Within- and cross-language contributions of morphological awareness to word reading development in Chinese-English bilingual children

A growing body of cross-linguistic research has suggested that morphological awareness plays a key role in both L1 and L2 word reading among bilingual readers. However, little is known about the interaction and development of L1 and L2 morphological awareness in relation to word reading. We addressed this issue by evaluating the unique contributions of L1 Chinese and L2 English morphological awareness to word reading in both Chinese and English across Grades 2 (N = 150), 5 (N = 158), and 8 (N = 159) Hong Kong Chinese–English bilingual children. Children completed five tasks of Chinese morphological awareness which tapped for compounding awareness, homophone awareness, homographic awareness, semantic radical awareness, and affix awareness, and six English morphological judgment and analogy tasks that assessed morphological awareness at three levels: inflection, derivation, and compounding. English phonological awareness, Chinese and English vocabulary, and nonverbal ability were measured as controls. Word reading was assessed in both languages. Within-language analyses revealed that Chinese morphological awareness accounted for 27, 22, and 12% of unique variances in Chinese word reading above the control measures in Grades 2, 5, and 8 respectively. In contrast, English morphological awareness explained small but significant unique variances in English word reading, i.e., 4, 8, and 2%, across Grades 2, 5, and 8 respectively. Critically, there were cross-language influences: Chinese morphological awareness explained 4% of unique variance in English word reading in Grade 2 after controlling for IQ, English vocabulary, English phonological awareness, and English morphological awareness; English morphological awareness explained significant variances in Chinese word reading, i.e., 4, 3, and 4% in Grades 2, 5, and 8 respectively, after the relevant controls. These findings suggest a bi-directional cross-language transfer of morphological awareness to word reading in L1 Chinese and L2 English. However, the direction of its transfer may be constrained by some language-specific morphological features

The micromechanics of the superficial zone of articular cartilage

Objective To investigate the relationships between the unique mechanical and structural properties of the superficial zone of articular cartilage on the microscopic scale. Design Fresh unstained equine metacarpophalangeal cartilage samples were mounted on tensile and compressive loading rigs on the stage of a multiphoton microscope. Sequential image stacks were acquired under incremental loads together with simultaneous measurements of the applied stress and strain. Second harmonic generation was used to visualise the collagen fibre network, while two photon fluorescence was used to visualise elastin fibres and cells. The changes visualised by each modality were tracked between successive loads. Results The deformation of the cartilage matrix was heterogeneous on the microscopic length scale. This was evident from local strain maps, which showed shearing between different regions of collagen under tensile strain, corrugations in the articular surface at higher tensile strains and a non-uniform distribution of compressive strain in the axial direction. Chondrocytes elongated and rotated under tensile strain and were compressed in the axial direction under compressive load. The magnitude of deformation varied between cells, indicating differences in either load transmission through the matrix or the mechanical properties of individual cells. Under tensile loading the reorganisation of the elastin network differed from a homogeneous elastic response, indicating that it forms a functional structure. Conclusions This study highlights the complexity of superficial zone mechanics and demonstrates that the response of the collagen matrix, elastin fibres and chondrocytes are all heterogeneous on the microscopic scale