79 research outputs found

    Lavender Language in Smile as they Bow Translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Thi Thi Aye

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    According to Maxwell (2003), lavender linguistics has been an intriguing study of language including pronunciation, lexicons and semantic ranges used particularly by gays and lesbians. This paper aims to investigate lavender language used by natkataws who are gay spirit mediums in comparison with male speech by straight men in Alfred Birnbaum and Thi Thi Aye’s English translated version of the novel Smile as they Bow originally written by Nu Nu Yi (Inwa, 2007). In analyzing lavender language, gay speech characteristics proposed by Jacobs (1996), Berrett (1997), Livia (1997), Podesva, Roberts and Campbell-Kibler (2001), and Lakoff (2004) were adapted to form a model. Descriptive qualitative method was used to convey comprehensive account on gay speech features in the novel and quantitative method was applied in numerical analysis of collected data using Concordance in WordSmith Tool 8.0 and Stepwise Multiple Regression (IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0). Results of the research proved that the use of gay language expressions and their grammatical functions depended on sexuality – Gay or Straight. It is hoped that this paper will serve as in initiative for researchers of lavender linguistics to observe language used by gays and lesbians in literature to justify how natural the queer language observed in literature is

    Domain-Specific Sentiment Lexicon for Classification

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    Nowadays people express their opinions about products, government policies, schemes and programs over social media sites using web or mobile. At the present time, in our country, government changes policies in every sector and people follow with the eyes or the mind on these policies and express their opinion by writing comments on social media especially using Facebook news media pages. Therefore, our research group intends to do sentiment analysis on new articles. Domain-specific sentiment lexicon has played an important role in opinion mining system. Due to the ubiquitous domain diversity and absence of domain-specific prior knowledge, construction of domain-specific lexicon has become a challenging research topic in recent year. In this paper, lexicon construction for sentiment analysis is described. In this work, there are two main steps: (1) pre-processing on raw data comments that are extracted from Facebook news media pages and (2) constructing lexicon for coming classification work. The word correlation and chi-square statistic are applied to construct lexicon as desired. Experimental results on comments datasets demonstrate that proposed approach is suitable for construction the domain-specific lexicon

    A case of severe cardiomyopathy due to COVID-induced myocarditis, completely resolved after colchicine and immunoglobulin therapy

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    Coronavirus 19 (COVID-19) is well known for causing acute respiratory distress syndrome. Among other systemic complications, myocarditis is a frequently reported presentation as well as complication. One systematic review reported a 14% mortality rate in patients with COVID-19 myocarditis. Endomyocardial biopsy is a definitive diagnostic test but has been a challenge to perform in most cases of COVID myocarditis due to the contagious nature of the disease. Patients presenting with new cardiomyopathy with troponin leak and arrhythmias, supported by recent COVID-19 diagnosis should be suspected for COVID-induced myocarditis. Supportive treatment has been the mainstay of treatment with limited data on immunotherapy and colchicine. Our case is about a male in his 50s who had a cardiac arrest due to ventricular fibrillations, with a positive COVID-19 test. Further workup showed severe non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy with an EF of 15–20%. He was treated with intravenous immunotherapy and colchicine. A repeat echocardiogram 3 days later showed resolution of cardiomyopathy. Our case report highlights the possible beneficial effects of immunotherapy and colchicine in viral myocarditis

    АДМИНИСТРАТИВНАЯ ПРЕЮДИЦИЯ КАК УСЛОВИЕ УГОЛОВНОЙ ОТВЕТСТВЕННОСТИ В НЕКОТОРЫХ СЛУЧАЯХ ПРИНУЖДЕНИЯ К ВЫПОЛНЕНИЮ ОБЯЗАТЕЛЬСТВ

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    Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is a class ofheuristic search algorithms that have beensuccessfully applied to solving combinationaloptimization (CO) problems. The traveling salesmanproblem (TSP) is among the most importantcombinatorial problems. ACO has very good searchcapability for optimization problems. But it still hassome drawbacks such as stagnation behavior, longcomputational time, and premature convergenceproblem of the basic ACO algorithm on TSP. Thoseproblems will be more obvious when the complexitiesof the considered problems increase. The proposedsystem based on basic ACO algorithm based on wellpositionedthe ants on the initiation and informationentropy which is applied to tuning of the algorithm’sparameters. Then, ACO for TSP has been improvedby incorporating local optimization heuristic.Therefore, the proposed system intends to reachsuperior search performance over traditional ACOalgorithms do

    A case of acute extensive viral sinusitis secondary to acute Epstein Barr virus

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    Infectious mononucleosis (IM), the most common presentation of acute Epstein Barr virus (EBV) infection, typically presents with fever, pharyngitis and lymphadenopathy. We describe an unusual case of IM presenting as acute sinusitis. A 25 year-old male presented to the emergency department with worsening right frontal sinus pain along with fever, chills, and greenish nasal discharge for 3 weeks. Laboratory workup showed leukocytosis with high lymphocyte counts as well as transaminitis. Facial computerized tomography (CT) showed extensive right frontal, ethmoidal and maxillary sinusitis and antrochoanal polyp. The patient underwent endoscopy with drainage of purulent material and polyp removal. Unfortunately, cultures of the sample were not sent and bacterial infection could not be ruled out. Broad spectrum antibiotics were continued. Pathology of redundant tissue revealed large atypical lymphocytes with positive EBV-encoded RNA and lack of evidence of extranodal natural killer/T-cell (NK/T-cell) type lymphoma (ENKTCL). Tests for serum EBV IgM antibodies and EBV early Antigen antibodies were positive, indicating acute EBV infection. Lymphocytosis resolved along with significant clinical improvement at the 10-day follow up visit. Even though patient did receive antibiotics, multiple factors including isolated lymphocytosis, pathology positive for EBV with no neutrophilia were more suggestive of sinusitis caused by viral infection, EBV in this case. Lymphocytosis with fever and sore throat should prompt physicians to consider IM. There are no known reports in the literature of EBV as a causal organism for acute viral sinusitis. There are some studies relating EBV with ENKTCL. It is unknown whether this particular patient with a history of EBV sinusitis will be at high risk for nasal type lymphoma in the future. Further studies should be conducted to understand the pathogenesis and relationship between EBV and ENKTCL

    Retroperitoneal hematoma: a sequela of acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis post endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography

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    Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for pancreaticobiliary diseases. Like every other procedure, ERCP can lead to complications that include pancreatitis, cholecystitis, perforation, and rarely, retroperitoneal hematoma. We present a case of post-ERCP acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis resulting in retroperitoneal hematoma and sequelae of unilateral hydronephrosis and ileus. The patient was treated supportively and had good clinical improvement with resolution of hydronephrosis, ileus and more importantly tolerating oral diet without further episodes of abdominal pain

    Presence of Burkholderia pseudomallei in the 'Granary of Myanmar'.

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    Melioidosis is a frequently fatal infectious disease caused by the Gram negative bacillus Burkholderia pseudomallei. Although it was originally discovered in Myanmar, the disease disappeared from sight for many decades. This study focuses on detection of B. pseudomallei in soil in selected sampling sites in an attempt to start to fill the gaps in the current status of our knowledge of the geographical distribution of B. pseudomallei in soil in Myanmar. This cross-sectional study consists of 400 soil samples from 10 selected study townships from two major paddy growing regions. Bacterial isolation was done using a simplified method for the isolation of Burkholderia pseudomallei from soil. In this study, only 1% (4/400) of soil samples were found to be positive; two of four were found at 90 cm depth and another two positive samples were found at 30 cm and 60 cm. This survey has confirmed the presence of environmental B. pseudomallei in Myanmar indicating that the conditions are in place for melioidosis acquisition

    Membrane plasmalogen composition and cellular cholesterol regulation: a structure activity study

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Disrupted cholesterol regulation leading to increased circulating and membrane cholesterol levels is implicated in many age-related chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), and cancer. <it>In vitro </it>and <it>ex vivo </it>cellular plasmalogen deficiency models have been shown to exhibit impaired intra- and extra-cellular processing of cholesterol. Furthermore, depleted brain plasmalogens have been implicated in AD and serum plasmalogen deficiencies have been linked to AD, CVD, and cancer.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using plasmalogen deficient (NRel-4) and plasmalogen sufficient (HEK293) cells we investigated the effect of species-dependent plasmalogen restoration/augmentation on membrane cholesterol processing. The results of these studies indicate that the esterification of cholesterol is dependent upon the amount of polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA)-containing ethanolamine plasmalogen (PlsEtn) present in the membrane. We further elucidate that the concentration-dependent increase in esterified cholesterol observed with PUFA-PlsEtn was due to a concentration-dependent increase in sterol-O-acyltransferase-1 (SOAT1) levels, an observation not reproduced by 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-CoA (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibition.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The present study describes a novel mechanism of cholesterol regulation that is consistent with clinical and epidemiological studies of cholesterol, aging and disease. Specifically, the present study describes how selective membrane PUFA-PlsEtn enhancement can be achieved using 1-alkyl-2-PUFA glycerols and through this action reduce levels of total and free cholesterol in cells.</p

    Reduced levels of hydroxylated, polyunsaturated ultra long-chain fatty acids in the serum of colorectal cancer patients: implications for early screening and detection

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There are currently no accurate serum markers for detecting early risk of colorectal cancer (CRC). We therefore developed a non-targeted metabolomics technology to analyse the serum of pre-treatment CRC patients in order to discover putative metabolic markers associated with CRC. Using tandem-mass spectrometry (MS/MS) high throughput MS technology we evaluated the utility of selected markers and this technology for discriminating between CRC and healthy subjects.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Biomarker discovery was performed using Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS). Comprehensive metabolic profiles of CRC patients and controls from three independent populations from different continents (USA and Japan; total <it>n </it>= 222) were obtained and the best inter-study biomarkers determined. The structural characterization of these and related markers was performed using liquid chromatography (LC) MS/MS and nuclear magnetic resonance technologies. Clinical utility evaluations were performed using a targeted high-throughput triple-quadrupole multiple reaction monitoring (TQ-MRM) method for three biomarkers in two further independent populations from the USA and Japan (total <it>n </it>= 220).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Comprehensive metabolomic analyses revealed significantly reduced levels of 28-36 carbon-containing hydroxylated polyunsaturated ultra long-chain fatty-acids in all three independent cohorts of CRC patient samples relative to controls. Structure elucidation studies on the C28 molecules revealed two families harbouring specifically two or three hydroxyl substitutions and varying degrees of unsaturation. The TQ-MRM method successfully validated the FTICR-MS results in two further independent studies. In total, biomarkers in five independent populations across two continental regions were evaluated (three populations by FTICR-MS and two by TQ-MRM). The resultant receiver-operator characteristic curve AUCs ranged from 0.85 to 0.98 (average = 0.91 ± 0.04).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A novel comprehensive metabolomics technology was used to identify a systemic metabolic dysregulation comprising previously unknown hydroxylated polyunsaturated ultra-long chain fatty acid metabolites in CRC patients. These metabolites are easily measurable in serum and a decrease in their concentration appears to be highly sensitive and specific for the presence of CRC, regardless of ethnic or geographic background. The measurement of these metabolites may represent an additional tool for the early detection and screening of CRC.</p

    Fabrication Process Independent And Robust Aggregation Of Detonation Nanodiamonds In Aqueous Media

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    In the past detonation nanodiamonds (DNDs), sized 3–5 nm, have been praised for their colloidal stability in aqueous media, thereby attracting vast interest in a wide range of applications including nanomedicine. More recent studies have challenged the consensus that DNDs are monodispersed after their fabrication process, with their aggregate formation dynamics poorly understood. Here we reveal that DNDs in aqueous solution, regardless of their post-synthesis de-agglomeration and purification methods, exhibit hierarchical aggregation structures consisting of chain-like and cluster aggregate morphologies. With a novel characterization approach combining machine learning with direct cryo-transmission electron microscopy and with X-ray scattering and vibrational spectroscopy, we show that their aggregate morphologies of chain and cluster ratios and the corresponding size and fractal dimension distributions vary with the post-synthesis treatment methods. In particular DNDs with positive ζ-potential form to a hierarchical structure that assembles aggregates into large networks. DNDs purified with the gas phase annealing and oxidation tend to have more chain-like aggregates. Our findings provide important contribution in understanding the DND interparticle interactions to control the size, polydispersity and aggregation of DNDs for their desired applications
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