Working-Class Heroes: Intraspeaker Variation in General Secretary Len McCluskey

We examine “Liverpool lenition” in the speech of Len McCluskey, a speaker of “Scouse”. Scouse is a variety of Liverpool English associated with the working-class persona of the “Liverpudlian”. We hypothesised that McCluskey, General Secretary of the trade union Unite, would use Scouse relatively more often when speaking to an audience sympathetic to the Labour Party than to an audience that is not. We analysed his rate of lenition in two social settings: speeches to a Labour-sympathetic audience and interviews with a non-Laboursympathetic audience. We find that McCluskey’s spiranisation is more frequent in the speeches than in the interviews. We argue that lenition is a resource for the construction of a working-class persona that may be beneficial for political purposes

Analysis of preparation and properties on shape memory hydrogenated epoxy resin used for asphalt mixtures

The objective of this investigation is to prepare the shape memory hydrogenated epoxy resin used for asphalt mixtures (SM-HEP-AM) and study its properties. The shape memory hydrogenated epoxy resin (SM-HEP) is prepared using hydrogenated bisphenol A epoxy resin (AL-3040), polypropylene glycol diglycidylether diacrylate (JH-230), and isophorone diamine (IPDA). The formulations of the SM-HEP-AM are obtained by the linearly fitted method. The thermo-mechanical property, molecular structure, and shape-memory performance of the SM-HEP-AM are studied. The glass-transition temperature (Tg) is determined using the differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). The results proved that the Tg level increased when the JH-230 content decreased. The thermo-mechanical property of the SM-HEP-AM is measured by dynamical mechanical analysis (DMA). The storage modulus of the SM-HEP-AM decreased with the increase in the JH-230 content. The above phenomena are attributed to the change in the JH-230 content. The shape memory performance results of the SM-HEP-AM indicate that specimen deformation can completely recover after only several minutes at Tg + 10 °C and Tg + 20 °C. The shape recovery time of the SM-HEP-AM increases with increased JH-230 content, and the change between the shape recovery time and JH-230 content gradually decreased as the temperature increased. The deformation recovery performance of asphalt mixture with and without the SM-HEP-AM (Tg = 40 °C) was tested by the deformation recovery test. This was used to prove that the SM-HEP-AM helps to improve the deformation recovery performance of the asphalt mixture

Mitochondrial-targeting Lonidamine-Doxorubicin nanoparticles for synergistic chemotherapy to conquer drug resistance

Lonidamine (LND) can act on mitochondria and inhibit energy metabolism in cancer cells and therefore has been used together with chemotherapy drugs for synergistically enhanced therapeutic efficacy. However, its use is hindered by the poor solubility and slow diffusion in the cytoplasm. To address these problems, we designed and prepared aqueous dispersible nanoparticles (NPs) containing integrated components including triphenylphosphine (TPP) to target the mitochondria of cells and LND and doxorubicin (DOX) for synergistic cancer treatment and conquering drug resistance. This design allows the NPs to concentrate in the mitochondria of cells, solve the low solubility of LND, and contain very high load of LND and DOX in comparison with previously reported drug-delivery systems based on various carrier nanomaterials. Detailed mechanism studies reveal that TPP-LND-DOX NPs could induce significant reactive oxygen species production, mitochondrial membrane potential decrease, and mitochondrial apoptosis pathway, thereby leading to great cytotoxicity in cancer cells. In vivo anticancer activities indicate that TPP-LND-DOX NPs exhibit the highest efficacy in tumor inhibition among all tested groups and show high effectiveness in drug-resistant model. This work demonstrates the potential use of our TPP-LND-DOX NPs to jointly promote the mitochondria apoptosis pathway and contribute to conquer drug resistance in cancer therapy

A Hybrid Wireless Image Transmission Scheme with Diffusion

We propose a hybrid joint source-channel coding (JSCC) scheme, in which the conventional digital communication scheme is complemented with a generative refinement component to improve the perceptual quality of the reconstruction. The input image is decomposed into two components: the first is a coarse compressed version, and is transmitted following the conventional separation based approach. An additional component is obtained through the diffusion process by adding independent Gaussian noise to the input image, and is transmitted using DeepJSCC. The decoder combines the two signals to produce a high quality reconstruction of the source. Experimental results show that the hybrid design provides bandwidth savings and enables graceful performance improvement as the channel quality improves

Dual-Targeted Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Magnetic Resonance Imaging Guided Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy

Hybrid nanostructures with combined functionalities can be rationally designed to achieve synergistic effects for efficient cancer treatment. Herein, a multifunctional nanoplatform is constructed, containing an inner core of an anticancer drug MTX surrounding by a nanometer-thin layer of gold as the shell with Fe₃O₄ magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) evenly distributed in the gold layer, and the outermost hybrid LA-PEG-MTX molecules as surface coating agent (denoted as MFG-LPM NPs). This nanocomposite possesses very high drug loading capacity as the entire core is MTX and integrates magnetic- and active- targeting drug delivery, light-controlled drug release, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as photothermal and chemotherapy. With a strong near-infrared (NIR) absorbance at 808 nm, the nanocomposite enables temperature elevation and light-triggered MTX release. In vitro cytotoxicity studies indicate that the strategy of combining therapy leads to a synergistic effect with high cancer cell killing efficacy. In consistency with this, due to the high accumulation of MFG-LPM NPs at tumor site and their combinatorial chemo-photothermal effects, 100% in vivo tumor elimination can be achieved. Additionally, in vivo MRI of tumor-bearing mice demonstrates an impressive performance of MFG-LPM NPs as a <i>T</i>₂ contrast agent. Therefore, such multifunctional nanocomposite has the potential to serve as an excellent theranostic agent that collectively integrates multiple functions for efficient MRI guided cancer diagnosis and treatment

Interactivity-Constrained Server Provisioning in Large-Scale Distributed Virtual Environments

Maintaining interactivity is one of the key challenges in distributed virtual environments (DVEs). In this paper, we consider a new problem, termed the interactivity-constrained server provisioning problem, whose goal is to minimize the number of distributed servers needed to achieve a prespecified level of interactivity. We identify and formulate two variants of this new problem and show that they are both NP-hard via reductions to the set covering problem. We then propose several computationally efficient approximation algorithms for solving the problem. The main algorithms exploit dependencies among distributed servers to make provisioning decisions. We conduct extensive experiments to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms. Specifically, we use both static Internet latency data available from prior measurements and topology generators, as well as the most recent, dynamic latency data collected via our own large-scale deployment of a DVE performance monitoring system over PlanetLab. The results show that the newly proposed algorithms that take into account interserver dependencies significantly outperform the well-established set covering algorithm for both problem variants

Feed types driven differentiation of microbial community and functionality in marine integrated multitrophic aquaculture system

Integrated multi trophic aquaculture (IMTA) improves the production of aquatic animals by promoting nutrient utilization through different tropical levels. Microorganisms play an important role in elements cycling, energy flow and farmed-species health. The aim of this study was to evaluate how feed types, fresh frozen fish diet (FFD) or formulated diet (FD), influence the microbial community diversity and functionality in both water and sediment in a marine IMTA system. Preferable water quality, higher animal yields and higher cost efficiency were achieved in the FD pond. Feed types changed the pond bacterial community distribution, especially in the rearing water. The FFD pond was dominated with Cyanobacteria in the water, which played an important role in nitrogen fixation through photosynthesis due to the high nitrogen input of the frozen fish diet. The high carbohydrate composition in the formulated diet triggered higher metabolic pathways related to carbon and lipid metabolism in the water of the FD pond. Sediment had significantly higher microbial diversity than the rearing water. In sediment, the dominating genus, Sulfurovum and Desulfobulbus, were found to be positively correlated by network analysis, which had similar functionality in sulfur transformation. The relatively higher rates of antibiotic biosynthesis in the FFD sediment might be related to the pathogenic bacteria introduced by the trash fish diet. The difference in microbial community composition and metabolic pathways may be associated with the different pathways for nutrient cycling and animal growth performance. The formulated diet was determined to be more ecologically and economically sustainable than the frozen fish diet for marine IMTA pond systems.</p

A virtualization-based approach for zone migration in distributed virtual environments

Best paper award.</p