Voltammetric Sensor for Direct Insulin Detection

AbstractThis work covers an area of planar electrochemical sensors for fast and reliable detection of species in environment under field conditions or in vitro/vivo biodetection. In this work, there were fabricated several planar carbon working electrodes using standard thick film technology which were modified with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) to promote the electrochemical oxidation of insulin. These standalone planar working electrodes were successfully used for direct detection of insulin using cyclic voltammetry in electrochemical cell against conventional Ag/AgCl reference electrode and platinum auxiliary electrode

A cross-linguistic perspective on grammar and negative epistemics in talk-in-interaction

In this introduction to the special issue on ‘Grammar and negative epistemics in talk-in-interaction’ we discuss the current state of research on the use of negative mental verb constructions such as I don’t know, I don’t understand, I don’t remember in social interaction. We scrutinize, in a cross-linguistic perspective, the grammatical and interactional features that emerge from existing research in the field, and spell out the specific contribution of the studies collected in this issue. We discuss how the cumulative evidence provided by these studies across a set of different languages, several of which are typologically unrelated, contributes to studies of talk-in-interaction and to the newly emerging field of Pragmatic Typology. We argue that the findings point to universal interactional motivations for the grammatical properties and the grammaticization of the constructions studied, and suggest that these motivations arise out of the basic requirements for intersubjectivity in social interaction.Peer reviewe

Complex syntax-in-interaction : Emergent and emerging clause-combining patterns for organizing social actions

The past two decades have witnessed a sea-change in our understanding of language. Grammar is no longer dominantly seen from a “bird’s eye view” (cf. Hopper, 2011) as an autonomously structured inventory of items and abstract combination rules, but is increasingly understood as a usage-based, temporal, and ever-adaptive resource for people’s acting in the social world (Hopper, 1987, 2011; Hakulinen, 2001; Thompson, 2002; Tomasello, 2003; Ellis & Larsen Freeman, 2006; Linell, 2009; Auer, 2009; Bybee, 2010; Fox & Thompson, 2010). The present collection of original chapters taps into this understanding of language and explores the ways by which patterns of complex syntax – that is, syntactic structures beyond a simple clause – relate to the local contingencies of action formation in social interaction, and how they are tied to participants’ nonverbal (prosodic and/or embodied) conduct. The collection investigates both emergent and emerging aspects of grammar (see the discussions in Hopper, 2011 and Auer & Pfänder, 2011a): it tracks on-line emergent clause-combining patterns as they are ‘patched together’ on the fly in response to local interactional contingencies (such as lack of recipient response); it also investigates emerging grammatical patterns, i.e., patterns that routinize (or: sediment) in the grammar as interactional resources, for instance for the purpose of projecting what comes next. We thus focus both on the process of the structuring of patterns of language use in real time and on the results of repeated language use in and for social interaction over time, in an attempt to shed light on two facets of grammar as a highly adaptive resource for interaction. For the past five decades, scholars working on the social dynamics of conversation have seen conversationalists’ use of language as one of the central foci of analysis. This has resulted in a collaboration with linguists towards “a syntaxfor-conversation”, a concept famously coined by Schegloff (1979). However, the path towards a micro-socially attuned grammar, which puts the sequential organization of conversational talk in the foreground, has not been straightforward; it underwent significant development only rather recently, since the turn of the 21st century, not least through Schegloff’s visionary paper on the grammar of turn organization (1996) and the advent of the sub-discipline of interactional linguistics (Selting & Couper-Kuhlen, 2001; Couper-Kuhlen & Selting, 2018; going back to Ochs, Schegloff & Thompson, 1996). It is in this tradition of interactionally sensitive research on language structure and the organization of social actions that we position ourselves, setting a special focus on the centerpiece of traditional grammatical inquiry, namely, syntax, which we scrutinize in light of its temporal structuring within situated social interaction.Peer reviewe

Přeměna vodivých polypyrrolových nanostruktur na uhlíky s obsahem dusíku a její vliv na adsorpci organického barviva

New types of materials were produced by gradual heating of a conducting polymer, polypyrrole, to elevated temperatures. Three polymers differing in morphology - globules, nanofibers, and nanotubes - were exposed to temperatures from 100 to 700 degrees C in an argon atmosphere. The yields always exceeded 50 wt%, and the morphological features of the polymer were preserved. The transformation of polypyrrole salts to the corresponding bases followed by the carbonization was monitored by FTIR spectroscopy. The elemental analysis confirmed the subsequent conversion of polypyrrole to nitrogen-containing carbon. The specific surface areas were of the order of tens of m(2) g(-1); they increased from globules to nanotubes and nanofibers but were virtually independent of the exposition temperature. The conductivity of the powders was compared with that of the pellets when their preparation was possible. As the temperature was increased up to 400 degrees C, the conductivity decreased for all samples by ca. 5 orders of magnitude, e.g., for nanofibers from 10 to 10(-4) S cm(-1) but recovered to 10(-1) S cm(-1) after the subsequent carbonization up to 700 degrees C. Polypyrroles exposed to various temperatures were then tested for the adsorption of organic dye, Reactive Black 5, from water. The dye adsorption on original polypyrroles strongly depended on the polymer morphology. Polypyrrole nanofibers were able to remove the dye completely with a capacity of 100 mg g(-1), while the adsorption on polypyrrole globules was poor. The adsorption efficiency thus increased from globules to nanotubes and nanofibers. The adsorption performance was reduced after the carbonization, but the general trends were preserved.Postupným zahříváním vodivého polymeru polypyrrolu na zvýšené teploty byly vyráběny nové typy materiálů. Tři polymery lišící se morfologií - globule, nanovlákna a nanotrubice - byly vystaveny teplotám od 100 do 700 °C v argonové atmosféře. Výtěžky vždy přesáhly 50 % hm. a morfologické vlastnosti polymeru byly zachovány. Transformace polypyrrolových solí na odpovídající báze s následnou karbonizací byla sledována pomocí FTIR spektroskopie. Elementární analýza potvrdila následnou konverzi polypyrrolu na uhlík obsahující dusík. Specifické povrchy byly řádově desítky m(2) g(-1); zvýšily se z globulí na nanotrubice a nanovlákna, ale byly prakticky nezávislé na teplotě expozice. Vodivost prášků byla srovnávána s vodivostí pelet, pokud byla možná jejich příprava. Když se teplota zvýšila až na 400 °C, vodivost se u všech vzorků snížila o cca. 5 řádů, např. pro nanovlákna od 10 do 10(-4) S cm(-1), ale obnovena na 10(-1) S cm(-1) po následné karbonizaci až do 700 °C. Polypyrroly vystavené různým teplotám následně byly testovány na adsorpci organického barviva, Reactive Black 5, z vody. Adsorpce barviva na původních polypyrrolech silně závisela na morfologii polymeru. Polypyrrolová nanovlákna dokázala barvivo úplně odstranit s kapacitou 100 mg g(-1), zatímco adsorpce na polypyrrolové globule byla špatná. Adsorpční účinnost se tak zvýšila z globulí na nanotrubice a nanovlákna. Adsorpční výkon byl po karbonizaci snížen, ale obecné trendy byly zachovány

Differently immunogenic cancers in mice induce immature myeloid cells that suppress CTL in vitro but not in vivo following transfer

Tumors frequently induce immature myeloid cells (iMC), which suppress specific and unrelated cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses and are termed myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSC). Mainly analyzed by in vitro assays in tumor transplantation models, little is known about their function in autochthonous tumor models in vivo. We analyzed iMC in three SV40 large T (Tag)-driven conditional autochthonous cancer models with drastically different immune status: 1. Early Tag-specific CTL competence and rare stochastic Tag activation leading to sporadic cancer, which induces an aberrant immune response and CTL tolerance. 2. Cre/LoxP recombinase-mediated hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development in neonatal Tag-tolerant mice. 3. Tag-activation through Cre recombinase-encoding viruses in the liver and HCC development with systemic anti-Tag CTL immunity. In the first but not the two latter models, tumors induced CTL hypo-responsiveness to tumor unrelated antigens. Regardless of the model, tumors produced IL-6 and VEGF but not GM-CSF and induced iMC (CD11b(+)Gr-1(int)) that suppressed CTL responses in vitro. None of the iMC from the different tumor models suppressed CTL responses in adoptive cell transfer experiments, unless GM-CSF was provided in vivo. Together, iMC expand independent of the type of anti-tumor response and are not immune-suppressive in a cell-autonomous fashion