Assessment of free-radical scavenging and anti-bacterial potential of Thymol conjugated with Gum Acacia-Chitosan copolymeric nanoformulation

This study details with thymol loaded on anionic copolymeric (Gum Acacia-Chitosan) nanoformulation prepared using ionic gelation to further enhance its therapeutic effectiveness. Optimized nanoparticles of 10:1 ratio (Gum Acacia:Chitosan) having entrapmentefficiency of 97% and mean hydrodynamic diameter of 172 nm (obtained using DLS) were characterized and in vitro examined for drug release effect, antioxidant potential and antibacterial activity. Zeta potential reading (-31.4 mV) confirmed optimized nanoformulation as stable and Electron-microscopy affirmed spherical morphology. FTIR analysis revealed entrapment as well as chemical-conjugation of thymol in polymer matrices. Thymol availability lasting more than 24 hours was verified in vitro by drug release experiments. Synthesized nanoformulation demonstrated superior antioxidant and antibacterial activity which may be attributable to its anionic charge, slow sustained release and synergistic effect provided by copolymers. Hence this investigation suggests control-release strategy using these copolymers for further utilization of thymol as natural therapeutic molecule by overcoming its solubility, stability and oxidation problems.

Potential and Actual Cognitive-Emotional Engagement with Characters: A Response to Michael Whitenton and Bonnie Howe & Eve Sweetser

This article addresses the contributions by Michael Whitenton, and Bonnie Howe and Eve Sweetser, in the present volume. I endorse all three contributors’ use of cognitive-linguistic approaches, highlighting their helpfulness for the reconstruction of frames that shape the reading experience of audiences located in different historical and cultural contexts. The two chapters meticulously trace the complexity and dynamics of understanding exemplary biblical characters. I emphasise that the level of attention to linguistic detail displayed by cognitive stylistics is a desideratum for a reader-oriented analysis of a text’s potential reading effects. At the same time, I question some assumptions in cognitive linguistics concerning the cognitive-emotional processes real readers are actually likely to perform. The two chapters serve as a starting point for me to discuss general tendencies in recent cognitive and empirical literary studies, which have perhaps overstated the intensity and impact of some processes, while overlooking others that may be just as important.

Spectral CT Hybrid Images in the Diagnostic Evaluation of Hypervascular Abdominal Tumors—Potential Advantages in Clinical Routine

Background: This study aimed to investigate the use of spectral computed tomography (SCT) hybrid images combining virtual monoenergetic images (VMIs) and iodine maps (IMs) as a potentially efficient search series for routine clinical imaging in patients with hypervascular abdominal tumors. Methods: A total of 69 patients with hypervascular abdominal tumors including neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs, n = 48), renal cell carcinoma (RCC, n = 10), and primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC, n = 11) were analyzed retrospectively. Two radiological readers (blinded to clinical data) read three CT image sets (1st a reference set with 70 keV; 2nd a 50:50 hybrid 140 keV/40 keV set; 3rd a 50:50 hybrid140 keV/IM set). They assessed images subjectively by rating several parameters including image contrast, visibility of suspicious lesions, and diagnostic confidence on five-point Likert scales. In addition, reading time was estimated. Results: Median subjective Likert scores were highest for the 1st set, except for image contrast, for which the 2nd set was rated highest. Scores for diagnostic confidence, artifacts, noise, and visibility of suspicious lesions or small structures were significantly higher for the 1st set than for the 2nd or 3rd set (p < 0.001). Regarding image contrast, the 2nd set was rated significantly higher than the 3rd set (p < 0.001), while the median did not differ significantly compared with the 1st set. Agreement between the two readers was high for all sets. Estimated potential reading time was the same for hybrid and reference sets. Conclusions: Hybrid images have the potential to efficiently exploit the additional information provided by SCT in patients with hypervascular abdominal tumors. However, the use of rigid weighting did not significantly improve diagnostic performance in this study.

LITERATURE READ WRITE AND RELATED WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDONESIAN TEACHING MATERIALS

Reading and writing literacy is the knowledge and skills to read, write, search, search, process, and understand information to analyze, respond to, and use written texts to achieve the goal of developing understanding and potential. Reading and writing are very meaningful in science and knowledge, moreover the times have challenges, competition, and rapid technological movements, this greatly affects the world of education

Works of A. F. Pisemsky in the libraries of Siberia and the Far East in the pre-revolutionary period

The study relevance is due to the anniversary of the writer (200th anniversary of his birth), the demand for his works among the residents of the Siberian-Far-Eastern region in the pre-revolutionary period, the importance of studying library funds to reconstruct the potential reading circle of the region's population. Due to the lack of comprehensive studies of library collections of pre-revolutionary libraries in Siberia and the Far East, this article first considers the presence of works by A. F. Pisemsky in the libraries of the region in the late XIX - early XX centuries. The article objective is to identify the writer’s works in the libraries of the Siberian-Far Eastern region during this period. Tasks are to: 1) reconstruct the repertoire of the works by A. F. Pisemsky in the libraries of the region in the pre-revolutionary period; 2) calculate quantitative indicators of their availability; 3) identify lifetime editions of the writer in library collections. The author applies the comparative analysis, statistical, chronological, source-based methods. Information is given from 34 catalogs of pre-revolutionary libraries of Siberia. They reflect the funds of 24 libraries located in 4 provincial, 5 regional and 4 county centers of the region. The libraries of municipal public and local commercial and public meetings prevail among them, chosen as the most open and, thereby, most accessible for readers. For the first time, quantitative indicators of the presence of the works of A. F. Pisemsky in Siberian and Far Eastern libraries in the pre-revolutionary period were calculated and analyzed. The study results show that many of them had works by the writer during the period under review. Their funds included most of the famous works of this author. The most frequently found publications have been identified, as well as publishers whose products were presented in the libraries of the region. The revealed data allow reconstructing partly library collections and the potential repertoire of reading of Siberian and Far Eastern residents in the late XIX – early XX centuries, clarifying and supplying the picture of library business in the region in the pre-revolutionary period.

Reading Strategies in Academic Communication (Based on the Harry Potter Series)

This article considers the correlation between reading strategies and peculiarities of academic discourse. Special attention is paid to the upbringing-educational potential of teaching English on the basis of selected materials, namely the seven-book series “Harry Potter” by Joan K. Rowling. The paper discusses a number of ways of sustaining the communicative focus of teaching a foreign language through the prism of a potential reading strategy. It is proved that the series authored by Joan K. Rowling is filled with modern lexical and phraseological means. Texts about Hogwarts magic and spells are exemplary among the works of modern English literary language, because it contains a wide range of thematic material of an instructive nature, which greatly contributes to both teaching and performing basic activities such as reading, speaking, writing, as well as critical thinking, text analysis and the formation of moral values. The study mentions multiculturalism in order to help students master the concept, as well as to realize that each unit of cultural diversity has the right and freedom to exist and respect it. The authors proved that Potterian material is rich in instructiveness and contains such topics as the influence of folklore on modern culture, multicultural manifestations, issues of freedom and slavery, raising “problem children” or interaction with non-biological parents and others. Specific techniques and strategies that are most appropriate for the treatment of the above topics are proposed. These can be text analysis, investigation and comparison of book’s world and modern life, as well as critical thinking. It is seen that effective communication is dialogue and group discussion, the amount of oral and written speech which must be balanced with quality.

The Role of Speechreading in Literacy Acquisition and Development of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Readers

Historically, speechreading (silent lip-reading) is a skill typically associated with deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) people accessing spoken language. There is increasing research evidence that speechreading ability is important for reading development in DHH children, even in children who sign. This chapter will argue that DHH children who are good speech readers are good readers because speechreading provides visual access to spoken phonology, enabling them to develop phonological awareness skills. This chapter will explore the relationship between speechreading, reading, and phonological awareness in DHH children and consider whether it differs as a function of language preferences and type of amplification aid used. It will discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the role of speechreading in literacy acquisition with reference to potential reading remediation for DHH children.

Written to Dialogise: Ian McEwan's Atonement and Sweet Tooth

In the intertext of Atonement (2001) and Sweet Tooth (2012), McEwan unmasks monological writing and reading processes which destructively deny the individual subject its complexity. Empowering the individual subject to fight its ideological determination, he suggests (literary) possibilities of dialogical involvement to unbind the individual subject into critically thinking its social and historical situatedness. Writing a readerly text of writerly potential which requires the reader’s active participation to become an instrument of dialogue, McEwan introduces two acting writers, Briony Tallis and Tom Haley, who are familiar with intertextual theory and share McEwan’s dialogical approach to the literary text. They critically mediate Briony’s and Serena’s development from monological to dialogical subjectivity by personalising different stages of intertextual theory (Saussure, Bakhtin, Kristeva and Barthes) and its advancement of dialogue and dialogical subjectivity within each protagonist’s literary development. Allowing his readers to observe how Briony Tallis and Tom Haley meticulously write and criticise Briony and Serena, protagonists who initially author but finally write their context when they unlock the critical potential of the intertextual process in dialogising the readerly and the writerly, McEwan provides his readers with a space in which to try their critical potential: reading Atonement and Sweet Tooth and daring to assume the responsibility of dialogical double agency (Barthes and Genette), they might not only become aware of monological and dialogical writing and reading processes but they might join in productively exploring narrative possibilities to dialogise (their) individual subjectivity.

Well-established monolingual literacy predictors in bilinguals

An important component of early reading intervention is effective literacy screening tools. Literacy precursor screening tools have been primarily developed for early identification and remediation of potential reading difficulties in monolingual Englishspeaking children, despite the significant proportion of bilingual children worldwide. This systematic literature review examines whether the precursor literacy skills commonly used in monolingual English-speaking children have been assessed and found to predict later reading skills in simultaneous bilingual children. Our findings demonstrate that the nine major literacy precursors identified in monolingual children also significantly correlate with reading performance in simultaneous bilingual children. These nine literacy precursors are phonological awareness, letter knowledge, serial recall, oral language comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, memory, non-verbal intelligence and word decoding.