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To prevent spread of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) effective disinfection strategies are essential. Tuberculocidal efficacy of disinfectants can be demonstrated by testing disinfectants in in-vitro tests, such as the well-established quantitative suspension test EN 14348 using M. terrae as a surrogate organism in European disinfectant testing. While in other European standard tests such as EN 13727 or EN 13624 use of pour plate technique is well established, in EN 14348 only spread plate technique is considered. In this study comparative experiments according to EN 14348 with M. terrae were conducted using a peracetic acid-based disinfectant. For cultivation either pour plate or spread plate technique was used. Differences in colony size and morphology were observed when comparing growth of M. terrae on pour versus spread plates. However, no significant differences in biocidal efficacy data were obtained when applying either spread plates or pour plates in the quantitative suspension test EN 14348 under both clean and dirty conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical disinfection is an indispensable means of preventing infection. This holds true for healthcare settings, but also for all other settings where transmission of pathogens poses a potential health risk to humans and/or animals. Research on how to ensure effectiveness of disinfectants and the process of disinfection, as well as on when, how and where to implement disinfection precautions is an ongoing challenge requiring an interdisciplinary team effort. The valuable resources of active substances used for disinfection must be used wisely and their interaction with the target organisms and the environment should be evaluated and monitored closely, if we are to reliable reap the benefits of disinfection in future generations. In view of the global threat of communicable diseases and emerging and re-emerging pathogens and multidrug-resistant pathogens, the relevance of chemical disinfection is continually increasing. Although this consensus paper pinpoints crucial aspects for strategies of chemical disinfection in terms of the properties of disinfectant agents and disinfection practices in a particularly vulnerable group and setting, i.e., patients in healthcare settings, it takes a comprehensive, holistic approach to do justice to the complexity of the topic of disinfection.

Within the framework of Friederici's (2002) neurocognitive model of sentence processing, the early left anterior negativity (ELAN) in event-related potentials (ERPs) has been claimed to be a brain marker of syntactic first-pass parsing. As ELAN components seem to be exclusively elicited by word category violations (phrase structure violations), they have been taken as strong empirical support for syntax-first models of sentence processing and have gained considerable impact on psycholinguistic theory in a variety of domains. The present article reviews relevant ELAN studies and raises a number of serious issues concerning the reliability and validity of the findings. We also discuss how baseline problems and contextual factors can contribute to early ERP effects in studies examining word category violations. We conclude that - despite the apparent wealth of ELAN data - the functional significance of these findings remains largely unclear. The present paper does not claim to have falsified the existence of ELANs or syntax-related early frontal negativities. However, by separating facts from myths, the paper attempts to make a constructive contribution to how future ERP research in the area of syntax processing may better advance our understanding of online sentence comprehension.Copyright © 2012 by Elsevier Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both semantic and syntactic context constraints can influence word processing at the level of lexical integration. In event-related brain potentials (ERPs), semantic integration is reflected by a negativity around 400 msec (N400), whereas phrase structure assignment and syntactic integration are assumed to be reflected by an early left anterior negativity and a late positivity (P600), respectively. An ERP study is presented in which participants read different types of sentences whose terminal verb was either congruent with the preceding context or incongruent due to a phrase structure violation, a semantic violation, or both. The main finding was that only the pure semantic violation condition, but not the combined semantic and syntactic violation condition, elicited a large N400. The two conditions containing phrase structure violations were predominantly characterized by a P600. Both semantic violation conditions, moreover, displayed a late negativity around 700 msec that overlapped with the P600 in the double violation condition. The absence of an N400 effect for elements that are syntactically as well as semantically incongruent with prior context suggests an early influence of phrase structure information on processes of lexical-semantic integration. The present data are discussed in comparison to previous ERP findings, and a new view of lexical integration processes is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mandarin Chinese is typologically unusual among the world's languages in having flexible word order despite a near absence of inflectional morphology. These features of Mandarin challenge conventional linguistic notions such as subject and object and the divide between syntax and semantics. In the present study, we tested monolingual processing of argument structure in Mandarin verb-final sentences, where word order alone is not a reliable cue. We collected participants' responses to a forced agent-assignment task while measuring their electroencephalography data to capture real-time processing throughout each sentence. We found that sentence interpretation was not informed by word order in the absence of other cues, and while the coverbs BA and BEI were strong signals for agent selection, comprehension was a result of multiple cues. These results challenge previous reports of a linear ranking of cue strength. Event-related potentials showed that BA and BEI impacted participants' processing even before the verb was read and that role reversal anomalies elicited an N400 effect without a subsequent semantic P600. This study demonstrates that Mandarin sentence comprehension requires online interaction among cues in a language-specific manner, consistent with models that predict crosslinguistic differences in core sentence processing mechanisms., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Purpose: This clinical tutorial will present the concept of applying auditory-perceptual prompts (implicit instruction) typically used in voice therapy to the anatomy and physiology of the voice production system (explicit instruction) via the Estill Voice Model (EVM) and the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS)., Methods: EVM offers an integrated implicit-explicit instructional approach to voice training allowing for isolated practice of vocal structures (explicit) that interact to produce functional voice qualities (implicit), such as modal speech and louder projected voice qualities. In EVM, voice quality is correlated with the specific anatomy and physiologic adjustments via 13 Estill Figures and Options (eg, Larynx Figure has three options: High, Mid, and Low). RTSS provides a framework to connect client change in functioning (ie, target) with clinician action (ie, ingredients). Mechanisms of action connect the target to the ingredients by hypothesizing how the treatment is expected to work., Results: Evidence is provided for connecting auditory-perpetual voice prompts with the anatomy and physiology of voice and supporting an integrated implicit-explicit approach to voice therapy. The concept of linking commonly used implicit auditory-perceptual prompts used in voice therapy (eg, humming, loud "aahh") to explicit anatomy and physiology training (eg, 13 Estill Figures and Options) is demonstrated using EVM and the RTSS framework with case studies and video examples., Conclusions: Clinicians may choose to use anatomy and physiology of voice to define and provide explicit instruction for typically used implicit auditory-perceptual prompts. Future research is warranted to test the concept applied to voice therapy models in the literature across prevention and treatment of voice disorders., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Elizabeth U. Grillo reports financial support was provided by the National Institutes of Health. Elizabeth U. Grillo reports a relationship with the National Institutes of Health that includes funding grants. The other authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Adjectives in English and Mandarin are typically prenominal, but the corresponding grammatical rules vary in subtle ways. Our event-related potential (ERP) study shows that native speakers of both languages rely on similar processing mechanisms when reading sentences with anomalous noun-adjective order (e.g., the vase *white) in their first language, reflected by a biphasic N400-P600 profile. Only Mandarin native speakers showed an additional N400 on grammatical adjectives (e.g., the white vase), potentially due to atypical word-by-word presentation of lexicalized compounds. English native speakers with advanced Mandarin proficiency were tested in both languages. They processed ungrammatical noun-adjective pairs in English like English monolinguals (N400-P600), but only exhibited an N400 in Mandarin. The absent P600 effect corresponded to their (surprisingly) low proficiency with noun-adjective violations in Mandarin, questioning simple rule transfer from English grammar., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In morphologically richer languages, including French, one must learn the specific properties of number agreement in order to understand the language, and this learning process continues into adolescence. This study examined similarities and differences between French-speaking adolescents with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) when processing number agreement, and investigated how morpho-syntactic regularity affected language processing. Using event-related potentials (ERP) and only grammatical sentences with audio-visual mismatches, we studied ERP correlates to three types of number agreement: (1) regular determiner agreement in noun phrases, (2) regular subject-verb plural liaison, and (3) irregular subject-verb agreement. We also included a lexico-semantic mismatch condition to investigate lexico-semantic processing in our participants. 17 adolescents with DLD (M = 14.1 years) and 20 (pre)teens with typical language (TL, M = 12.2 years) participated in the study. Our results suggest three patterns. First, French-speaking teenagers without DLD are still consolidating their neurocognitive processing of morpho-syntactic number agreement and generally display ERP profiles typical of lower language proficiency than adult native speakers. Second, differences in morphosyntactic processing between teenagers with and without DLD seem to be limited to rule-based (regular) number agreement. Third, there is little evidence for corresponding differences in lexico-semantic processing., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Objectives: The long-term goal of this research is to advance the rehabilitation of voice disorders through the study and development of efficacious treatment regimes based upon motor learning principles. This study examined the effect of contextual interference (CI) of practice structure with knowledge of results (KR) feedback on motor learning of a novel voice task, "Twang," by hypophonic, novice, and expert older adults., Study Design: Prospective, randomized controlled mixed design., Methods: A total of 92 adults, age 55-80, recruited from the following motor skill levels: 1) Hypophonic voice; 2) Novice-untrained vocalists; 3) Expert-trained vocalists were randomly assigned to four different interventions and examined during acquisition, retention, and transfer phases of motor learning. Participants from each skill-level practiced the novel task, "Twang," according to the randomly assigned Practice Structure/KR combinations: 1) Blocked practice/100%KR; 2) Blocked practice/55% KR; 3) Random practice/100%KR; 4) Random practice/55% KR., Results: During the motor performance phase, our results mirrored those reported in the limb motor learning literature for CI: A Blocked practice structure enhanced short-term effects of motor acquisition for novice, expert, and hypophonic subjects. The only significant result for KR occurred when paired with Random Practice in the hypophonic subject group: 100% KR paired with Blocked practice increased motor performance, but degraded motor learning., Conclusions: Fundamental motor learning principles were explored within the context of a voice training paradigm. Practice with a high CI and low frequency of KR degraded performance during short-term acquisition but enhanced long-term performance effects of motor learning. Voice clinicians and teachers may benefit by implementing motor learning theory into practice during training and treatment sessions., (Copyright © 2023 The Voice Foundation. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: This research aimed to identify reliable tasks discriminating French-speaking adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD) from their peers with typical language (TL) and to assess which linguistic domains represent areas of particular weakness in DLD. Unlike English, morphosyntax has not been identified as a special area of weakness when compared with lexicosemantics in French preschoolers with DLD. Since there is evidence that subject-verb number agreement is consolidated in later childhood, one might expect morphosyntax to be a particular weakness and marker of French DLD only in (pre)adolescence., Method: We administered 20 subtasks that assessed linguistic and phonological working memory skills of two groups: 17 adolescents clinically identified as having DLD ( M = 14.1 years) and 20 (pre)teens with TL ( M = 12.2 years). Using robust statistics that are less affected by outliers, we selected the most discriminating subtasks between our groups, calculated their optimal cutoff score, and derived diagnostic accuracy statistics. We combined these subtasks in a multivariable model to identify which subtasks contributed the most to the identification of DLD., Results: Seven subtasks were selected as discriminating between our groups, and three showed outstanding diagnostic accuracy: Recalling Sentences, a multiword task assessing lexicosemantic skills, and a subject-verb number agreement production task. When combined, we found that the latter contributed the most to our multivariable model., Conclusion: This study provides evidence that the most relevant markers to identify DLD in French teenagers are tasks assessing lexicosemantics and morphosyntactic domains, and that morphosyntax should be considered an important area of weakness in French-speaking teenagers with DLD., Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21753932.

Recent neurophysiological research suggests that slow cortical activity tracks hierarchical syntactic structure during online sentence processing. Here we tested an alternative hypothesis: electrophysiological activity peaks at constituent phrase as well as sentence frequencies reflect cortical tracking of overt or covert (implicit) prosodic grouping. Participants listened to series of sentences presented in three conditions while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. First, prosodic cues in the sentence materials were neutralized. We found an EEG spectral power peak elicited at a frequency that only 'tagged' covert, implicit prosodic change, but not any major syntactic constituents. In the second condition, participants listened to a series of sentences with overt prosodic grouping cues that either aligned or misaligned with the syntactic phrasing in the sentences (initial overt prosody trials). Following each overt prosody trial, participants were presented with a second series of sentences lacking overt prosodic cues (instructed prosody trial) and were instructed to imagine the prosodic contour present in the previous, overt prosody trial. The EEG responses reflected an interactive relationship between syntactic processing and prosodic tracking at the frequencies of syntactic constituents (sentences and phrases): alignment of syntax and prosody boosted EEG responses, whereas their misalignment had an opposite effect. This was true for both overt and imagined prosody conditions. We conclude that processing of both overt and covert prosody is reflected in the frequency-tagged neural responses at sentence constituent frequencies. These findings need to be incorporated in any account that aims to identify neural markers reflecting syntactic processing., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Reservoir souring, which is the production of H 2 S mainly by sulfate-reducing microorganisms (SRM) in oil reservoirs, has been a long-standing issue for the oil industry. While biocides have been frequently applied to control biogenic souring, the effects of biocide treatment are usually temporary, and biocides eventually fail. The reasons for biocide failure and the long-term response of the microbial community remain poorly understood. In this study, one-time biocide treatments with glutaraldehyde (GA) and an aldehyde-releasing biocide (ARB) at low (100 ppm) and high (750 ppm) doses were individually applied to a complex SRM community, followed by 1 year of monitoring of the chemical responses and the microbial community succession. The chemical results showed that souring control failed after 7 days at a dose of 100 ppm regardless of the biocide type and lasting souring control for the entire 1-year period was achieved only with ARB at 750 ppm. Microbial community analyses suggested that the high-dose biocide treatments resulted in 1 order of magnitude lower average total microbial abundance and average SRM abundance, compared to the low-dose treatments. The recurrence of souring was associated with reduction of alpha diversity and with long-term microbial community structure changes; therefore, monitoring changes in microbial community metrics may provide early warnings of the failure of a biocide-based souring control program in the field. Furthermore, spore-forming sulfate reducers ( Desulfotomaculum and Desulfurispora ) were enriched and became dominant in both GA-treated groups, which could cause challenges for the design of long-lasting remedial souring control strategies. IMPORTANCE Reservoir souring is a problem for the oil and gas industry, because H 2 S corrodes the steel infrastructure, downgrades oil quality, and poses substantial risks to field personnel and the environment. Biocides have been widely applied to remedy souring, but the long-term performance of biocide treatments is hard to predict or to optimize due to limited understanding of the microbial ecology affected by biocide treatment. This study investigates the long-term biocide performance and associated changes in the abundance, diversity, and structure of the souring microbial community, thus advancing the knowledge toward a deeper understanding of the microbial ecology of biocide-treated systems and contributing to the improvement of current biocide-based souring control practices. The study showcases the potential application of incorporating microbial community analyses to forecast souring, and it highlights the long-term consequences of biocide treatment in the microbial communities, with relevance to both operators and regulators.

When facing an emerging virus outbreak such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a quick reaction time is key to control the spread. It takes time to develop antivirals and vaccines, and implement vaccination campaigns. Therefore, preventive measures such as rapid isolation of cases and identification and early quarantine of cases' close contacts-as well as masks, physical distancing, hand hygiene, surface disinfection and air control-are crucial to reduce the risk of transmission. In this context, disinfectants and antiseptics with proven efficacy against the outbreak virus should be used. However, biocidal formulations are quite complex and may include auxiliary substances such as surfactants or emollients in addition to active substances. In order to evaluate disinfectants' efficacy objectively, meaningful efficacy data are needed. Therefore, the European Committee for Standardisation technical committee 216 'Chemical disinfectants and antiseptics' Working Group 1 (medical area) has developed standards for efficacy testing. The European tiered approach grades the virucidal efficacy in three levels, with corresponding marker test viruses. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, disinfectants with proven activity against vaccinia virus, the marker virus for the European claim 'active against enveloped viruses', should be used to ensure effective hygiene procedures to control the pandemic.