I feel my body moving and I hear the word : Using gesture-like movement to enhance productive word recall

Have you ever been in a situation where you just can\u27t quite think of the word you want to say? You know the word. Perhaps you\u27ve used the word many times before. But for some reason, on this occasion you just can\u27t recall and produce the precise word you want. It\u27s in your mind, you know it\u27s there, but it just won\u27t come out. This is a linguistic event which has been quite widely researched and is known as the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Add to the mix the fact that you are learning a second language (L2) and need to navigate complex lexical networks to locate not only the item conveying precise meaning, but the one in your less efficient L2 lexical network. Then, imagine someone looking at you, waiting; waiting for you to say it (intelligibly), hanging on your every syllable. Sound frustrating? Well, you are not alone. Many L2 learners have voiced this exact frustration, but what can be done in the ESL classroom (and beyond) to facilitate the use of words in speech

Proposing a Haptic Approach to Facilitating L2 Learners\u27 Pragmatic Competence

Pragmatic competence plays a critical role in successful communication. Pragmatics in the second language classroom has received substantial interest in TESOL, yet teachers often find the teaching of pragmatics challenging. Instruction generally tends to focus on grammar and vocabulary development, even though pragmatics is closely linked to the sound system (i.e., phonology) of the language. An effective method should combine attention to both pragmatic and phonological competence. We propose an integrated approach, drawing on haptic (movement and touch) pronunciation teaching techniques (Acton, Baker, Burri & Teaman, 2013) to facilitate study and uptake of pragmatics in the classroom. In part by mapping intonation and rhythm onto select prefabricated, high value language chunks - adding systematic gestures, movement, and touch - students\u27 ability to respond more appropriately in social context should be significantly enhanced. The process described is accessible to most experienced practitioners. The paper concludes with recommended applications in various educational settings

Fexinidazole for human African trypanosomiasis, the fruit of a successful public-private partnership

After 100 years of chemotherapy with impractical and toxic drugs, an oral cure for human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) is available: Fexinidazole. In this case, we review the history of drug discovery for HAT with special emphasis on the discovery, pre-clinical development, and operational challenges of the clinical trials of fexinidazole. The screening of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) HAT-library by the Swiss TPH had singled out fexinidazole, originally developed by Hoechst (now Sanofi), as the most promising of a series of over 800 nitroimidazoles and related molecules. In cell culture, fexinidazole has an IC50 of around 1 microM against Trypanosoma brucei and is more than 100-fold less toxic to mammalian cells. In the mouse model, fexinidazole cures both the first, haemolymphatic, and the second, meningoencephalitic stage of the infection, the latter at 100 mg/kg twice daily for 5 days. In patients, the clinical trials managed by DNDi and supported by Swiss TPH mainly conducted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo demonstrated that oral fexinidazole is safe and effective for use against first- and early second-stage sleeping sickness. Based on the positive opinion issued by the European Medicines Agency in 2018, the WHO has released new interim guidelines for the treatment of HAT including fexinidazole as the new therapy for first-stage and non-severe second-stage sleeping sickness caused by Trypanosoma brucei gambiense (gHAT). This greatly facilitates the diagnosis and treatment algorithm for gHAT, increasing the attainable coverage and paving the way towards the envisaged goal of zero transmission by 2030

Eumelanin-based coloration and fitness parameters in birds: a meta-analysis

Although melanin is the most common pigment in animal integuments, the adaptive function of variation in melanin-based coloration remains poorly understood. The individual fitness returns associated with melanin pigments can be variable across species as these pigments can have physical and biological protective properties and genes involved in melanogenesis may vary in the intensity of pleiotropic effects. Moreover, dark and pale coloration can also enhance camouflage in alternative habitats and melanin-based coloration can be involved in social interactions. We investigated whether darker or paler individuals achieve a higher fitness in birds, a taxon wherein associations between melanin-based coloration and fitness parameters have been studied in a large number of species. A meta-analysis showed that the degree of melanin-based coloration was not significantly associated with laying date, clutch size, brood size, and survival across 26 species. Similar results were found when restricting the analyses to non-sexually dimorphic birds, colour polymorphic and monomorphic species, in passerines and non-passerines and in species for which inter-individual variation in melanism is due to colour intensity. However, eumelanic coloration was positively associated with clutch and brood size in sexually dimorphic species and those that vary in the size of black patches, respectively. Given that greater extent of melanin-based coloration was positively associated with reproductive parameters and survival in some species but negatively in other species, we conclude that in birds the sign and magnitude of selection exerted on melanin-based coloration is species- or trait-specific

Isolation and characterization of 21 microsatellite markers in the barn owl (Tyto alba).

We report 21 new polymorphic microsatellite markers in the European barn owl (Tyto alba). The polymorphism of the reported markers was evaluated in a population situated in western Switzerland and in another from Tenerife, Canary Islands. The number of alleles per locus varies between two and 31, and expected heterozygosity per population ranges from 0.16 to 0.95. All loci are in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and no linkage disequilibrium was detected. Two loci exhibit a null allele in the Tenerife population

Effects of dietary supplementation with krill meal on serum pro-inflammatory markers after the iditarod sled dog race

A seafood-based supplement from krill, rich in omega-3 phospholipids and proteins was tested on a group of dogs competing in the 2016 Iditarod dog sled race to investigate the effects of krill meal on exercise-induced inflammation and muscle damage in comparison to a control group. A single team of 16 dogs received 8% krill meal for 5 weeks prior to the start of race, while another team of 16 dogs received no supplementation. Ten dogs of the treatment and 11 dogs of the control group finished the race and their blood was analyzed for omega-3 index, inflammation (CRP) and muscle damage (CK). The omega-3 index of the krill meal-fed dogs was significantly higher at the beginning of the race (mean 6.2% in the supplemented vs 5.2% in the control group, p < .001). CRP concentrations increased from 7.05 ± 2.27 to 37.04 ± 9.16 μg/ml in the control and from 4.26 ± 0.69 to 16.56 ± 3.03 μg/ml in the treatment group, with a significant difference between the groups (p < .001). CK activity was increased from 90.75 ± 8.15 IU/l to 715.90 ± 218.9 IU/l in the control group and from 99.55 ± 12.15 to 515.69 ± 98.98 in the supplemented group, but there were no differences between groups (p = .266). The results showed that krill meal supplementation led to significantly higher omega-3 index, which correlated with lower inflammation and a tendency for reduced muscle damage after this long-distance sled dog competition. However, these results need to be confirmed by more controlled studies, since it was a field study and effects of race speed or other performance-related factors such as fitness and musher skill on the results cannot be excluded

Challenges and insights in the exploration of the low abundance human ocular surface microbiome.

PURPOSE The low microbial abundance on the ocular surface results in challenges in the characterization of its microbiome. The purpose of this study was to reveal factors introducing bias in the pipeline from sample collection to data analysis of low-abundant microbiomes. METHODS Lower conjunctiva and lower lid swabs were collected from six participants using either standard cotton or flocked nylon swabs. Microbial DNA was isolated with two different kits (with or without prior host DNA depletion and mechanical lysis), followed by whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing with a high sequencing depth set at 60 million reads per sample. The relative microbial compositions were generated using the two different tools MetaPhlan3 and Kraken2. RESULTS The total amount of extracted DNA was increased by using nylon flocked swabs on the lower conjunctiva. In total, 269 microbial species were detected. The most abundant bacterial phyla were Actinobacteria, Firmicutes and Proteobacteria. Depending on the DNA extraction kit and tool used for profiling, the microbial composition and the relative abundance of viruses varied. CONCLUSION The microbial composition on the ocular surface is not dependent on the swab type, but on the DNA extraction method and profiling tool. These factors have to be considered in further studies about the ocular surface microbiome and other sparsely colonized microbiomes in order to improve data reproducibility. Understanding challenges and biases in the characterization of the ocular surface microbiome may set the basis for microbiome-altering interventions for treatment of ocular surface associated diseases

Self-Calibration of Cameras with Euclidean Image Plane in Case of Two Views and Known Relative Rotation Angle

The internal calibration of a pinhole camera is given by five parameters that are combined into an upper-triangular $3\times 3$ calibration matrix. If the skew parameter is zero and the aspect ratio is equal to one, then the camera is said to have Euclidean image plane. In this paper, we propose a non-iterative self-calibration algorithm for a camera with Euclidean image plane in case the remaining three internal parameters --- the focal length and the principal point coordinates --- are fixed but unknown. The algorithm requires a set of $N \geq 7$ point correspondences in two views and also the measured relative rotation angle between the views. We show that the problem generically has six solutions (including complex ones). The algorithm has been implemented and tested both on synthetic data and on publicly available real dataset. The experiments demonstrate that the method is correct, numerically stable and robust.Comment: 13 pages, 7 eps-figure