Phonological categories are often differentiated by multiple phonetic cues. This paper reports a production and perception study of a laryngeal contrast in Shanghai Wu that is not only cued in multiple dimensions, but also cued differently on different manners (stops, fricatives, sonorants) and in different positions (non-sandhi, sandhi). Acoustic results showed that although this contrast has ...

With rapidly growing global demand for energy resources, oil and gas exploration & production companies face mounting pressure to maximize supply and increase the rate of discovery for new energy sources. Increasingly operating in more remote locations and investing heavily in equipment and facilities, companies face greater financial and operational risks than ever before. Optimization of dril...

Peroxyacetic acid mixture Perosan, composed of peroxyacetic acid, hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid, was evaluated for eco-friendly management of tomato bacterial wilt by Ralstonia pseudosolanacearum. Perosan drastically suppressed in vitro growth of R. pseudosolanacearum in liquid cultures in dose- and incubation time-dependent manners. Higher perosan doses (0.1 and 1%) caused lowered pH and p...

Excessive and prolonged activation of macrophages underlies many inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. To regulate activation and maintain homeostasis, macrophages have multiple intrinsic mechanisms, one of which is modulation through autophagy. Here we demonstrate that autophagy induction by rapamycin suppressed the production of IL-1β and IL-18 in lipopolysaccharide- and adenosine triphosphat...

In this study we first present the preference structures in decision making as a generalized non-linear function. Then, we incorporate it into a fuzzy linear inequality of which the progressive and conservative manners are described by the concept of target hyperplanes. Thus, one’s preference domain is said to be bounded by such soft constraint. When facing different situations, a membership fu...

Panax ginseng exhibits pleiotropic beneficial effects on cardiovascular system, central nervous system, and immune system. In the last decade, numerous preclinical findings suggest ginseng as a promising therapeutic agent for diabetes prevention and treatment. The mechanism of ginseng and its active components is complex and is demonstrated to either modulate insulin production/secretion, gluco...

Business Process Management is called agile when it is able to react quickly and adequately to internal and external events. Agile Business Process Management requires putting the lifecycle of business processes on a new paradigm. It is advocated in this paper that social software allows us satisfying the key requirements for enabling agile BPM by applying the four features of social software: ...

Hydroxymethylcytosine in the genome is reported to be an intermediate of demethylation. In the present study, we demonstrated that maintenance methyltransferase Dnmt1 scarcely catalyzed hemi-hydroxymethylated DNA and that the hemi-hydroxymethylated DNA was not selectively recognized by the SRA domain of Uhrf1, indicating that hydroxymethylcytosine is diluted in a replication-dependent manner. A...

Objective(s) Celecoxib acts through both COX-2-dependent and -independent pathways. According to the paradoxical effect of NO on the inflammatory and nociceptive signal processing, the present study designed to evaluate the probable contribution of NO in the analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties of celecoxib. Materials and Methods Different intensities of inflammatory pain were induced ...