The Functions And Values Of Fringing Salt Marshes In Northern New England, USA

Although large salt marshes of the northeastern United States have been studied extensively, very little is known about the smaller, fringing marshes in this area, despite the fact that they are a common habitat type. We compared the functions and values of five fringing salt marshes (FM) to those of five meadow marshes (MM) along the southern Maine/New Hampshire coast. Specifically we compared their primary production, soil organic matter content, plant diversity, sediment trapping ability and wave dampening properties. Also explored were the relationships between these functions and several physical characteristics at each site, including soil salinity, percent surface slope, elevation and size. The results of this study indicate that despite their small size, fringing salt marshes are valuable components of estuaries, performing many ecological functions to the same degree as nearby meadow marshes. More effort should be made to include them in regional efforts to conserve and restore coastal habitats

Replication in second language research : Narrative and systematic reviews, and recommendations for the field.

Despite its critical role for the development of the field, little is known about replication in second language (L2) research. To better understand replication practice, we first provide a narrative review of challenges related to replication, drawing on recent developments in psychology. This discussion frames and motivates a systematic review, building on syntheses of replication in psychology, education, and L2 research. We coded 67 self-labeled L2 replication studies found across 26 journals for 136 characteristics. We estimated a mean rate of 1 published replication study for every 400 articles, with a mean of 6.64 years between initial and replication studies and a mean of 117 citations of the initial study before a replication was published. Replication studies had an annual mean of 7.3 citations, much higher than averages in linguistics and education. Overlap in authorship between initial and replication studies and the availability of the initial materials both increased the likelihood of a replication supporting the initial findings. Our sample contained no direct (exact) replication attempts, and changes made to initial studies were numerous and wide ranging, which likely obscured, if not undermined, the interpretability of replication studies. To improve the amount and quality of L2 replication research, we propose 16 recommendations relating to rationale, nomenclature, design, infrastructure, and incentivization for collaboration and publication

Introducing Registered Reports at Language Learning: Promoting Transparency, Replication, and a Synthetic Ethic in the Language Sciences

The past few years have seen growing interest in open science practices, which include initiatives to increase transparency in research methods, data collection, and analysis, to enhance accessibility to data and materials, and to improve the dissemination of findings to broader audiences. Language Learning is enhancing its participation in the open science movement by launching Registered Reports as an article category as of 1 January 2018. Registered Reports allow authors to submit the conceptual justifications and the full method and analysis protocol of their study to peer review prior to data collection. High quality submissions then receive provisional, in-principle acceptance. Provided that data collection, analyses, and reporting follow the proposed and accepted methodology and analysis protocols, the paper is subsequently publishable whatever the findings. We outline key concerns leading to the development of Registered Reports, describe its core features, and discuss some of its benefits and weaknesses

Community, equity, and cultural change in open research: A response to open peer commentaries

We thank our esteemed colleagues who provided insightful commentaries on our feature article “(Why) are open research practices the future for the study of Language Learning?” (Marsden & Morgan-Short). Their responses very usefully illustrated and amplified points in our review, provided nuance and extension to some of our ideas, and pushed us to make stronger statements and deeper considerations of some of the facets and consequences of open research practices. Three common and prominent themes seemed to emerge from the responses, which we identify as: Community; Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion; and Changing Culture, and we organize our own response around these themes. We note that some of the issues raised by our generous commentators were addressed in arguments that had originally been included in our submitted manuscript (Marsden & Morgan-Short) but, due to length considerations, had to be moved to its Appendix. That Appendix can be found in the online Supporting Information for the Marsden & Morgan-Short article and is also held on the Open Science Framework (OSF) at https://osf.io/ru5n4. We refer to some of those arguments in our response here

Introduction of Methods Showcase Articles in Language Learning

Building on initiatives to promote high quality methodologies and Open Science practices in the language sciences, Language Learning will introduce, as of March 2020, a new manuscript type entitled Methods Showcase Articles (MSAs). The purpose of MSAs is to introduce new or emerging qualitative and quantitative methods, techniques, or instrumentation for language data collection, cleaning, sampling, coding, scoring, and analysis. MSAs are intended to describe methods and provide detailed examples of their application such that language researchers can easily adopt or adapt them in future studies. In this editorial, we outline the goals, format, and benefits of MSAs, discuss how they can advance language sciences, and discuss potential concerns

Squib: processamento em L2 apresenta ativação neural semelhante à da L1 após meses de ausência de exposição à língua

Este estudo de ERP com uma língua artificial examinou as consequências neurais e comportamentais de um período substancial de ausência de exposição a uma L2, um cenário comum na aprendizagem de L2. O objetivo foi examinar a neurocognição da gramática de uma segunda língua (L2) na idade adulta após um período de vários meses de ausência de exposição à língua-alvo. Em particular, buscou-se verificar em que medida essa ausência acarretaria perdas na proficiência e/ou neurocognição de forma diferente que acarretam em L1. Os resultados mostram que, após a obtenção de níveis relativamente altos de proficiência na L2, vários meses de ausência de exposição à língua não necessariamente levam a uma diminuição nos níveis de desempenho. Ao invés disso, a proficiência pode não somente ser mantida como até mesmo pode ocorrer um aumento no processamento neural da sintaxe semelhante ao que ocorre na língua materna

Interleukin-7 deficiency in rheumatoid arthritis: consequences for therapy-induced lymphopenia

We previously demonstrated prolonged, profound CD4+ T-lymphopenia in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients following lymphocyte-depleting therapy. Poor reconstitution could result either from reduced de novo T-cell production through the thymus or from poor peripheral expansion of residual T-cells. Interleukin-7 (IL-7) is known to stimulate the thymus to produce new T-cells and to allow circulating mature T-cells to expand, thereby playing a critical role in T-cell homeostasis. In the present study we demonstrated reduced levels of circulating IL-7 in a cross-section of RA patients. IL-7 production by bone marrow stromal cell cultures was also compromised in RA. To investigate whether such an IL-7 deficiency could account for the prolonged lymphopenia observed in RA following therapeutic lymphodepletion, we compared RA patients and patients with solid cancers treated with high-dose chemotherapy and autologous progenitor cell rescue. Chemotherapy rendered all patients similarly lymphopenic, but this was sustained in RA patients at 12 months, as compared with the reconstitution that occurred in cancer patients by 3–4 months. Both cohorts produced naïve T-cells containing T-cell receptor excision circles. The main distinguishing feature between the groups was a failure to expand peripheral T-cells in RA, particularly memory cells during the first 3 months after treatment. Most importantly, there was no increase in serum IL-7 levels in RA, as compared with a fourfold rise in non-RA control individuals at the time of lymphopenia. Our data therefore suggest that RA patients are relatively IL-7 deficient and that this deficiency is likely to be an important contributing factor to poor early T-cell reconstitution in RA following therapeutic lymphodepletion. Furthermore, in RA patients with stable, well controlled disease, IL-7 levels were positively correlated with the T-cell receptor excision circle content of CD4+ T-cells, demonstrating a direct effect of IL-7 on thymic activity in this cohort

Economies of space and the school geography curriculum

This paper is about the images of economic space that are found in school curricula. It suggests the importance for educators of evaluating these representations in terms of the messages they contain about how social processes operate. The paper uses school geography texts in Britain since the 1970s to illustrate the different ways in which economic space has been represented to students, before exploring some alternative resources that could be used to provide a wider range of representations of economic space. The paper highlights the continued importance of understanding the politics of school knowledge

Contributions of declarative and procedural memory to second language accuracy and automatization

Extending previous research that has examined the relationship between long-term memory and second language (L2) development with a primary focus on accuracy in L2 outcomes, the current study explores the relationship between declarative and procedural memory and accuracy and automatization during L2 practice. Adult English native speakers had learned an artificial language over two weeks (Morgan-Short, Faretta-Stutenberg, Brill-Schuetz, Carpenter & Wong, 2014), producing four sessions of practice data that had not been analyzed previously. Mixed-effects models analyses revealed that declarative memory was positively related to accuracy during comprehension practice. No other relationships were evidenced for accuracy. For automatization, measured by the coefficient of variation (Segalowitz, 2010), the model revealed a positive relationship with procedural memory that became stronger over practice for learners with higher declarative memory but weaker for learners with lower declarative memory. These results provide further insight into the role that long-term memory plays during L2 development