Second language influence on first language motion event encoding and categorization in Spanish-speaking children learning L2 English

Studies show cross-linguistic differences in motion event encoding, such that English speakers preferentially encode manner of motion more than Spanish speakers, who preferentially encode path of motion. Focusing on native Spanish speaking children (aged 5;00-9;00) learning L2 English, we studied path and manner verb preferences during descriptions of motion stimuli, and tested the linguistic relativity hypothesis by investigating categorization preferences in a non-verbal similarity judgement task of motion clip triads. Results revealed L2 influence on L1 motion event encoding, such that bilinguals used more manner verbs and fewer path verbs in their L1, under the influence of English. We found no effects of linguistic structure on non-verbal similarity judgements, and demonstrate for the first time effects of L2 on L1 lexicalization in child L2 learners in the domain of motion events. This pattern of verbal behaviour supports theories of bilingual semantic representation that postulate a merged lexico-semantic system in early bilinguals.

Effects of a web-based personalized intervention on physical activity in European adults: a randomized controlled trial

Background: The high prevalence of physical inactivity worldwide calls for innovative and more effective ways to promote physical activity (PA). There are limited objective data on the effectiveness of Web-based personalized feedback on increasing PA in adults. Objective: It is hypothesized that providing personalized advice based on PA measured objectively alongside diet, phenotype, or genotype information would lead to larger and more sustained changes in PA, compared with nonpersonalized advice. Methods: A total of 1607 adults in seven European countries were randomized to either a control group (nonpersonalized advice, Level 0, L0) or to one of three personalized groups receiving personalized advice via the Internet based on current PA plus diet (Level 1, L1), PA plus diet and phenotype (Level 2, L2), or PA plus diet, phenotype, and genotype (Level 3, L3). PA was measured for 6 months using triaxial accelerometers, and self-reported using the Baecke questionnaire. Outcomes were objective and self-reported PA after 3 and 6 months. Results: While 1270 participants (85.81% of 1480 actual starters) completed the 6-month trial, 1233 (83.31%) self-reported PA at both baseline and month 6, but only 730 (49.32%) had sufficient objective PA data at both time points. For the total cohort after 6 months, a greater improvement in self-reported total PA (P=.02) and PA during leisure (nonsport) (P=.03) was observed in personalized groups compared with the control group. For individuals advised to increase PA, we also observed greater improvements in those two self-reported indices (P=.006 and P=.008, respectively) with increased personalization of the advice (L2 and L3 vs L1). However, there were no significant differences in accelerometer results between personalized and control groups, and no significant effect of adding phenotypic or genotypic information to the tailored feedback at month 3 or 6. After 6 months, there were small but significant improvements in the objectively measured physical activity level (P<.05), moderate PA (P<.01), and sedentary time (P<.001) for individuals advised to increase PA, but these changes were similar across all groups. Conclusions: Different levels of personalization produced similar small changes in objective PA. We found no evidence that personalized advice is more effective than conventional “one size fits all” guidelines to promote changes in PA in our Web-based intervention when PA was measured objectively. Based on self-reports, PA increased to a greater extent with more personalized advice. Thus, it is crucial to measure PA objectively in any PA intervention study.

Production and on-line comprehension of definiteness in English and Dutch by monolingual and sequential bilingual children

The present article examines production and on-line processing of definite articles in Turkish-speaking sequential bilingual children acquiring English and Dutch as second languages (L2) in the UK and in the Netherlands, respectively. Thirty-nine 6–8-year-old L2 children and 48 monolingual (L1) age-matched children participated in two separate studies examining the production of definite articles in English and Dutch in conditions manipulating semantic context, that is, the anaphoric and the bridging contexts. Sensitivity to article omission was examined in the same groups of children using an on-line processing task involving article use in the same semantic contexts as in the production task. The results indicate that both L2 children and L1 controls are less accurate when definiteness is established by keeping track of the discourse referents (anaphoric) than when it is established via world knowledge (bridging). Moreover, despite variable production, all groups of children were sensitive to the omission of definite articles in the on-line comprehension task. This suggests that the errors of omission are not due to the lack of abstract syntactic representations, but could result from processes implicated in the spell-out of definite articles. The findings are in line with the idea that variable production in child L2 learners does not necessarily indicate lack of abstract representations (Haznedar and Schwartz, 1997).

Impact of chemical structure of flavanol monomers and condensed tannins on in vitro anthelmintic activity against bovine nematodes

Plants containing condensed tannins (CT) may have potential to control gastrointestinal nematodes (GIN) of cattle. The aim was to investigate the anthelmintic activities of four flavan-3-ols, two galloyl derivatives and 14 purified CT fractions, and to define which structural features of CT determine the anti-parasitic effects against the main cattle nematodes. We used in vitro tests targeting L1 larvae (feeding inhibition assay) and adults (motility assay) of Ostertagia ostertagi and Cooperia oncophora. In the larval feeding inhibition assay, O. ostertagi L1 were significantly more susceptible to all CT fractions than C. oncophora L1. The mean degree of polymerization of CT (i.e. average size) was the most important structural parameter: large CT reduced larval feeding more than small CT. The flavan-3-ols of prodelphinidin (PD)-type tannins had a stronger negative influence on parasite activity than the stereochemistry, i.e. cis- vs trans-configurations, or the presence of a gallate group. In contrast, for C. oncophora high reductions in the motility of larvae and adult worms were strongly related with a higher percentage of PDs within the CT fractions while there was no effect of size. Overall, the size and the percentage of PDs within CT seemed to be the most important parameters that influence anti-parasitic activity.

Perfective marking in L2 Mandarin: agreement with inherent lexical aspect or the derived Sentential Aspectual class?

This study evaluates the differing claims of the Aspect Hypothesis (Anderson & Shirai 1996) and the Sentential Aspect Hypothesis (Sharma & Deo 2009) for perfective marking by L1 English learners of Mandarin. The AH predicts a narrow focus on inherent lexical aspect (the verb and predicate) in determining the use of the perfective marker le, whilst the SAH suggests that – subject to L1 influence – perfective marking agrees with the final derived aspectual class of the sentence. To test these claims data were collected using a controlled le-insertion task, combined with oral corpus data. The results show that learners’ perfective marking patterns with the sentential aspectual class and not inherent lexical aspect (where these differ), and that overall the sentential aspectual class better predicts learners’ assignment of perfective marking than lexical aspect.

Population structure and associated phenotypes of Salmonella enterica serovars Derby and Mbandaka overlap with host range

BACKGROUND:The Salmonella enterica serovar Derby is frequently isolated from pigs and turkeys whereas serovar Mbandaka is frequently isolated from cattle, chickens and animal feed in the UK. Through comparative genomics, phenomics and mutant construction we previously suggested possible mechanistic reasons why these serovars demonstrate apparently distinct host ranges. Here, we investigate the genetic and phenotypic diversity of these two serovars in the UK. We produce a phylogenetic reconstruction and perform several biochemical assays on isolates of S. Derby and S. Mbandaka acquired from sites across the UK between the years 2000 and 2010. RESULTS:We show that UK isolates of S. Mbandaka comprise of one clonal lineage which is adapted to proficient utilisation of metabolites found in soya beans under ambient conditions. We also show that this clonal lineage forms a biofilm at 25 °C, suggesting that this serovar maybe well adapted to survival ex vivo, growing in animal feed. Conversely, we show that S. Derby is made of two distinct lineages, L1 and L2. These lineages differ genotypically and phenotypically, being divided by the presence and absence of SPI-23 and the ability to more proficiently invade porcine jejunum derived cell line IPEC-J2. CONCLUSION:The results of this study lend support to the hypothesis that the differences in host ranges of S. Derby and S. Mbandaka are adaptations to pathogenesis, environmental persistence, as well as utilisation of metabolites abundant in their respective host environments.

Assessing multilingual lexical incorporation hypotheses through a primed picture-naming task

The incorporation of new representations into the mental lexicon has raised numerous questions about the organisational principles that govern the process. A number of studies have argued that similarity between the new L3 items and existing representations in the L1 and L2 is the main incorporating force (Hall & Ecke, 2003; Herwig, 2001). Experimental evidence obtained through a primed picture-naming task with L1 Polish-L2 English learners of L3 Russian supports Hall and Ecke’s Parasitic Model of L3 vocabulary acquisition, displaying a significant main effect for both priming and proficiency. These results complement current models of vocabulary acquisition and lexical access in multilingual speakers.

English compound and non-compound processing in bilingual and multilingual speakers: effects of dominance and sequential multilingualism

This article reports on a study investigating the relative influence of the first and dominant language on L2 and L3 morpho-lexical processing. A lexical decision task compared the responses to English NV-er compounds (e.g., taxi driver) and non-compounds provided by a group of native speakers and three groups of learners at various levels of English proficiency: L1 Spanish-L2 English sequential bilinguals and two groups of early Spanish-Basque bilinguals with English as their L3. Crucially, the two trilingual groups differed in their first and dominant language (i.e., L1 Spanish-L2 Basque vs. L1 Basque-L2 Spanish). Our materials exploit an (a)symmetry between these languages: while Basque and English pattern together in the basic structure of (productive) NV-er compounds, Spanish presents a construction that differs in directionality as well as inflection of the verbal element (V[3SG] + N). Results show between and within group differences in accuracy and response times that may be ascribable to two factors besides proficiency: the number of languages spoken by a given participant and their dominant language. An examination of response bias reveals an influence of the participants' first and dominant language on the processing of NV-er compounds. Our data suggest that morphological information in the nonnative lexicon may extend beyond morphemic structure and that, similarly to bilingualism, there are costs to sequential multilingualism in lexical retrieval.

Masked constituent priming of English compounds in native and nonnative speakers

The present research explores the degree of morphological structure of compound words in the native and nonnative lexicons, and provides additional data on the access to these representations. Native and nonnative speakers (L1 Spanish) of English were tested using a lexical decision task with masked priming of the compound’s constituents in isolation, including two orthographic conditions to control for a potential orthographic locus of effects. Both groups displayed reliable priming effects, unmediated by semantics, for the morphological but not the orthographic conditions as compared to an unrelated baseline. Results contribute further evidence of morphological structure in the lexicon of native speakers, and suggest that lexical representation and access in a second language are qualitatively comparable at relatively advanced levels of proficiency.

Zero attracting recursive least squares algorithms

The l1-norm sparsity constraint is a widely used technique for constructing sparse models. In this contribution, two zero-attracting recursive least squares algorithms, referred to as ZA-RLS-I and ZA-RLS-II, are derived by employing the l1-norm of parameter vector constraint to facilitate the model sparsity. In order to achieve a closed-form solution, the l1-norm of the parameter vector is approximated by an adaptively weighted l2-norm, in which the weighting factors are set as the inversion of the associated l1-norm of parameter estimates that are readily available in the adaptive learning environment. ZA-RLS-II is computationally more efficient than ZA-RLS-I by exploiting the known results from linear algebra as well as the sparsity of the system. The proposed algorithms are proven to converge, and adaptive sparse channel estimation is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Culex pipiens development is greatly influenced by native bacteria and exogenous yeast

Culex pipiens is the most cosmopolitan mosquito of the Pipiens Assemblage. By studying the nature of interactions between this species and microorganisms common to its breeding environment we can unravel important pitfalls encountered during development. We tested the survival rate of larval stages, pupae and adults of a Cx. pipiens colony exposed to a variety of microorganisms in laboratory conditions and assessed the transmission to offspring (F1) by those organisms that secured development up to adulthood. Three complementary experiments were designed to: 1) explore the nutritional value of yeasts and other microorganisms during Cx. pipiens development; 2) elucidate the transstadial transmission of yeast to the host offspring; and 3) to examine the relevance of all these microorganisms in female choice for oviposition-substratum. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae proved to be the most nutritional diet, but despite showing the highest survival rates, vertical transmission to F1 was never confirmed. In addition, during the oviposition trials, none of the gravid females was attracted to the yeast substratum. Notably, the two native bacterial strains, Klebsiella sp. and Aeromonas sp., were the preferred oviposition media, the same two bacteria that managed to feed neonates until molting into 2nd instar larvae. Our results not only suggest that Klebsiella sp. or Aeromonas sp. serve as attractants for oviposition habitat selection, but also nurture the most fragile instar, L1, to assure molting into a more resilient stage, L2, while yeast proves to be the most supportive diet for completing development. These experiments unearthed survival traits that might be considered in the future development of strategies of Cx. pipiens control. These studies can be extended to other members of the Pipiens Assemblage

The acquisition of verbal paradigms in Dutch and Greek L2 children: cross-linguistic differences and inflectional defaults

Previous research with children learning a second language (L2) has reported errors with verb inflection and cross-linguistic variation in accuracy and error patterns. However, owing to the cross-linguistic complexity and diversity of different verbal paradigms, the cross-linguistic effects on the nature of default forms has not been directly addressed in L2 acquisition studies. In the present study, we compared accuracy and error patterns in verbal agreement inflections in L2 children acquiring Dutch and Greek, keeping the children’s L1 constant (Turkish). Results showed that inflectional defaults in Greek follow universal predictions regarding the morphological underspecification of paradigms. However, the same universal predictions do not apply to the same extent to Dutch. It is argued that phonological properties of inflected forms should be taken into account to explain cross-linguistic differences in the acquisition of inflection. By systematically comparing patterns in child L2 Dutch and Greek, this study shows how universal mechanisms and target language properties work in tandem in the acquisition of inflectional paradigms.

A constrained recursive least squares algorithm for adaptive combination of multiple models

In this paper, we develop a novel constrained recursive least squares algorithm for adaptively combining a set of given multiple models. With data available in an online fashion, the linear combination coefficients of submodels are adapted via the proposed algorithm.We propose to minimize the mean square error with a forgetting factor, and apply the sum to one constraint to the combination parameters. Moreover an l1-norm constraint to the combination parameters is also applied with the aim to achieve sparsity of multiple models so that only a subset of models may be selected into the final model. Then a weighted l2-norm is applied as an approximation to the l1-norm term. As such at each time step, a closed solution of the model combination parameters is available. The contribution of this paper is to derive the proposed constrained recursive least squares algorithm that is computational efficient by exploiting matrix theory. The effectiveness of the approach has been demonstrated using both simulated and real time series examples.

The search of a genetic basis for noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL)

Background and aim: Knowledge about the genetic factors responsible for noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is still limited. This study investigated whether genetic factors are associated or not to susceptibility to NIHL. Subjects and methods: The family history and genotypes were studied for candidate genes in 107 individuals with NIHL, 44 with other causes of hearing impairment and 104 controls. Mutations frequently found among deaf individuals were investigated (35delG, 167delT in GJB2, Delta(GJB6- D13S1830), Delta(GJB6- D13S1854) in GJB6 and A1555G in MT-RNR1 genes); allelic and genotypic frequencies were also determined at the SNP rs877098 in DFNB1, of deletions of GSTM1 and GSTT1 and sequence variants in both MTRNR1 and MTTS1 genes, as well as mitochondrial haplogroups. Results: When those with NIHL were compared with the control group, a significant increase was detected in the number of relatives affected by hearing impairment, of the genotype corresponding to the presence of both GSTM1 and GSTT1 enzymes and of cases with mitochondrial haplogroup L1. Conclusion: The findings suggest effects of familial history of hearing loss, of GSTT1 and GSTM1 enzymes and of mitochondrial haplogroup L1 on the risk of NIHL. This study also described novel sequence variants of MTRNR1 and MTTS1 genes.

Maintenance and differentiation of neural stem cells

The adult mammalian brain contains self-renewable, multipotent neural stem cells (NSCs) that are responsible for neurogenesis and plasticity in specific regions of the adult brain. Extracellular matrix, vasculature, glial cells, and other neurons are components of the niche where NSCs are located. This surrounding environment is the source of extrinsic signals that instruct NSCs to either self-renew or differentiate. Additionally, factors such as the intracellular epigenetics state and retrotransposition events can influence the decision of NSC`s fate into neurons or glia. Extrinsic and intrinsic factors form an intricate signaling network, which is not completely understood. These factors altogether reflect a few of the key players characterized so far in the new field of NSC research and are covered in this review. (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. WIREs Syst Biol Med 2011 3 107-114 DOI:10.1002/wsbm:100