Challenges of the Albanian Language in the Internet Era

Language is a live organism and as every other living being develops and is enriched with new words and terms, which enter the life of society together with the new tool, i.e. they enter in and mix with the order of Albanian words. Such a thing is inevitable and in some cases even useful, but every word that is lined up in the order of Albanian words must be well filtered. “The introduction of new words and exclusion of old ones is a natural process, and it happens in any language. This is what happened with the Greek borrowings in Latin, with the Arabic borrowings in Greek, with the Latin borrowings in many European languages, with the Persian borrowings in Turkish, with the Turkish borrowings in Albanian, etc.” - Prof. Hajri Shehu emphasizes in a scientific interview (Shehu, 2017). In recent decades, with the expansion of the Internet, many foreign words began to enter and be used in the Albanian language. English took up more space than expected; in addition to penetrating through various tool notions, it also replaced centuries-old native words of Albanian. The paper has been divided into three parts and in each part an issue has been dealt with: the first part talks about the use of foreign words and the existing words in Albanian; the second part deals with the use of emoticons used instead of words and the third part deals with writing errors in the Albanian language. These are some of the issues that have created a great concern for the Albanian language in this century and they certainly need to be addressed seriously to prevent the dangers that may threaten it.

Knowledge, awareness, and practice (KAP) level of parasite infection among adults in Selangor, Malaysia

Parasites are live organism that lives in a host to obtain the nutrients for their survival. Parasitic infections are commonly as seen in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. These parasitic infections can be caused by protozoa, helminths and ectoparasites. However, the knowledge of parasitic infections could vary among the adults in urban or semi urban areas where parasitic infections are rare among them. This study was conducted to detect the level of knowledge, awareness and practice of parasite infection among adults in Selangor. The study was conducted using an online questionnaire. Around 59 participants from Selangor district in the age group of 21 to 60 years responded to the questionnaire. The results of this research was analysed by Google Docs software. According to the result obtained, the level of knowledge, awareness and practice of adults towards parasite infection is highly satisfactory. As majority of participants (76.3%, n=45) are familiar with the symptom of intestinal parasitic infection, majority of contributors (93.2%, n=55) practice the correct way in processing the meat by cooking the meat thoroughly, and some of the participants (14.9%, n=9) were aware of malaria as the high risk of being contagious in Selangor district. The level of knowledge, awareness and practice of parasite infection among adults in Selangor is adequately high. However, it is still necessary for these populations to get more exposed the information on parasite infection.

A C. elegans model for neurodegeneration in Cockayne syndrome

Cockayne syndrome (CS) is a congenital syndrome characterized by growth and mental retardation, and premature ageing. The complexity of CS and mammalian models warrants simpler metazoan models that display CS-like phenotypes that could be studied in the context of a live organism. Here, we provide a characterization of neuronal and mitochondrial aberrations caused by a mutation in the csb-1 gene in Caenorhabditis elegans. We report a progressive neurodegeneration in adult animals that is enhanced upon UV-induced DNA damage. The csb-1 mutants show dysfunctional hyperfused mitochondria that degrade upon DNA damage, resulting in diminished respiratory activity. Our data support the role of endogenous DNA damage as a driving factor of CS-related neuropathology and underline the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in the disease.

Effects of Immunomodulatory Drug Fingolimod (FTY720) on Chlamydia Dissemination and Pathogenesis

ABSTRACT Fingolimod (FTY720), an FDA-approved immunomodulatory drug for treating multiple sclerosis, is an agonist of sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor (S1PR), which has been used as a research tool for inhibiting immune cell trafficking. FTY720 was recently reported to inhibit Chlamydia dissemination. Since genital Chlamydia spreading to the gastrointestinal tract correlated with its pathogenicity in the upper genital tract, we evaluated the effect of FTY720 on chlamydial pathogenicity in the current study. Following an intravaginal inoculation, live chlamydial organisms were detected in mouse rectal swabs. FTY720 treatment significantly delayed live organism shedding in the rectal swabs. However, FTY720 failed to block chlamydial spreading to the gastrointestinal tract. The live chlamydial organisms recovered from rectal swabs reached similar levels between mice with or without FTY720 treatment by day 42 in C57BL/6J and day 28 in CBA/J mice, respectively. Thus, genital Chlamydia is able to launch a 2nd wave of spreading via an FTY720-resistant pathway after the 1st wave of spreading is inhibited by FTY720. As a result, all mice developed significant hydrosalpinx. The FTY720-resistant spreading led to stable colonization of chlamydial organisms in the colon. Consistently, FTY720 did not alter the colonization of intracolonically inoculated Chlamydia. Thus, we have demonstrated that, following a delay in chlamydial spreading caused by FTY720, genital Chlamydia is able to both spread to the gastrointestinal tract via an FTY720-resistant pathway and maintain its pathogenicity in the upper genital tract. Further characterization of the FTY720-resistant pathway(s) explored by Chlamydia for spreading to the gastrointestinal tract may promote our understanding of Chlamydia pathogenic mechanisms.

Chlamydia Deficient in Plasmid-Encoded pGP3 Is Prevented from Spreading to Large Intestine

ABSTRACT The cryptic plasmid pCM is critical for chlamydial colonization in the gastrointestinal tract. Nevertheless, orally inoculated plasmid-free Chlamydia sp. was still able to colonize the gut. Surprisingly, orally inoculated Chlamydia sp. deficient in only plasmid-encoded pGP3 was no longer able to colonize the gut. A comparison of live organism recoveries from individual gastrointestinal tissues revealed that pGP3-deficient Chlamydia sp. survived significantly better than plasmid-free Chlamydia sp. in small intestinal tissues. However, the small intestinal pGP3-deficient Chlamydia sp. failed to reach the large intestine, explaining the lack of live pGP3-deficient Chlamydia sp. in rectal swabs following an oral inoculation. Interestingly, pGP3-deficient Chlamydia sp. was able to colonize the colon following an intracolon inoculation, suggesting that pGP3-deficient Chlamydia sp. might be prevented from spreading from the small intestine to the large intestine. This hypothesis is supported by the finding that following an intrajejunal inoculation that bypasses the gastric barrier, pGP3-deficient Chlamydia sp. still failed to reach the large intestine, although similarly inoculated plasmid-free Chlamydia sp. was able to do so. Interestingly, when both types of organisms were intrajejunally coinoculated into the same mouse small intestine, plasmid-free Chlamydia sp. was no longer able to spread to the large intestine, suggesting that pGP3-deficient Chlamydia sp. might be able to activate an intestinal resistance for regulating Chlamydia sp. spreading. Thus, the current study has not only provided evidence for reconciling a previously identified conflicting phenotype but also revealed a potential intestinal resistance to chlamydial spreading. Efforts are under way to further define the mechanism of the putative intestinal resistance.

The Life of Rhythm

Chapter 6 poses the question: Why does rhythm speak to us so deeply? Patterns of accented or percussive sound that move us are meaningful, yet we find it hard to say what associations or connotations create that meaning. It argues that John Dewey’s Art as Experience has deep insights on this question, and focuses on their implications for jazz improvisation. For Dewey, both player and listener are like the live organism interacting within its environment. Hagberg addresses Dewey’s understanding that “rhythm is a universal scheme of existence, underlying all realization of order in change, [that] pervades all the arts, literary, musical, plastic and architectural, as well as the dance”; that “The supposition that the interest in rhythm which dominates the fine arts can be explained simply on the basis of rhythmic processes in the living body is but another case of the separation of organism from environment.”

Set of enzymatic bioassays for assessment of soil pollution

A concept of the comprehensive assessment of soil contamination is proposed. In this concept, the conclusion regarding the presence of toxic substances in a sample, which is being analyzed, is connected with the inhibition of enzymatic reactions that are responsible for various functions of a live organism, such as luminescence, respiration, etc., these functions are taken as test functions in classical bioassays, which are using live objects (luminous bacteria, daphnia, algae, etc.). The regularities of the impact of different classes of toxicants on the activity of individual enzymes or coupled oligo-enzyme chains have been established. These enzyme reactions are selected as potential test objects - markers of pollution. The set of enzymatic bioassays consists of three enzyme systems with maximum sensitivity to different classes of toxicants: butyrylcholinesterase, NAD(P)H:FMN‑oxidoreductase + luciferase and lactate dehydrogenase + NAD(P)H:FMN‑oxidoreductase + luciferase. The possibility of using enzymes instead of living organisms in the bioassay of natural complex systems is shown.