Maternal mortality has posed a great problem in the health sector of most African countries. Nigeria’s maternal mortality ratio remains high despite efforts made to meet millennium development goal 5 (MDG5). This study used the Lagos state community health survey 2011 and the Lagos state health budget allocations 2011 to examine the effect of government expenditure on maternal mortality ratio. Factors like inadequate transportation facilities, lack of awareness, inadequate infrastructures, which contribute to high maternal mortality rate, can be traced back to revenue though under different ministries. The other ministries need to work and support the ministry of health in the fight against maternal, especially in Lagos state. Secondary data was compiled from the state budget, records of death in different local governments in the state and relevant reviewed literature. Regression analysis was used to analyze the hypothesis and it was discovered that government expenditure does not have a significant effect on maternal mortality based on the R-square coefficient. However, correlation coefficient gives a contrasting result. Hence, further research work, government expenditure from other local government areas need to be taken into consideration to arrive at a valid conclusion. It is difficult to ascertain how much of the revenue allocated was put to appropriate use, due to a high level of corruption.

The study of inner speech is appropriate to carry out in the plane of interaction of various scientific studies. This approach allows us to analyze the specifics of functioning of inner speech at the level of artistic discourse. Such phenomenon as inner speech presents not only the protagonist's outlook, their emotional state or social aspects, but also demonstrates, under the influence of extraordinary factors, the intensity of affect expression in the addresser's speech activity. Inner speech in an emotive situation is marked by peculiar characteristics, which indicates its unique multidimensional essence.

The aim of the article is the analysis of the results of the empirical research concerning the process of acquisition of English article system by Polish learners, carried out at three different levels of L2 acquisition. English articles, as a semantic category non-existent in Polish, constitute a notorious source of difficulties in their acquisition by Poles. Polish learners of English at the beginning of their education, being at the elementary level, do not actually acquire articles because of the lack of associations with Polish counterparts. The semantics of English articles differs while compared to Polish, where instead of the articles: a/an, the demonstrative pronouns occur, e.g. ten (this), tamten (that) or there exists a different word order, different intonation, verbal aspects and many other syntactic-semantic processes.While teaching English, we may easily observe that the process of acquisition of English article system by Polish learners differs depending on the level of advancement in learning English. In my article I would like to familiarize the addressees with the question of acquisition of articles by young teenagers, late teenagers and young adults. I hope the results of my research will evoke an interesting source for scientific discourse.

This paper concerns itself with the process of conceptualization, which is understood as on-line conceptual and linguistic formation of messages prior to verbalization. The issue is discussed in terms of Levelt’s (1989) model of speech production and von Stutterheim’s (2003) paradigm for text analysis. In particular, the paper looks into the claims advanced by von Stutterheim regarding the role of grammatical aspect in the construal of events, which may be either closed or open-ended, the perspective taken by the speaker and the resultant amount of information packaged into utterances. Even though the underlying theory constitutes a consistent framework, the incoming research data is beginning to show divergent stylistic preferences within aspectually related language types. This calls for careful examination of the existent findings, with emphasis on specific languages and/or language pairings rather than broad typological categories. The paper ends with predictions regarding event encoding patterns in Polish, as these are likely to influence L2 encoding preferences.

Any language learning process is a complex phenomenon as it occurs on the cog-nitive, affective and socio-cultural levels. The interrelatedness of them all and the contextually-determined way in which they interact make language learning expe-riences unique to individuals. The context in which more than two languages are learnt adds to its complexity. This article examines what multilingual language users perceive as meaningful in two different contexts of language learning: L2 versusL3. Although unique, these two processes exhibit a fair degree of homogeneity, for example in terms of one`s coping potential as the major appraisal value both in L2 and L3 learning and growing negativity about language learning in later stages of life in L3 learning.

Inspired by H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau, M. Renard in his Le Docteur Lerne, sous-dieu (1908) portrays a mad scientist experimenting on living organisms, creating hybrids of humans, animals and plants. Renard extends the anachronistic theory of the Chain of Being to include machines, which he sees as the future of humanity, securing the place of his Lerne in the vanguard of transumanist literature. This paper aims to examine the novel’s intertextual references to both fictional and actual history of science.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the addition of fungal solid-state fermented product (FP) enriched with gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) and β-carotene to feed on the haematological and immunological parameters of broiler chickens. Eighty 1-day-old COBB 500 broiler chickens were divided into two groups. The control group was fed with basic diets and chickens of the experimental group received 10% addition of FP, while the amount of basic diet was reduced. FP was produced during a solid-state fermentation (SSF) process using Umbellopsis isabellina CCF2412 as a producer of GLA and β-carotene. After 38 days of feeding, blood samples were collected and analyzed. Lower total and LDL-cholesterol values were measured in blood samples of the experimental animals (p<0.05). However, the triacylglycerol content was higher in the experimental group (p<0.05). Significantly higher levels of hematocrit and hemoglobin, and lower eosinophil and basophil content in the experimental group were recorded (p<0.05). The experimental group showed higher numbers of B lymphocytes and greater phagocytic capacity (p<0.05). The results indicate that a fermented product produced by SSF, using the fungal strain Umbellopsis isabellina, is a good source of GLA and β-carotene, which can influence the biochemical, hematological and immunological parameters of broiler chickens.