The morphological development of Elberta peach fruit buds was studied in relation to their cold hardiness. Morphological development of peach fruit buds was observed beginning with bud differentiation in mid-summer. Flower initiation was essentially complete by September. Growth was slow in the winter months but increased rapidly as anthesis approached. Photomicrographs were taken to substantiate the discussion . Cold hardiness determinations were made from December until anthesis in April. The hardiness level was greatest during December and remained at a relatively high level until rest ended. Hardiness decreased thereafter. Major losses of hardiness occurred just prior to anthesis.

Equol is known to be a selective androgen modulator and has the ability to bind and inhibit 5-alpha dihydrotestosterone (5α-DHT). Equol is also a selective estrogen receptor modulator and is able to bind beta estrogen receptors with high affinity. As estrogen receptors are found in the hypothalamus, pituitary, and gonads, prenatally administered equol could affect the morphological and reproductive development of offspring. To test this hypothesis, during gestational days 14 to 20, forty-two pregnant Long-Evans rats were given one of six treatments: 1) no treatment, 2) injection with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), 3) injection with 10 mg/kg equol, 4) injection with 21.0 mg/kg equol, 5) injection with 63.0 mg/kg equol, or 6) injection with 90.0 mg/kg flutamide. At birth the pups were weighed, anogenital distance measured, and sex was determined. Some of the animals were sacrificed and trunk blood collected from both the mothers and pups. Serum levels of phytoestrogens, estradiol, testosterone, and 5α-DHT levels were determined. Some pups were allowed to grow up to day 29 and were tested on the forced-swim test with the parameters of time mobile, time immobile, swim distance, and average speed measured. The flutamide treated pups had the lowest anogenital distance. The low equol dose animals had the largest anogenital distance. There were no significant differences in 5α-DHT serum levels in the male offspring among the treatments. However in non-injected control female offspring displayed significantly lower 5α-DHT levels than all the other groups. Mothers treated prenatally with equol displayed significantly higher circulating equol levels compared to controls values. Rats injected with 63.0 mg/kg of equol gained the least weight during pregnancy. Their offspring also had the lowest body weights at birth. Male and female offspring displayed similar behaviors in the Porsolt forced-swim test among the treatment groups. The low and high equol groups displayed the least depressive-like behaviors. The offspring from mothers treated with the medium and high equol doses both gained the most weight from birth to day 29. Treating pregnant rats with equol during the last week of gestation does not appear to have any affect on morphological genital development of the offspring.

Limited information exists regarding the acquisition of syntax and morphology in young Spanish-English bilingual language learners. A method to measure short-term language learning is through structural priming; an auditory model of the target structure is presented, which influences a subject’s subsequent production. The purpose of this thesis was to develop and pilot priming tasks in both English and Spanish to analyze the language production of typically developing bilingual elementary school students. The morphosyntactic structures targeted in the structural priming task included the third person singular and past tense in English, as well as direct object clitics and imperfect tense in Spanish. The study included three participants, aged 4;7, 6;7, and 10;11. Results revealed that bilingual elementary students with varied language exposure are influenced and learn from morphosyntactic priming. / text

This dissertation concerns oral language tests from a grammatical perspective. Tests today are usually assessed based on a communicative approach to language, so it is interesting to see how great a significance the level of grammatical development of test takers has for their communicative competence in general. The data in the investigation consist of recorded test conversations from a Swedish national language proficiency test, Tisus (test in Swedish for university and university college studies). The general aim of the study is to investigate whether there is a difference between the test takers who passed and those who failed in terms of their level of grammatical development. This is investigated in one main study and two smaller follow-up studies. The theoretical basis for this work is comprised of theories on second language learning and theories on language testing. For the grammatical analysis, Pienemann’s processability theory (PT) is applied. This theory posits that learners acquire certain morpho-syntactic structures in a particular order, something that produces a hierarchy consisting of five levels. In the main study, a quantitative analysis is made of the test takers’ level of grammatical development relative to their TISUS results. The results show a clear correlation between grammatical level and test results. There also seems to be a kind of watershed at level 4, given that most of the test takers who passed have command of this level in the PT hierarchy, whereas those who failed, as a rule, only make it to level 3. The first follow-up study is more qualitative in nature and is focused on the test takers who deviate from the general pattern of results in the main study: those who failed despite their high grammatical level and those who passed despite their low grammatical level. One result of this follow-up study is that, in these cases, it appears communicative competence was critical. Being able to orient oneself to the special conversational situation represented by the test conversation is considered to be particularly important. In a second follow-up study, the problems of applying PT to morphology and syntax are examined. The results of the dissertation suggest that there is a correlation between grammatical competence and communicative competence in general. This means that the grammatical levels in the PT hierarchy may constitute a useful basis of analysis in oral assessments, as a complement to other assessment tools.