The influence of semantic and phonological factors on syntactic decisions: An event-related brain potential study

During language production and comprehension, information about a word's syntactic properties is sometimes needed. While the decision about the grammatical gender of a word requires access to syntactic knowledge, it has also been hypothesized that semantic (i.e., biological gender) or phonological information (i.e., sound regularities) may influence this decision. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while native speakers of German processed written words that were or were not semantically and/or phonologically marked for gender. Behavioral and ERP results showed that participants were faster in making a gender decision when words were semantically and/or phonologically gender marked than when this was not the case, although the phonological effects were less clear. In conclusion, our data provide evidence that even though participants performed a grammatical gender decision, this task can be influenced by semantic and phonological factors

Myeloid and lymphoid contribution to non-haematopoietic lineages through irradiation-induced heterotypic cell fusion.

Recent studies have suggested that regeneration of non-haematopoietic cell lineages can occur through heterotypic cell fusion with haematopoietic cells of the myeloid lineage. Here we show that lymphocytes also form heterotypic-fusion hybrids with cardiomyocytes, skeletal muscle, hepatocytes and Purkinje neurons. However, through lineage fate-mapping we demonstrate that such in vivo fusion of lymphoid and myeloid blood cells does not occur to an appreciable extent in steady-state adult tissues or during normal development. Rather, fusion of blood cells with different non-haematopoietic cell types is induced by organ-specific injuries or whole-body irradiation, which has been used in previous studies to condition recipients of bone marrow transplants. Our findings demonstrate that blood cells of the lymphoid and myeloid lineages contribute to various non-haematopoietic tissues by forming rare fusion hybrids, but almost exclusively in response to injuries or inflammation

Brand equity of stock exchange as a mediator in financial decisions

WOS: 000398485400003The aim of this study is to investigate investors' brand equity perception for a stock exchange as a mediator in financial investment decisions. An online survey is conducted in two samples in the developed market context of Ireland and developing one of Turkey. Results indicate that although investors' risk perception has a negative impact on investment decisions, this impact is partially mediated by brand equity of stock exchanges in question. This mediating effect further differs by the market context, with a larger effect size in the developing Turkish market. It can be concluded that although developing markets face higher volatility in macroeconomic conditions, it could be possible to spread the risk resulting from this volatility with an effective brand equity management, which is found to be especially important in developing markets. The study offers some practical implications to policy makers and managerial sides regarding the need for a careful perception management aimed at individual investors.Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK)Turkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Arastirma Kurumu (TUBITAK) [2214-A]This research is supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), within the grant of Graduate Scholarship Program for Ph.D. Students (2214-A)

Epigenetic silencing of miRNA-9 is associated with HES1 oncogenic activity and poor prognosis of medulloblastoma

BACKGROUND: microRNA-9 is a key regulator of neuronal development aberrantly expressed in brain malignancies, including medulloblastoma. The mechanisms by which microRNA-9 contributes to medulloblastoma pathogenesis remain unclear, and factors that regulate this process have not been delineated. METHODS: Expression and methylation status of microRNA-9 in medulloblastoma cell lines and primary samples were analysed. The association of microRNA-9 expression with medulloblastoma patients' clinical outcome was assessed, and the impact of microRNA-9 restoration was functionally validated in medulloblastoma cells. RESULTS: microRNA-9 expression is repressed in a large subset of MB samples compared with normal fetal cerebellum. Low microRNA-9 expression correlates significantly with the diagnosis of unfavourable histopathological variants and with poor clinical outcome. microRNA-9 silencing occurs via cancer-specific CpG island hypermethylation. HES1 was identified as a direct target of microRNA-9 in medulloblastoma, and restoration of microRNA-9 was shown to trigger cell cycle arrest, to inhibit clonal growth and to promote medulloblastoma cell differentiation. CONCLUSIONS: microRNA-9 is a methylation-silenced tumour suppressor that could be a potential candidate predictive marker for poor prognosis of medulloblastoma. Loss of microRNA-9 may confer a proliferative advantage to tumour cells, and it could possibly contribute to disease pathogenesis. Thus, re-expression of microRNA-9 may constitute a novel epigenetic regulation strategy against medulloblastoma