Lateral bracing refers to an intentional tongue posture whereby the sides of the tongue make contact with the sides of the palate and the upper molars. While previous research on this topic has focused mostly on English, the present study tests the hypothesis that lateral bracing provides a fundamental postural basis for speech and is present across languages. We predicted that, across multiple languages, the sides of the tongue should be more stable than the center and should stay in a relatively high position in the mouth throughout most of running speech. Using coronal ultrasound imaging, we measured tongue movement produced by speakers (N = 28) of six languages (Akan, Cantonese, English, Korean, Mandarin and Spanish). Across these languages, as predicted, the sides of the tongue throughout running speech were positioned higher in the mouth than the center, and the range of movement of the sides was significantly smaller than that of the center of the tongue. These findings support the view that the sides of the tongue maintain a braced posture across languages while speaking, potentially constituting a universal, rather than language-specific, postural basis for speech.

Serine protease inhibitors (serpins) play essential physiological roles in a wide range of biological processes. Serpins are researched limited in Taenia solium, although some are considered to participate in host immune responses. Tsserpins were identified as typical serpins due to the primary structure of characteristic features: the serpin motif, serpin signature and reaction centre loop (RCL). RCLs of four serpin genes (TsB6, Ts4848, Ts12383 and Ts570) contained the conserved sequences of inhibitory serpins, which may involve in immune regulation. TsEP45 differed greatly from the patterns of representative serpins, suggesting that TsEP45 may be non-inhibitory. The bioinformatic analyses were supposed that Tsserpins might be a potential antigen for diagnosis. The five recombinant Tsserpin proteins were expressed and identified reacting with Cysticercus cellulosae-positive serum samples. The indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (iELISAs) based on Tsserpins were developed and validated, one of the five Tsserpins, TsEP45, showed excellent diagnostic results with 93·33% sensitivity and 94·12% specificity, respectively. This performance was in perfect accordance with the results of the bioinformatic analysis. This study provided a comprehensive demonstration of sequences and structural-based analysis of Tsserpins. The iELISAs based on five Tsserpins were developed and compared. TsEP45 was the potential species-specific antigen for developing iELISA to detect porcine cysticercosis.

Building on the co-opetition perspective, this study takes a unified approach to examine relationship benefits and transaction costs in buyer–supplier relationships. We argue that buyer–supplier vertical dyads fall into one of four distinct co-opetition types based on their respective degrees of cooperation and competition. Each co-opetition situation then corresponds to unique levels of relationship benefits and transaction costs. A sample of 225 supplier–buyer dyads from the Chinese home appliance industry confirms that competition has a positive effect on transaction costs and a negative effect on relationship benefits, while cooperation stimulates greater relationship benefits but affects transaction costs mainly at low competition levels. The results advance prior research on buyer–supplier relationships and co-opetition and offer valuable avenues for future research.

Temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) spectra were measured to characterize the In-doped cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe, or CZT) crystals along the growth direction in the range of 10 to 60 K. High-resistivity CZT samples with 1.2 ppm In dopant at the tip and low-resistivity samples with 60 ppm In dopant at the heel have been assessed. The PL intensity quenching of D0X were fitted with two activation energies for high-resistivity CZT sample and only one activation energy for low-resistivity sample, respectively, suggesting different recombination mechanisms. The C-line was observed in the PL spectra of low-resistivity CZT sample and considered to the results of the isoelectronic complexes, InCd–VCd–InCd, while in high-resistivity CZT sample, shallow donor accepted pair (DAP) transition was identified, and thought to be related to InCd–VCd. The A-center in PL spectra was observed in low-resistivity CZT sample, which is indicative of more cadmium vacancies. It turns out that indium in low-resistivity CZT sample has not been doped as efficiently as in high-resistivity CZT sample because of the self-compensation.

As has been discussed, research on the electronic structure between organic and inorganic atoms in hybrid compounds has become important. In our study, DV—Xα method was employed to calculate the electronic structure of the hybrid compound. The information obtained from the calculation included orbit charge, bonding order, Fermi energy, density of the state, etc. The influence of organic and inorganic parts on the energy band structure of the hybrid compound was discussed based on the calculation results of Fermi energy and density of state. The chemical bonding between organic and inorganic parts in the hybrid compound was also analyzed in detail according to the orbital charges and bond orders.

With the preparation of organic-inorganic layered perovskite-type compounds (C4H9NH3)2MCl4 (M = Mn, Cu) in solutions, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermal gravimetry (TG) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) have been used to characterize the obtained powders. XRD patterns demonstrate that the two compounds have obvious layered structures and SEM pictures reveal that both (C4H9NH3)2MnCl4 and (C4H9NH3)2CuCl4 take on obvious sheet-like microstructure. TG&DSC curves indicate that (C4H9NH3)2CuCl4 decomposes at much lower temperature than (C4H9NH3)2MnCl4.This is ascribed to weakening interactions between its organic and inorganic components, which is presumably due to the Jahn-Teller distortion of [CuCl6] octahedra.

A bulk sample of La0.6Mg0.4MnO3 has been prepared from coprecipitated carbonate precursor for the first time in this study. Structure analysis conducted by powder x-ray diffraction indicates that the sample is in the cubic perovskite phase. It shows a metal-insulator transition at 115 K (Tp) When applied to an external field, GMR effects are observed in the whole measured temperature range. The maximum negative MR value reaches as large as 480% at 105 K and 5 T. There may be two different mechanisms governing the GMR effects in the sample for the temperatures below and above Tp.