It has been reported world wide that over the past fifty years production has dramatically increased in dairy cattle but at the same time fertility rates have steadily declined, particularly in mature cows. Fertility of heifers that were bred for the first time has not been affected. One of the major reasons for such fertility decline in mature cows could be impaired progesterone production. Therefore relationships of parity with reproductive performance, its effect on progesterone concentrations and genes associated with progesterone synthesis were examined in this thesis. In the first experiment, breeding records of 163 Holstein heifers and cows in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd/4th parities were used to compare pregnancy rates among heifers and parity cows and between parity cows. Progesterone levels of heifers, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd/4th parity (10 animals each group) were measured from milk and blood samples. First and second inseminations pregnancy rates were higher in heifers compared to other parity cows. Furthermore 1st parity cows showed higher pregnancy rates than 2nd and 3rd/4th parity cows. However, P₄ levels were not significantly different among animals of different parity. In the second experiment, expression levels of steroidogenic genes – StAR, P450scc, 3-β HSD; apoptotic genes Bax and Bcl-2; and HSP70 in corpus luteum obtained from six heifers and three 2nd/3rd parity lactating cows were compared using RT-PCR. Relative optical density with house keeping gene was obtained for each gene. Analysis of variance revealed that expression levels of steroidogenic and Bax genes are higher (p<0.05) in cows than heifers. HSP70 gene and Bcl-2 gene expressions were not different (P>0.05) between the two groups. This study confirmed a clear relationship between parity and reproductive performance. There was no significance relationship between parity and circulating progesterone levels. Steroidogenic genes expression was higher in lactating cows than heifers and no differences were seen in mRNA levels of Bcl2, and HSP70 genes between heifers and mature cows. Bax mRNA expression was higher in mature cows suggesting that the lifespan of corpus luteum may be compromised in 2nd and 3rd parity cows, resulting in early embryonic mortality and reduced pregnancy rates. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

Guided by the hypothesis that translation is a language contact situation that can influence language change, this study investigates a frequency shift from hypotactic to paratactic constructions in concessive and causal clauses in German management and business writing. The influence of the English SVO word order is assumed to cause language users of German to prefer verb-second, paratactic constructions to verb-final, hypotactic ones. The hypothesis is tested using a 1 million word diachronic corpus containing German translations and their source texts as well as a corpus of German non-translations. The texts date from 1982–3 and 2008, which allows a diachronic analysis of changes in the way English causal and concessive structures have been translated. The analysis shows that in the translations, parataxis is indeed becoming more frequent at the expense of hypotaxis, a phenomenon that, to some extent, also occurs in the non-translations. Based on a corpus of unedited draft translations, it can be shown that translators rather than editors are responsible for this shift. Most of the evidence, however, suggests that the shift towards parataxis is not predominantly caused by language contact with English. Instead, there seems to be a development towards syntactically simpler constructions in this genre, which is most evident in the strong tendency towards sentence-splitting and an increased use of sentence-initial conjunctions in translations and non-translations. This simplification seems to be compensated for, to some extent, by the establishment of pragmatic distinctions between specific causal and concessive conjunctions.

Research has identified the importance of academic vocabulary (e.g., Corson, 1997; Gardner, 2013; Hsueh-chao & Nation, 2000). In turn, many researchers have focused on identifying the most frequent and salient words present in academic texts across registers and presenting these words in lists, such as The Academic Word List (AWL) (Coxhead, 2000). Gardner and Davies (2014), recognizing the limitations of the AWL, have developed a new list known as The Academic Vocabulary List (AVL). This present study examines the appearance of the 570 AWL word families and the top 570 AVL word families in the Academic Textbook Corpus (ATC) – a 1.9-million-word corpus created from three middle school, three high school, and three college level textbooks from the disciplines of American history, mathematics, and physical sciences. The study determined (1) word families from both the AWL and the AVL found in the ATC, (2) words families unique to the AWL in the ATC, (3) word families unique to the AVL in the ATC, and (4) characteristic differences between the AWL and AVL unique word families. The results suggest that the AWL and AVL capture high frequency academic word families that are salient across a variety of academic disciplines and grade levels, but the AVL provides a greater number of unique frequent core academic word families.

博士（社会学） / [4], 130 p. / 一橋大学

Animals must respond to external cues and changes in internal state by modifying their behavior. The basal ganglia are a collection of subcortical nuclei that contribute to action selection by integrating sensorimotor, limbic and reward information to control motor output. In early life, however, animals display distinct behavioral responses to risk and reward and enhanced vulnerability to neuropsychiatric disease. This arises from the postnatal maturation of brain structures such as the striatum, the main input nucleus of the basal ganglia. Here, using biochemical, electrophysiological and behavioral approaches in transgenic mice, I have explored the molecular and circuit mechanisms that control striatal maturation. In Chapter 1, I begin by reviewing the structure, physiology and function of the basal ganglia, with an emphasis on the striatum. I then describe the existing literature on the development and maturation of striatal neurons and their afferents. In Chapter 2, I review the molecular mechanisms of macroautophagy, a lysosomal degradation pathway that has recently been implicated in the regulation of neurotransmission, including its contribution to neuronal development, neurotransmitter release, and postsynaptic function. The subsequent chapters can be split into two themes. In the first, encompassing chapters 3 and 4, I characterize the postnatal maturation of striatal physiology and define circuit mechanisms that control this process. In Chapter 3, I demonstrate that dopamine (DA) neurotransmission in the striatum initiates the maturation of striatal projection neuron (SPN) intrinsic excitability. I show that DA signaling leads to the maturation of SPN excitability via increased activity of the potassium channel, Kir2. Interestingly, introduction of DA beginning in adulthood could not rescue SPN hyperexcitability while it could during the juvenile period. In Chapter 4, I characterize the maturation of cholinergic interneurons (ChIs) in the striatum and describe the biophysical mechanisms that drive increases in spontaneous activity that occur in ChIs during postnatal development. Finally, I show that the functional maturation of ChIs leads to changes in DA release during the postnatal period. The second theme includes Chapters 5 and 6, in which I explore the role of macroautophagy in striatal function and development. In chapter 5, I used biochemical approaches to show that autophagic flux is suppressed postnatally in the striatum due to increased signaling through the kinase activity of the mammalian target of rapamycin. In Chapter 6, I generated conditional knockouts of Atg7, a required macroautophagy gene, in different populations of SPNs and find that macroautophagy plays cell-type specific roles in SPN physiology. In one subtype of SPNs, macroautophagy regulates intrinsic excitability via degradation of Kir2 channels, which is the first demonstration of macroautophagic control of neuronal excitability. Finally, in Chapter 7, I conclude with a general discussion, where I highlight themes in the molecular and circuit mechanisms of striatal maturation and their implication for neurodevelopmental disease.

The purpose of this dissertation is to account for the syntactic and semantic traits of Tłı̨chǫ modal clauses within a cross-linguistic typology of conditional clauses. This dissertation provides a comprehensive description and analysis of clauses that are introduced by nı̨dè, a Tłı̨chǫ word with cognates in many Dene languages. Clauses that are introduced by nı̨dè are modal adjuncts, which cover predictions about the future (future temporal adverbial clauses, when), hypothetical scenarios (conditional clauses, if) and generic or habitual generalisations about the world (restrictive clauses, whenever). I provide a unified account for all of these uses by showing that they are all in the realm of modality. I then hypothesise that nı̨dè is a complementiser which introduces a modal adjunct clause. I follow von Fintel (2006) and Kratzer (2012) and suggest that nı̨dè restricts a modal operator in its apodosis. This account explains apparent gaps in the Tłı̨chǫ grammar, and in particular within concessive adjunct clauses ('even though...'), which cannot be introduced by nı̨de, and attributes this mismatch to the difference between the factivity of concessive adjunct clauses on the one hand and modality in clauses introduced by nı̨dè on the other hand. I contrast this with concessive conditional clauses ('if.... even...'), which can be introduced by nı̨dè, and in which nı̨dè scopes over the concessive adverb kò (following Bennett, 1982, 2003). This work highlights the ways in which Tłı̨chǫ conditionals are different from, and similar to, previous cross-linguistic generalisations of conditionals. Conditionals in Tłı̨chǫ and other Dene languages differ from many accounts of conditionals, which focus on the role of the verbal form in communicating speaker attitudes about the hypotheticality of the proposition in the conditional (Iatridou, 2000; Karawani, 2014). In contrast, Tłı̨chǫ uses verb aspect inside clauses to indicate the action as complete or incomplete, much like in matrix clauses. Tłı̨chǫ speakers communicate their attitudes of the likelihood and hypotheticality of the proposition using other means, such as adverbs and evidentials. However, Tłı̨chǫ is also similar to other languages, in extending the modal nature of conditional clauses to a subtype of conditionals called premise conditionals, which communicate rhetorical devices and a variety of metatextual comments (Dancygier, 1993, 1999). This is unexpected, as I argue that nı̨dè must introduce a modal clause, whereas premise conditionals seemingly deal with facts. I argue that despite first impressions, Tłı̨chǫ premise conditionals are still within the realm of modality, as they are either used to express propositions that are not accepted as fact by the speaker, or are used to restrict a modal in the adjoined clause, much like hypothetical conditionals. The structure of Tłı̨chǫ premise conditionals is likewise similar to the structure that has been proposed in the past for other languages (Haegeman, 2003, 2010). / Graduate

Genericide is the process by which a trademarked term is used generically by the public and ultimately loses its legal trademark protections. The linguistic methods that courts have used to determine whether a given term is in the process of or has undergone genericide have historically relied on dictionaries. However, there has a been recent push to use corpus linguistics as a tool to aid in that determination for not only trademarks but word meaning in general (Hoopes, 2019; Lee & Mouritsen, 2018). In addition to corpus data, I argue that the use of experimental data via a linguistic questionnaire can support, validate, and clarify corpus findings and can be an additional means to aid in the determination of the semantic status of trademarked terms. Corpora comprised of texts from the social media website Reddit were created and concordance lines exhibiting uses of 24 terms (10 generic and 14 trademarked) were judged based on their semantic senses as interpreted by two raters. These concordance lines were compared to the responses of a linguistic questionnaire asking participants how they used those 24 terms. Results show that the questionnaire responses are comparable to and validate many of the results of the judging of the Reddit corpora. The questionnaire data provided clarity on use of terms deemed ambiguous by previous research. I assert that the use of questionnaire data is a useful option in researching the genericide phenomenon either in conjunction with corpus data or independently. Both methods are considered helpful for courtrooms and businesses in investigating genericide, but based on the findings of this thesis I advocate that neither method can determine genericide alone but should be only considered as aids to work in conjunction with other evidence and data.

The objective of this study was to examine hepatic steroid inactivation and luteal function throughout bovine gestation. In pregnant beef cows, cytochrome P450 3A activity decreased from mid- to late-gestation, while progesterone concentrations tended to increase from mid- to late-gestation. Uridine diphosphate-glucuronosyltransferase activity per kg of body weight was increased in pregnant vs non-pregnant dairy cows. Total corpus luteum (CL) blood perfusion tended to be increased in pregnant vs non-pregnant dairy cows. Hepatic portal blood flow per kg of body weight was increased in pregnant vs non-pregnant dairy cows. Hepatic steroid inactivating enzyme activity, CL blood perfusion, and portal blood flow did not differ between pregnant and non-pregnant beef cows. There was no difference in progesterone concentrations in pregnant vs non-pregnant dairy or beef cows. The current study highlights the relevance of further investigation into steroid secretion and inactivation and their impact on the maintenance of pregnancy in cattle.

Fescue toxicosis is a common problem in beef cattle grazing endophyte-infected (E+) tall fescue. Symptoms include decreases in feed intake, weight gain, and reproductive efficiency along with vasoconstriction. The mechanisms by which fescue toxicosis affects the bovine reproductive tract have yet to be discovered. The objective of this study was to determine if the onset of fescue toxicosis conditions would alter the blood perfusion observed in the CL and peripheral concentrations of progesterone in cattle. We hypothesized that during fescue toxicosis, the vasoconstrictive symptoms would lead to a reduction in CL blood perfusion thus decreasing peripheral concentrations of progesterone. Overall, fescue toxicosis was induced as cows fed an E+ treatment diet had greater rectal temperatures and reduced pulse pressure and mean arterial pressure measurements; however, total blood perfusion of the CL and peripheral concentrations of progesterone did not differ in cattle under fescue toxicosis compared to those without.

No description available.