Adopting the standpoint of Construction Grammar (Goldberg 2006) and the corpus- based method known as Distinctive-Collexeme Analysis (Gries and Stefanowitsch 2004; Hilpert 2014), the investigation seeks to identify lexemes that indicate a strong preference either for the it is ADJ to V-construction or the it is ADJ that-construction. On the basis of data extracted from the academic sub-corpus of COCA, the study reveals that there are adjectives exhibiting a strong preference for one construction instead of the other, and that the constructions have a tendency to occur with adjectives evoking different semantic frames.

This paper adopts a constructional approach to grammatical structure (Goldberg 1995; 2006) and a corpus-based method for investigating pairs of semantically similar constructions and the lexemes that occur in them. The method, referred to as distinctive-collexeme analysis (Gries and Stefanowitsch 2004a), is used to determine which of the lexemes occurring in two constructions are most distinctive for either of them. On the basis of the case study concerning the imminent-NOUNconstruction versus the impending-NOUN construction, the paper demonstrates that one construction attracts some nouns more strongly than the other does. Moreover, the results of the distinctive-collexeme analysis of this pair of constructions reveal that there are clearly distinctive collexemes for each of the two constructions, and that the frame-constructional semantics is a contributing factor in the selection between these two patterns.

Applying frame semantics, usage-based construction grammar, and quantitative corpus-based methodology, this article seeks to explore the nature of the extraposed construction with past participles complemented by that-clauses. To this end, the author extracts the occurrences of the It BE V_en that-construction from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), determines its structural, semantic, distributional, and discourse-functional features, and identifies verbs that are strongly associated with the construction in question. The study meaningfully contributes to a growing body of research on it-extraposition by conducting a qualitative and quantitative analysis of one of its variants, a grammatical pattern with past participles that has not been hitherto investigated in much detail from a quantitative corpus- based perspective.

Nicotine, a potent parasympathomimetic alkaloid with stimulant effects, is contributing to addictive properties of tobacco smoking and is though used in the smoking cessation therapy. Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is involved in physiology and pathophysiology of various systems in mammals. The interactions between nicotine and H2S are not fully recognized. The aim of the study is to assess the influence of nicotine on the H2S tissue concentrations in different mouse organs. Adult CBA male mice were administered intraperitoneally 1.5 mg/kg b.w. per day of nicotine (group D1, n = 10) or 3 mg/ kg b.w. per day of nicotine (group D2, n = 10). The control group (n = 10) received physiological saline. The measurements of the free and acid-labile H2S tissue concentrations were performed with the Siegel spectrophotometric modi ed method. ere was a significant increase in H2S concentrations in both nicotine doses groups in the kidney (D1 by 54.2%, D2 by 40.0%). In the heart the higher nicotine dose caused a marked decrease in H2S tissue level (by 65.4%), while the lower dose did not affect H2S content. Nicotine administration had no effect on H2S concentrations in the brain and liver. In conclusion, nicotine affects H2S tissue concentrations in kidney and heart but not in the liver and brain tissues.

Five cosmetics wastewater samples were treated by Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) assisted by coagulation. Different aluminum based coagulants were used: (Al2(SO4)3, Al 1019, Al 3010, Al 3030, Al 3035, PAX 16 and PAX 19). The raw wastewater COD values were in the range 285-2124 mg/l. The efficiency of DAF depended on different coagulants and production profi le of factory. COD removal was varied from 11.1 to 77.7%. The efficiency of coagulants was similar during treatment of particular sample. The best results were obtained with Al2(SO4)3 and for sample 5 - lotions and shampoos production. The wastewater from UV fi lter creams production (sample 4) was resistant to treatment by DAF regardless of used coagulant. HS-SPME-GC-MS analysis can be a confirmation of DAF effectiveness