An Analysis of Japanese Sentence-final Particle Yone: Compare Yone and Ne in Response

Yone, a Japanese sentence-final particle (SFP), is frequently used in conversation, and some functions overlap with ne, another SFP. However, not much discussion has taken place about their differences. This study argues that the two Japanese sentence-final particles, yone and ne, express a distinction about the speaker's state of mind: yone indicates that an idea has been on the speaker's mind, while ne suggests a thought just emerged into the speaker's awareness. Naturally occurring conversation data provides evidence for this claim. The results show that the particles reflect the speaker's choice of presenting his/her state of awareness.

Comparative Study on Microencapsulation of Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia Mill.) and Peppermint (Mentha piperita L.) Essential Oils via Spray-Drying Technique

Essential oils have been studied for various applications, including for therapeutic purposes. There is extensive literature regarding their properties; however, their low stability limits their application. Generally, the microencapsulation of essential oils allows enhanced stability and enables the potential incorporation in solid dosage forms. Lavender and peppermint oils were encapsulated in microparticles using a spray-drying technique under optimized conditions: 170 °C temperature, 35 m3/h aspiration volume flow, and 7.5 mL/min feed flow. Arabic gum and maltodextrin were used as coating polymers individually in varying concentrations from 5 to 20% (w/v) and in combination. The microparticles were studied for morphology, particle size, oil content, and flowability. The formulated powder particles showed a high yield of 71 to 84%, mean diameter 2.41 to 5.99 µm, and total oil content of up to 10.80%. The results showed that both the wall material type and concentration, as well as the type of essential oil, significantly affected the encapsulation process and the final particle characteristics. Our study has demonstrated that the encapsulation of lavender and peppermint oils in Arabic gum/maltodextrin microparticles by spray-drying represents a feasible approach for the conversion of liquids into solids regarding their further use in powder technology.

Bacterial safety study of the production process of hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers

Hemoglobin microparticles (HbMP) produced with a three-step procedure including co-precipitation of hemoglobin with manganese carbonate, protein crosslinking and dissolution of the carbonate template were shown to be suitable for application as artificial oxygen carriers. First preclinical safety investigations delivered promising results. Bacterial safety plays a decisive role during the production of the HbMP. Therefore, bioburden and endotoxin content of the starting materials (especially hemoglobin) and the final particle suspension are intensively tested. However, some bacteria may not have been detected by the standard tests due to low concentration. The aim of this study was to investigate how these bacteria would behave in the fabrication process. Biocidal effects are known for glutaraldehyde and for ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, chemicals that are used in the fabrication process of HbMP. It could be shown that both chemicals prevent bacterial growth at the concentrations used during the HbMP fabrication. In addition, the particle production was carried out with hemoglobin solutions spiked with Escherichia coli or Staphylococcus epidermidis. No living bacteria could be detected in the final particle suspensions. Therefore, we conclude that the HbMP fabrication procedure is safe in respect of a bacterial contamination.

A corpus-based study of directives in Taiwanese Southern Min

This study aims to examine the subtypes of directives and their realization patterns in Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM). The data were drawn from a play script corpus published in the 20th century. Nine directive subtypes were identified: advice, begging, invitation, order, offer, request, suggestion, urge, and warning. The realization patterns were analyzed in terms of the main components in the directives: alerter, discourse marker, politeness marker, subject, modal expression, verb phrase, and utterance final particle. The analysis reveals a number of features: (1) Alerters mainly take the form of an address term; (2) Utterance-initial discourse markers are mainly realized by tan ‘now’; (3) The subject is either hearer-dominated or speaker- and hearer-dominated, with the latter expressing solidarity in casual situations; (4) the politeness marker chhiáⁿ tends to take an overt subject; (5) The modal verb tio̍h accounts for the majority of subtypes; (6) The dominant verb types include dynamic, stative, uttering, and ingesting verbs; (7) Complex verb constructions mainly include directional verbs, disposal markers, and benefactive verbs; (8) Directional verbs are pervasive across all directives. A metaphorical transfer is operative in the use of directional verbs. Those marking an action toward the speaker (e.g., lâi ‘come’) are strongly associated with a positive attitude, while those expressing movement away from the speaker (e.g., khì ‘go’) are highly connected to an adversative mood. The omnipresence of [lâi V] suggests that it has been conventionalized as a default bundle to express politeness.

In situ small-angle X-ray scattering investigation of X-ray-induced gold nanoparticle synthesis without stabilizer

The X-ray irradiation of gold salt aqueous solutions in the synthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) in the absence of any reducing agent or stabilizer is presented. The size, dispersion, number of particles, yield and morphology evolution during the radiolytic formation of AuNPs were followed simultaneously using in situ small-angle X-ray scattering. This study provides an insight into the overall kinetics and formation mechanisms at the initial stage of AuNP synthesis without reductants and stabilizers. The pH-dependent speciation of aqueous HAuCl4 and its influence on the synthesis, structure and properties of AuNPs were observed. The result sheds light on the key parameters required to obtain stable monomodal particles and the influence of the surface charge and reactivity of the chemical solution on the final particle size and shape.

Synthesis and Characterisation of Core-shell Gold Nanoparticles

<p>Technology developed at Victoria University of Wellington by Professor James H. Johnston and Dr Kerstin Lucas allows for the colouring of high quality wool fibres using spherical gold nanoparticles. Gold nanoparticles have interesting colours and optical properties due to surface plasmon resonance effects and, using this technology, a boutique range of colours can be imparted onto wool fibres. The colour of gold nanoparticles is determined by their size and shape, hence the colour range achievable using spherical nanoparticles is limited to those obtained by changing the particle diameter and degree of aggregation of these particles. This limitation can be overcome by using gold nanoparticles of different shapes in conjunction with other materials. This research details the synthesis and characterisation of gold nanoshells on spherical silica cores and their use for the colouring of wool. Silica cores were used in this research as they are reasonably chemically inert and so serve as a stable substrate for the gold shells. Silica spheres are also easily prepared in a manner that allows control over the final particle diameter. Several syntheses of these core-shell particles have been previously devised however they are not suitable for commercial use. Such syntheses involve many time-consuming steps, high temperatures or light-sensitive reagents. Synthetic methods set out in this research involve a novel in-situ seeding of gold nanoparticles for the growth of the shells eliminating the step of growing gold nanoparticles ex-situ commonly involved in other synthetic schemes. The need for light-sensitive reducing agents is eliminated by the use of other reductants such as sodium borohydride and hydroxylamine. All steps of the synthetic schemes are carried out at less than 100 °C. Several methods of synthesising core-shell particles are outlined in this research, which achieved varying degrees of success. Many syntheses investigated successfully produced core-shell particles but also left many silica spheres without the desired gold shell coating. This was not a problem for the proposed application of colouring wool. As silica is easily dispersed in water and does not have the same affinity to bind to wool as gold does, the silica spheres without gold shells simply wash off after colouring. This allowed the core-shell particles synthesised in this research to be successfully used to colour wool fibres and achieve a shade of purple not previously obtained using the earlier methodologies.</p>

Synthesis and Characterisation of Core-shell Gold Nanoparticles

<p>Technology developed at Victoria University of Wellington by Professor James H. Johnston and Dr Kerstin Lucas allows for the colouring of high quality wool fibres using spherical gold nanoparticles. Gold nanoparticles have interesting colours and optical properties due to surface plasmon resonance effects and, using this technology, a boutique range of colours can be imparted onto wool fibres. The colour of gold nanoparticles is determined by their size and shape, hence the colour range achievable using spherical nanoparticles is limited to those obtained by changing the particle diameter and degree of aggregation of these particles. This limitation can be overcome by using gold nanoparticles of different shapes in conjunction with other materials. This research details the synthesis and characterisation of gold nanoshells on spherical silica cores and their use for the colouring of wool. Silica cores were used in this research as they are reasonably chemically inert and so serve as a stable substrate for the gold shells. Silica spheres are also easily prepared in a manner that allows control over the final particle diameter. Several syntheses of these core-shell particles have been previously devised however they are not suitable for commercial use. Such syntheses involve many time-consuming steps, high temperatures or light-sensitive reagents. Synthetic methods set out in this research involve a novel in-situ seeding of gold nanoparticles for the growth of the shells eliminating the step of growing gold nanoparticles ex-situ commonly involved in other synthetic schemes. The need for light-sensitive reducing agents is eliminated by the use of other reductants such as sodium borohydride and hydroxylamine. All steps of the synthetic schemes are carried out at less than 100 °C. Several methods of synthesising core-shell particles are outlined in this research, which achieved varying degrees of success. Many syntheses investigated successfully produced core-shell particles but also left many silica spheres without the desired gold shell coating. This was not a problem for the proposed application of colouring wool. As silica is easily dispersed in water and does not have the same affinity to bind to wool as gold does, the silica spheres without gold shells simply wash off after colouring. This allowed the core-shell particles synthesised in this research to be successfully used to colour wool fibres and achieve a shade of purple not previously obtained using the earlier methodologies.</p>

Systemic change and interactional motivation

The paper focusses on the language-internal and -external motivations for the development of Chinese sentence-final particle bucheng. This particle, from an initial state as a negative verb string, developed into a sentence-final particle through intermediate adverbial stages, and was recruited to interpersonal functions in final position by the sixteenth century. Key motivating factors are identified for the expansion of its functional range, with particular attention to the development of the Written Vernacular in Early Modern Chinese and to interactional echoic contexts that contribute to the right-ward movement and thence the rise of the particle. Exploration of the diachronic development of bucheng not only expands the known inventory of morphosyntactic processes and linguistic contexts that give rise to pragmatic devices clause-finally but also yields a better understanding of the right-ward movement of lexemes towards clause-/utterance-final position.

Tailoring hydroxyapatite microspheres by spray-drying for powder bed fusion feedstock

The present work deals with a study on the physical characteristics of hydroxyapatite microspheres produced by spray-drying process through different operating conditions. Obtained hydroxyapatite microspheres will be used as powder feedstock in powder bed selective laser processing additive manufacturing technologies where the flowability and the particle size distribution of the powder feedstock is of special importance. Spray air pressure and solid content of the slurries were the most influent parameters to control the final particle size distribution, while higher air pressure and temperatures gave the higher process recovery rate. The use of polyvinyl alcohol as organic binder increased the granules strength. The produced hydroxyapatite microspheres were found to fulfil the powder bed selective laser processing feedstock requirements, keeping the physico-chemical properties of the material. These promising results confirm the use of a spray dryer as an efficient method for the production of hydroxyapatite microspheres for powder bed selective laser processing.