143 research outputs found
Effectiveness of a professional development (PD) training on teacher self-efficacy
No full textHanako Shimamura presents her investigations on how self-efficacy of Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers relates to instructional support and the impact of PD training on teacher self-efficacy. Presented at the Douglas College Research Café on February 17, 2022
Ambiguity Avoidance as Contrast Preservation: Case and Word Order Freezing in Japanese
No full textMuch recent work in phonology is concerned with evaluating contrasts among sets of forms (e.g. Flemming 1995, 1996; Ito and Mester 2003; Lubowicz 2003; Padgett 2003, 2004). This paper extends contrast preservation to syntax, where it can be used to explain anti-ambiguity phenomena. One such syntactic phenomenon is found in Japanese. Scrambling is generally tolerated in Japanese; however, when a subject and an object are morphologically identical (i.e. not distinguished by case morphology), scrambling is blocked. If scrambling were allowed in such a sentence, ambiguity would arise as to the subject of the sentence: 'Taroo-ga Hanako-ga kowai' could be the surface form of either an unscrambled structure 'Taroo-ga Hanako-ga kowai' (Taroo is afraid of Hanako) or a scrambled structure *'Taroo-ga(i) Hanako-ga t(i) kowai' (Hanako is afraid of Taroo). The ungrammaticality of the latter scrambled structure prevents subject-related ambiguity. I argue that this word order freezing (which occurs in German, Hindi, and Korean as well as Japanese: Lee 2001) is motivated by a PF constraint which demands contrast between forms with different subjects.The definitive version of this paper was published in University of Masschusetts Occational Papers in Linguistics 32: Papers in optimality theory III (2007) and is available at http://glsa.hypermart.net
Detection and Characterization of Mycoviruses in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi by Deep-Sequencing
No full textFungal viruses (mycoviruses) often have a significant impact not only on phenotypic expression of the host fungus but also on higher order biological interactions, e.g., conferring plant stress tolerance via an endophytic host fungus. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in the phylum Glomeromycota associate with most land plants and supply mineral nutrients to the host plants. So far, little information about mycoviruses has been obtained in the fungi due to their obligate biotrophic nature. Here we provide a technical breakthrough, “two-step strategy” in combination with deep-sequencing, for virological study in AM fungi; dsRNA is first extracted and sequenced using material obtained from highly productive open pot culture, and then the presence of viruses is verified using pure material produced in the in vitro monoxenic culture. This approach enabled us to demonstrate the presence of several viruses for the first time from a glomeromycotan fungus
Functional analyses of viral RNA silencing suppressors and a strategy to screen antiviral compounds that target viral RNA silencing suppressors
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A unique mitovirus from Glomeromycota, the phylum of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
No full textArbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi that belong to the phylum Glomeromycota associate with most land plants and supply mineral nutrients to the host plants. One of the four viral segments found by deep-sequencing of dsRNA in the AM fungus Rhizophagus clarus strain RF1 showed similarity to mitoviruses and is characterized in this report. The genome segment is 2,895 nucleotides in length, and the largest ORF was predicted by applying either the mold mitochondrial or the universal genetic code. The ORF encodes a polypeptide of 820 amino acids with a molecular mass of 91.2 kDa and conserves the domain of the mitovirus RdRp superfamily. Accordingly, the dsRNA was designated as R. clarus mitovirus 1 strain RF1 (RcMV1-RF1). Mitoviruses are localized exclusively in mitochondria and thus generally employ the mold mitochondrial genetic code. The distinct codon usage of RcMV1-RF1, however, suggests that the virus is potentially able to replicate not only in mitochondria but also in the cytoplasm. RcMV1-RF1 RdRp showed the highest similarity to the putative RdRp of a mitovirus-like ssRNA found in another AM fungus, followed by RdRp of a mitovirus in an ascomycotan ectomycorrhizal fungus. The three mitoviruses found in the three mycorrhizal fungi formed a deeply branching clade that is distinct from the two major clades in the genus Mitovirus
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