Search results for "SECO"

Attosecond Soft-X-Ray Spectroscopy in a Transition Metal Dichalcogenide

2019

Information about the real-time response of carriers to optical fields is paramount to advance information processing or to understand the bottlenecks of light-matter interaction and energy harvesting. Transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) compounds are an emerging class of materials with attractive structural and electronic properties that can be thinned to the 2D limit and TiS 2 is a paradigmatic example for a semi-metallic TMDC, since its electron mobility ranges between that of a metal and a semiconductor.

2019

Mammalian fetuin-A and fetuin-B are abundant serum proteins with pleiotropic functions. Fetuin-B is a highly selective and potent inhibitor of metallopeptidases (MPs) of the astacin family, which includes ovastacin in mammals. By inhibiting ovastacin, fetuin-B is essential for female fertility. The crystal structure of fetuin-B was determined unbound and in complex with archetypal astacin, and it was found that the inhibitor has tandem cystatin-type modules (CY1 and CY2). They are connected by an exposed linker with a rigid, disulfide-linked `CPDCP-trunk', and are followed by a C-terminal region (CTR) with little regular secondary structure. The CPDCP-trunk and a hairpin of CY2 form a bipar…

Quantification of propagating and standing surface acoustic waves by stroboscopic X-ray photoemission electron microscopy.

2018

The quantification of surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in LiNbO3 piezoelectric crystals by stroboscopic X-ray photoemission electron microscopy (XPEEM), with a temporal smearing below 80 ps and a spatial resolution below 100 nm, is reported. The contrast mechanism is the varying piezoelectric surface potential associated with the SAW phase. Thus, kinetic energy spectra of photoemitted secondary electrons measure directly the SAW electrical amplitude and allow for the quantification of the associated strain. The stroboscopic imaging combined with a deliberate detuning allows resolving and quantifying the respective standing and propagating components of SAWs from a superposition of waves. Furth…

Detecting Protein Aggregation on Cells Surface: Concanavalin A Oligomers Formation

2009

A number of neurodegenerative diseases involve protein aggregation and amyloid formation. Recently evidence has emerged indicating small-transient prefibrillar oligomers as the primary pathogenic agents. Noteworthy, strict analogies exist between the behaviour of cells in culture treated with misfolded non-pathogenic proteins and in pathologic conditions, this instance together with the observation that the oligomers and fibrils are characterised by common structural features suggest that common mechanisms for cytotoxicity could exists and have to be perused in common interactions involved in aggregation.We here report an experimental study on ConcanavalinA (ConA) aggregation and its effect…

Robust and sensitive GFP-based cGMP sensor for real time imaging in intact Caenorhabditis elegans

2018

AbstractcGMP is a ubiquitous second messenger that plays a role in sensory signaling and plasticity through its regulation of ion channels and kinases. Previous studies that primarily used genetic and biochemical tools suggest that cGMP is spatiotemporally regulated in multiple sensory modalities, including light, heat, gases, salt and odor. FRET- and GFP-based cGMP sensors were developed to visualize cGMP in primary cell culture and Caenorhabditis elegans to corroborate these findings. While a FRET-based sensor has been used in an intact animal to visualize cGMP, the requirement of a multiple emission system limits its ability to be used on its own as well as with other sensors and fluores…

Effect of self-determined motivation in physical education on objectively measured habitual physical activity

2019

Grounded in the trans-contextual model, the purpose of the present study was to examine the role of self-determined motivation in Physical Education (PE) on self-determined motivation in Physical Activity (PA), PA intention, and accelerometer-measured habitual PA behavior among high-school aged adolescents. A sample of 394 Spanish high-school students (211 males and 183 females; aged 12-16 years) participated in the present study. The outcome measure of PA was established using accelerometry, whereas motivation toward PA and PE as well as PA intention were measured using validated questionnaires. Path analyses supported in part the central propositions of the trans-contextual model. Self-de…

Incivility in online news and Twitter: effects on attitudes toward scientific topics when reading in a second language

2021

Due to the participatory nature of Web 2.0, polite communication on social media and news sites can stand side by side with uncivil comments. Research on online incivility has been conducted with users reading in their mother tongues (L1), while the potential effects of incivility in a second language (L2) have been largely under- explored. This paper analyzes the effects of uncivil comments written in an L2 on attitudes around emerging technologies. Accordingly, study 1 replicates and extends a previous experiment on the effects of incivility to online news on risk perceptions of nanotechnology (Anderson et al., 2014), by adding an ‘L2 condition’ (uncivil comments written in an L2). Then, …

Awareness of language: literacy and second language learning of Spanish in Mexico

2017

This report presents findings from a follow-up exploratory study of the development of writing ability in an attempt to identify key component skills and competencies for elementary school literacy learners, grades 2nd, 4th and 6th. The first evaluation consisted in scoring first draft narrative texts for coherence, the second, an assessment of effective self-correction strategies. These two measures were compared to the results of a third test, of metalinguistic awareness related to children’s ability to distinguish between the two languages that they know, and those of a fourth measure of orthographic knowledge. Participants were bilingual elementary school students from an indigenous com…

El tratamiento de los phrasal verbs en los manuales de inglés lengua extranjera

2020

In this article we will study how phrasal verbs (PhVs) are dealt with in a representative sample of EFL student’s books of Secondary Education and Baccalaureate. From both a quantitative and qualitative point of view, the following aspects will be analysed: (i) whether PhVs are explicitly included into the index of each manual; (ii) whether there are any specific theoretical sections explaining their syntactic and semantic characteristics (and if so, what they consist of); (iii) whether there are any activities and/or exercises designed to practice and internalize these structures and, if any, to which methodological approach they attend; if any differences in the treatment of the PhVs may …

Typical symptom change patterns and their predictors in patients with social anxiety disorder: A latent class analysis

2020

Abstract Objectives The use of trajectories and analysis of change patterns is a promising way toward better differentiation of subgroups in psychotherapy studies. Research on change patterns in social anxiety disorder (SAD) are still rare, although SAD is one of the most common mental disorders. In a secondary analysis of data from the SOPHO-NET-trial (ISRCTN53517394) this study aimed to investigate change patterns and their predictors in a sample of SAD patients. Methods Patients with SAD (N = 357) were randomly assigned to cognitive-behavioral or psychodynamic therapy. The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) was assessed at 1st session (pre), 8th session, 15th session and at the end of…