Gender Identification of the British News Text

The article is devoted to studying the impact of gender on speech behavior in mass media discourse. Gender peculiarities of English news text-formation are examined through coordination of various language means that belong to different levels of the language system with predetermined socio-cultural factors and psychological peculiarities attributed to man as a representative of masculine subculture, a communicative leader, characterized by autonomous thinking, logic, rationality, objectivity, lingua-creativity, reduced emotionality, and woman as a representative of feminine subculture, characterized by a greater degree of emotionality, empathy, cooperativeness. A number of gender parameters is listed, including content and structural features, specification / generalization of information, stylistically neutral / marked vocabulary etc. These parameters are being viewed as related with the categories of informativeness and expressiveness. It is determined that the features of the news text on the structural level manifest themselves in the selection of aspects of the events described, the organization of informative blocks. On the stylistic level gender specificity is expressed by linguistic realization of emotionality, evaluation, imagery. Gender parameters of the news text determine masculine and feminine styles of news text-formation and are included in the developed matrix of gender identification of the author of the news text. The psycholinguistic experiment allowed to verify the validity of gender parameters of the news text and to establish that the degree of sensitivity to its gender characteristics is determined by socio-cultural differences of native and non-native speakers of English

Structure of Erm-modified 70S ribosome reveals the mechanism of macrolide resistance

Many antibiotics inhibit bacterial growth by binding to the ribosome and interfering with protein biosynthesis. Macrolides represent one of the most successful classes of ribosome-targeting antibiotics. The main clinically relevant mechanism of resistance to macrolides is dimethylation of the 23S rRNA nucleotide A2058, located in the drug-binding site, a reaction catalyzed by Erm-type rRNA methyltransferases. Here, we present the crystal structure of the Erm-dimethylated 70S ribosome at 2.4 Å resolution, together with the structures of unmethylated 70S ribosome functional complexes alone or in combination with macrolides. Altogether, our structural data do not support previous models and, instead, suggest a principally new explanation of how A2058 dimethylation confers resistance to macrolides. Moreover, high-resolution structures of two macrolide antibiotics bound to the unmodified ribosome reveal a previously unknown role of the desosamine moiety in drug binding, laying a foundation for the rational knowledge-based design of macrolides that can overcome Erm-mediated resistance

A Convenient Way to Quinoxaline Derivatives through the Reaction of 2-(3-Oxoindolin-2-yl)-2-phenylacetonitriles with Benzene-1,2-diamines

Microwave-assisted reaction between 2-(3-oxoindolin-2-yl)-2-phenylacetonitriles andbenzene-1,2-diamines leads to the high-yielding formation of the corresponding quinoxalines as sole, easily isolaable products. The featured transformation involves unusual extrusion of phenylacetonitrile molecule and could be performed in a short sequence starting from commonly available indoles and nitroolefins

SOCIOLINGUISTIC MONITORING OF WORD USAGE FREQUENCY OF YOUTH SOCIOLECT

The current paper describes the lexical units of youth sociolect and is aimed at monitoring youth speech. Special attention is given to heterogeneous social factors that influence the word usage in youth sociolect and involve micro-and macrosociolinguistic pilot projects on frequency occurrence of English words in a multicultural society. Miscrosociolinguistic analysis was focused on societal and gender differences in youth sociolect. The initial stage of the macrosociolinguistic monitoring included the questionnaire development, setting the boundaries of a sociolinguistic survey and the number of lexical items under consideration. The second step in the project was monitoring itself. Finally, the results of the monitoring were analyzed. The study was carried out through an online questionnaire, face-to-face and remote interviewing, with native English speakers and speakers of other languages from different countries and regions. The monitoring of usage frequency demonstrated that a limited number of English lexical units are used in interpersonal and professional communication; the other part of words presents a diverse picture. The respondents involved in professional activity tend to demonstrate more tolerance to the youth sociolect than ordinary people. The analysis proved the point about the heterogeneous character of sociolect usage by youth and its dependence on the sphere of communication

Improvement of Biocatalytic Properties and Cytotoxic Activity of L-Asparaginase from Rhodospirillum rubrum by Conjugation with Chitosan-Based Cationic Polyelectrolytes

L-asparaginases (L-ASNases, EC 3.5.1.1) are a family of enzymes that are widely used for the treatment of lymphoblastic leukemias. L-ASNase from Rhodospirillum rubrum (RrA) has a low molecular weight, low glutaminase activity, and low immunogenicity, making it a promising enzyme for antitumor drug development. In our work, the complex formation and covalent conjugation of the enzyme with synthetic or natural polycationic polymers was studied. Among non-covalent polyelectrolyte complexes (PEC), polyethyleneimine (PEI) yielded the highest effect on RrA, increasing its activity by 30%. The RrA-PEI complex had increased stability to trypsinolysis, with an inactivation constant decrease up to 10-fold compared to that of the native enzyme. The covalent conjugation of RrA with chitosan-PEI, chitosan-polyethylene glycol (chitosan-PEG), and chitosan-glycol resulted in an increase in the specific activity of L-asparagine (up to 30%). RrA-chitosan-PEG demonstrated dramatically (by 60%) increased cytotoxic activity for human chronic myeloma leukemia K562 cells in comparison to the native enzyme. The antiproliferative activity of RrA and its conjugates was significantly higher (up to 50%) than for that of the commercially available EcA at the same concentration. The results of this study demonstrated that RrA conjugates with polycations can become a promising strategy for antitumor drug development

Integrated stratigraphy of the Upper Barremian–Aptian sediments from the south-eastern Crimea

Previous studies made in different parts of the world have shown that Barremian–Aptian times imply many difficulties in deciphering the biostratigraphy, microfossil evolution and correlation of bioevents. In an attempt to improve our knowledge of this period in a particular area of the Tethyan realm, we present the first integrated study of microbiota (including planktonic foraminifera, calcareous nannofossils, ostracods and palynomorphs) and magnetostratigraphy of the upper Barremian–Aptian sediments from south-eastern Crimea. The nannofossils display the classical Tethyan chain of bioevents in this interval, while the planktonic foraminifera demonstrate an incomplete succession of stratigraphically important taxa. Our study enabled the recognition of a series of biostratigraphic units by means of four groups of microfossils correlated to polarity chrons. The detailed analysis of the microfossil distribution led to a biostratigraphic characterization of the Barremian/Aptian transition and brought to light an interval, which may correspond to the OAE1a

L-Asparaginase Conjugates from the Hyperthermophilic Archaea <i>Thermococcus sibiricus</i> with Improved Biocatalytic Properties

This study investigated the effect of polycationic and uncharged polymers (and oligomers) on the catalytic parameters and thermostability of L-asparaginase from Thermococcus sibiricus (TsA). This enzyme has potential applications in the food industry to decrease the formation of carcinogenic acrylamide during the processing of carbohydrate-containing products. Conjugation with the polyamines polyethylenimine and spermine (PEI and Spm) or polyethylene glycol (PEG) did not significantly affect the secondary structure of the enzyme. PEG contributes to the stabilization of the dimeric form of TsA, as shown by HPLC. Furthermore, neither polyamines nor PEG significantly affected the binding of the L-Asn substrate to TsA. The conjugates showed greater maximum activity at pH 7.5 and 85 °C, 10–50% more than for native TsA. The pH optima for both TsA-PEI and TsA-Spm conjugates were shifted to lower pH ranges from pH 10 (for the native enzyme) to pH 8.0. Additionally, the TsA-Spm conjugate exhibited the highest activity at pH 6.5–9.0 among all the samples. Furthermore, the temperature optimum for activity at pH 7.5 shifted from 90–95 °C to 80–85 °C for the conjugates. The thermal inactivation mechanism of TsA-PEG appeared to change, and no aggregation was observed in contrast to that of the native enzyme. This was visually confirmed and supported by the analysis of the CD spectra, which remained almost unchanged after heating the conjugate solution. These results suggest that TsA-PEG may be a more stable form of TsA, making it a potentially more suitable option for industrial use