Foreign accents reduce false recognition rates in the DRM paradigm

More cognitive resources are required to comprehend foreign-accented than native speech. Focusing these cognitive resources on resolving the acoustic mismatch between the foreign-accented input and listeners' stored representations of spoken words can affect other cognitive processes. Across two studies, we explored whether processing foreign-accented speech reduces the activation of semantic information. This was achieved using the DRM paradigm, in which participants study word lists and typically falsely remember non-studied words (i.e. critical lures) semantically associated with the studied words. In two experiments, participants were presented with word lists spoken both by a native and a foreign-accented speaker. In both experiments we observed lower false recognition rates for the critical lures associated with word lists presented in a foreign accent, compared to native speech. In addition, participants freely recalled more studied words when they had been presented in a native, compared to a foreign, accent, although this difference only emerged in Experiment 2, where the foreign speaker had a very strong accent. These observations suggest that processing foreign-accented speech modulates the activation of semantic information

World knowledge and novel information integration during L2speech comprehension.

Published online: 22 January 2016In this study we explore whether world knowledge (WK) processing differs between individuals listening to their native (L1) or their non-native (L2) language. We recorded event-related brain potentials in L1 and L2 speakers of Spanish while they listened to sentences uttered by native speakers of Spanish. Sentences were either congruent or incongruent with participants’ WK. In addition, participants also listened to sentences in which upcoming words could not be anticipated on the basis of WK. WK violations elicited a late negativity of greater magnitude and duration in the L2 than the L1 group. However, sentences in which WK was not helpful regarding word anticipation elicited similar N400 modulations in both groups. These results suggest that WK processing requires a deeper lexical search in L2 comprehension than in L1 comprehensionThis research was approved by the ethics committee of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Finance, which funded this study.We thank Silvia Blanch and Xavier Mayoral for their technical support, and Meritxell Ayguasanosa for assistance in testing participants. This research was funded by an FPI grant (BES-2012-056668) and two project grants (PSI2011-23033 and Consolider INGENIO CSD2007- 00012) awarded by the Spanish Government; by one grant from the Catalan Government (SGR 2009-1521); and by one grant from the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework (FP7/2007-2013 Cooperation grant agreement 613465-AThEME). C.D.M. is supported by the IKERBASQUE institution and the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language. A.C. is supported by the ICREA institution and the Center for Brain and Cognition

EGFR-Based Immunoisolation as a Recovery Target for Low-EpCAM CTC Subpopulation

Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) play a key role in the metastasis process, as they are responsible for micrometastasis and are a valuable tool for monitoring patients in real-time. Moreover, efforts to develop new strategies for CTCs isolation and characterisation, and the translation of CTCs into clinical practice needs to overcome the limitation associated with the sole use of Epithelial Cell Adhesion Molecule (EpCAM) expression to purify this tumour cell subpopulation. CTCs are rare events in the blood of patients and are believed to represent the epithelial population from a primary tumour of epithelial origin, thus EpCAM immunoisolation is considered an appropriate strategy. The controversy stems from the impact that the more aggressive mesenchymal tumour phenotypes might have on the whole CTC population. In this work, we first characterised a panel of cell lines representative of tumour heterogeneity, confirming the existence of tumour cell subpopulations with restricted epithelial features and supporting the limitations of EpCAM-based technologies. We next developed customised polystyrene magnetic beads coated with antibodies to efficiently isolate the phenotypically different subpopulations of CTCs from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients with metastatic cancer. Besides EpCAM, we propose Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) as an additional isolation marker for efficient CTCs detection.This work was supported by Axencia Galega de Innovación (Xunta de Galicia) and InveNNta (Innovation in Nanomedicine), cofinanced by the European Union (EU) through the Operational Programme for Cross-border Cooperation: Spain-Portugal (POCTEP 2007-2013), and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)S

Geobotanical excursion guide to Fogo Island (Cape Verde)

A ilha do Fogo é a mais elevada do arquipélago de Cabo Verde. Biogeograficamente situa-se no reino Paleotropical, sub-reino Afrotropical, região Saara-Tropical, província Cabo Verde, sector Cabo Verde Sul e distrito Fogo. Este trabalho apresentamos o clima e o bioclima (varia entre tropical desértico eu-hiperoceânico infratropical hiperárido e tropical pluviestacional eu-hiperoceânico supratropical sub-húmido) da ilha do Fogo. Referem-se as 18 associações e 1 comunidade assinaladas distribuídas por 13 alianças, 11 ordens e 10 classes, por fim referese o catálogo florístico com 788 taxa.--------------------------------------------------------------------ABSTRACT: The Fogo Santiago Island is the one that reaches the highest altitude of the 10 islands of the Cabo Verde archipelago. Biogeographically is located in the Paleotropical kingdom, Afrotropical sub-kingdom, Sahara-Tropical region, Cabo Verde Province, South Cabo Verde sector, Fogo district.The bioclimate of this island varies between tropical desert euhyperoceanic infratropical hyperarid (São Filipe) and topical pluviestacional eu-hyperoceanic supra-tropical sub-humid (above 2500 m).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

LED-driven photo-Fenton process for micropollutant removal by nanostructured magnetite anchored in mesoporous silica

The presence of organic micropollutants in water bodies represents a threat to living organisms and ecosystems due to their toxicological effects and recalcitrance in conventional wastewater treatments. In this context, the application of heterogeneous photo-Fenton based on magnetite nanoparticles supported on mesoporous silica (SBA15) is proposed to carry out the non-specific degradation of the model compounds ibuprofen, carbamazepine, hormones, bisphenol A and the dye ProcionRed®. The operating conditions (i.e., pH, catalyst load and hydrogen peroxide concentration) were optimized by Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The paramagnetic properties of the nanocatalysts allowed their repeated use in sequential batch operations with catalyst losses below 1%. The feasibility of the process was demonstrated as removal rates above 90% after twelve accomplished after twelve consecutive cycles. In addition, the contributions of different reactive oxygen species, mainly •OH, were analyzed together with the formation of by-products, achieving total mineralization values of 15% on averageThis research was supported by HP-NANOBIO [PID2019-111163RB-I00] and MAGDEMON [PID2020-112626RB] projects, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and SPOTLIGHT [PDC2021-121540-I00] project, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR. J.G.-R. thanks MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 for their FPU predoctoral fellowship [FPU19/00461] and J.J.C. thanks Xunta de Galicia for his postdoctoral fellowship [ED481B-2021/015]. The authors belong to the Galician Competitive Research Groups (GRC) ED431C-2021/16 and ED432C-2021/37, co-funded by FEDER (EU)S

Exploiting the potential of supported magnetic nanomaterials as Fenton-Like catalysts for environmental applications

In recent years, the application of magnetic nanoparticles as alternative catalysts to conventional Fenton processes has been investigated for the removal of emerging pollutants in wastewater. While this type of catalyst reduces the release of iron hydroxides with the treated effluent, it also presents certain disadvantages, such as slower reaction kinetics associated with the availability of iron and mass transfer limitations. To overcome these drawbacks, the functionalization of the nanocatalyst surface through the addition of coatings such as polyacrylic acid (PAA) and their immobilization on a mesoporous silica matrix (SBA15) can be factors that improve the dispersion and stability of the nanoparticles. Under these premises, the performance of the nanoparticle coating and nanoparticle-mesoporous matrix binomials in the degradation of dyes as examples of recalcitrant compounds were evaluated. Based on the outcomes of dye degradation by the different functionalized nanocatalysts and nanocomposites, the nanoparticles embedded in a mesoporous matrix were applied for the removal of estrogens (E1, E2, EE2), accomplishing high removal percentages (above 90%) after the optimization of the operational variables. With the feasibility of their recovery in mind, the nanostructured materials represented a significant advantage as their magnetic character allows their separation for reuse in different successive sequential batch cyclesThis research was funded by HP-NANOBIO Project (PID2019-111163RB-I00) and MAGDEMON Project (PID2020-112626RB) granted by Spanish Ministry of Science and InnovationS

Foreign-accented speech modulates linguistic anticipatory processes

Available online 25 March 2016Listeners are able to anticipate upcoming words during sentence comprehension, and, as a result, they also pre-activate semantically related words. In the present study, we aim at exploring whether these anticipatory processes are modulated by indexical properties of the speakers, such as a speaker's accent. Event-related brain potentials were obtained while native speakers of Spanish listened to native (Experiment 1) or foreign-accented speakers (Experiment 2) of Spanish producing highly constrained sentences. The sentences ended in: (1) the highest cloze probability completion, (2) a word semantically related to the expected ending, or (3) a word with no semantic overlap with the expected ending. In Experiment 1, we observed smaller N400 mean amplitudes for the semantically related words as compared to the words with no semantic overlap, replicating previous findings. In Experiment 2, we observed no difference in integrating semantically related and unrelated words when listening to accented speech. These results suggest that linguistic anticipatory processes are affected by indexical properties of the speakers, such as the speaker's accent.This research was funded by an FPI Grant(BES-2012- 056668)and three project Grants(PSI2014-54500,PSI2011-23033 and Consolider INGENIO CSD2007-00012)awarded by the Spanish Government;by one grant from the Catalan Government(SGR 2014-1210); by one grant from the Basque Government (PI_2015_1_25); and by one grant from the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework (FP7/2007-2013 Cooperation grant agreement 613465-AThEME). C.D.M. is supported by the IKERBASQUE Institution,the Basque Center on Cognition,Brain and Language,and by the Severo Ochoa Program Grant SEV-2015-049. A.Caecostenetroides is supported by the ICREA Institution and the Center for Brain and Cognition