+ pi^- pi^0, and their interference with resonant contributions in the rho-mass region. We discuss the inherent uncertainties and suggest that the effects may be substantially smaller than previously indicated.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures; minor changes, version to appear in Phys. Rev.