Search results for "rase"

Influence of fetal glutathione S-transferase copy number variants on adverse reproductive outcomes

2012

A nested case-control association study was designed to investigate the influence of maternal and fetal copy number variants (CNVs) on reproductive outcomes. Genotypes of ten CNVs encompassing GST and CYP genes were assessed. Significant associations were only found for child CNV genotypes. In particular, the child GSTM1 insertion allele was associated with prematurity protection (odds ratio, 95% CI: 0.67, 0.51-0.89; P < 0.01), whereas the child GSTT2B insertion allele was associated with an increased risk of being small for gestational age (odds ratio, 95% CI: 1.33, 1.07-1.67; P = 0.01). The study highlights the role of the fetal genome in prenatal development and also the need to analyse …

Flipping of alkylated DNA damage bridges base and nucleotide excision repair

2009

Alkyltransferase-like proteins (ATLs) share functional motifs with the cancer chemotherapy target O6-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase (AGT) and paradoxically protect cells from the biological effects of DNA alkylation damage, despite lacking the reactive cysteine and alkyltransferase activity of AGT. Here we determine Schizosaccharomyces pombe ATL structures without and with damaged DNA containing the endogenous lesion O6-methylguanine or cigarette-smoke-derived O6-4-(3-pyridyl)-4-oxobutylguanine. These results reveal non-enzymatic DNA nucleotide flipping plus increased DNA distortion and binding pocket size compared to AGT. Our analysis of lesion-binding site conservation identifies new A…

Flashing light in sponges through their siliceous fiber network: A new strategy of “neuronal transmission” in animals

2012

Sponges (phylum Porifera) represent a successful animal taxon that evolved prior to the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary (542 million years ago). They have developed an almost complete array of cell- and tissue-based interaction systems necessary for the establishment of a functional, multicellular body. However, a network of neurons, one cell/tissue-communication system is missing in sponges. This fact is puzzling and enigmatic, because these animals possess receptors known to be involved in the nervous system in evolutionary younger animal phyla. As an example, the metabotropic glutamate/GABA-like receptor has been identified and cloned by us. Recently, we have identified a novel light transmi…

2020

ObjectiveThe HBV HBx regulatory protein is required for transcription from the covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) minichromosome and affects the epigenetic control of both viral and host cellular chromatin.DesignWe explored, in relevant cellular models of HBV replication, the functional consequences of HBx interaction with DLEU2, a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) expressed in the liver and increased in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), in the regulation of host target genes and the HBV cccDNA.ResultsWe show that HBx binds the promoter region, enhances the transcription and induces the accumulation of DLEU2 in infected hepatocytes. We found that nuclear DLEU2 directly binds HBx and the…

Continuous and discontinuous nominal expressions in flexible (or “free”) word order languages: Patterns and correlates

2020

AbstractThis study explores continuous and discontinuous word order patterns of multi-word nominal expressions in flexible word order languages (traditionally referred to as “free word order” or “non-configurational” languages). Besides describing syntagmatic patterns, this paper seeks to identify any functional or other correlates that can be associated with different word orders. The languages under investigation are a number of Australian languages as well as Vedic Sanskrit, all of which have long been known for their syntagmatic flexibility. With respect to continuous order, evidence from several of these languages suggests that default ordering is primarily governed by functional templ…

Neither a toda virolla nor tumbados a la bartola. A corpus analysis of phraseologically bound spanish words

2021

[EN] This article presents results on the Spanish phraseologically bound words (PLF), also known as cranberry words, based on a corpus analysis. If up to now the different Spanish PLF had been collected introspectively, this article presents a list of the Spanish PLF indicating the phraseological fixation index (IFF) of each one of them in the phraseological unit (UF) that contains them and ordered by the weighted phraseological fixation index (IFFP). To do this, it has been necessary to obtain from the corpus the total number of occurrences of the PLF (NPLF) and to analyse the fixation of these elements both inside the UF or the UFS that contain them (FFPLF) and outside the UF, in their fr…

“Holding Grudges Is So Last Century”: The Use of GenX So as a Modifier of Noun Phrases

2020

This article focuses on the X is so NP-construction in American English, as exemplified by “Holding grudges is so last century” (SOAP, As the World Turns, 2002). Drawing on the Corpus of American Soap Operas (Davies 2011-), the aim of this study is to provide an account of the distributional pattern of noun phrase modification with so, including preferences in modified noun phrase (NP) types and concomitant differences in the meaning of so. The analyses reveal that, in line with subjectification theory on intensification (Athanasiadou 2007), so is expanding its functional range from intensification to emphasis. The findings suggest a near-complementary distribution of these meanings, with …

Comparing formulaicity of learner writing through phrase-frames: a corpus-driven study of Lithuanian and Polish EFL student writing

2018

Learner corpus research continues to provide evidence of how formulaic language is (mis)used by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). This paper deals with less investigated multi-word units in EFL contexts, namely, phrase-frames (Fletcher 2002–2007), i.e. sets of n-grams identical except for one word (it is * to, in the * of). The study compares Lithuanian and Polish learner writing in English in terms of phrase-frames and contrasts them with native speakers. The analysis shows that certain differences between Lithuanian and Polish learners result from transfer from their native languages, yet both groups of learners share many common features. Most importantly, the phrase-frame…

Never saw one – first-person null subjects in spoken English1

2016

While null subjects are a well-researched phenomenon in pro-drop languages like Italian or Spanish, they have not received much attention in non-pro-drop languages such as English, where they are traditionally associated with particular (written) genres such as diaries or are discussed under a broader umbrella term such as situational ellipsis. However, examples such as the one in the title – while certainly not frequent – are commonly encountered in colloquial speech, with first-person singular tokens outnumbering any other person.This article investigates the linguistic and non-linguistic factors influencing the (non-) realisation of first-person singular subjects in a corpus of colloquia…

Combining Machine Translated Sentence Chunks from Multiple MT Systems

2018

This paper presents a hybrid machine translation (HMT) system that pursues syntactic analysis to acquire phrases of source sentences, translates the phrases using multiple online machine translation (MT) system application program interfaces (APIs) and generates output by combining translated chunks to obtain the best possible translation. The aim of this study is to improve translation quality of English – Latvian texts over each of the individual MT APIs. The selection of the best translation hypothesis is done by calculating the perplexity for each hypothesis using an n-gram language model. The result is a phrase-based multi-system machine translation system that allows to improve MT out…