Arawakan (Brazil) morphosyntax

From the introduction: The purpose of this study is to present some of the major morphosyntactic characteristics of eight Arawakan languages spoken in Brazil. [...] The five areas of morphosyntax which are treated in tern in the following sections are: word order, case marking, verb morphology, coordination, and subordination. As will be seen in section 3, much of the morphosyntactic complexity of these languages is found in the verb, and certain phenomena that in other languages would be dealt with in other parts of the syntax are treated in that section, including: valence-changing devices such as causatives, passives and reflexives; negation; and gender agreement; for each of these, the discussion is extended to cover related aspects of the syntax, wherever the sources provide material for this

Are Cariban languages moving away from or towards ergative systems?

From the introduction: In this paper [...] I will be arguing for a direction of change in Cariban languages from systems that are purely ergative in both nominal case marking and verb agreement patterns (and which are probably of considerable antiquity) to mixed systems where in main clauses the core nominals are not marked at all and the verb agreement patterns are a mixture of nominative and absolutive, based on an agentivity-person hierarchy. Subordinate clauses take the form of nominalizations that retain characteristics of the older pure ergative system

Employability Blog Series: The Big College Challenge – A Case Study Presenting Interdisciplinary Development of Employability Skills

This forms part of a regular series of Employability Blogs for the Higher Education Policy Institute. During January 2020, students of the College of Life and Natural Sciences (CLANS) at the University of Derby took part in an interdisciplinary challenge, termed “The Big Challenge”, alongside academics in their subject specialities and several leading industry professionals. This challenge aimed to support the development of key employability skills and was staged as part of a knowledge exchange activity to encourage mutual learning for both the academics and the employers involved (Reed, 2018). Since staging the Challenge, a research project has been in progress assessing the impact and the value of the Challenge on students, employers and the academics and professional services staff involved in delivering it. This piece presents early findings

Object initial languages

From the introduction: The purpose of the present paper is to present some facts that have come to our attention recently concerning a number of Amerindian languages which we believe do exhibit object-initial basic orders. The languages we shall discuss belong to South American Indian groups which are known to have suffered more or less catatrophic decline in numbers due to the onslaught of European settlement in the New World over the past five hundred years (see Hemming 1978). Since the historical accident of European colonial expansionism has had such a devastating effect in this case, linguists might be well advised to reduce henceforth the extent of the trust they place in alleged universals of constituent ordering, and should also be sceptical of the linguistic relevance of claims that certain basic orders are rare or \u27marked\u27. The geographically widespread character of the SVO order shared by English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch, for example, may be more directly relatable to the widespread expansion by speakers of those languages through colonization on every habitable continent of the globe than to anything about the naturalness of SVO order

Restricted cell elongation in Arabidopsis hypocotyls is associated with a reduced average pectin esterification level

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cell elongation is mainly limited by the extensibility of the cell wall. Dicotyledonous primary (growing) cell walls contain cellulose, xyloglucan, pectin and proteins, but little is known about how each polymer class contributes to the cell wall mechanical properties that control extensibility.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present evidence that the degree of pectin methyl-esterification (DE%) limits cell growth, and that a minimum level of about 60% DE is required for normal cell elongation in <it>Arabidopsis </it>hypocotyls. When the average DE% falls below this level, as in two gibberellic acid (GA) mutants <it>ga1-3 </it>and <it>gai</it>, and plants expressing pectin methyl-esterase (<it>PME1</it>) from <it>Aspergillus aculeatus</it>, then hypocotyl elongation is reduced.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Low average levels of pectin DE% are associated with reduced cell elongation, implicating PMEs, the enzymes that regulate DE%, in the cell elongation process and in responses to GA. At high average DE% other components of the cell wall limit GA-induced growth.</p

Knowledge and perceptions of nursing staff on the new Road to Health Booklet growth charts in primary healthcare clinics in the Tygerberg subdistrict of the Cape Town metropole district

Objectives: The objectives of the study were to assess the perceptions of nursing staff on the Road to Health Booklet (RTHB), to assess their knowledge of the RTHB growth charts, and to determine whether the level of knowledge was acceptable for successful utilisation of the RTHB growth charts.Design: A cross-sectional descriptive survey.Setting: Twelve primary healthcare clinics in the Tygerberg subdistrict.Subjects: Nursing staff who were going to work with the RTHB on a daily basis.Outcomes measures: The knowledge and perceptions of the nursing staff on the new RTHB were measured using a self-administered questionnaire.Results: The study highlighted that the majority of the nursing staff did not possess sufficient knowledge to successfully utilise the RTHB. The mean score percentage for the total 12 knowledge questions was 55%. Less than a third (n = 13) of participants could correctly interpret the cut-off value for mid-upper-arm circumference. Only 38% and 52% correctly knew that -2 standard deviation for weight-for-age and weight-for-length represents underweight and wasting, respectively. Fifty-five per cent could correctly interpret the growth faltering graph. Forty-three per cent of participants felt the change to the RTHB was unnecessary, and 55% thought that mothers or caregivers would not easily understand the RTHB. More than half (n = 22) of the participants said that they had adequate knowledge to work with the RTHB, while the rest reported that they did not.Conclusion: The RTHB has the potential to decrease the prevalence of malnutrition in children. However, to achieve this, effective usage and understanding of the RTHB is critical.Keywords: Road to Health booklet, growth monitoring, primary healthcare clinics, knowledg

Mice lacking C1q or C3 show accelerated rejection of minor H disparate skin grafts and resistance to induction of tolerance

Complement activation is known to have deleterious effects on organ transplantation. On the other hand, the complement system is also known to have an important role in regulating immune responses. The balance between these two opposing effects is critical in the context of transplantation. Here, we report that female mice deficient in C1q (C1qa(−/−)) or C3 (C3(−/−)) reject male syngeneic grafts (HY incompatible) at an accelerated rate compared with WT mice. Intranasal HY peptide administration, which induces tolerance to syngeneic male grafts in WT mice, fails to induce tolerance in C1qa(−/−) or C3(−/−) mice. The rejection of the male grafts correlated with the presence of HY D(b)Uty-specific CD8(+) T cells. Consistent with this, peptide-treated C1qa(−/−) and C3(−/−) female mice rejecting male grafts exhibited more antigen-specific CD8(+)IFN-γ(+) and CD8(+)IL-10(+) cells compared with WT females. This suggests that accumulation of IFN-γ- and IL-10-producing T cells may play a key role in mediating the ongoing inflammatory process and graft rejection. Interestingly, within the tolerized male skin grafts of peptide-treated WT mice, IFN-γ, C1q and C3 mRNA levels were higher compared to control female grafts. These results suggest that C1q and C3 facilitate the induction of intranasal tolerance

ABSORPTION OF CONTROLLED RELEASE MORPHINE SULPHATE IN THE IMMEDIATE POSTOPERATIVE PERIOD

The absorption of morphine sulphate, given orally as a controlled release preparation, was studied in 10 patients who had undergone peripheral vascular surgery with a standard opioid-based general anaesthetic technique. Serum morphine concentrations were measured (high pressure liquid chromatography) every 2 h for the first 16 h after surgery and the results were strongly suggestive of a decrease in the rate of absorption of morphine in this situatio