Teaching Writing In A Foreign Language To Law Students Using Authentic Internet Resources

The article is devoted to the development of foreign language writing skills of students of the direction of training “Jurisprudence” in the framework of professional education. The features of the process of teaching written business communication in a foreign language as an important component of the professional competence of a practicing lawyer are shown. The study suggests that with the help of authentic Internet resources, optimal conditions are created not only for acquaintance with written forms of communication adopted in the professional legal community: within the framework of the discipline “Foreign language in the field of professional communication” intercultural foreign language communicative competence of students is formed and improved

Soil Chemical Insights Provided through Vibrational Spectroscopy

Vibrational spectroscopy techniques provide a powerful approach to the study of environmental materials and processes. These multifunctional analytical tools can be used to probe molecular vibrations of solid, liquid, and gaseous samples for characterizing materials, elucidating reaction mechanisms, and examining kinetic processes. Although Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is the most prominent type of vibrational spectroscopy used in the field of soil science, applications of Raman spectroscopy to study environmental samples continue to increase. The ability of FTIR and Raman spectroscopies to provide complementary information for organic and inorganic materials makes them ideal approaches for soil science research. In addition, the ability to conduct in situ, real time, vibrational spectroscopy experiments to probe biogeochemical processes at mineral interfaces offers unique and versatile methodologies for revealing a myriad of soil chemical phenomena. This review provides a comprehensive overview of vibrational spectroscopy techniques and highlights many of the applications of their use in soil chemistry research

Rare predicted loss-of-function variants of type I IFN immunity genes are associated with life-threatening COVID-19

BackgroundWe previously reported that impaired type I IFN activity, due to inborn errors of TLR3- and TLR7-dependent type I interferon (IFN) immunity or to autoantibodies against type I IFN, account for 15-20% of cases of life-threatening COVID-19 in unvaccinated patients. Therefore, the determinants of life-threatening COVID-19 remain to be identified in similar to 80% of cases.MethodsWe report here a genome-wide rare variant burden association analysis in 3269 unvaccinated patients with life-threatening COVID-19, and 1373 unvaccinated SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals without pneumonia. Among the 928 patients tested for autoantibodies against type I IFN, a quarter (234) were positive and were excluded.ResultsNo gene reached genome-wide significance. Under a recessive model, the most significant gene with at-risk variants was TLR7, with an OR of 27.68 (95%CI 1.5-528.7, P=1.1x10(-4)) for biochemically loss-of-function (bLOF) variants. We replicated the enrichment in rare predicted LOF (pLOF) variants at 13 influenza susceptibility loci involved in TLR3-dependent type I IFN immunity (OR=3.70[95%CI 1.3-8.2], P=2.1x10(-4)). This enrichment was further strengthened by (1) adding the recently reported TYK2 and TLR7 COVID-19 loci, particularly under a recessive model (OR=19.65[95%CI 2.1-2635.4], P=3.4x10(-3)), and (2) considering as pLOF branchpoint variants with potentially strong impacts on splicing among the 15 loci (OR=4.40[9%CI 2.3-8.4], P=7.7x10(-8)). Finally, the patients with pLOF/bLOF variants at these 15 loci were significantly younger (mean age [SD]=43.3 [20.3] years) than the other patients (56.0 [17.3] years; P=1.68x10(-5)).ConclusionsRare variants of TLR3- and TLR7-dependent type I IFN immunity genes can underlie life-threatening COVID-19, particularly with recessive inheritance, in patients under 60 years old