Els patrons entonatius de les interrogatives absolutes del català central

En els estudis sobre l'entonació del català que s'han publicat des de les dues darreres dècades del s. XX fins avui, un dels aspectes que ha interessat més els investigadors és la melodia de les interrogatives absolutes o totals. Aquest tipus d'interrogatives es caracteritzen «perquè la pregunta es fa sobre el contingut de tot l'enunciat, com ara ¿M'has cridat?, i no sobre un constituent en particular, com en les parcials (per exemple, a diferència de l'anterior, ¿Qui m'ha cridat?). També s'anomenen de resposta sí/no, perquè es poden contestar amb aquests termes, que no tenen sentit, en canvi, com a resposta d'una pregunta parcial.»

Les interrogatives pronominals del català central. Anàlisi melòdica i patrons entonatius

En aquest article, descrivim l'entonació de les interrogatives pronominals del català central en parla espontània. Per produir aquest tipus de preguntes encapçalades per un pronom interrogatiu (qui, què, quan, com, per què ...), els parlants utilitzen cinc patrons melòdics diferents (amb inflexió final descendent, ascendent (10%-80%), ascendent (+80%), ascendent descendent o amb accent sintagmàtic elevat). També analitzem quins són els factors que influeixen a l'hora d'escollir una melodia en detriment de les altres.

Emerging, non-PCV13 serotypes 11A and 35B of Streptococcus pneumoniae show high potential for biofilm formation in vitro

Background: Since the use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines PCV7 and PCV13 in children became widespread, invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) has dramatically decreased. Nevertheless, there has been a rise in incidence of Streptococcus pneumoniae non-vaccine serotypes (NVT) colonising the human nasopharynx. Nasopharyngeal colonisation, an essential step in the development of S. pneumoniae-induced IPD, is associated with biofilm formation. Although the capsule is the main pneumococcal virulence factor, the formation of pneumococcal biofilms might, in fact, be limited by the presence of capsular polysaccharide (CPS). Methodology/Principal Findings: We used clinical isolates of 16 emerging, non-PCV13 serotypes as well as isogenic transformants of the same serotypes. The biofilm formation capacity of isogenic transformants expressing CPSs from NVT was evaluated in vitro to ascertain whether this trait can be used to predict the emergence of NVT. Fourteen out of 16 NVT analysed were not good biofilm formers, presumably because of the presence of CPS. In contrast, serotypes 11A and 35B formed >45% of the biofilm produced by the non-encapsulated M11 strain. Conclusions/Significance This study suggest that emerging, NVT serotypes 11A and 35B deserve a close surveillance.

A Fair and Secure Cluster Formation Process for Ad Hoc Networks

An efficient approach for organizing large ad hoc networks is to divide the nodesinto multiple clusters and designate, for each cluster, a clusterhead which is responsible forholding intercluster control information. The role of a clusterhead entails rights and duties.On the one hand, it has a dominant position in front of the others because it manages theconnectivity and has access to other node¿s sensitive information. But on the other hand, theclusterhead role also has some associated costs. Hence, in order to prevent malicious nodesfrom taking control of the group in a fraudulent way and avoid selfish attacks from suitablenodes, the clusterhead needs to be elected in a secure way. In this paper we present a novelsolution that guarantees the clusterhead is elected in a cheat-proof manner.