Language Usage Conditions of Multilingual Nations - Sri Lanka“Sinhalese native speakers and Tamil native speakers\u27 scenes, their word usage conditions in Western Province and Uva Province .

Sri Lanka is a multilingual nation, where various languages, races, and religions exist. Sinhalese, Muslims and Tamils reside together with Burger, Marais and native people called ‘Veddah\u27. Sri Lankan people use three languages; Sinhala, English, and Tamil in their daily communication. To examine the language situation in Sri Lanka means to analyze the cultural and social circumstances within Sri Lanka.In particular the Code Switching (CS) is seen in various situations in Sri Lanka. It is expected that a person would switch the language code depending on the situation. This also differs according to various circumstances such as speaker\u27s life style and living conditions at home, academic background and the social hierarchy. Furthermore, it is estimated that differences in CS between Tamil minority and Sinhala majority would exist. It is important to consider these points in order to examine the situation of communication. English is also used quite often in Sri Lanka. The influence and the necessity of English would be examined through a survey of English usage spreading in the real world.The questionnaire style survey has been conducted and it was administered based on pilot research in Japan. It is necessary to investigate various circumstances that people face in order to examine the true language usage conditions. The investigation considered people in various places and situations throughout Sri Lanka.Sri Lanka consists of nine states. The research was done in eight states: Central Province, Eastern Province, Northern Province, Southern Province, Western Province North western Province, Uva Province and Sabaragamuwa province.The research was done as follows:The locations : at a house of a standard family, at a bank, at a school and at a postoffice in each locations.The subjects : 525 people including students, office workers, house-wives, farmers,and elderly people.The format of investigation: The questionnaire included four communication situations and questionsIn this paper, the language usage conditions of Sinhalese native speakers and the Tamil native speakers of both Western Province and Uva Province are analyzed in various situations. As the result, the Sinhalese native speakers in Western Province showed many examples of code switching between Sinhalese and English. Moreover, English code switching was seen frequently in the home.When considering the Uva Province, the Sinhalese native speakers use both Sinhala and English while a significant proportion of them are trilingual speakers there. They often change between the three main languages; Sinhala, English and Tamil are used quite often at schools, offices, hospitals, and so on.To examine a number of communication scenes in different language groups in Sri Lanka, it was clearly seen that there are more trilingual speakers among Tamil native speakers who more likely to switch between three languages in different situations, while Sinhalese speakers switch between two languages. The data of the survey also showed that the usage of languages varies according to the speakers\u27 social status, region where he or she lives, academic background, age, etc.Moreover, when the communication is taking place at home, the Sinhalese native speakers often use the code switching between Sinhalese and English. However, the elderly people in Sri Lanka, especially people living in Uva Province, rarely speak English due to their poor academic background.It has become clear that the language usage conditions differ from one another depending on the society, the region, and the educational level, and age of the person in Sri Lanka.However it is not well known yet when and how the code switching happens. As for code switching between English and Sinhalese, it is important to record their natural conversation in various scenes to analyze certain characteristics of the code switching. This would help clarify how Sri Lankans use these languages.千葉大学大学院人文社会科学研究科研究プロジェクト報告書第239集「ユーラシアの多言語社会と言語政策」中川裕 編Eurasian Multilingual Society and Language Policy Report on Research Project No.23

Immunotherapy biomarkers 2016: overcoming the barriers.

This report summarizes the symposium, \u27Immunotherapy Biomarkers 2016: Overcoming the Barriers\u27, which was held on April 1, 2016 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The symposium, cosponsored by the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), focused on emerging immunotherapy biomarkers, new technologies, current hurdles to further progress, and recommendations for advancing the field of biomarker development

Toward a comprehensive view of cancer immune responsiveness: A synopsis from the SITC workshop

Tumor immunology has changed the landscape of cancer treatment. Yet, not all patients benefit as cancer immune responsiveness (CIR) remains a limitation in a considerable proportion of cases. The multifactorial determinants of CIR include the genetic makeup of the patient, the genomic instability central to cancer development, the evolutionary emergence of cancer phenotypes under the influence of immune editing, and external modifiers such as demographics, environment, treatment potency, co-morbidities and cancer-independent alterations including immune homeostasis and polymorphisms in the major and minor histocompatibility molecules, cytokines, and chemokines. Based on the premise that cancer is fundamentally a disorder of the genes arising within a cell biologic process, whose deviations from normality determine the rules of engagement with the host's response, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) convened a task force of experts from various disciplines including, immunology, oncology, biophysics, structural biology, molecular and cellular biology, genetics, and bioinformatics to address the complexity of CIR from a holistic view. The task force was launched by a workshop held in San Francisco on May 14-15, 2018 aimed at two preeminent goals: 1) to identify the fundamental questions related to CIR and 2) to create an interactive community of experts that could guide scientific and research priorities by forming a logical progression supported by multiple perspectives to uncover mechanisms of CIR. This workshop was a first step toward a second meeting where the focus would be to address the actionability of some of the questions identified by working groups. In this event, five working groups aimed at defining a path to test hypotheses according to their relevance to human cancer and identifying experimental models closest to human biology, which include: 1) Germline-Genetic, 2) Somatic-Genetic and 3) Genomic-Transcriptional contributions to CIR, 4) Determinant(s) of Immunogenic Cell Death that modulate CIR, and 5) Experimental Models that best represent CIR and its conversion to an immune responsive state. This manuscript summarizes the contributions from each group and should be considered as a first milestone in the path toward a more contemporary understanding of CIR. We appreciate that this effort is far from comprehensive and that other relevant aspects related to CIR such as the microbiome, the individual's recombined T cell and B cell receptors, and the metabolic status of cancer and immune cells were not fully included. These and other important factors will be included in future activities of the taskforce. The taskforce will focus on prioritization and specific actionable approach to answer the identified questions and implementing the collaborations in the follow-up workshop, which will be held in Houston on September 4-5, 2019

Future perspectives in melanoma research. Meeting report from the “Melanoma Bridge. Napoli, December 2nd-4th 2012”

Recent insights into the genetic and somatic aberrations have initiated a new era of rapidly evolving targeted and immune-based treatments for melanoma. After decades of unsuccessful attempts to finding a more effective cure in the treatment of melanoma now we have several drugs active in melanoma. The possibility to use these drugs in combination to improve responses to overcome the resistance, to potentiate the action of immune system with the new immunomodulating antibodies, and identification of biomarkers that can predict the response to a particular therapy represent new concepts and approaches in the clinical management of melanoma. The third “Melanoma Research: “A bridge from Naples to the World” meeting, shortened as “Bridge Melanoma Meeting” took place in Naples, December 2 to 4th, 2012. The four topics of discussion at this meeting were: advances in molecular profiling and novel biomarkers, combination therapies, novel concepts toward integrating biomarkers and therapies into contemporary clinical management of patients with melanoma across the entire spectrum of disease stage, and the knowledge gained from the biology of tumor microenvironment across different tumors as a bridge to impact on prognosis and response to therapy in melanoma. This international congress gathered more than 30 international faculty members who in an interactive atmosphere which stimulated discussion and exchange of their experience regarding the most recent advances in research and clinical management of melanoma patients

Archaeoseismology: Methodological issues and procedure

Archaeoseismic research contributes important data on past earthquakes. A limitation of the usefulness of archaeoseismology is due to the lack of continuous discussion about the methodology. The methodological issues are particularly important because archaeoseismological investigations of past earthquakes make use of a large variety of methods. Typical in situ investigations include: (1) reconstruction of the local archaeological stratigraphy aimed at defining the correct position and chronology of a destruction layer, presumably related to an earthquake; (2) analysis of the deformations potentially due to seismic shaking or secondary earthquake effects, detectable on walls; (3) analysis of the depositional characteristics of the collapsed material; (4) investigations of the local geology and geomorphology to define possible natural cause(s) of the destruction; (5) investigations of the local factors affecting the ground motion amplifications; and (6) estimation of the dynamic excitation, which affected the site under investigation. Subsequently, a 'territorial' approach testing evidence of synchronous destruction in a certain region may delineate the extent of the area struck by the earthquake. The most reliable results of an archaeoseismological investigation are obtained by application of modern geoarchaeological practice (archaeological stratigraphy plus geological–geomorphological data), with the addition of a geophysical-engineering quantitative approach and (if available) historical information. This gives a basic dataset necessary to perform quantitative analyses which, in turn, corroborate the archaeoseismic hypothesis. Since archaeoseismological investigations can reveal the possible natural causes of destruction at a site, they contribute to the wider field of environmental archaeology, that seeks to define the history of the relationship between humans and the environment. Finally, through the improvement of the knowledge on the past seismicity, these studies can contribute to the regional estimation of seismic hazard