The function of Shp2 tyrosine phosphatase in the dispersal of acetylcholine receptor clusters

Background

Tone languages such as Thai and Mandarin Chinese use differences in fundamental frequency (F₀, pitch) to distinguish lexical meaning. Previous behavioral studies have shown that native speakers of a non-tone language have difficulty discriminating among tone contrasts and are sensitive to different F₀ dimensions than speakers of a tone language. The aim of the present ERP study was to investigate the effect of language background and training on the non-attentive processing of lexical tones. EEG was recorded from 12 adult native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, 12 native speakers of American English, and 11 Thai speakers while they were watching a movie and were presented with multiple tokens of low-falling, mid-level and high-rising Thai lexical tones. High-rising or low-falling tokens were presented as deviants among mid-level standard tokens, and vice versa. EEG data and data from a behavioral discrimination task were collected before and after a two-day perceptual categorization training task.

Results

Behavioral discrimination improved after training in both the Chinese and the English groups. Low-falling tone deviants versus standards elicited a mismatch negativity (MMN) in all language groups. Before, but not after training, the English speakers showed a larger MMN compared to the Chinese, even though English speakers performed worst in the behavioral tasks. The MMN was followed by a late negativity, which became smaller with improved discrimination. The High-rising deviants versus standards elicited a late negativity, which was left-lateralized only in the English and Chinese groups.

Conclusion

Results showed that native speakers of English, Chinese and Thai recruited largely similar mechanisms when non-attentively processing Thai lexical tones. However, native Thai speakers differed from the Chinese and English speakers with respect to the processing of late F₀ contour differences (high-rising versus mid-level tones). In addition, native speakers of a non-tone language (English) were initially more sensitive to F₀ onset differences (low-falling versus mid-level contrast), which was suppressed as a result of training. This result converges with results from previous behavioral studies and supports the view that attentive as well as non-attentive processing of F₀ contrasts is affected by language background, but is malleable even in adult learners.     

Uncertainties in the oxygen isotopic composition of barium sulfate induced by coprecipitation of nitrate

Coprecipitation of nitrate and sulfate by barium has probably resulted in significant error in numerous studies dealing with the oxygen isotopic composition of natural sulfates using chemical/thermal conversion of BaSO(4) and analysis by isotope ratio mass spectrometry. In solutions where NO(3) (-)/SO(4) (2-) molar ratios are above 2 the amount of nitrate coprecipitated with BaSO(4) reaches a maximum of approximately 7% and decreases roughly linearly as the molar ratio decreases. The fraction of coprecipitated nitrate appears to increase with decreasing pH and is also affected by the nature of the cations in the precipitating solution. The size of the oxygen isotope artifact in sulfate depends both on the amount of coprecipitated nitrate and the delta(18)O and Delta(17)O values of the nitrate, both of which can be highly variable. The oxygen isotopic composition of sulfate extracted from atmospheric aerosols or rain waters are probably severely biased because photochemical nitrate is usually also present and it is highly enriched in (18)O (delta(18)O approximately 50-90 per thousand) and has a large mass-independent isotopic composition (Delta(17)O approximately 20-32 per thousand). The sulfate delta(18)O error can be 2-5 per thousand with Delta(17)O artifacts reaching as high as 4.0 per thousand. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Secondary ion yields produced by keV atomic and polyatomic ion impacts on a self-assembled monolayer surface

A suite of keV polyatomic or 'cluster' projectiles was used to bombard unoxidized and oxidized self-assembled monolayer surfaces. Negative secondary ion yields, collected at the limit of single ion impacts, were measured and compared for both molecular and fragment ions. In contrast to targets that are orders of magnitude thicker than the penetration range of the primary ions, secondary ion yields from polyatomic projectile impacts on self-assembled monolayers show little to no enhancement when compared with monatomic projectiles at the same velocity. This unusual trend is most likely due to the structural arrangement and bonding characteristics of the monolayer molecules with the Au(111). Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experimental Techniques and Identification of Nonlinear and Viscoelastic Properties of Flexible Polyurethane Foam

Identification of the vibrational behavior of polyurethanefoams used in automotive seats is described. The dynamic system consistsof a rigid block mounted on a 3 cube of foam material, which serves asthe only flexible component. When constrained to undergo linearunidirectional motion, the dynamic system is modeled as a single degreeof freedom system, governed by an integro-differential equation. Inaddition to a relaxation kernel representing the linear viscoelasticbehavior of the foam, the model includes a polynomial type stiffness toaccount for the foam's strain-based nonlinearities. The relaxationkernel is assumed to be of an exponential type. Experimentalmethodologies for obtaining repeatable, accurate measurements of thesystem's response to an impulse and to single frequency harmonic baseexcitations are described. Analysis methods are then investigated forextracting the relevant linear, nonlinear, and viscoelastic parameters.Characterization of these foam properties as functions of compressionlevel is also presented.