This thesis examines the L2 acquisition and L1 attrition of aspectual properties in Spanish. Specifically, it investigates preterite versus imperfect distinctions and the ongoing value of the Spanish present tense among English-speaking L2 learners and long-term Spanish immigrants. In contrast to previous research which explains L2 learners’ difficulties as a result of either maturational constraints or morphosyntactic development, this study provides a supplementary explanation focusing on L1 transfer of the semantic patterns of tense morphemes. The study proceeds by comparing data from L2 learners with that of long-term Spanish immigrants. Unlike what is argued for L2 acquisition difficulties, the difficulties immigrants may have with tense and aspect cannot stem solely from impairment reasons. These immigrants acquired the L2 as adults. Therefore, to the extent that L2 learners share similar patterns of errors with adult immigrants, L2 speakers’ difficulties cannot be unequivocally linked to causes related to impairment. Instead, following a selectional approach to aspectual variation (De Swart, 1998), it is argued that transfer of the selectional patterns of tense morphemes offers a more encompassing explanation of the difficulties L2 speakers face with tense and aspect. Data collection involved two truth-value judgment tasks, two acceptability judgment tasks and two elicited production tasks. Twenty long-term immigrants, twenty English-speaking L2 learners of Spanish, and twenty native speakers of Spanish serving as control participants took part in the study. Results show incorrect activation of aspectual patterns by both experimental groups and similar patterns of difficulties in some of the conditions under investigation. I conclude that transfer from the other language offers a more adequate explanation of the difficulties L2 learners face

The neural cell adhesion molecule L1 is a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily and it mediates many adhesive interactions during brain development. Mutations in the L1 gene are associated with a spectrum of X-linked neurological disorders known as CRASH or L1 syndrome. The objective of this thesis was to use the zebrafish model to investigate the molecular mechanisms of L1 functions and the pathological effects of its mutations. Zebrafish has two L1 homologs, L1.1 and L1.2. Inhibition of L1.1 expression by antisense morpholino oligonucleotides resulted in phenotypes that showed resemblances to L1 patients. However, knockdown of L1.2 expression did not result in notable neural defects. Furthermore, analysis of the expression pattern of L1.1 has led to the discovery of a novel soluble L1.1 isoform, L1.1s. L1.1s is an alternatively spliced form of L1.1, consisting of the first four Ig-like domains and thus a soluble secreted protein. L1.1 morphants exhibited disorganized brain structures with many having an enlarged fourth/hindbrain ventricle. Further characterization revealed aberrations in ventricular polarity, cell patterning and proliferation and helped differentiate the functions of L1.1 and L1.1s. While L1.1 plays a pivotal role in axonal outgrowth and guidance, L1.1s is crucial to brain ventricle formation. Significantly, L1.1s mRNA rescued many anomalies in the morphant brain, but not the trunk phenotypes. Receptor analysis confirmed that L1.1 undergoes heterophilic interactions with neuropilin-1a (Nrp1a). Peptide inhibition studies demonstrated further the involvement of L1.1s in neuroepithelial cell migration during ventricle formation. In the spinal cord, spinal primary motoneurons expressed exclusively the full-length L1.1, and abnormalities in axonal projections of morphants could be rescued only by L1.1 mRNA. Further studies showed that a novel interaction between the Ig3 domain of L1.1 and Unplugged, the zebrafish muscle specific kinase (MuSK), is crucial to motor axonal growth. Together, these results demonstrate that the different parts of L1.1 contribute to the diverse functions of L1.1 in neural development.

The present body of research examined adult bilinguals who acquired a second language (L2) from an early age and who subsequently developed language dominance in that language. The question investigated is whether such "early L2-dominant bilinguals" attain a native level of proficiency in their second language. This possibility was explored by comparing bilinguals who had Cantonese L1 (logographic, morphosyllabic), Vietnamese L1 (alphabetic, morphosyllabic) or some "Other" L1 (alphabetic, non-morphosyllabic) to English monolinguals on various tasks in English (L2). The ability to process spoken stimuli was examined using phoneme deletion, spelling-to-dictation, and auditory comprehension tasks. The results showed that bilinguals from all backgrounds had greater difficulty than monolinguals on tasks that required sublexical skills, with the morphosyllabic groups performing the most poorly. The processing of print was investigated using reading aloud and reading comprehension tasks. In contrast to the auditory tasks, only Cantonese L1 bilinguals displayed any discernable difference from monolinguals on reading. Cantonese L1 bilinguals did, however, outperform monolinguals on orthographic memory tasks, such as the spelling of idiosyncratic L2 words. The findings therefore indicated that L1 linguistic structure influences L2 processing in adulthood, despite the former having become subordinate. In order to elucidate whether transfer effects arise solely from early exposure to L1, or whether L1 maintenance also plays a role, the L1 and L2 proficiency of a separate sample of Cantonese L1 bilinguals was examined. However, no meaningful relationship between L1 and L2 proficiency was found. Finally, a sample of late bilinguals were also tested in order to determine whether the L1-specific effects observed in early bilinguals are simply an attenuated version of those in late bilinguals,. The results revealed that the development of language dominance in L2 does lead to qualitatively different outcomes in L2 for early bilinguals. The findings from the present research are most consistent with the Competition Model (e.g., Hernandez, Li, & MacWhinney, 2005), which espouses the notions of L1 transfer and entrenchment to explain second language acquisition. Overall, the research indicates that native attainment in L2 is not assured for all early L2-dominant bilinguals.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2007. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Stuttgart, Univ., Diss., 2006. / Druckausg. beim VDI-Verl., Düsseldorf als: Fortschrittberichte / VDI : Reihe 8 ; Nr. 1125 erschienen.

Thesis (Ph.D.). / Written for the Dept. of Medicine, Division of Experimental Medicine. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2009/06/09). Includes bibliographical references.

Nous sommes partie de l’hypothèse cognitive centrale que le lexique en L1 comme L2 occupe le premier rôle dans l’apprentissage d’une langue. Nous avons examiné, à cet effet, la spécificité de l’apprentissage du lexique en L2, conditionné par la L1, et le rôle restreint que joue le lexique en L2 pour redéfinir des catégories d’une réalité partagée et catégoriser des aspects d’une réalité nouvelle. Le dernier volet de notre hypothèse a porté sur le phénomène de conscientisation que l’apprenant est susceptible de déployer par rapport à ses actes langagiers et l’effet que cette conscientisation peut avoir sur son interlangue. Le lexique en L2 constituerait des points d’ancrage attentionnels privilégiés chez l’apprenant, à partir desquels il exerce son activité langagière. Pour tester nos hypothèses centrale et satellite, nous nous sommes appuyée sur la capacité d’introspection de 6 apprenants que nous avons induite dans le cadre d’une recherche-action caractérisée par un processus intersubjectif où sujets et chercheur furent partie prenante. Notre dispositif d’expérimentation a consisté en 2 types d’échange qui se sont déroulés en L1 en milieu scolaire : questionnaires et entretiens. Les questionnaires devaient amener les sujets, au moyen du questionnement oral, à s’exprimer sur leurs représentations générales de l’apprentissage du lexique ; les entretiens devaient nous aider à sonder les représentations métalinguistiques et les processus cognitifs des sujets à partir d’une production écrite en L2. Notre recherche-action est suivie d’une postface qui fait part d’une réflexion didactique et de pistes pédagogiques issues de notre réflexion théorique et de notre analyse des données. / We support the central cognitive hypothesis that lexis in L2 as in L1 plays the primary role in the process of learning a new language. To this end, we have examined the specificity of L2 lexis learning, conditioned by the L1, and the role (however limited) played by L2 lexis in redefining categories of a shared reality and in categorization of aspects of an expanded reality.The last element of our hypothesis addressed the phenomenon of awareness that the learner is able to develop with respect to language production and the effect that this awareness can have on resulting interlanguage. L2 lexis constitutes the thoughtful personal grounding from which the language learner exercises his or her linguistic activity.To test our central and satellite hypotheses, we relied on the introspective abilities of six learners invited to participate in an action research characterized by an intersubjective process in which the researcher took active part with each learner studied. Our experimental design comprised two types of interaction that took place in the L1 at school: oral questionnaires and interviews.The questionnaires needed to lead the student subjects, by means of oral questioning, to reflect upon their general perceptions of lexis learning. The interviews needed to help us to survey the subjects’ metalinguistic productions and cognitive processes, based on a written production in L2. Our action research is followed by a postscript involving a didactic reflection and the pedagogical implications stemming from our theoretical deliberations and our analyses of the data.

Ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 is a deubiquitinating enzyme that salvages ubiquitin from substrates and maintains intracellular ubiquitin pools. While the role of ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 is well characterized in neurons, there is an increasing scope of evidence to suggest that ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 also plays a role in renal function and glomerular disease, however, its specific role in these settings remains incompletely elucidated. In the present thesis we explored the role of ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 in a mouse model of glomerular disease, ACTN4-associated focal segmental glomerulosclerosis and the role of ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 in renal function. Deletion of ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 in a mouse model of ACTN4-associated focal segmental glomerulosclerosis significantly improved indices of podocyte injury, a likely result of ubiquitin pool attenuation and sustained α-actinin-4 levels. However, global ablation of ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 in mice led to altered renal hemodynamics, namely glomerular hyperfiltration, most likely attributed to nerve dysfunction and loss of arterial resistance. Finally, mice lacking ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 exhibited perturbations in phosphate homeostasis as these showed evidence of hyperphosphatemia and phosphaturia, indicating altered renal phosphate balance. Altogether, these data show that while ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 plays a maladaptive role in glomerular disease, it also functions as a crucial regulator of renal hemodynamics and renal phosphate handling, suggesting that it may have distinct functions in diseased and non-diseased kidneys.

abstract: This semester-long study examined the functions for which English (L1) and Spanish (L2) were used in two intact hybrid Spanish as a foreign language (FL) university classes at the 202 (fourth semester) level. Five 75-minutes classes of two instructors were observed by the researcher, video- and audio-recorded, and transcribed. A survey was also used to determine the functions for which the instructors and students believed that Spanish and English were used in the classroom, and the functions for which both believed that the two languages should be used. Talking about a test and teaching grammar were the functions for which both instructors used the most English and the most Spanish. The questionnaire results indicated that the students who heard more Spanish in the classroom would have preferred that their instructor had used less Spanish for the functions of checking how well students understand a reading in class as well as when giving instructions or explaining how to do group activities. The Minnesota Language Proficiency Assessment for listening at the Intermediate-High level was administered to the students of both instructors at the beginning and at the end of the semester. The classroom observations indicated that although both instructors used more than 50% words in English during their classes, one instructor used twice as many words in Spanish as did the other. However, the results of the study revealed no significant relationship between the amount of Spanish used by the instructors in the classroom and the students' progress on listening proficiency from the beginning to the end of the semester. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Spanish 2012

This paper reviews and summarises the results of selected empirical studies on performance gaps between multinational enterprises and their domestic counterparts. Performance gaps arise in such fields as productivity, profitability, wages, skills, factor intensity and growth. Of central interest is the question to what extent is foreign ownership an explanatory factor of performance gaps? Empirical evidence supports the existence of performance gaps between foreign and domestic firms, yet foreign ownership is a much less important explanatory factor than normally assumed. Structural factors like industry, size and multi-nationality per se are more important. It is argued that such results are broadly consistent with those derived in the literatures on ownership change, on foreign entry and on spillovers. The concluding section discusses the normative issue whether there is a case for investment promotion policies to discriminate between firms on the basis of performance gaps by ownership. / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"