从跨文化交流视角对医疗领域口译员角色的研 究

En la vida ordinaria, cuando la gente habla de intérpretes, tiende a centrarse en los intérpretes de negocios, los intérpretes de conferencias y los intérpretes judiciales, pero rara vez en los intérpretes médicos. A diferencia de los intérpretes antes mencionados, los intérpretes médicos deben ser más proactivos y dinámicos, es decir, debido al entorno especial de los hospitales, a menudo se convierten en participantes en conversaciones y escenarios, y se enfrentan a escenarios más variados, así como a conflictos culturales más diversos. El objetivo de este TFM es aclarar el posicionamiento de los intérpretes médicos y sus funciones, analizar las cualidades necesarias para desempeñar estas funciones y, por último, poner en práctica la realización del papel del intérprete médico y hacer sugerencias para el desarrollo del papel del intérprete médico. Las principales hipótesis en las que se basa este TFM son: 1) Existe una discrepancia entre la percepción que tiene el intérprete médico de su papel y las expectativas del usuario sobre el papel del intérprete. 2) La medida en que un intérprete percibe su papel determina el uso de estrategias de interpretación en el proceso de interpretación médica y es un factor determinante en el resultado de las actividades de interpretación médica. 3) La investigación desde la perspectiva de la disciplina de la comunicación intercultural y de la sociológica tiene un impacto directo en la construcción de una definición correcta del papel del intérprete y en el establecimiento de sus pautas de comportamiento. 4) Las actividades de interpretación médica plantean demandas más diversas en el papel del intérprete y el desarrollo del papel del intérprete debería estar más enfocado. Los principales métodos de investigación adoptados son: 1) estudio de los documentos, 2) estudio interdisciplinario, 3) análisis del discurso, 4) entrevista y 5) cuestionario. Por último, este TFM confirma la hipótesis de que, en el proceso de interpretación médica, ante las diferencias culturales, las diferencias en los pensamientos y las diferencias de valores entre los usuarios, los intérpretes no son definitivamente meras "portavoz", sino que son coordinadores y participantes en la comunicación entre varias culturas específicas, con la capacidad de interpretar la información cultural y desempeñar el papel de facilitadores culturalesIn ordinary life, when people talk about interpreters, they tend to focus on business interpreters, conference interpreters and court interpreters, but rarely on medical interpreters. Unlike the aforementioned interpreters, medical interpreters need to be 134 more proactive and dynamic, i.e., due to the special environment of hospitals, they often become participants in conversations and scenarios, and face more varied scenarios as well as more diverse cultural conflicts. The aim of this TFM is to clarify the positioning of medical interpreters and their roles, to analyze the qualities needed to perform these roles, and finally to put into practice the realization of the medical interpreter's role and to make suggestions for the development of the medical interpreter's role. The main hypotheses on which this TFM is based are: 1) There is a discrepancy between the medical interpreter's perception of his or her role and the user's expectations of the interpreter's role. 2) The extent to which an interpreter perceives his or her role determines the use of interpreting strategies in the medical interpreting process and is a determining factor in the outcome of medical interpreting activities. 3) Research from the perspective of the intercultural communication discipline and the sociological discipline has a direct impact on the construction of a correct definition of the interpreter's role and the establishment of his/her behavioral patterns. 4) Medical interpreting activities place more diverse demands on the interpreter's role and the development of the interpreter's role should be more focused. The main research methods adopted are 1) document study, 2) interdisciplinary study, 3) discourse analysis, 4) interview and 5) questionnaire. Finally, this TFM confirms the hypothesis that, in the process of medical interpreting, in the face of cultural differences, differences in thoughts and differences in values among users, interpreters are definitely not mere "spokespersons", but are coordinators and participants in communication between several specific cultures, with the ability to interpret cultural information and play the role of cultural facilitatorsMáster Universitario en Comunicación Intercultural, Interpretación y Traducción en los Servicios Públicos. Especialidad en chi-esp (M196

The impact of M&A on the operating performance: An empirical analysis of the Professional Services Industry

Backgrounds: Facing the rising tide of globalisation, firms cannot only compete with domestic counterparts. Companies should keep up with cross-border competitors in the circumstances nowadays. The strong demands for searching internal and external improvements encourage companies which include firms in professional services industry to participate in M&A activities which are increasingly applied nowadays. However, the impact of M&A of professional services has not been researched enough. Methods: In order to explore the influences of M&A activities on operating performance in the professional services industry, primary data and analytical discussion were obtained from Zephyr. Several tests are applied to detect the effects of M&A. Further regression analyses of recent M&A events were conducted by using STATA to arrive at the conclusion. Purpose: This thesis makes an attempt to explore whether M&A can bring improvements for acquirer and target firms or not, and how M&A and financial related factors can affect the operating performance. Findings: M&A activities can negatively affect the operating performance of both bidding and target firms. Factors such as firm size and pre-merger performance are positively correlated with post-merger operating performance, while deal value, market capitalisation and operating revenue can negatively influence post-merger operating performance. Country elements which refer to geographic distribution are not related with operating performance. Keywords: M&A, acquirer, target, financial factors, professional service

Accelerating Globally Optimal Consensus Maximization in Geometric Vision

Branch-and-bound-based consensus maximization stands out due to its important ability of retrieving the globally optimal solution to outlier-affected geometric problems. However, while the discovery of such solutions caries high scientific value, its application in practical scenarios is often prohibited by its computational complexity growing exponentially as a function of the dimensionality of the problem at hand. In this work, we convey a novel, general technique that allows us to branch over an $n-1$ dimensional space for an n-dimensional problem. The remaining degree of freedom can be solved globally optimally within each bound calculation by applying the efficient interval stabbing technique. While each individual bound derivation is harder to compute owing to the additional need for solving a sorting problem, the reduced number of intervals and tighter bounds in practice lead to a significant reduction in the overall number of required iterations. Besides an abstract introduction of the approach, we present applications to three fundamental geometric computer vision problems: camera resectioning, relative camera pose estimation, and point set registration. Through our exhaustive tests, we demonstrate significant speed-up factors at times exceeding two orders of magnitude, thereby increasing the viability of globally optimal consensus maximizers in online application scenarios

Genetic Evolution and Molecular Selection of the HE Gene of Influenza C Virus

Influenza C virus (ICV) was first identified in humans and swine, but recently also in cattle, indicating a wider host range and potential threat to both the livestock industry and public health than was originally anticipated. The ICV hemagglutinin-esterase (HE) glycoprotein has multiple functions in the viral replication cycle and is the major determinant of antigenicity. Here, we developed a comparative approach integrating genetics, molecular selection analysis, and structural biology to identify the codon usage and adaptive evolution of ICV. We show that ICV can be classified into six lineages, consistent with previous studies. The HE gene has a low codon usage bias, which may facilitate ICV replication by reducing competition during evolution. Natural selection, dinucleotide composition, and mutation pressure shape the codon usage patterns of the ICV HE gene, with natural selection being the most important factor. Codon adaptation index (CAI) and relative codon deoptimization index (RCDI) analysis revealed that the greatest adaption of ICV was to humans, followed by cattle and swine. Additionally, similarity index (SiD) analysis revealed that swine exerted a stronger evolutionary pressure on ICV than humans, which is considered the primary reservoir. Furthermore, a similar tendency was also observed in the M gene. Of note, we found HE residues 176, 194, and 198 to be under positive selection, which may be the result of escape from antibody responses. Our study provides useful information on the genetic evolution of ICV from a new perspective that can help devise prevention and control strategies

Deep reinforcement learning for real-time economic energy management of microgrid system considering uncertainties

The electric power grid is changing from a traditional power system to a modern, smart, and integrated power system. Microgrids (MGs) play a vital role in combining distributed renewable energy resources (RESs) with traditional electric power systems. Intermittency, randomness, and volatility constitute the disadvantages of distributed RESs. MGs with high penetrations of renewable energy and random load demand cannot ignore these uncertainties, making it difficult to operate them effectively and economically. To realize the optimal scheduling of MGs, a real-time economic energy management strategy based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is proposed in this paper. Different from traditional model-based approaches, this strategy is learning based, and it has no requirements for an explicit model of uncertainty. Taking into account the uncertainties in RESs, load demand, and electricity prices, we formulate a Markov decision process for the real-time economic energy management problem of MGs. The objective is to minimize the daily operating cost of the system by scheduling controllable distributed generators and energy storage systems. In this paper, a deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) is introduced as a method for resolving the Markov decision process. The DDPG is a novel policy-based DRL approach with continuous state and action spaces. The DDPG is trained to learn the characteristics of uncertainties of the load, RES output, and electricity price using historical data from real power systems. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is validated through the designed simulation experiments. In the second experiment of our designed simulation, the proposed DRL method is compared to DQN, SAC, PPO, and MPC methods, and it is able to reduce the operating costs by 29.59%, 17.39%, 6.36%, and 9.55% on the June test set and 30.96%, 18.34%, 5.73%, and 10.16% on the November test set, respectively. The numerical results validate the practical value of the proposed DRL algorithm in addressing economic operation issues in MGs, as it demonstrates the algorithm’s ability to effectively leverage the energy storage system to reduce the operating costs across a range of scenarios

Organochlorinated pesticides expedite the enzymatic degradation of DNA

Extracellular DNA in the environment may play important roles in genetic diversity and biological evolution. However, the influence of environmental persistent organic contaminants such as organochlorinated pesticides (e.g., hexachlorocyclohexanes [HCHs]) on the enzymatic degradation of extracellular DNA has not been elucidated. In this study, we observed expedited enzymatic degradation of extracellular DNA in the presence of α-HCH, β-HCH and γ-HCH. The HCH-expedited DNA degradation was not due to increased deoxyribonuclease I (DNase I) activity. Our spectroscopic and computational results indicate that HCHs bound to DNA bases (most likely guanine) via Van der Waals forces and halogen bonds. This binding increased the helicity and accumulation of DNA base pairs, leading to a more compact DNA structure that exposed more sites susceptible to DNase I and thus expedited DNA degradation. This study provided insight into the genotoxicity and ecotoxicity of pesticides and improved our understanding of DNA persistence in contaminated environments

Rational Design of a Chimeric Derivative of PcrV as a Subunit Vaccine Against Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) is a major cause of nosocomial infections, which remain an unsolved problem in the clinic despite conventional antibiotic treatment. A PA vaccine could be both an effective and economical strategy to address this issue. Many studies have shown that PcrV, a structural protein of the type 3 secretion system (T3SS) from PA, is an ideal target for immune prevention and therapy. However, difficulties in the production of high-quality PcrV likely hinder its further application in the vaccine industry. Thus, we hypothesized that an optimized PcrV derivative with a rational design could be produced. In this study, the full-length PcrV was divided into four domains with the guidance of its structure, and the Nter domain (Met1-Lys127) and H12 domain (Leu251-Ile294) were found to be immunodominant. Subsequently, Nter and H12 were combined with a flexible linker to generate an artificial PcrV derivative (PcrVNH). PcrVNH was successfully produced in E. coli and behaved as a homogenous monomer. Moreover, immunization with PcrVNH elicited a multifactorial immune response and conferred broad protection in an acute PA pneumonia model and was equally effective to full-length PcrV. In addition, passive immunization with anti-PcrVNH antibodies alone also showed significant protection, at least based on inhibition of the T3SS and mediation of opsonophagocytic killing activities. These results provide an additional example for the rational design of antigens and suggest that PcrVNH is a promising vaccine candidate for the control of PA infection

Biosensing strategies for amyloid‐like protein aggregates

Protein aggregate species play a pivotal role in the pathology of various degenerative diseases. Their dynamic changes are closely correlated with disease progression, making them promising candidates as diagnostic biomarkers. Given the prevalence of degenerative diseases, growing attention is drawn to develop pragmatic and accessible protein aggregate species detection technology. However, the performance of current detection methods is far from satisfying the requirements of extensive clinical use. In this review, we focus on the design strategies, merits, and potential shortcomings of each class of detection methods. The review is organized into three major parts: native protein sensing, seed amplification, and intricate program, which embody three different but interconnected methodologies. To the best of our knowledge, no systematic review has encompassed the entire workflow, from the molecular level to the apparatus organization. This review emphasizes the feasibility of the methods instead of theoretical detection limitations. We conclude that high selectivity does play a pivotal role, while signal compilation, multilateral profiling, and other patient-oriented strategies (i.e. less invasiveness and assay speed) are also important

Nanoscale integrin cluster dynamics controls cellular mechanosensing via FAKY397 phosphorylation

Transduction of extracellular matrix mechanics affects cell migration, proliferation, and differentiation. While this mechanotransduction is known to depend on the regulation of focal adhesion kinase phosphorylation on Y397 (FAKpY397), the mechanism remains elusive. To address this, we developed a mathematical model to test the hypothesis that FAKpY397-based mechanosensing arises from the dynamics of nanoscale integrin clustering, stiffness-dependent disassembly of integrin clusters, and FAKY397 phosphorylation within integrin clusters. Modeling results predicted that integrin clustering dynamics governs how cells convert substrate stiffness to FAKpY397, and hence governs how different cell types transduce mechanical signals. Existing experiments on MDCK cells and HT1080 cells, as well as our new experiments on 3T3 fibroblasts, confirmed our predictions and supported our model. Our results suggest a new pathway by which integrin clusters enable cells to calibrate responses to their mechanical microenvironment