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This study examines the production of third language (L3) German consonant clusters by 26 L1 Cantonese–L2 English bilinguals, with the aim of uncovering the possible cross-linguistic influences on L3 pronunciation. Learners' production of 17 onset and 21 coda German consonant clusters were auditorily analysed with respect to accuracy and error type. Findings showed that L3 pronunciation accuracy was affected by the similarities between each individual L3 consonant cluster and its possible correspondences in L1 Cantonese and L2 English. An L3 German consonant cluster that contained more Cantonese and English consonants would be produced more accurately, whereas an L3 consonant cluster that looked similar to English but mismatched with English orthography would generate production errors (e.g. kn [kn] → kn [n]). Individual variation between different L3 consonant clusters suggests that cross-linguistic influences on the L3 can occur from both the L1 and the L2 at the feature level and can be both positive and negative. At the same time, the study also shows that L3 speech is significantly influenced by markedness and language experience factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TGF-β signaling pathway plays an important role in regulating cell proliferation and differentiation, embryonic development, bone formation, etc. LTBP1, THBS1, SMAD4 and other genes are important members of TGF-β signaling pathway. LTBP1 binds to TGF-β, while THBS1 binds to LTBP1, which is an important signal transduction molecule in the TGF-β pathway. In order to explore the effects of the insertion/deletion variation of three genes (LTBP1, THBS1, SMAD4) in the TGF-β signaling pathway on the growth traits such as body length and body weight of sheep, a total of 625 healthy individuals from 4 breeds of the Tong sheep, Hu sheep, small-tail Han sheep and Lanzhou fat-tail sheep were identified and analyzed. In this study, we identified 4 InDel loci: one loci of LTBP1, two loci of THBS1, and one loci of SMAD4, respectively named as: InDel-1 (deletion 13 bp), InDel-2 (deletion 16 bp), InDel-3 (deletion 22 bp), InDel-4 (deletion 7 bp). Among the 4 analyzed breeds, association analysis showed that all new InDel polymorphisms were significantly associated with 10 different growth traits (p < 0.05), which may provide a theoretical basis for sheep breeding to accelerate the progression of marker-assisted selection in sheep breeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies on bilingual visual word recognition have been mainly based on European participants, while less is understood about Asian populations. In this study, the recognition of German-English cognates and interlingual homographs in lexical decision tasks was examined in the two non-native languages of Cantonese-English-German trilinguals. In the L2 English task, cognates were reacted to faster and more accurately than their matched non-cognates, while in the equivalent L3 German task, no cognate facilitation effect was found. However, cognate facilitation effects on response time and accuracy were observed in another L3 German task including cognates and interlingual homographs. The study suggests that Asian trilinguals access L2 and L3 in a language non-selective manner, despite their low proficiency in the recently acquired L3. Meanwhile, lexical processing in a non-proficient L3 is to a great extent affected by multiple contextual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnesium potassium phosphate cement (MKPC) is an ideal repair material due to its rapid curing advantages, but the setting time is too short to be applied in practical applications. In this work, FeCl3⋅6H2O was incorporated to MKPC to reduce the hydration temperature and prolong the setting time. Comprehensive investigation was performed on the influence of FeCl3⋅6H2O on the hydration temperature, setting time, mechanical properties, water resistance and microstructure of MKPC. The results showed that during the hydration process, FeCl3⋅6H2O underwent a phase transition and absorbed part of the hydration heat, which delayed the hydration heat release rate and effectively extended the setting time. In addition, the incorporation of FeCl3⋅6H2O with suitable contents had a positive impact on the compressive strength and water resistance. Finally, the optimal content of FeCl3⋅6H2O was determined to be 1.0%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, Tong sheep (TS) and Lanzhou fat-tailed sheep (LFTS) are two closely relative endanger breeds for low meat production and low fecundity, finding some marker-assisted selected (MAS) is our first priority for improving their growth traits. For this purpose, Hu sheep (HS) and small-tailed Han sheep (STHS) were compared with two endangered breeds (TS and LFTS). Paired-liked homeodomain transcription factor 2 (PITX2) gene was the important member of PITX family, which could adjust animal growth through hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. During the past years, insertion/deletion (indel) has become increasingly popular in application as MAS. In this study, two novel indel loci were identified, and five significant differences, including chest width, hip width, chest depth, chest circumference, and body height, were found between different breeds. Interestingly, there was no DD genotype and smaller number of ID genotye. All the ID genotypes were significantly greater than II genotype, which was to say the allele of “D” was dominant variation and its frequency was lower, which demonstrated that it has huge space for selection. Briefly, the two indel were potential and useful DNA markers for selecting excellent individuals in relation to growth traits in sheep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]