Subjectification Strategy of Author’s Statement in English Literary Xeno-Narrative

Literary xeno-narrative is a text illustrating the experience of interaction with cultural otherness that focuses on contrasting the in-group/out-group categories, with adaptation stress minimization and mental experience transfer as xeno-narrative functions. The author of the xeno-narrative forms the idea of the perfect reader through the implementation of strategies aimed at the recipient. The subjectification strategy of the author’s statement in literary communication is aimed at the reader’s personal acceptance of the author’s meanings in the text and the reader’s emotional involvement and empathy. This process is represented through the lexical and emotionally connotative language tools in xeno-narrative texts and also readers’ reviews corpus. The results of the study indicate the difference in the process of subjectification, understanding of content and the author’s emotional intentions among the readers with different national worldviews. The study is based on the materials of the electronic corpus of English and Russian readers’ reviews of the analysed narrative text. English-speaking readers recorded thematic units typical for the xeno-narrative and showed a high level of empathy to the immigrants’ experience associated with the personal experience of overcoming otherness. Russian-speaking readers drew on the thematic unit associated with intercultural interaction to a lesser extent, focusing on the timeline of growing up

Стратегия субъективизации авторского высказывания в англоязычном литературном ксенонарративе

Literary xeno-narrative is a text illustrating the experience of interaction with cultural otherness that focuses on contrasting the in-group/out-group categories, with adaptation stress minimization and mental experience transfer as xeno-narrative functions. The author of the xeno-narrative forms the idea of the perfect reader through the implementation of strategies aimed at the recipient. The subjectification strategy of the author’s statement in literary communication is aimed at the reader’s personal acceptance of the author’s meanings in the text and the reader’s emotional involvement and empathy. This process is represented through the lexical and emotionally connotative language tools in xeno-narrative texts and also readers’ reviews corpus. The results of the study indicate the difference in the process of subjectification, understanding of content and the author’s emotional intentions among the readers with different national worldviews. The study is based on the materials of the electronic corpus of English and Russian readers’ reviews of the analysed narrative text. English-speaking readers recorded thematic units typical for the xeno-narrative and showed a high level of empathy to the immigrants’ experience associated with the personal experience of overcoming otherness. Russian-speaking readers drew on the thematic unit associated with intercultural interaction to a lesser extent, focusing on the timeline of growing up.Литературный ксенонарратив представляет собой текст, иллюстрирующий опыт взаимодействия с культурной чужеродностью, фокусируя внимание на противопоставлении категорий «свой/чужой». Функциями ксенонарратива являются минимизация стресса адаптации и трансфер ментального опыта. Автор ксенонарратива формирует представление об идеальном читателе через реализацию стратегий, направленных на реципиента. Стратегия субъективизации авторского высказывания в литературной коммуникации направлена на личностное принятие читателем авторских смыслов в тексте, эмоциональную вовлеченность и эмпатию читателя. Этот процесс репрезентируется через лексические и эмоционально-коннотативные языковые средства в ксенонарративных текстах, а также в корпусе читательских рецензий. Результаты исследования свидетельствуют о разнице процесса субъективизации, понимания содержательных и эмоциональных интенций автора у читателей с разными национальными картинами мира. Англоязычные читатели зафиксировали характерные для ксенонарратива тематические блоки, проявили высокий уровень эмпатии к опыту иммигрантов, связанный с личным опытом преодоления чужеродности. Русскоязычные читатели в меньшей степени актуализировали тематический блок, связанный с межкультурным взаимодействием, они сфокусировали внимание на истории взрослени

Effects of divergent selection upon adrenocortical activity on immune traits in pig

Abstract Background The sustainability of farming and animal welfare requires the reconsideration of current selection schemes. In particular, implementation of new selection criteria related to animal health and welfare should help to produce more robust animals and to reduce anti-microbial use. The hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis plays a major role in metabolic regulation and adaptation processes and its activity is strongly influenced by genetic factors. A positive association between HPA axis activity and robustness was recently described. To explore whether selecting pigs upon HPA axis activity could increase their robustness, a divergent selection experiment was carried out in the Large White pig breed. This allowed the generation of low (HPAlo) and high (HPAhi) responders to adrenocorticotropic hormone administration. Results In this study, we compared 23 hematologic and immune parameters of 6-week-old, HPAlo and HPAhi piglets and analysed their response to a low dose of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) two weeks later. At six weeks of age, HPAhi piglets displayed greater red blood cell and leucocyte number including CD8α+ γδ cells, cytotoxic T lymphocytes, naive T helper (Th) cells and B lymphocytes as compared to HPAlo individuals. The ability of blood cells to secrete TNFα in response to LPS ex vivo was higher for HPAhi pigs. At week eight, the inflammatory response to the LPS in vivo challenge was poorly affected by the HPA axis activity. Conclusions Divergent selection upon HPA axis activity modulated hematologic and immune parameters in 6-week-old pigs, which may confer an advantage to HPAhi pigs at weaning. However, HPAlo and HPAhi piglets did not exhibit major differences in the parameters analysed two weeks later, i. e. in 8-week-old pigs. In conclusion, chronic exposure to high cortisol levels in HPAhi pigs does not negatively impact immunity

Polymorphism of Carbamazepine Pharmaceutical Cocrystal: Structural Analysis and Solubility Performance

Polymorphism is a common phenomenon among single- and multicomponent molecular crystals that has a significant impact on the contemporary drug development process. A new polymorphic form of the drug carbamazepine (CBZ) cocrystal with methylparaben (MePRB) in a 1:1 molar ratio as well as the drug’s channel-like cocrystal containing highly disordered coformer molecules have been obtained and characterized in this work using various analytical methods, including thermal analysis, Raman spectroscopy, and single-crystal and high-resolution synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction. Structural analysis of the solid forms revealed a close resemblance between novel form II and previously reported form I of the [CBZ + MePRB] (1:1) cocrystal in terms of hydrogen bond networks and overall packing arrangements. The channel-like cocrystal was found to belong to a distinct family of isostructural CBZ cocrystals with coformers of similar size and shape. Form I and form II of the 1:1 cocrystal appeared to be related by a monotropic relationship, with form II being proven to be the thermodynamically more stable phase. The dissolution performance of both polymorphs in aqueous media was significantly enhanced when compared with parent CBZ. However, considering the superior thermodynamic stability and consistent dissolution profile, the discovered form II of the [CBZ + MePRB] (1:1) cocrystal seems a more promising and reliable solid form for further pharmaceutical development

Study of the Cathode Pt-Electrocatalysts Based on Reduced Graphene Oxide with Pt-SnO₂ Hetero-Clusters

A complex study of the structure, morphology, and electrochemical properties of the Pt20/SnO210/RGO electrocatalyst is presented. The advantage of the chemical synthesis of reduced graphene oxide (c-RGO) compared to thermal methods (t-RGO) is due to the formation of graphene plates with amorphous carbon black agglomerates and the chemical composition of the surface. The nature of the interaction between platinum and tin dioxide particles and a conclusion about the formation of heterostructures Pt-SnO2 with the surface interaction of lattices excluding the formation of hetero phases has been established. This achieves high dispersity during the formation of platinum particles without significant agglomeration and increases the electrochemical surface area (ESA) of platinum to 85 m2 g−1 vs. carbon black. In addition, the surface interaction of particles and the formation of hetero-clusters Pt-SnO2 can cause the improved activity and stability of the Pt20/SnO210/c-RGO electrocatalyst

Single-molecule localization microscopy as a promising tool for

Quantification and structural studies of DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) are an essential part of radiobiology because DSBs represent the most serious damage introduced to the DNA molecule by ionizing radiation. Although standard immunofluorescence confocal microscopy has demonstrated its usefulness in a large number of research studies, it lacks the resolution required to separate individual, closely associated DSBs, which appear after cell exposure to high linear energy transfer (high-LET) radiation and can be visualized as clusters or streaks of radiation-induced repair foci (IRIFs). This prevents our deeper understanding of DSB induction and repair. Recent breakthroughs in super-resolution light microscopy, such as the development of single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM), offer an optical resolution of approximately an order of magnitude better than that of standard confocal microscopy and open new horizons in radiobiological research. Unlike electron microscopy, SMLM (also referred to as “nanoscopy”) preserves the natural structure of biological samples and is not limited to very thin sample slices. Importantly, SMLM not only offers a resolution on the order of approximately 10 nm, but it also provides entirely new information on the biochemistry and spatio-temporal organization of DSBs and DSB repair at the molecular level. Nevertheless, it is still challenging to correctly interpret these often surprising nanoscopy results. In the present article, we describe our first attempts to use SMLM to explore γH2AX and 53BP1 repair foci induced with 15N high-LET particles

Recruitment of 53BP1 Proteins for DNA Repair and Persistence of Repair Clusters Differ for Cell Types as Detected by Single Molecule Localization Microscopy

DNA double stranded breaks (DSBs) are the most serious type of lesions introduced into chromatin by ionizing radiation. During DSB repair, cells recruit different proteins to the damaged sites in a manner dependent on local chromatin structure, DSB location in the nucleus, and the repair pathway entered. 53BP1 is one of the important players participating in repair pathway decision of the cell. Although many molecular biology details have been investigated, the architecture of 53BP1 repair foci and its development during the post-irradiation time, especially the period of protein recruitment, remains to be elucidated. Super-resolution light microscopy is a powerful new tool to approach such studies in 3D-conserved cell nuclei. Recently, we demonstrated the applicability of single molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) as one of these highly resolving methods for analyses of dynamic repair protein distribution and repair focus internal nano-architecture in intact cell nuclei. In the present study, we focused our investigation on 53BP1 foci in differently radio-resistant cell types, moderately radio-resistant neonatal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDF) and highly radio-resistant U87 glioblastoma cells, exposed to high-LET 15N-ion radiation. At given time points up to 24 h post irradiation with doses of 1.3 Gy and 4.0 Gy, the coordinates and spatial distribution of fluorescently tagged 53BP1 molecules was quantitatively evaluated at the resolution of 10⁻20 nm. Clusters of these tags were determined as sub-units of repair foci according to SMLM parameters. The formation and relaxation of such clusters was studied. The higher dose generated sufficient numbers of DNA breaks to compare the post-irradiation dynamics of 53BP1 during DSB processing for the cell types studied. A perpendicular (90°) irradiation scheme was used with the 4.0 Gy dose to achieve better separation of a relatively high number of particle tracks typically crossing each nucleus. For analyses along ion-tracks, the dose was reduced to 1.3 Gy and applied in combination with a sharp angle irradiation (10° relative to the cell plane). The results reveal a higher ratio of 53BP1 proteins recruited into SMLM defined clusters in fibroblasts as compared to U87 cells. Moreover, the speed of foci and thus cluster formation and relaxation also differed for the cell types. In both NHDF and U87 cells, a certain number of the detected and functionally relevant clusters remained persistent even 24 h post irradiation; however, the number of these clusters again varied for the cell types. Altogether, our findings indicate that repair cluster formation as determined by SMLM and the relaxation (i.e., the remaining 53BP1 tags no longer fulfill the cluster definition) is cell type dependent and may be functionally explained and correlated to cell specific radio-sensitivity. The present study demonstrates that SMLM is a highly appropriate method for investigations of spatiotemporal protein organization in cell nuclei and how it influences the cell decision for a particular repair pathway at a given DSB site

Influence of Synthesis Conditions on the Crystal, Local Atomic, Electronic Structure, and Catalytic Properties of (Pr_1−<i>x</i>Yb_<i>x</i>)₂Zr₂O₇ (0 ≤ <i>x</i> ≤ 1) Powders

The influence of Yb3+ cations substitution for Pr3+ on the structure and catalytic activity of (Pr1−xYbx)2Zr2O7 powders synthesized via coprecipitation followed by calcination is studied using a combination of long- (s-XRD), medium- (Raman, FT-IR, and SEM-EDS) and short-range (XAFS) sensitive methods, as well as adsorption and catalytic techniques. It is established that chemical composition and calcination temperature are the two major factors that govern the phase composition, crystallographic, and local-structure parameters of these polycrystalline materials. The crystallographic and local-structure parameters of (Pr1−xYbx)2Zr2O7 samples prepared at 1400 °C/3 h demonstrate a tight correlation with their catalytic activity towards propane cracking. The progressive replacement of Pr3+ with Yb3+ cations gives rise to an increase in the catalytic activity. A mechanism of the catalytic cracking of propane is proposed, which considers the geometrical match between the metal–oxygen (Pr–O, Yb–O, and Zr–O) bond lengths within the active sites and the size of adsorbed propane molecule to be the decisive factor governing the reaction route