Інформативні можливості церковної періодики щодо вивчення групи "Малоросійських козаків" ХІХ ст. (на матеріалах "Черниговских епархиальных известий" та "Полтавских епархиальных ведомостей"

В статье рассматривается вопрос об информативных возможностях исследования социальной и бытовой истории, экономики, воспитания и образования группы “малороссийских казаков” в ХІХ ст., изучения их особенностей в сравнении с другими категориями населения Левобережной Украины по материалам “Черниговских епархиальных известий” и “Полтавских епархиальных ведомостей”.This article at the fi st time in historiography recognized information possibilities of Chernigiv’s and Poltava’s “Eparhialnye Vedomosti” in the theme of history, ethnography of the social group named “malorosian cosacks” in XIX century

Cost-effectiveness analysis of the first-line therapies for nicotine dependence

Background: Nicotine dependence is the major obstacle for smokers who want to quit. Guidelines have identified five effective first-line therapies, four nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs)—gum, patch, nasal spray and inhaler—and bupropion. Studying the extent to which these various treatments are cost-effective requires additional research. Objectives: To determine cost-effectiveness (CE) ratios of pharmacotherapies for nicotine dependence provided by general practitioners (GPs) during routine visits as an adjunct to cessation counselling. Methods: We used a Markov model to generate two cohorts of one-pack-a-day smokers: (1) the reference cohort received only cessation counselling from a GP during routine office visits; (2) the second cohort received the same counselling plus an offer to use a pharmacological treatment to help them quit smoking. The effectiveness of adjunctive therapy was expressed in terms of the resultant differential in mortality rate between the two cohorts. Data on the effectiveness of therapies came from meta-analyses, and we used odds ratio for quitting as the measure of effectiveness. The costs of pharmacotherapies were based on the cost of the additional time spent by GPs offering, prescribing and following-up treatment, and on the retail prices of the therapies. We used the third-party-payer perspective. Results are expressed as the incremental cost per life-year saved. Results: The cost per life-year saved for only counselling ranged from €385 to €622 for men and from €468 to €796 for women. The CE ratios for the five pharmacological treatments varied from €1768 to €6879 for men, and from €2146 to €8799 for women. Significant variations in CE ratios among the five treatments were primarily due to differences in retail prices. The most cost-effective treatments were bupropion and the patch, and, then, in descending order, the spray, the inhaler and, lastly, gum. Differences in CE between men and women across treatments were due to the shape of their respective mortality curve. The lowest CE ratio in men was for the 45- to 49-year-old group and for women in the 50- to 54-year-old group. Sensitivity analysis showed that changes in treatment efficacy produced effects only for less-well proven treatments (spray, inhaler, and bupropion) and revealed a strong influence of the discount rate and natural quit rate on the CE of pharmacological treatments. Conclusion: The CE of first-line treatments for nicotine dependence varied widely with age and sex and was sensitive to the assumption for the natural quit rate. Bupropion and the nicotine patch were the two most cost-effective treatment

CHROMOGRANIN A DETECTION IN SALIVA OF TYPE 2 DIABETES PATIENTS

Chromogranin A is present in secretion granules of nerve, endocrine and immune cells and is a precursor of several peptides with antibacterial and antifungal properties at micromolar concentrations.Our aim in this prospective, double blind study, was to determine the expression of chromogranin A and its peptides at protein level in saliva of type 2 diabetic patients and thereby to obtain a new non-invasive diagnostic means for the future.Saliva was taken from 30 type 2 diabetic patients and 30 healthy individuals at the same time interval in the morning without any oral stimuli. Circadianic periodics in protein productions have been avoided. The presence of chromogranin A and its derived peptides was determined in whole saliva, after centrifugation at 40C for 12 min at 14 000 rpm, by SDS-PAGE electrophoresis and Immunoblotting (Western Blot). To ensure same protein concentrations Bradford protein quantification assay has been performed before.For the first time, we have determined an overexpression of chromogranin A in saliva of diabetic patients in 100% of the individuals.Chromogranin A, a circulating biomarker for epithelial tumours, is also overexpressed in saliva of type 2 diabetic patients. To confirm our results, more studies with a large amount of patients is necessary

Social factors in accent recognition: a large-scale study in perceptual dialectology

This perceptual-dialectology study investigates how listener-related social factors impact the geographical recognition of regional accents. In contrast to much prior research on English, our focus is on Dutch, which lends itself well to our study, allowing for notable regional accents within a well-defined standard language. Using a map-based recognition task in which 1,578 listeners placed forty representative speakers on a map based on fragments of their speech, we investigated the regional biases in accent recognition and the extent to which each listener’s awareness of these depends on their familiarity and proximity. Education, geographical knowledge, and distance to listeners’ own regions significantly predicted their accent-recognition accuracy. Moreover, we found a curvilinear age effect, which we interpret in terms of age-related changes in geographical and social mobility. We show how these effects in our design lead to meaningful accent-recognition patterns in groups of listeners

Video-based interaction, negotiation for comprehensibility, and second language speech learning: a longitudinal study

The current study examined the impact of video-based conversational interaction on the longitudinal development (one academic semester) of second language (L2) production by college-level Japanese English-as-a-foreign-language learners. Students in the experimental group engaged in weekly, dyadic conversation exchanges with native speakers in the US via telecommunication tools, wherein the native speaking interlocutors were trained to provide interactional feedback in the form of recasts when the non-native speakers’ utterances hindered successful understanding (i.e., negotiation for comprehensibility). The students in the comparison group received regular foreign language instruction without any interaction with native speakers. The video-coded data showed that the experimental students incidentally worked on improving all linguistic domains of language, thanks to their native speaking interlocutors’ interactional feedback (recasts, negotiation) during the treatment. The pre-/post-test data led to significant gains in their comprehensibility, fluency and lexicogrammar, but not in the accentedness and pronunciation dimensions of their spontaneous production abilitie

Markers for Risk of Type 1 Diabetes in Relatives of Alsacian Patients With Type 1 Diabetes

Background: The cytotoxic T lymphocyteassociated antigen 4 gene (CTLA-4) encode the T cell receptor involved in the control of T cell proliferation and mediates T cell apoptosis. The receptor protein is a specific T lymphocyte surface antigen that is detected on cells only after antigen presentation. Thus, CTLA-4 is directly involved in both immune and autoimmune responses and may be involved in the pathogenesis of multiple T cell-mediated autoimmune disorders. There is polymorphism at position 49 in exon 1 of the CTLA-4 gene, providing an A-G exchange. Moreover, we assessed the CTLA-4 49 (Thr/Ala) polymorphism in diabetic patients and first-degree relatives as compared to control subjects

Experience effects on the development of late second language learners’ oral proficiency

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of language experience—operationalized as length of residence—on late second language learners. Data collected from 65 participants consists of three groups of Japanese learners of English (n = 13 Short-, Mid-, Long-LOR Groups, respectively) and two groups of baseline speakers (n = 13 for inexperienced Japanese speakers and native English speakers, respectively). The global quality of their spontaneous speech production was initially judged by 10 native speaking raters of English based on accentedness (linguistic nativelikeness) and comprehensibility (ease of understanding), and then submitted to segmental, prosodic, temporal, lexical, and grammatical analyses. According to the results, LOR was generally predictive of improved L2 comprehensibility as a result of the continuous development of good prosody, optimal speech rate, and proper lexicogrammar usage, while a great amount of L2 experience was required to enhance accentedness, which entailed refined segmental accuracy, vocabulary richness, and grammatical complexity. These results, in turn, suggest L2 learners continue to improve L2 oral proficiency over an extensive period of L2 immersion (e.g., 6 years of LOR), and they do so by paying selective attention to certain linguistic domains closely linked to comprehensibility—but not necessarily relevant to accentedness—for the purpose of successful L2 communication

Individual differences in phonetic imitation and their role in sound change

This paper explores the possibility that the spread of sound change within a community correlates with individual differences in imitation capacities. The devoicing of labiodental fricatives in Dutch serves as a case study of an ongoing sound change showing regional and individual variation. The imitation capacities of Dutch speakers born and raised in five regions of the Dutch language area were investigated in a forced imitation task (Study 2) and a spontaneous imitation task (Study 3), and compared to baseline productions (Study 1) of the variable undergoing sound change. Results showed that the leaders of sound change in each region were significantly less accurate in imitating model talkers-when they were instructed to-than conservative speakers, but they were more inclined to spontaneously imitate talkers. These insights are discussed in view of the literature on different types and measures of imitation capacities, on the actors of sound change and the two apparently paradoxical features of the language system: Its stability and its potential for sound change