bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Word Classes in Iroquoian Languages
Authors: Michelson Karin
Published: December 2023

The Iroquoian languages do much with verbs, and the ‘verbi-ness’ of the languages might be considered extraordinary. At one extreme, the languages have been argued to have only one major word class, i.e. verbs, but it has also been claimed that there is strong evidence for a distinction between nouns and verbs. This chapter reviews the syntactic motivations for word classes, the evidence from inflectional paradigms, and the ways in which reference and predication are reflected in discourse patterns in the Iroquoian languages. The chapter concludes with the observation that the meaning of roots and their inflectional paradigms is straightforward, but at the level of words, Iroquoian is unusual to the extent that inflected verbs can have a referring function.
Word Classes in Mayan Languages
Authors: Vapnarsky Valentina
Published: December 2023

Mayan languages present interesting properties that question word classes and the determination of lexical categories. These properties are related to the rich processes of word formation and derivation that characterize them as polysynthetic languages. Three main aspects are of particular interest: first, in terms of the complex relation between root classes and lexical categories at the stem level; second, in terms of the various patterns of cross-over between the word classes in each language, evident as a tension between lexical categorial determination and flexibility or polyvalence; third, in terms of the nature of their word classes, some of them unfamiliar in Indo-European languages, such as Positionals, Expressives, and Classifiers. Mayan languages mostly share the same word classes but differ in the degree and form of flexibility between classes, as well as in the way categorial determination operates with respect to specific word-formation levels and processes. These variations raise important questions regarding how word-class configurations might change over time and vary cross-linguistically, even in closely related languages. This chapter offers a synthetic view of such properties, based on data from more than a dozen Mayan languages, with a special focus given to Yucatec.
Word Classes in Austronesian Languages
Authors: Mosel Ulrike
Published: December 2023

This chapter describes lexicological concepts and morphological and syntactic diagnostics that are used for the classification of content words in Austronesian linguistics. The Austronesian language family counts approximately 1,200 languages which are mainly spoken in South-East Asia and the Pacific islands. With respect to noun–verb distinctions, there are languages in which nouns and verbs differ morphologically and syntactically, while others like Tagalog distinguish nouns and verbs only morphologically, but not syntactically. A third type of language does not divide all content words into distinct classes, but only has some morphological subclasses that are marked by affixes, whereas the unmarked words are flexible or only distinguished by the modifiers they occur with. Prototypical property words may form a word class of their own, be affiliated with either the class of nouns or the class of verbs, or form subclasses of both the class of nouns and the class of verbs.
Word Classes in Timor–Alor–Pantar and The Papuan Region
Authors: Klamer Marian
Published: December 2023

This chapter describes the word classes of the Timor–Alor–Pantar (TAP) family of Papuan languages, located 1,000 kilometres west of the New Guinea mainland. The TAP family comprises some 25 languages, and this study is based on a genealogically balanced sample of eight of these: Teiwa or Kaera of the Pantar-Straits subgroup, Adang and Abui of the Alor subgroup, Sawila or Wersing of the East Alor subgroup, and Bunaq or Makasae/Makalero of the Timor subgroup. Salient characteristics of the verbs, nouns, adjectives, adpositions, adverbs, and numerals are discussed, followed by a section on category-changing morphology and multifunctional words. It is pointed out that, despite the heavy dominance of the national language Indonesian, Indonesian influence on the lexicons of the TAP languages is still limited. Word classes in TAP languages share many features with other Papuan languages, in particular those of the Trans New Guinea family, though significant differences remain.
Word Classes in Sign Languages
Authors: Kimmelman Vadim , Börstell Carl
Published: December 2023

This chapter discusses word classes as applied to signed languages of the world. The chapter provides an overview of various definitions and analyses that have been used to establish word classes in different sign languages. Such definitions are based not only on morphological and syntactic criteria, but also on how the gestural–visual modality affects word classes in terms of iconicity and word formation within and across sign languages. Some of the modality effects on word formation and categorization have in turn also been applied and compared to the gestures of non-signers. Following previous and current work on lexicography and corpus linguistics for sign languages, the chapter also describes some methodological issues and advances in documenting, defining, tagging, and utilizing word classes within these areas of research.
Word Classes in Corpus Linguistics
Authors: Levshina Natalia
Published: December 2023

Word classes play a central role in corpus linguistics under the name of parts of speech (POS). Many popular corpora are provided with POS tags. This chapter gives examples of popular tagsets and discusses the methods of automatic tagging. It also considers bottom-up approaches to POS induction, which are particularly important for the ‘poverty of stimulus’ debate in language acquisition research. The choice of optimal POS tagging involves many difficult decisions, which are related to the level of granularity, redundancy at different levels of corpus annotation, cross-linguistic applicability, language-specific descriptive adequacy, and dealing with fuzzy boundaries between POS. The chapter also discusses the problem of flexible word classes and demonstrates how corpus data with POS tags and syntactic dependencies can be used to quantify the level of flexibility in a language.
Word classes and Grammaticalization
Authors: Smith K. Aaron
Published: December 2023

This chapter treats the shift of language material (qua constructions) within the framework of grammaticalization. Grammaticalization is defined here in most general terms as the change of lexical material, chiefly nouns, and verbs, into grammatical formants such as auxiliary verbs, prepositions, and noun classifiers. In linguistics, grammaticalization has long been studied apart from other kinds of word-class shifts (e.g. lexicalization) because of the particular set of correlative language changes that accompany it, although not necessarily unique to it. In addition to the initial shift from lexical word classes to a grammatical categories (primary grammaticalization), grammaticalization studies have also elucidated the shift of linguistic material from less to more grammatical status (so-called secondary grammaticalization, e.g. pronouns into inflections for person/number, auxiliaries into tense/aspect markers). While this chapter addresses aspects of secondary grammaticalization in its overview, it remains mostly focused on primary grammaticalization focusing on several examples of auxiliation (i.e. the emergence of new auxiliaries) in English, including a present-day, corpus-based study of a very recent word-class shift involving the incipient grammaticalization of the lexical verb try into the auxiliary expression tryna in some varieties of American English.
Word Classes in First Language Acquisition
Authors: Stoll Sabine
Published: December 2023

Word classes are the building blocks of language constituting a precondition for productive language use and grammar development. How can infants generalize word classes? This has been one of the most burning questions in language acquisition research. Theories range from the assumption of abstract innate word classes to bottom-up approaches explaining word-class generation fully by statistical learning. There is, however, general agreement across theories that children have to extract information about the word classes of their language from the input to build up the language-specific categories. This chapter shows how typologically diverse systems can impact this process for the learner. The challenges for the learner with respect to nominal and verbal systems are highly variable in the languages of the world. This suggests an enormous flexibility of the language learning mind, necessitating a highly intricate ability for pattern detection by infant learners. The chapter reviews research on the two major word classes, nouns and verbs, and presents patterns in the input that facilitate category abstraction. Even though nouns seem to be more prevalent in early acquisition, this is only a general tendency, and there is in fact huge variation across learners of different languages.
Word Classes in Neurolinguistics
Authors: Kemmerer David
Published: December 2023

This chapter reviews recent neurolinguistic research on word classes. Although a variety of phenomena involving word classes have been investigated from a neurolinguistic perspective, the vast majority of studies have focused on the noun–verb distinction. In fact, the cortical underpinnings of this distinction have been explored in countless studies employing all of the major brain-mapping methods. The chapter covers the following specific issues, all of which are prominent in the neurolinguistic literature: the universal semantic prototypes of nouns and verbs; differential impairments affecting either just nouns or just verbs in either just oral output or just written output; efforts to overcome confounds between conceptual and grammatical factors when searching for the neural basis of the noun–verb distinction; and the role of inflection in this distinction. The chapter also briefly considers two subtypes of nouns (i.e. proper and common), two subtypes of verbs (i.e. transitive and intransitive), and a few word classes beyond the noun–verb distinction.
Word Classes in Computational Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence
Authors: Mistica Meladel , Vylomova Ekaterina , Bond Francis
Published: December 2023

Word classes, or parts of speech, are groupings of words that share common characteristics, both syntactic and semantic. In the fields of natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI), word classes have been seen as the first level of annotation for text tokens within a text processing pipeline: (pos) tagging. These pos tags were originally conceived as the first step for syntactic processing, but are often used to prepare a stream of unstructured text in for the purpose of natural language understanding. The level of understanding achieved by such a system can be as deep as achieving a semantically motivated representation of meaning or as superficial as recognizing the usage of certain types of words that are important for the task at hand. The importance of word classes in these fields is that they allow a level of abstraction that can alleviate data sparsity and are generally quite accurate, especially when considering left and right contexts and other contextual information. Further, they can help in suggesting the function of a token within a sentence, as well as suggesting its semantic type (such as event, attribute, or referent). Scientists and practitioners in NLP and AI are consumers of word classes. However, the field of computational linguistics has slightly different goals that overlap more with the interest of linguists. Computational linguists ask questions that a linguist might about word classes but the answers to these questions are arrived at either by methods employed in grammar engineering or big data methods employed in NLP.
Lexeme Classes and Word Classes in Functional Discourse Grammar
Authors: Mackenzie J. Lachlan
Published: December 2023

The approach to parts of speech in Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) originates in the functional definitions of Nominal, Verbal, and Adjectival predicates in Simon C. Dik’s Functional Grammar. Kees Hengeveld’s later development and refinement of those ideas have been formalized within FDG as a theory of four functionally differentiated lexeme classes (Verb, Noun, Adjective, Adverb). These are distinguished from word classes, which may be more numerous and apply at the Morphosyntactic Level of FDG. Certain languages lack one or more lexeme classes; these are classified as either flexible or rigid. The resultant classification has been shown to determine word order, morphological type, and dependent clause constructions, and has strongly impacted the debate on parts of speech in language typology.
Word Classes in Minimalist Syntax
Authors: Zeijlstra Hedde
Published: December 2023

This chapter provides an overview and discussion of how categories are generally analysed within (mainstream) minimalism. It begins with the observation that morphosyntactic rules are not sensitive to word classes or grammatical categories, but rather to lexical and functional formal features that underlie them, potentially augmented with roots. The chapter then discusses the consequences of this approach for the analysis of lexical categories within minimalism, and discusses to what extent lexical categories are ‘inherently lexical’ or whether they consist of functional formal features that combine with categoryless roots. The final part of the chapter discusses the nature of formal features in general, addressing questions as to whether they are universal, and how they can be hierarchically ordered.
Transcategorial Operations
Authors: Malchukov Andrej L.
Published: December 2023

The chapter discusses transcategorial operations such as nominalization and verbalization. Based on the author’s previous work, the chapter presents a model for constraining typology of transcategorial operations in general and nominalization in particular. The crucial ingredients of the proposed Generalized Scale Model (GSM) are: (i) functionally based hierarchies of verbal and nominal categories, which determine susceptibility of individual categories for loss/retention in transcategorial operations; (ii) structural features, pertaining to the way categories are expressed morphologically, which may interfere with the hierarchy constraints; (iii) Generalized Scale formation as a result of integrating the hierarchies of verbal and nominal categories; (iv) Blocking Effects pertaining to incompatibility of verbal and nominal categories providing alternative means of encoding certain functions (e.g. sentential vs possessive encoding of arguments), which impose additional constraints on the GSM. The chapter demonstrates that the proposed model can capture all cross-linguistically recurrent nominalization patterns, as well as account for apparent counterexamples.
Lexical Categories in Distributed Morphology
Authors: Don Jan
Published: December 2023

Distributed Morphology (DM) accounts for native speakers’ knowledge about the word classes of their language using categorially underspecified roots that get categorized in syntactic contexts. This chapter discusses arguments that have been given for roots without category, and presents a new one. The DM view on lexical categories raises questions about the locus of categorial information. If the categorial information is not located in the roots, then where does it come from? This leads to a discussion of the position of derivational affixes for which different proposals are on offer. The chapter focuses on a phonological restriction on word-class membership in Dutch which allows native speakers to judge whether a particular form in isolation is a verb or a noun. The theory offers enough room to accommodate such facts.
Word Classes in Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar
Authors: Van Eynde Frank
Published: December 2023

In Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar the distinction between nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech has a central role in the definition of syntactic word classes, but other distinctions play a role as well, ranging from valence over selection requirements to degrees of saturation. Syntactic word classes are, hence, defined in a factorial way. It will be shown that this provides a way to characterize the properties of functional and minor categories, such as determiners and complementizers, without a proliferation of part-of-speech distinctions. While the role of the part-of-speech distinction in the definition of syntactic word classes is given much attention, the chapter is brief on its role in the definition of semantic word classes, since the latter are defined in terms of model-theoretic notions, such as state of affairs, relations, and propositions, rather than in terms of syntactic notions. The chapter discusses the role of the part-of-speech distinction in the definition of morphological word classes.
Irish English in Advertising
Authors: O’Sullivan Joan
Published: December 2023

In order to investigate language ideological change in the Irish context, this study analyses a corpus of radio advertisements from an Irish radio channel broadcast over a 40-year period (1977–2017). While an initial examination of the corpus indicates the symbolic use of the Irish language, the use of American English, pseudo-French accents, etc., the predominant varieties exploited are Standard Southern British English and Irish English. As research shows, ideological issues associated with standard and non-standard varieties are especially visible in the colonial situation. In light of the colonial history of Ireland, and in view of the predominance of Standard Southern British English and Irish English in the corpus, the main focus of the study is therefore on changes in the exploitation of these varieties, with a focus on accent, to reveal language ideological change in the Irish context.
Emigrant Letters from Ireland
Authors: McCafferty Kevin , P. Amador-Moreno Carolina
Published: December 2023

Ego-documents like personal letters have emerged as an important resource for historical linguistics, as shown by studies of English and other languages. The last decade has also seen a significant increase in the quantity of historical research on Irish English based on evidence from emigrant letters. This research investigates diachronic developments in an important variety of English, expanding our knowledge of the history of Irish English and complementing previous studies, which have largely used evidence from literary texts, travel accounts, etc. The present chapter surveys research in this field and offers a brief account of what such ego-documents reveal about Irish English, using the example of a bundle of letters written by one Irish emigrant in the 1880s. This text is part of the Corpus of Irish English Correspondence, and it contains usage patterns of those features that can reveal a good deal about the language of the writer’s home locality and Irish English in general.
Irish English in Galway City
Authors: Peters Arne
Published: December 2023

The chapter provides a concise description of the historical roots of Galway as an urban centre, and of sociolinguistic developments that led to English, rather than Irish, becoming its dominant language. It addresses the question of how persisting contact between Irish and English has impacted on the development of Irish English in the city between the late twelfth century and today. Secondly, the chapter presents a range of vowel and consonant features that are characteristic of Irish English in Galway City, and for which contemporary variationist sociolinguistic research has found systematic correlations with microsociological local categories and configurations. Finally, building on existing studies of local linguistic landscapes, the chapter addresses possible directions that sociolinguistic research, both variationist and cognitive in nature, may take in future in order to further research socio-cultural and cognitive-conceptual variability in Irish English in Galway City within the general mind set of third-wave sociolinguistic endeavours.
Irish English in Cork City
Authors: Bessell Nicola J.
Published: December 2023

Cork City is Ireland’s second-largest city, with a metropolitan population approaching 418,000 (2016 census). As with many other Irish cities and towns, Cork City has a varied history of settlement and language use, with multilingual influences dating from the period of monastic settlement. Visitors to the modern city will hear many different ways of speaking. Some differences are associated with specific parts of the city or are rooted in conservative regional patterns. Others reflect recent supraregional norms and, increasingly, recent international immigration. As with any linguistic community, most speakers command a range of registers and vary their speech according to context and their own sense of identity. This chapter situates Cork City English in the context of Irish English studies, and brings our understanding of some of the city’s linguistic characteristics up to date by presenting newly collected data from families based in different parts of the city.
Irish English and Variational Pragmatics
Authors: Barron Anne
Published: December 2023

The present chapter deals with pragmatic variation in relation to Irish English within the framework of variational pragmatics. It focuses specifically on pragmatic conventions in Irish English as they compare to other varieties of English, and on pragmatic variation within the variety of Irish English according to macro-social factors, such as region, gender, age, socio-economic status, and ethnic identity. An empirical cross-varietal study of request consents across Irish English and Canadian English, focusing also on gender variation within and across both varieties, is described with the aim of illustrating some of the methods, trends, and issues arising in the analysis of pragmatic variation in Irish English.
Language in Early Ireland
Authors: Ronan Patricia
Published: December 2023

This chapter traces the linguistic situation in Ireland from the earliest attested stages of language use, Early Irish, through the arrival of Latin as a language of learning and Old Norse, which was brought by Viking settlers in the closing centuries of the first millennium bce, until the arrival of Anglo-Norman settlers to the end of the medieval period (c.1200 ce). It is shown that from early stages on, early Irish society has been multilingual. In this society the Irish language was a language of high prestige until the arrival of the first Anglo-Norman settlers and for a considerable period beyond this. Historical developments as well as the societal and political situation in the pre-modern period are related to and discussed in the context of typical developments in language contact.
From Ireland to Newfoundland
Authors: Clarke Sandra
Published: December 2023

Newfoundland Irish English (NIrE) is among the earliest and most conservative of transplanted overseas varieties of southern Irish English. Yet its contribution to the history of IrE has generally been overlooked. This chapter reviews the historical background of NIrE, along with its major phonetic and grammatical features. These are derived from two recent online projects involving some 40 traditional NIrE speakers, born as early as 1880. The Newfoundland data challenge various conclusions of the IrE literature, which is largely based on written sources, including emigrant letters. For example, NIrE indicates that short-vowel diphthongization, along with an onglided goose vowel, may have been more extensive in earlier southeastern IrE than the literature suggests. More importantly, NIrE questions the claim that earlier southern varieties of IrE were characterized by the Northern Subject Rule, and offers further evidence as to the date of emergence of habitual meanings of the verb forms do be and bees.
Perceptions of Irish English
Authors: Lucek Stephen
Published: December 2023

This chapter presents the different ways Irish English has been perceived and portrayed from the twelfth century to the present day. These three ways can be viewed as parts of a triangular relationship. Here linguists are central in (i) describing observed language variation, (ii) analysing language perceptions, and (iii) understanding the importance of media representations of language varieties. These three aspects reinforce the notion of Irishness—and more to the point, specific types of Irishness—through sound and vision. The current chapter seeks to examine the through lines between (i) the observations of linguists, (ii) the perceptions of non-linguists, and (iii) the ways that writers access and manipulate these data in crafting believable and authentic texts. The chapter concludes with the experimental model of language use, perception, and representation proposed by the author.
The Language of Irish Literature in English
Authors: Hickey Raymond
Published: December 2023

Works containing dialect can be examined in an attempt to reconstruct vernacular features for different regions at various times, while bearing in mind questions concerning the reliability of written representations (rendering these explicit helps to prepare the ground for later linguistic analysis). In Irish English literary texts a range of phonological and morphosyntactic traits are in evidence, including lexical and discourse-pragmatic features, especially in literature from the nineteenth century. Enregistered features of Irish English are apparent in literary texts, and serve to express a specifically Irish identity. Data is provided by corpora of literary works, and enable a data-driven, sociolinguistically aware analysis of the language of Irish literature. The issue of translation of Irish and English texts (in both directions) to gain insights into the specific nature of Irish English as a literary medium is also considered.
Language and Irish Travellers
Authors: Clancy Brian
Published: December 2023

Irish Travellers are an Irish ethnic minority, distinct from the settled, mainstream community. They have a unique sociocultural identity—they are traditionally nomadic, and have a language of their own, often referred to as Cant. In addition, the Traveller community have lower educational attainment levels and higher levels of unemployment than their settled counterparts. These factors have an obvious impact on language use. This chapter provides a thorough review of previous linguistic studies of the Irish Traveller community. In addition, it seeks to build on these studies through a corpus-pragmatic analysis of family discourse in both the settled and Traveller communities. The pragmatic items of import highlighted by this approach include personal pronouns, vocatives, and pragmatic markers. These items are discussed in relation to contextual and sociolinguistic factors characteristic of the Traveller and settled communities.
Irish English in the nineteenth century
Authors: van Hattum Marije
Published: December 2023

The focus of this chapter is (i) the nineteenth century as the formative period for Irish English as a high-contact variety of English, and (ii) increase in letteracy among the lower classes, though not necessarily literacy, which led to the development of a written vernacular. Many typical features, e.g. the after-perfect, second person plural pronoun yous, subordinating and, and habitual do be, are claimed to have originated or at least developed its current form or function in the nineteenth century. The language shift from Irish to English, though starting much earlier, gathered momentum in the nineteenth century due to unguided, rapid acquisition of English. This period saw a continuation of older features of Irish English as well as a high number of new developments, both contact-induced and independent developments as a result of ‘imperfect learning’ by broad sections of the population.
The Grammar of Irish English
Authors: Filppula Markku
Published: December 2023

This chapter provides a description of the main distinctive features of Irish English grammar and a discussion on the background of these features. Besides ‘educated’ IrE, attention is paid to rural regional dialects and urban working-class varieties. They display many features which distinguish IrE varieties from other regional or social dialects spoken in the British Isles with respect to their syntactic properties or frequency of use. The main factors behind these differences include, first, conservatism: IrE retains features that have disappeared from other varieties of English. Another factor is contact with other dialects, especially Scottish varieties. A third important factor is contact influences from Irish, the indigenous language of Ireland, which has for centuries exercised ‘substratal’ influence on IrE. The fourth factor is universal features associated with the kind of intense and fairly rapid language shift which took place in Ireland in the course of the nineteenth century.
The Vocabulary of Irish English
Authors: Kirk John
Published: December 2023

This chapter provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the largely traditional vocabulary of Irish English, North and South. It deals with the full range of lexical creations, from original coinages, borrowings/apports, compounds and derivations to more current types word formations, such as shortenings, clippings, blends, reduplication, acronyms, and echoic/onomatopoeic words. At the same time, it is concerned with issues of lexical semantics. The primary data underlying the chapter comes from existing dictionaries of both Northern and Southern Irish English dealing with the lexis of both English and Scots provenance along with the many instances of continuations of Irish words in English which have resulted from the historical language shift. The chapter addresses the issue of regionality of lexical items and meanings and also shows the different effects which the use of local dialect words can have in literary texts.
Longitudinally assessed maternal sleep position, measures of breathing during sleep, and fetal growth in high-risk pregnancies
Authors: Katz Juliana , Sanapo Laura , Bublitz Margaret H , Guillen Melissa , Avalos Ashanti , Aldana Annaly , Wilson Danielle , Bourjeily Ghada
Published: December 2023

Study Objectives

Subjective recall of supine sleep during pregnancy has been linked to increased risk of stillbirth, but longitudinal, objective data are lacking. We aimed to examine how sleep position and breathing parameters change throughout pregnancy, and investigated associations between maternal supine sleep, assessed objectively in early and late gestation, and fetal growth velocity in high-risk women.

Methods

Women with singleton pregnancies and body mass index (BMI) ≥27 kg/m2 underwent level-III sleep apnea testing. Sleep position was assessed by accelerometry. We derived percentiles of estimated fetal weight and birthweight using FetalGPSR software, then calculated growth velocity as change in percentile/week between the second-trimester anatomy scan and birth.

Results

In total, 446 women were included, with N = 126 in the longitudinal sleep pattern analysis and N = 83 in the fetal growth analysis. Sleep-onset position and predominant sleep position were significantly correlated in both early (p = 0.001) and late (p < 0.01) pregnancy. However, supine going-to-bed position predicted predominant supine sleep in only 47% of women. Between early and late pregnancy there was a reduction in predominant supine sleepers (51.6% to 30.2%). Percent of sleep spent supine and oxygen desaturation index, in the third trimester, were significantly associated after BMI adjustment (B = 0.018, p = 0.04). Models did not suggest significant effects of early or late pregnancy supine sleep on growth velocity (p > 0.05).

Conclusions

Going-to-bed position predicts predominant supine sleep in less than half of women with overweight and obesity. Time spent supine throughout pregnancy correlates with measures of sleep-disordered breathing. Maternal sleep position patterns did not affect fetal growth velocity in this high-risk population, but the study was not powered to detect differences.
The President’s Role(s) in the Law-Making Process in Uganda
Authors: Mujuzi Jamil Ddamulira
Published: December 2023

Articles 79(1) and (2) of the Constitution of Uganda provide that subject to the provisions of the Constitution, only Parliament or a person or body authorized by Parliament, has the power to make laws. Article 91 provides ways in which the President participates in the law-making process. I examine the Hansard of the 10th Parliament of Uganda (May 2016—May 2021) to demonstrate how the President invoked Article 91 to, inter alia, return Bills to Parliament or to decline to assent to Bills. The 10th Parliament passed 118 Bills, seven Bills were withdrawn and the President returned 11 Bills. The Hansard show that: (i) in most of the cases, Parliament amended the Bills to address the President’s concerns; (ii) there are instances in which Parliament appears to disregard the Constitution especially in cases where the President has exceeded the constitutional time limit within which he must assent to Bills; (iii) Parliament applied different methodologies to gather the information it needed to revise the Bills and (iv) in a few cases, Parliament disagreed with the President and declined to change the returned clauses of the Bills. The article shows, inter alia, that the President wielded enormous powers in the law-making process contrary to what was envisaged by the drafters of the Constitution. It is argued, inter alia, that in reconsidering the Bills returned by the President, Parliament should not ignore the issue of public participation otherwise the Acts may be declared unconstitutional. It is also argued, basing on the drafting history of the Constitution, that the 30-day period within which the President is required to assent to a Bill excludes Sundays and public holidays. However, it includes Saturdays.
Sensitivity of Botrytis cinerea from Vineyards to Boscalid, Isofetamid, and Pydiflumetofen in Shandong Province, China
Authors: Zhou Lianzhu , Liu Yongqiang , Kong Fanfang , Jia Shuangshuang , Wang Qi , Wang Zhongyue , Zhang Hao , Huang Xiaoqing
Published: December 2023

Succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHI) fungicides are the most commonly and effectively used class of fungicides for controlling gray mold. Among them, only boscalid has been registered in China for controlling grape gray mold, whereas isofetamid and pydiflumetofen are two new SDHI fungicides that have demonstrated high efficacy against various fungal diseases. However, the sensitivity of Botrytis cinerea isolates from vineyards in China to these three fungicides is currently unknown. In this study, the sensitivity of 55 B. cinerea isolates from vineyards to boscalid, isofetamid, and pydiflumetofen was determined, with the effective concentrations for inhibiting 50% of spore germination (EC50) values ranging from 1.10 to 393, 0.0300 to 42.0, and 0.0990 to 25.5 μg ml−1, respectively. The resistance frequencies for boscalid, isofetamid, and pydiflumetofen were 60.0, 7.2, and 12.8%, respectively. Three mutations (H272R, H272Y, and P225F) were detected in the SdhB subunit, with H272R being the most prevalent (75.7%), followed by H272Y (16.2%) and P225F (8.1%). All three mutations are associated with resistance to boscalid, and of them, H272R mutants exhibited high resistance. Only P225F and H272Y mutants exhibited resistance to isofetamid and pydiflumetofen, respectively. A weakly positive cross-resistance relationship was observed between boscalid and pydiflumetofen ( r = 0.38, P < 0.05). Additionally, the H272R mutants showed no significant fitness costs, whereas the remaining mutants exhibited reduced mycelial growth (P225F) and sporulation (H272Y and P225F). These results suggest that isofetamid and pydiflumetofen are effective fungicides against B. cinerea in vineyards, but appropriate rotation strategies must be implemented to reduce the selection of existing SDHI-resistant isolates.
Genome Resource of Bacillus subtilis KRS015, a Potential Biocontrol Agent for Verticillium dahliae
Authors: Song Jian , Chen Jie-Yin , Zhang Dan-Dan , Li Ran , Kong Zhi-Qiang , Zhu He , Dai Xiao-Feng , Han Dongfei , Wang Dan
Published: December 2023

Bacillus subtilis, a gram-positive bacterium commonly found in soil, is an excellent organism for plant biocontrol. B. subtilis KRS015, an endophyte isolated from the seed of Gossypium hirsutum ‘Zhongzhimian No. 2’, has been proven based on its antagonistic activity against diverse fungal pathogens of plants, including Verticillium dahliae, a fungal pathogen of Verticillium wilt in various plants such as cotton. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of B. subtilis KRS015. The size of the KRS015 genome is 4,331,506 bp. Fifteen gene clusters for antibiotics and secondary metabolites and 412 genes involved in plant–bacterial interactions were identified in this genome. These findings qualified the potential of B. subtilis KRS015 as a biocontrol agent and may help reveal the molecular basis of its antagonistic mechanisms.

[Formula: see text] Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .
Anterior Distal Femoral Hemiepiphysiodesis in Children With Fixed Knee Flexion Deformities: Does Screw Position Matter?
Authors: Seth Akshay , Watkins Colyn J. , Miller Patricia E. , Shore Benjamin J.
Published: December 2023

Background:

Anterior distal femoral hemiepiphysiodesis (ADFH) using 2 percutaneous screws is an effective technique for the treatment of fixed knee flexion deformities in children with neuromuscular disorders. The role of sagittal screw position on the outcome of the procedure is unknown.

Methods:

This is a retrospective case series of patients who underwent ADFH at a single pediatric hospital from 2013 to 2020. Radiographs were evaluated for sagittal screw position and the associated change in lateral distal femoral physeal angle over time. The position of the 2 screws was classified as either being both in the anterior third of the physis (AA), one screw in the anterior third and the other screw in the middle third (AM), or both screws in the middle third of the physis (MM).

Results:

The study population included 68 knees in 36 patients. The mean physeal angle at the time of surgery was 93 degrees (SD 4.0 degrees), which increased to 102.4 degrees (SD 5.7 degrees) at 12 months, for a change of 9.4 degrees (P<0.001). At 24 months, the mean physeal angle was 104.6 degrees (SD 6.3 degrees) for a further change of 2.9 degrees (P<0.001). When stratified by screw position all screw configurations resulted in an increase in the physeal angle at 12 months. At the 24-month follow-up, the physeal angle in knees with AA screws continued to increase another 3.5 degrees (P<0.05), there was a minimal change in knees with AM screws (1.47°, P>0.05) and knees with MM screws saw a reversal of physeal angle change (−7.1 degrees, P<0.05).

Conclusions:

ADFH using percutaneous screws results in an increase in the lateral distal femoral physeal angle. The rate of correction is largest in the first 12 months after the procedure. As such, this procedure should be considered in patients with less than 2 years of growth remaining. However, initial screw positioning influences the amount of change over time, and close postoperative surveillance until physeal closure is essential for all patients.

Level of Evidence:

Level IV—retrospective case series.
Estrogen receptor beta suppresses the androgen receptor oncogenic effects in triple-negative breast cancer
Authors: Xu Feng , Xu Kun , Fan Lingling , Li Xintong , Liu Yiqiu , Yang Fang , Zhu Chengjun , Guan Xiaoxiang
Published: December 2023

Background:

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive type of breast cancer associated with poor prognosis and limited treatment options. The androgen receptor (AR) has emerged as a potential therapeutic target for luminal androgen receptor (LAR) TNBC. However, multiple studies have claimed that anti-androgen therapy for AR-positive TNBC only has limited clinical benefits. This study aimed to investigate the role of AR in TNBC and its detailed mechanism.

Methods:

Immunohistochemistry and TNBC tissue sections were applied to investigate AR and nectin cell adhesion molecule 4 (NECTIN4) expression in TNBC tissues. Then, in vitro and in vivo assays were used to explore the function of AR and estrogen receptor beta (ERβ) in TNBC. Chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq), co-immunoprecipitation (co-IP), molecular docking method, and luciferase reporter assay were performed to identify key molecules that affect the function of AR.

Results:

Based on the TNBC tissue array analysis, we revealed that ERβ and AR were positive in 21.92% (32/146) and 24.66% (36/146) of 146 TNBC samples, respectively, and about 13.70% (20/146) of TNBC patients were ERβ positive and AR positive. We further demonstrated the pro-tumoral effects of AR on TNBC cells, however, the oncogenic biology was significantly suppressed when ERβ transfection in LAR TNBC cell lines but not in AR-negative TNBC. Mechanistically, we identified that NECTIN4 promoter –42 bp to –28 bp was an AR response element, and that ERβ interacted with AR thus impeding the AR-mediated NECTIN4 transcription which promoted epithelial–mesenchymal transition in tumor progression.

Conclusions:

This study suggests that ERβ functions as a suppressor mediating the effect of AR in TNBC prognosis and cell proliferation. Therefore, our current research facilitates a better understanding of the role and mechanisms of AR in TNBC carcinogenesis.
Head Trauma Effect on Corneal Endothelial Cell Density in Eye Bank Donors 50 Years or Older
Authors: Oseni Jessinta , Tauber Jenna , Rand Gabriel , Moon Jee Young , Gore Patrick , Edwards Brandon , Livesay Tina , Vizzerra Anthony , Chuck Roy S.
Published: December 2023

Purpose:

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of head trauma on corneal endothelial cell density (ECD) in eye bank donors 50 years or older.

Methods:

This is a retrospective study of 128 corneas from 67 donors 50 years or older with cause of death secondary to head trauma, gunshot wound to the head (n = 26), motor vehicle accident with head trauma (n = 33), a fall with sustained head trauma (n = 47), and non-head trauma–related deaths (n = 22). Corneal data were recovered from Saving Sight Eye Bank (Kansas City, MO) database between January 2018 and August 2021. Donor characteristics, ECD, and focal endothelial cell loss on specular microscopy were examined between groups. A linear mixed effects model and a mixed effects logistic regression were used to compare ECD and examine the association between head trauma and focal endothelial cell loss.

Results:

The average ECD in the head trauma group was 2471 ± 342 cells/mm2 and 2588 ± 282 cells/mm2 in the nonhead trauma group (P value = 0.24). After adjusting for age, death-to-preservation time, and pseudophakia, the ECD difference between the head trauma and nonhead trauma groups was −105 ± 112 cells/mm2 (P value = 0.35). The odds of having focal endothelial cell loss were not statistically significant (P value = 0.42) between the head trauma (odds = 0.93) and nonhead trauma (odds = 0.69) groups.

Conclusions:

There were no differences in ECD and focal endothelial cell loss between the head trauma and nonhead trauma groups in eye bank donors 50 years or older.
Guided trocar insertion in highly myopic eyes
Authors: Savastano Alfonso , Bernardinelli Patrizio , De Vico Umberto , Amorelli Giulia Maria , Niutta Matteo , Rizzo Stanislao
Published: December 2023

Purpose:

to demonstrate through a diagnostic test used as a new preoperative assessment, that trocar insertion for pars plana vitrectomy could be safely placed at a distance greater than 4.0 mm in highly myopic eyes to facilitate the surgical maneuvers.

Methods:

30 eyes of 30 patients were tested with a biometer for the axial length measurement and with ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) to measure the pars plana length. Pars plana lengths of highly myopic eyes were then compared with those of emmetropic eyes. The surgeon also measured the pars plana of highly myopic eyes intraoperatively and compared it with ultrasound measurements to assess UBM reliability.

Results:

The mean AXL was 23.81mm (SD ±0.30) in the control group and 31.11 mm (SD ±0.56) in the myopic group. The mean pars plana length was 4.96 mm (SD ±0.19) in control eyes and 6.65 (SD ±0.36) in myopic eyes. An extremely significant statistical difference (p < 0.001) was obtained by comparing the length of pars plana between control eyes and myopic eyes. The results of pars plana measurements were 6.65 mm SD ±0.36 (UBM) and 6.66 mm SD ±0.34 (intraoperative measurements) in myopic eyes. The statistical comparison of the measurements in these two groups did not give a statistically significant result (p = 0.950).

Conclusions:

UBM is a reliable technique to calculate the length of pars plana in highly myopic eyes, where this parameter is significantly greater than that of emmetropic eyes. Trocars insertion for pars plana vitrectomy may be performed, in eyes with axial length greater than 30mm, in relative safety at a distance to limbus higher than 4mm.
Clinical Characteristics, Treatment Modalities, and Their Association with Long-term Visual Outcomes in Uveal Effusion Syndrome
Authors: Choi Eun Young , Lee Seung Min , Chun Jinsuk , Choi Youngje , Kim Min
Published: December 2023

Purpose:

Uveal effusion syndrome (UES) is a rare eye condition characterized by fluid accumulation in the uveal layer. We investigated its clinical characteristics and treatment modalities and their association with long-term visual outcomes.

Methods:

This retrospective cohort study included patients with UES treated at two tertiary hospitals between November 2005 and June 2023. Clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes by modality were compared between nanophthalmic type 1 UES (UES-1) and non-nanophthalmic type 2 UES (UES-2), and between initial and final visits. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with vision loss.

Results:

Twenty-three eyes were included (UES-1, n=10; UES-2, n=13). Retinal pigment epithelium mottling was significantly more common in UES-1 than in UES-2 (P=0.043); no other between-group differences were observed. Post-treatment, in UES-1, best-corrected visual acuity (P=0.028) and central macular thickness (P=0.046) significantly decreased; in UES-2, best-corrected visual acuity significantly improved (P=0.021), and subfoveal choroidal thickness (P=0.048), central subretinal fluid height (P=0.011), and central macular thickness (P=0.010) significantly decreased. UES-2 was associated with a lower risk of vision loss (odds ratio, 0.024; P=0.044). No other associated factors were identified.

Conclusion:

The UES type was the sole independent prognostic factor for vision loss, while treatment modalities had no significant impact on visual outcomes.