Copper (Cu) pollution is common in the soil. Due to the widespread application of TiO2 NPs, there is a high propensity for the co-occurrence of TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) and Cu in agricultural soils... Show moreCopper (Cu) pollution is common in the soil. Due to the widespread application of TiO2 NPs, there is a high propensity for the co-occurrence of TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) and Cu in agricultural soils. It is therefore imperative to evaluate the joint effects of TiO2 NPs and Cu on crops. In this study, the mutual effects of TiO2 NPs and Cu on their toxicity and accumulation in soybean seedlings and on their fates in a hydroponic system were determined. When Cu was at levels of 1 and 2 mg/L, the co-occurring TiO2 NPs at a non-toxic concentration (10 mg/L) significantly enhanced the toxicity and accumulation of Cu and Ti in soybeans, and inhibited the translocation of Cu from soybean roots to shoots. However, when the Cu concentration for co-exposure was ≥ 5 mg/L, such mutual effects disappeared. The amount of Cu ions adsorbed onto TiO2 NPs after 48 h of co-exposure gradually increased from 31 to 118 mg/g when the Cu concentration was increased from 1 to 20 mg/L. The aggregation and sedimentation of TiO2 NPs were significantly increased after 48 h of co-exposure with the Cu at a concentration higher than 5 mg/L, as compared to the single TiO2 NPs exposure. The increasing aggregation and sedimentation might reduce the bioavailability of TiO2 NPs associated with the adsorbed Cu to soybeans, and consequently alleviate or even neutralize the enhanced toxicity and accumulation of Cu in soybeans exerted by the co-existing TiO2 NPs. Our results thus suggest that consideration of the impact of TiO2 NPs on the phytotoxicity of heavy metals, and specifically Cu, needs to be interpreted with care, and highlight the importance of integrating the interaction and fates of TiO2 NPs and metals into their risk assessment. Show less
This research aims to study the dynamic interaction between education and poetic identity, with a reference to the Obscure poets that came to the fore in the late 1970s and the early 1980s in... Show moreThis research aims to study the dynamic interaction between education and poetic identity, with a reference to the Obscure poets that came to the fore in the late 1970s and the early 1980s in Mainland China. It has been a prevailing idea that “successful” schooling in China has killed creativity and produced many unimaginative minds.Michelle Yeh’s and Maghiel van Crevel’s localized redefinition of poetic identity and Ivan Illich’s idea of deschooling, enable us to take a different perspective. I adopt mixed methods and use various resources such as oeuvre and textbooks. It shows that school education, family education, peer education, and mentor education have impacted on the forming of Obscure Poetry, and there is a fascinating “complicity” in the relationship between Obscure Poetry and Political Lyricism. There is definitely a relation between educational background and poetic identity, and it is not just, or even primarily, a negative relation. Literary traditions pass from one generation to another through various kinds of education. The complexity of the relationship between education and creative writing has often been reduced, overlooked and misconstrued, but the role of education remains a core perspective for our understanding of literature and of cultural traditions at large. Show less
Researchers use different approaches when collecting and managing primary language materials during fieldwork. Yet it is important that this work is done in a transparent way, so that it can be... Show moreResearchers use different approaches when collecting and managing primary language materials during fieldwork. Yet it is important that this work is done in a transparent way, so that it can be used by other researchers, who might have other aims, as well as by the speaker community who might want to use or take note of the collected materials. In this article we use our research experience in language data collection in and around Indonesia in fieldwork projects of three kinds: descriptive fieldwork, linguistic surveys, and projects investigating language contact. Our aim is to provide an introductory and practical guide for students and professionals who are embarking on fieldwork in or around Indonesia. Describing practical methods of language data collection, processing, and management, our aim is to provide a guide for any research which involves the collection of language materials, including linguistic research, oral history or literature, and ethnography. Show less
Functionalized high-aspect-ratio silver nanowires (AgNWs) have been recognized as one of the most promising alternatives for fabricating products, with their use ranging from electronic devices to... Show moreFunctionalized high-aspect-ratio silver nanowires (AgNWs) have been recognized as one of the most promising alternatives for fabricating products, with their use ranging from electronic devices to biomedical fields. Given concerns on the safety of AgNWs, there is an urgent need to investigate the relation between intrinsic properties of AgNWs and their toxicity. In this study, lettuce was exposed for either 6 or 18 d to different AgNWs to determine how the size/aspect ratio and coating of AgNWs affect the contributions of the dissolved and particulate Ag to the overall phytotoxicity and uptake kinetics. We found that the uncoated AgNW (39 nm diameter × 8.4 µm length) dissolved fastest of all AgNWs investigated. The phytotoxicity, uptake rate constants, and bioaccumulation factors of the PVP-coated AgNW (43 nm diameter × 1.8 µm length) and the uncoated AgNW (39 nm diameter × 8.4 µm length) were similar, and both were higher than that of the PVP-coated AgNW with the larger diameter(65 nm diameter × 4.4 µm length). These results showed that the diameter of the AgNWs predominantly affected toxicity and Ag accumulation in plants. Particulate Ag was found to be the predominant driver/descriptor of overall toxicity and Ag accumulation in the plants rather than dissolved Ag for all AgNWs tested. The relative contribution of dissolved versus particulate Ag to the overall effects was influenced by the exposure concentration and the extent of dissolution of AgNWs. This work highlights inherent particulate-dependent effects of AgNWs in plants and suggests that toxicokinetics should explicitly be considered for more nanomaterials and organisms, consequently providing more realistic input information for their environmental risk assessment. Show less
Whether toxicity of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) to organisms originates from the nanoparticles themselves or from the dissolved Ag-ions is still debated, with the majority of studies claiming that... Show moreWhether toxicity of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) to organisms originates from the nanoparticles themselves or from the dissolved Ag-ions is still debated, with the majority of studies claiming that extracellular release of Ag-ions is the main cause of toxicity. The objective of this study was to determine the contributions of both particles and dissolved ions to toxic responses, and to better understand the underlying mechanisms of toxicity. In addition, the pathways of AgNPs exposure to plants might play an important role and therefore are explicitly studied as well. We systematically assessed the phytotoxicity, internalization, biodistribution, and antioxidant responses in lettuce (Lactuca sativa) following root or foliar exposure to AgNPs and ionic Ag at various concentrations. For each endpoint the relative contribution of the particle-specific versus the ionic form was quantified. The results reveal particle-specific toxicity and uptake of AgNPs in lettuce as the relative contribution of particulate Ag accounted for more than 65% to the overall toxicity and the Ag accumulation in whole plant tissues. In addition, particle toxicity is shown to originate from the accumulation of Ag in plants by blocking nutrient transport, while ion toxicity is likely due to the induction of excess ROS production. Root exposure induced higher toxicity than foliar exposure at comparable exposure levels. Ag was found to be taken up and subsequently translocated from the exposed parts of plants to other portions regardless of the exposure pathway. These findings suggest particle related toxicity, and demonstrate that the accumulation and translocation of silver nanoparticles need to be considered in assessment of environmental risks and of food safety following consumption of plants exposed to AgNPs by humans. Show less
Phonological similarity affects bilingual lexical access of etymologically-related translation equivalents (ETEs). Jinan Mandarin (JM) and Standard Chinese (SC) are closely related and share many... Show morePhonological similarity affects bilingual lexical access of etymologically-related translation equivalents (ETEs). Jinan Mandarin (JM) and Standard Chinese (SC) are closely related and share many ETEs, which are usually orthographically and segmentally identical but vary in tonal similarity. Using an auditory lexical decision experiment and Generalised Additive Modelling, the present study investigates how cross-linguistic tonal similarity interacts with language of operation and how the switching of language across blocks influences SC-JM bilinguals’ auditory lexical processing of ETEs. Bilinguals showed a language dominance effect, indicating that ETEs are specified with separated word-form representations. Compared with SC tonal monolinguals, bilinguals showed a discontinuous bilingual auditory lexical advantage, instead of a classical bilingual lexical disadvantage. The dynamic role of cross-linguistic tonal similarity in auditory word processing is discussed in light of the bilinguals’ attentional shift with the change of language mode at the pre-lexical and lexical stages. Show less
The present study applied functional partition to investigate disyllabic lexical tonal pattern categories in an underresourced Chinese dialect, Jinan Mandarin. A two-stage partitioning procedure... Show moreThe present study applied functional partition to investigate disyllabic lexical tonal pattern categories in an underresourced Chinese dialect, Jinan Mandarin. A two-stage partitioning procedure was introduced to process a multi-speaker corpus that contains irregular lexical variants in a semi automatic way In the first stage, a program provides suggestions for the phonetician to decide the lexical tonal variants for the recordings of each word, based on the result of a functional k-means partitioning algorithm and tonal information from an available pronunciation dictionary of a related Chinese dialect, i.e. Standard Chinese. The second stage iterates a functional version of k-means partitioning with silhouette-based criteria to abstract an optimal number of tonal patterns from the whole corpus, which also allows the phoneticians to adjust the results of the automatic procedure in a controlled way and so redo partitioning for a subset of clusters.The procedure yielded eleven disyllabic tonal patterns for Jinan Mandarin, representing the tonal system used by contemporary Jinan Mandarin speakers from a wide range of age groups. The procedure used in this paper is different from previous linguistic descriptions which were based on more elderly speakers' pronunciations . This method incorporates phoneticians' linguistic knowledge and preliminary linguistic resources into the procedure of partitioning. It can improve the efficiency and objectivity in the investigation of lexical tonal pattern categories when building pronunciation dictionaries for underresourced languages. Show less
Both Standard Chinese (SC) high- and low-rising tones sound like the rising tone in Jinan Mandarin (JM) Chinese. Acoustically (Experiment 1), the JM rising tone overlaps with both SC rising tones,... Show moreBoth Standard Chinese (SC) high- and low-rising tones sound like the rising tone in Jinan Mandarin (JM) Chinese. Acoustically (Experiment 1), the JM rising tone overlaps with both SC rising tones, but more with the high-rising tone than with the low-rising tone. Perceptually (Experiment 2), the JM rising tone was more likely identified as the SC high-rising tone by SC monolinguals, as shown in Experiments 1 and 2. Experiment 3 examined the role of this two-to-one interlingual tonal mapping in bilingual lexical access. Final high-rising SC pseudo-words were more frequently and more quickly accepted as JM real words than final low-rising SC pseudo-words were. However, both high- and low-rising SC pseudo-words triggered equivalent facilitatory semantic priming on JM real-word targets. The results suggest that different tones are represented in the bilinguals’ mental lexicon in terms of fine-grained and sometimes overlapping acoustic specification. Lexical activation and semantic activation are partially independent. Show less