Ventilation heterogeneity in smokers: role of unequal lung expansion and peripheral lung structure

A head-on comparison between imaging and multiple breath washout in supine smokers shows that computer tomography-measured unequal local lung expansion accounts for 50% or less of smoking-induced increase in ventilation heterogeneity. The contributions from unequal lung expansion and peripheral structure to the two main washout indices also explain their respective association with parametric response mapping indices.

Senior tourism – a scientometric review (1998-2017)

Purpose This study aims to identify intellectual structures, emerging trends and future research opportunities via a bibliometric analysis of senior tourism research from 1998 until 2017. Design/methodology/approach A detailed search of 700 core articles and 7,221 citations collated from Web-of-Science and Scopus was implemented and analyzed through CiteSpace. Findings The results reveal a slow increase in the amount of research, with six main areas of research. The most cited articles are mainly older. The USA has a solid leadership in publications, followed by Australia and China. The network of journals and institutions show a core peripheral structure where Tourism Management and University of Queensland are ranked first. The identification of structural holes, critical articles and the development of new emerging tendencies highlights the priorities in the senior tourism domain, pointing to new opportunities for research. Originality/value The originality of this paper consists in a temporal and dynamic analysis of the past two decades, using CiteSpace for a co-citation and co-occurrence network analysis.

Laughter in modern English and Ukrainian political texts

The paper deals with the semantic features of the representation of the abstract-emotional concept of «laughter» in terms of its central-peripheral structure in contemporary English and Ukrainian political texts. The concept is defined as a complex, culturally labeled, mentally affective notion that has a conceptual, figurative and value meaning and is actualized in dictionaries and political texts by various linguistic means. The research material includes articles, interviews, debates, messages, political commentaries published in the contemporary English and Ukrainian political press of the last decade and actualizes the abstract-emotional concept of «laughter». In Ukrainian and English political texts the abstract-emotional concept of «laughter» is perceived through the prism of fun and tears as expressions of happiness and unhappiness, but for the Ukrainian language, laughter is more often associated with the sound and events that cause it. Cognitive and discourse methods used in the article allow to establish the content and structure of abstract-emotional concept «laughter» not only in everyday life, but in discourse by means of nominal, descriptive and expressive embodiment. In political speeches, «laughter» is a traditional manifestation of arrogance and contempt; it helps express opposition to ideas, plans, forecasts, actions of the object of ridicule. Although, a person can laugh out loud as a result of happiness, in political texts the token «roar» and its Ukrainian equivalent «реготати» denote negative emotional states. Loud / Homeric laughter is contrasted with silence or giggles. In Ukrainian fiction «giggling» denotes fun, positive emotional reactions, but in the context of political speeches or commentary, this token represents a disparaging attitude towards a subject who laughs in this way or verbalizes manifestations of meanness, inferiority. The results of the study showed that the abstract-emotional concept of «laughter» is a coherent system, the components of which not only interact, but complement each other, forming a conceptual field. The content of the concept includes everything that a person knows about this phenomenon, emotional associations of different nature. The verbalization of the concept «laughter» in Ukrainian and English political texts is worked out taking into account its representation in synonyms as well as in free expressions and idioms. Idioms and phraseological expressions clarify the meaning of the concept on the basis of metaphorical similarity to other sentence components that is the object for studying in further works on this topic. Nominal expressions decipher and express the meaning of the concept, reveal the peculiarities of verbalization of emotions, affective states in the linguistic consciousness of the individual through the lens of political text.

Cognitive reserve and dementia A scientometric review

ABSTRACT. Research into cognitive reserve (CR) and dementia is advancing rapidly. This paper analyses the intellectual structure, emerging trends and relevant shifts in the development of available knowledge. Data collected from the Web-of-Science produced an expanded network of 564 articles and 12,504 citations in the 1998-2017 period. The co-citation network visualized was characterized by a scientometric review using CiteSpace. The results revealed that author Stern Y had the highest number of publications and citations. The network of journals, institutions and countries showed a central-peripheral structure with Neurology, Harvard University and the USA ranked first, respectively. While cognitive reserve remains the most prominent area of research in this field, studies related to functional ability, executive control, mortality data and reserve mechanisms have grown considerably. The identification of critical articles and the development of emerging trends highlights new insights in the area of research, better communicating key findings and facilitating the exploration of data.

Structural Health Monitoring System Developed for Dalian Stadium

The peripheral structure of Dalian stadium is a long-span spatial truss structure. To ensure the safety of the peripheral structure during construction and operation period, the permanent structure health monitoring system is implemented. This paper first introduces the structural features of the Dalian stadium, and then illustrates the permanent monitoring program from the aspects of the hardware, the monitoring scheme and the function. This developed monitoring system is utilized to monitor the stress of the truss, and the dynamic response of the structure. Large amounts of data are obtained through the health monitoring system, and thus the safe condition of the structure can be evaluated based on data analysis.

Peptidoglycan-binding protein TsaP functions in surface assembly of type IV pili

Type IV pili (T4P) are ubiquitous and versatile bacterial cell surface structures involved in adhesion to host cells, biofilm formation, motility, and DNA uptake. In Gram-negative bacteria, T4P pass the outer membrane (OM) through the large, oligomeric, ring-shaped secretin complex. In the β-proteobacteriumNeisseria gonorrhoeae, the native PilQ secretin ring embedded in OM sheets is surrounded by an additional peripheral structure, consisting of a peripheral ring and seven extending spikes. To unravel proteins important for formation of this additional structure, we identified proteins that are present with PilQ in the OM. One such protein, which we name T4P secretin-associated protein (TsaP), was identified as a phylogenetically widely conserved component of the secretin complex that co-occurs with genes for T4P in Gram-negative bacteria. TsaP contains an N-terminal carbohydrate-binding lysin motif (LysM) domain and a C-terminal domain of unknown function. InN. gonorrhoeae, lack of TsaP results in the formation of membrane protrusions containing multiple T4P, concomitant with reduced formation of surface-exposed T4P. Lack of TsaP did not affect the oligomeric state of PilQ, but resulted in loss of the peripheral structure around the PilQ secretin. TsaP binds peptidoglycan and associates strongly with the OM in a PilQ-dependent manner. In the δ-proteobacteriumMyxococcus xanthus, TsaP is also important for surface assembly of T4P, and it accumulates and localizes in a PilQ-dependent manner to the cell poles. Our results show that TsaP is a novel protein associated with T4P function and suggest that TsaP functions to anchor the secretin complex to the peptidoglycan.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF SPUN TORUS KNOTS

Satoh has defined a construction to obtain a ribbon torus knot given a welded knot. This construction is known to be surjective. We show that it is not injective. Using the invariant of the peripheral structure, it is possible to provide a restriction on this failure of injectivity. In particular we also provide an algebraic classification of the construction when restricted to classical knots, where it is equivalent to the torus spinning construction.