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This article presents the results of two experiments conducted to examine how ellipsis sites are processed during the processing of backward sluicing, which is superficially similar to non-sluicing wh-filler-gap dependencies. Previous studies on long-distance wh-filler-gap dependencies established that the processing of these dependencies is sensitive to the syntactic structure of materials within the dependency: CP vs NP (Gibson & Warren, 2004; Keine, 2020). Results from two maze experiments show that backward sluicing processing is sensitive to the same structural factors, confirming that the same processing mechanism underlies both constructions. We suggest that an active search mechanism is operating at the core for these structures and with the interaction of the ellipsis-specific mechanism, e.g., a word-by-word copying mechanism (Murphy 1985), the parser builds antecedent structure within the ellipsis site incrementally during the processing of backward sluicing.
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We present experimental evidence showing that different wh-filler-gap dependencies are processed differently, depending on their syntactic licensors. Our studies compared the active storage profiles for why, how, and who (serving as subject or object of the verb). The results of offline and online experiments revealed that these wh-fillers are stored in memory for different durations, and predictably so based on the hypothesised structural distance between each wh-filler and the licensor which determines its grammatical and interpretive functions. Furthermore, the results showed that once the wh-filler is licenced, it is integrated to the current structure, and no longer engenders additional memory costs. Based on these findings, we argue that the mechanism of online sentence processing may employ both storage and integration components in memory.
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Introduction: Many words are categorially ambiguous and can be used as a verb (to paint) or as a noun (the paint) due to the presence of unpronounced morphology or "zero morphology". On this account, the verb "paint" is derived from the noun "paint" through the addition of a silent category-changing morpheme. Past studies have uncovered the syntactic and semantic properties of these categorially ambiguous words, but no research has been conducted on how people process them during normal or impaired lexical processing. Are these two different uses of "paint" processed in the same way? Does this morphosyntactic structure have an effect on online sentence processing? Methods: This study presents two experiments that investigate the effect of morphosyntactic complexity in categorially ambiguous words presented in isolation (experiment 1) and in a sentential context (experiment 2). The first experiment tested the ability to process categorially unambiguous and ambiguous nouns and verbs in 30 healthy older adults and 12 individuals with aphasia, using a forced choice phrasal-completion task, in which individuals choose whether the or to is most compatible with target words. Results: Healthy controls and individuals with fluent aphasia all showed: (1) a bias toward the base category in selection rates for the and to, where the was selected more frequently for words identified to be base nouns, and to was selected more frequently for base verbs, and (2) longer reaction times for ambiguous (over unambiguous) words. However, individuals with non-fluent agrammatic aphasia showed a base-category effect only for nouns, with chance performance for verbs. The second experiment, using an eye-tracking while reading paradigm with 56 young healthy adults, showed a reading time slowdown for derived forms (to paint) compared to their base-category counterparts (the paint) in sentence contexts. Discussion: These findings suggest that categorially ambiguous words likely share a common root, and are related by zero-derivation, and that impaired access to the base-category (i.e., verbs like to visit) precludes associated morphological processes and therefore the retrieval of the derived-category (i.e., nouns like the visit) in non-fluent agrammatic aphasia. This study provides insights into the theory of zero morphology, and the principles that need to be accounted for in models of the lexicon.
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BACKGROUND: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is reported to produce anti-HLA antibodies. We report a case of chronic active antibody-mediated rejection caused by pre-existing donor-specific antibody (DSA) in a patient with SLE without a history of sensitization. CASE REPORT: The case was a 29-year-old man with end-stage renal disease due to lupus nephritis. Cross-match with the mother was negative, but low titer anti-DQ DSA was detected, although he had no prior history of sensitization. After desensitization with rituximab and mycophenolate mofetil, a living donor kidney transplant was undergone, and his early postoperative period was uneventful. However, his renal function started to decline at 2 years post-transplant. Although there was no rejection on the biopsy at 2.5 years post-transplant, his renal function continued to decline after that. At 7 years, he had failed his graft due to chronic active antibody-mediated rejection. Retrospective analysis of human leukocyte antigen antibody tests revealed that anti-DQ DSA had disappeared at 1 year post-transplant, but high titer DSA was detected again with complement-binding capacity at 2 years and after that. CONCLUSION: Careful monitoring might be warranted in an SLE patient with pre-existing DSA, even though the titer was low and without any prior histories of sensitization events.
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Anticuerpos , Lupus Eritematoso Sistémico , Masculino , Humanos , Adulto , Estudios Retrospectivos , Donantes de Tejidos , Rituximab , Antígenos HLA , Lupus Eritematoso Sistémico/complicaciones , Lupus Eritematoso Sistémico/diagnóstico , Rechazo de Injerto , IsoanticuerposRESUMEN
In this report, we describe the self-assembly behavior of neutral platinum complexes in toluene. The platinum complexes were seen to form two different types of assemblies depending on the preparation temperature.
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Illusions of grammaticality have often been used to probe the properties of the human sentence processor in syntactic activities like subject-verb agreement, reflexive binding, and negative polarity item (NPI) licensing. Originally, NPI licensing in processing was thought to be a product of cue-based retrieval. Mounting evidence that the NPI illusion is far from universal suggests that a revised account is necessary. We examine the distribution of the NPI illusion using a single methodology and evaluate its compatibility with existing theories. We find that most licensors fail to show illusion behavior but the negative quantifier no and the quantificational phrase not a single trigger illusion in high and low relative clause positions. This evidence indicates that distribution of NPI illusion is not predicted by existing processing accounts. Future explanations must engage the unique properties of negative quantifiers to account for the distribution of the NPI illusion phenomenon. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
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Ilusiones , Lenguaje , HumanosRESUMEN
Neutral platinum complexes that possess chiral triethylene glycol (TEG) moieties were synthesized. The platinum complexes formed helically twisted stacked assemblies in chloroform and toluene, which were studied by 1H NMR, UV/vis spectroscopy, and emission spectroscopy. On the other hand, emissive micellar aggregates were observed in a THF/water mixed solvent. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) experiments revealed that micellar aggregates with a diameter (d) of ≈100 nm emitted strong light, whereas the monomeric form and large aggregates (d > 500 nm) did not show luminescence efficiently. Furthermore, the micellar aggregates were twisted chirally, where the twisted direction was determined by the chirality of the TEG moieties. The assemblies were observed to be solvent responsive, which allows for the modulation of the nanostructure by changing the solvent polarity.
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This study aims to test two hypotheses about the online processing of Gapping: whether the parser inserts an ellipsis site in an incremental fashion in certain coordinated structures (the Incremental Ellipsis Hypothesis), or whether ellipsis is a late and dispreferred option (the Ellipsis as a Last Resort Hypothesis). We employ two offline acceptability rating experiments and a sentence fragment completion experiment to investigate to what extent the distribution of Gapping is controlled by grammatical and extra-grammatical constraints. Furthermore, an eye-tracking while reading experiment demonstrated that the parser inserts an ellipsis site incrementally but only when grammatical and extra-grammatical constraints allow for the insertion of the ellipsis site. This study shows that incremental building of the Gapping structure follows from the parser's general preference to keep the structure of the two conjuncts maximally parallel in a coordination structure as well as from grammatical restrictions on the distribution of Gapping such as the Coordination Constraint.
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Reconocimiento Visual de Modelos/fisiología , Psicolingüística , Lectura , Adulto , Tecnología de Seguimiento Ocular , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
Prior studies on online sentence processing have shown that the parser can resolve non-local dependencies rapidly and accurately. This study investigates the interaction between the processing of two such non-local dependencies: wh-filler-gap dependencies (WhFGD) and reflexive-antecedent dependencies. We show that reflexive-antecedent dependency resolution is sensitive to the presence of a WhFGD, and argue that the filler-gap dependency established by WhFGD resolution is selected online as the antecedent of a reflexive dependency. We investigate the processing of constructions like (1), where two NPs might be possible antecedents for the reflexive, namely which cowgirl and Mary. Even though Mary is linearly closer to the reflexive, the only grammatically licit antecedent for the reflexive is the more distant wh-NP, which cowgirl. (1). Which cowgirl did Mary expect to have injured herself due to negligence? Four eye-tracking text-reading experiments were conducted on examples like (1), differing in whether the embedded clause was non-finite (1 and 3) or finite (2 and 4), and in whether the tail of the wh-dependency intervened between the reflexive and its closest overt antecedent (1 and 2) or the wh-dependency was associated with a position earlier in the sentence (3 and 4). The results of Experiments 1 and 2 indicate the parser accesses the result of WhFGD formation during reflexive antecedent search. The resolution of a wh-dependency alters the representation that reflexive antecedent search operates over, allowing the grammatical but linearly distant antecedent to be accessed rapidly. In the absence of a long-distance WhFGD (Experiments 3 and 4), wh-NPs were not found to impact reading times of the reflexive, indicating that the parser's ability to select distant wh-NPs as reflexive antecedents crucially involves syntactic structure.
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PURPOSE: Grammatical encoding (GE) is impaired in agrammatic aphasia; however, the nature of such deficits remains unclear. We examined grammatical planning units during real-time sentence production in speakers with agrammatic aphasia and control speakers, testing two competing models of GE. We queried whether speakers with agrammatic aphasia produce sentences word by word without advanced planning or whether hierarchical syntactic structure (i.e., verb argument structure; VAS) is encoded as part of the advanced planning unit. METHOD: Experiment 1 examined production of sentences with a predefined structure (i.e., "The A and the B are above the C") using eye tracking. Experiment 2 tested production of transitive and unaccusative sentences without a predefined sentence structure in a verb-priming study. RESULTS: In Experiment 1, both speakers with agrammatic aphasia and young and age-matched control speakers used word-by-word strategies, selecting the first lemma (noun A) only prior to speech onset. However, in Experiment 2, unlike controls, speakers with agrammatic aphasia preplanned transitive and unaccusative sentences, encoding VAS before speech onset. CONCLUSIONS: Speakers with agrammatic aphasia show incremental, word-by-word production for structurally simple sentences, requiring retrieval of multiple noun lemmas. However, when sentences involve functional (thematic to grammatical) structure building, advanced planning strategies (i.e., VAS encoding) are used. This early use of hierarchical syntactic information may provide a scaffold for impaired GE in agrammatism.
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Afasia de Broca/psicología , Lingüística , Procesos Mentales , Habla , Envejecimiento/psicología , Afasia de Broca/etiología , Medidas del Movimiento Ocular , Femenino , Fijación Ocular , Humanos , Pruebas del Lenguaje , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Estimulación Luminosa , Pruebas Psicológicas , Lectura , Accidente Cerebrovascular/complicaciones , Accidente Cerebrovascular/psicología , Factores de Tiempo , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
Individuals with agrammatic aphasia exhibit restricted patterns of impairment of functional morphemes, however, syntactic characterization of the impairment is controversial. Previous studies have focused on functional morphology in clauses only. This study extends the empirical domain by testing functional morphemes in English nominal phrases in aphasia and comparing patients' impairment to their impairment of functional morphemes in English clauses. In the linguistics literature, it is assumed that clauses and nominal phrases are structurally parallel but exhibit inflectional differences. The results of the present study indicated that aphasic speakers evinced similar impairment patterns in clauses and nominal phrases. These findings are consistent with the Distributed Morphology Hypothesis (DMH), suggesting that the source of functional morphology deficits among agrammatics relates to difficulty implementing rules that convert inflectional features into morphemes. Our findings, however, are inconsistent with the Tree Pruning Hypothesis (TPH), which suggests that patients have difficulty building complex hierarchical structures.
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Thermococcus kodakarensis possesses two chaperonins, CpkA and CpkB, and their expression is induced by the downshift and upshift, respectively, of the cell cultivation temperature. The expression levels of the chaperonins were examined by using specific antibodies at various cell growth temperatures in the logarithmic and stationary phases. At 60 degrees C, CpkA was highly expressed in both the logarithmic and stationary phases; however, CpkB was not expressed in either phase. At 85 degrees C, CpkA and CpkB were expressed in both phases; however, the CpkA level was decreased in the stationary phase. At 93 degrees C, CpkA was expressed only in the logarithmic phase and not in the stationary phase. In contrast, CpkB was highly expressed in both phases. The results of reverse transcription-PCR experiments showed the same growth phase- and temperature-dependent profiles as observed in immunoblot analyses, indicating that the expression of cpkA and cpkB is regulated at the mRNA level. The cpkA or cpkB gene disruptant was then constructed, and its growth profile was monitored. The cpkA disruptant showed poor cell growth at 60 degrees C but no significant defects at 85 degrees C and 93 degrees C. On the other hand, cpkB disruption led to growth defects at 93 degrees C but no significant defects at 60 degrees C and 85 degrees C. These data indicate that CpkA and CpkB are necessary for cell growth at lower and higher temperatures, respectively. The logarithmic-phase-dependent expression of CpkA at 93 degrees C suggested that CpkA participates in initial cell growth in addition to lower-temperature adaptation. Promoter mapping and quantitative analyses using the Phr (Pyrococcus heat-shock regulator) gene disruptant revealed that temperature-dependent expression was achieved in a Phr-independent manner.
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Proteínas Arqueales/biosíntesis , Chaperoninas/biosíntesis , Perfilación de la Expresión Génica , Chaperonas Moleculares/biosíntesis , Thermococcus/fisiología , Proteínas Arqueales/genética , Secuencia de Bases , Chaperoninas/genética , Eliminación de Gen , Immunoblotting , Chaperonas Moleculares/genética , Datos de Secuencia Molecular , ARN de Archaea/biosíntesis , Reacción en Cadena de la Polimerasa de Transcriptasa Inversa , Alineación de Secuencia , Thermococcus/crecimiento & desarrolloRESUMEN
The hyperthermophilic archaeon Thermococcus kodakaraensis possesses four prefoldin genes encoding two alpha subunits (pfdA and pfdC) and two beta subunits (pfdB and pfdD) of prefoldins on the genome. pfdC and pfdD are unique genes whose orthologues are not found in Pyrococcus spp., whereas pfdA and pfdB are commonly found in both Thermococcus and Pyrococcus spp. The pfdA and pfdB are located at different loci, and pfdC and pfdD were tandemly arranged on the genome. Immunoprecipitation experiments using specific antisera, anti-PfdB and anti-PfdD, revealed that PfdB and PfdD make a complex only with PfdA and PfdC, respectively. Both PfdA/PfdB and PfdC/PfdD complexes obtained as recombinant forms showed inhibitory activity against the thermal aggregation of citrate synthase. Immunoblot experiments indicated that the PfdA/PfdB complex was expressed at all examined temperatures; however, the PfdC/PfdD complex was specifically expressed under heat-stress conditions at 93 degrees C. Transcriptional analyses showed that pfdA and pfdB were transcribed at equal levels at all examined temperatures but pfdC and pfdD were transcribed at higher levels at 93 degrees C. Furthermore, pfdA and pfdB were transcribed individually, but pfdD was cotranscribed with pfdC. A typical Pyrococcus heat-shock regulator (Phr) recognition sequence was identified at the upstream region of pfdC. The transcriptional level of pfdCD was measured in a phr disruptant, showing that the pfdCD transcript in the phr disruptant was drastically increased in comparison with that of the wild type. However, the pfdCD level was also elevated at higher temperature, indicating that heat induction of PfdC/PfdD is mainly achieved by Phr derepression but that a certain degree of induction is not under Phr control. The pfdB and pfdD disruptants were then constructed, and the growth profiles were compared. At 85 degrees C cultivation, no significant difference was observed between the wild type and the pfdD disruptant; however, less growth was observed in the pfdB disruptant. At 93 degrees C, the pfdD disruptant grew less than the wild type, and the pfdB disruptant grew the least. The results suggest that the PfdA/PfdB complex plays a crucial role at all growth temperatures and the PfdC/PfdD complex contributes to survival in a high-temperature environment.
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Proteínas Arqueales/metabolismo , Chaperonas Moleculares/metabolismo , Subunidades de Proteína/metabolismo , Thermococcus/química , Thermococcus/genética , Secuencia de Aminoácidos , Proteínas Arqueales/química , Proteínas Arqueales/clasificación , Proteínas Arqueales/genética , Secuencia de Bases , Regulación de la Expresión Génica Arqueal , Genes Arqueales , Chaperonas Moleculares/química , Chaperonas Moleculares/clasificación , Chaperonas Moleculares/genética , Datos de Secuencia Molecular , Filogenia , Regiones Promotoras Genéticas , Subunidades de Proteína/química , Subunidades de Proteína/genética , Proteínas Recombinantes/química , Proteínas Recombinantes/genética , Proteínas Recombinantes/metabolismo , Alineación de Secuencia , Homología de Secuencia de Aminoácido , Temperatura , Thermococcus/clasificación , Thermococcus/metabolismo , Transcripción GenéticaRESUMEN
The endothelium is a major source of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), which plays a critical role in the regulation of fibrinolysis. There are many reports on the increase in the expression of PAI-1 by angiotensin II (Ang II). In the present study, we investigated the effects of angiotensin-related substances on the release of PAI-1 from human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). Ang II increased PAI-1 and tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) release, while its metabolite angiotensin-(1-7) (Ang-(1-7)) amino acid fragment decreased them. Angiotensin Type 1 (AT1) receptor antagonist, L-158,809 (L-1), and Ang-(1-7) receptor antagonist, (D-Ala(7))-angiotensin I/II (1-7) (D-Ala), decreased PAI-1 and t-PA release; angiotensin Type 2 (AT2) antagonist, PD123,319 (PD), however, did not have any effects on the release of PAI-1 and t-PA. The addition of the equal concentration or 10-times-higher concentration of L-1 to Ang II did not change PAI-1 release compared to that by Ang II. Although Ang-(1-7) and L-1 decreased PAI-1 release, there were no additional effects on the decrease of the amounts of PAI-1 by the mixture of Ang-(1-7) and the equal concentration or 10-times-higher concentration of L-1 compared to those by Ang-(1-7). The equal concentration of D-Ala to Ang II did not change the amounts of PAI-1, but the addition of the 10-times-higher concentration of D-Ala to Ang II resulted in significant decrease of the amounts of PAI-1 compared to those by Ang II. The addition of equal concentration or 10-times-higher concentration of D-Ala to Ang-(1-7) showed the significant decrease of the amounts of PAI-1 compared to those by Ang-(1-7). In conclusion, L-158,809 and (D-Ala(7))-angiotensin I/III (1-7) may be used as profibrinolytic drugs.