Phonaesthetics and personality—Why we do not only prefer Romance languages

Introduction: Previous aesthetic research has set its main focus on visual and auditory, primarily music, stimuli with only a handful of studies exploring the aesthetic potential of linguistic stimuli. In the present study, we investigate for the first time the effects of personality traits on phonaesthetic language ratings. Methods: Twenty-three under-researched, “rarer” (less learned and therefore less known as a foreign language or L2) and minority languages were evaluated by 145 participants in terms of eroticism, beauty, status, and orderliness, subjectively perceived based on language sound. Results: Overall, Romance languages (Catalan, Portuguese, Romanian) were still among the top six erotic languages of the experiment together with “Romance-sounding,” but less known languages like Breton and Basque. Catalan and Portuguese were also placed among the top six most beautiful languages. The Germanic languages (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Icelandic) were perceived as more prestigious/higher in terms of status, however to some degree conditioned by their recognition/familiarity. Thus, we partly replicated the results of our earlier studies on the Romance language preferences (the so-called Latin Lover effect) and the perceived higher status of the Germanic languages and scrutinized again the effects of familiarity/language recognition, thereby calling into question the above mentioned concepts of the Latin Lover effect and the status of Germanic languages. We also found significant effects of personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness) on phonaesthetic ratings. Different personality types appreciated different aspects of languages: e.g., whereas neurotics had strong opinions about languages' eroticism, more conscientious participants gave significantly different ratings for status. Introverts were more generous in their ratings overall in comparison to extroverts. We did not find strong connections between personality types and specific languages or linguistic features (sonority, speech rate). Overall, personality traits were largely overridden by other individual differences: familiarity with languages (socio-cultural construals, the Romanization effect—perceiving a particular language as a Romance language) and participants' native language/L1. Discussion: For language education in the global context, our results mean that introducing greater linguistic diversity in school and universities might result in greater appreciation and motivation to learn lesser-known and minority languages. Even though we generally prefer Romance languages to listen to and to study, different personality types are attracted to different language families and thus make potentially successful learners of these languages

Non-monotonic pressure evolution of the upper critical field in superconducting FeSe

The pressure dependence of the upper critical field, $H_\textrm{c2,c}$, of single crystalline FeSe was studied using measurements of the inter-plane resistivity, $\rho_{\textrm{c}}$ in magnetic fields parallel to tetragonal $c$-axis. $H_\textrm{c2,c}(T)$ curves obtained under hydrostatic pressures up to $1.56$ GPa, the range over which the superconducting transition temperature, $T_\textrm{c}$, of FeSe exhibits a non-monotonic dependence with local maximum at $p_1\approx$ 0.8 GPa and local minimum at $p_2\approx$ 1.2 GPa. The slope of the upper critical field at $T_\textrm{c}$, $\left(\textrm{d}H_\text{c2,c}/\textrm{d}T\right)_{T_\textrm{c}}$, also exhibits a non-monotonic pressure dependence with distinct changes at $p_1$ and $p_2$. For $p<p_1$ the slope can be described within multi-band orbital model. For both $p_1p_2$ the slope is in good quantitative agreement with a single band, orbital Helfand-Werthamer theory with Fermi velocities determined from Shubnikov-de Haas measurements. This finding indicates that Fermi surface changes are responsible for the local minimum of $T_\textrm{c}(p)$ at $p_2\approx$ 1.2 GPa.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Corpus-Based Teaching of German Compound Nouns and Lexical Bundles for Improving Academic Writing Skills

This study highlights the problem of the lack of German specialized corpora for German for specific purposes (GSP) courses for engineering students and describes a project aiming at the development of such a corpus, the Kod.ING corpus. The authors show the relevance of the Kod.ING corpus in meeting the needs of Master’s degree engineering students at St Petersburg Polytechnic University who are studying lower-level German. At the preliminary stage of the pedagogical experiment, nine compound nouns and eight lexical bundles were selected from the Kod.ING corpus. These were taught to students through hands-on and hands-off data-driven learning (DDL) activities. The immediate and delayed post-tests proved the effectiveness of short DDL interventions in terms of acquisition of target vocabulary. The follow-up survey revealed students’ particular interest in hands-on activities with the Russian National Corpus (RNC). In conclusion, further research and pedagogical applications are suggested.L’étude met en évidence le problème lié au manque de corpus spécialisés allemands pour les cours d’allemand à des fins spécifiques (AFS) pour les étudiants en ingénierie et décrit un projet visant à développer un tel corpus, le corpus Kod.ING. Les auteurs montrent la pertinence du corpus Kod.ING pour répondre aux besoins des étudiants en master en ingénierie à l’Université polytechnique de Saint-Pétersbourg, apprenant l’allemand de niveau assez faible. Au stade préliminaire de l’expérience pédagogique, 9 noms composés et 8 « blocs lexicaux » ont été choisis à partir du corpus Kod.ING. Ceux-ci ont été enseignés aux étudiants grâce à des activités d’ABD pratiques et de non-intervention. Les post-tests immédiats et différés ont prouvé l’efficacité des interventions courtes d’ABD pour l’acquisition du vocabulaire cible. L’enquête de suivi a révélé un intérêt particulier de la part des étudiants pour des activités pratiques à partir du corpus national de la langue russe (CNR). En conclusion, des pistes de recherches et des applications pédagogiques sont suggérées

Conformational changes and loose packing promote E. coli Tryptophanase cold lability

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Oligomeric enzymes can undergo a reversible loss of activity at low temperatures. One such enzyme is tryptophanase (Trpase) from <it>Escherichia coli</it>. Trpase is a pyridoxal phosphate (PLP)-dependent tetrameric enzyme with a Mw of 210 kD. PLP is covalently bound through an enamine bond to Lys270 at the active site. The incubation of holo <it>E. coli </it>Trpases at 2°C for 20 h results in breaking this enamine bond and PLP release, as well as a reversible loss of activity and dissociation into dimers. This sequence of events is termed cold lability and its understanding bears relevance to protein stability and shelf life.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We studied the reversible cold lability of <it>E. coli </it>Trpase and its Y74F, C298S and W330F mutants. In contrast to the holo <it>E. coli </it>Trpase all apo forms of Trpase dissociated into dimers already at 25°C and even further upon cooling to 2°C. The crystal structures of the two mutants, Y74F and C298S in their apo form were determined at 1.9Å resolution. These apo mutants were found in an open conformation compared to the closed conformation found for <it>P. vulgaris </it>in its holo form. This conformational change is further supported by a high pressure study.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We suggest that cold lability of <it>E. coli </it>Trpases is primarily affected by PLP release. The enhanced loss of activity of the three mutants is presumably due to the reduced size of the side chain of the amino acids. This prevents the tight assembly of the active tetramer, making it more susceptible to the cold driven changes in hydrophobic interactions which facilitate PLP release. The hydrophobic interactions along the non catalytic interface overshadow the effect of point mutations and may account for the differences in the dissociation of <it>E. coli </it>Trpase to dimers and <it>P. vulgaris </it>Trpase to monomers.</p

Correlation Between Structure And C-Afm Contrast Of 180-Degree Domain Walls In Rhombohedral Bati03

Using Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire theory we describe 180-degree domain wall structure, intrinsic energy and carrier accumulation in rhombohedral phase of BaTiO3 as a function of the wall orientation and flexoelectric coupling strength. Two types of domain wall structures (phases of the wall) exist depending on the wall orientation. The low-energy 'achiral' phase occurs in the vicinity of the {110} wall orientation and has odd polarization profile invariant with respect to inversion about the wall center. The second 'chiral' phase occurs around {211} wall orientations and corresponds to mixed parity domain walls that may be of left-handed or right-handed chirality. The transformation between the phases is abrupt, accompanied with 20-30% change of the domain wall thickness and can happen at fixed wall orientation with temperature change. We suggest that the phase transition may be detected through domain wall thickness change or by c-AFM. The structure of the domain wall is correlated to its conductivity through polarization component normal to the domain wall, which causes free carriers accumulation. Depending on the temperature and flexoelectric coupling strength relative conductivity of the wall becomes at least one order of magnitude higher than in the single-domain region, creating c-AFM contrast enhancement pronounced and detectable.Comment: 31 pages, 10 figures, Supplementary material

Conductivity of twin walls - surface junctions in ferroelastics: interplay of deformation potential, octahedral rotations, improper ferroelectricity and flexoelectric coupling

Electronic and structural phenomena at the twin domain wall-surface junctions in the ferroelastic materials are analyzed. Carriers accumulation caused by the strain-induced band structure changes originated via the deformation potential mechanism, structural order parameter gradient, rotostriction and flexoelectric coupling is explored. Approximate analytical results show that inhomogeneous elastic strains, which exist in the vicinity of the twin walls - surface junctions due to the rotostriction coupling, decrease the local band gap via the deformation potential and flexoelectric coupling mechanisms. This is the direct mechanism of the twin walls static conductivity in ferroelastics and, by extension, in multiferroics and ferroelectrics. On the other hand, flexoelectric and rotostriction coupling leads to the appearance of the improper polarization and electric fields proportional to the structural order parameter gradient in the vicinity of the twin walls - surface junctions. The "flexo-roto" fields leading to the carrier accumulation are considered as indirect mechanism of the twin walls conductivity. Comparison of the direct and indirect mechanisms illustrates complex range of phenomena directly responsible for domain walls static conductivity in materials with multiple order parameters.Comment: 35 pages, 11 figures, 3 table, 3 appendices Improved set of rotostriction coefficients are used in calculation

The combined use of gold nanoparticles and infrared radiation enables cytosolic protein delivery

Cytosolic protein delivery remains elusive. The inability of most proteins to cross the cellular membrane is a huge hurdle. Here we explore the unique photothermal properties of gold nanorods (AuNRs) to trigger cytosolic delivery of proteins. Both partners, protein and AuNRs, are modified with a protease-resistant cell-penetrating peptide with nuclear targeting properties to induce internalization. Once internalised, spatiotemporal control of protein release is achieved by near-infrared laser irradiation in the safe second biological window. Importantly, catalytic amounts of AuNRs are sufficient to trigger cytosolic protein delivery. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that AuNRs with their maximum of absorption in the second biological window are used to deliver proteins into the intracellular space. This strategy represents a powerful tool for the cytosolic delivery of virtually any class of protein

Domain wall conduction in multiaxial ferroelectrics

The conductance of domain wall structures consisting of either stripes or cylindrical domains in multi-axial ferroelectric-semiconductors is analyzed. The effects of the domain size, wall tilt and curvature, on charge accumulation, are analyzed using the Landau-Ginsburg Devonshire (LGD) theory for polarization combined with Poisson equation for charge distributions. Both the classical ferroelectric parameters including expansion coefficients in 2-4-6 Landau potential and gradient terms, as well as flexoelectric coupling, inhomogeneous elastic strains and electrostriction are included in the present analysis. Spatial distributions of the ionized donors, free electrons and holes were found self-consistently using the effective mass approximation for the respective densities of states. The proximity and size effect of the electron and donor accumulation/depletion by thin stripe domains and cylindrical nanodomains are revealed. In contrast to thick domain stripes and thicker cylindrical domains, in which the carrier accumulation (and so the static conductivity) sharply increases at the domain walls only, small nanodomains of radius less then 5-10 correlation length appeared conducting across entire cross-section. Implications of such conductive nanosized channels may be promising for nanoelectronics.Comment: 39 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, 4 appendice

Functional Oligomeric State of Avian Sarcoma Virus Integrase

Retroviral integrase, one of only three enzymes encoded by the virus, catalyzes the essential step of inserting a DNA copy of the viral genome into the host during infection. Using the avian sarcoma virus integrase, we demonstrate that the enzyme functions as a tetramer. In presteady-state active site titrations, four integrase protomers were required for a single catalytic turnover. Volumetric determination of integrase-DNA complexes imaged by atomic force microscopy during the initial turnover additionally revealed substrate-induced assembly of a tetramer. These results suggest that tetramer formation may be a requisite step during catalysis with ramifications for antiviral design strategies targeting the structurally homologous human immunodeficiency virus, type 1 (HIV-1) integrase