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A re-awakening of interest in foreign language aptitude in recent years has also seen some reanalyses of the construct. Prominent in these reanalyses is revised conception of memory and aptitude, and particularly, the role of working memory. A number of studies have explored the relevance of non-word repetition tests as measures of this type of memory. Building on this work, the present article reports on the development of language-specific non-word repetition tests. It is proposed that non-word repetition tests based on the phonological structure of the language to be learned will be particularly effective at predicting second language learning. Non-wordness, in this view, is defined with reference to the target language. The article reports on the development of such tests, focussing on the case of Cantonese, a tonal language, where approaches to the characterisation of non-words are particularly challenging. The article reports on methods of overcoming these difficulties. It also argues that such an analysis of working memory brings this construct close to Carroll’s characterisation of one of the components of foreign language aptitude – phonemic coding ability.

Purpose: Progression to the castration-resistant state is the incurable and lethal end stage of prostate cancer, and there is strong evidence that androgen receptor (AR) still plays a central role in this process. We hypothesize that knocking down AR will have a major effect on inhibiting growth of castration-resistant tumors., Experimental Design: Castration-resistant C4-2 human prostate cancer cells stably expressing a tetracycline-inducible AR-targeted short hairpin RNA (shRNA) were generated to directly test the effects of AR knockdown in C4-2 human prostate cancer cells and tumors., Results: In vitro expression of AR shRNA resulted in decreased levels of AR mRNA and protein, decreased expression of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), reduced activation of the PSA-luciferase reporter, and growth inhibition of C4-2 cells. Gene microarray analyses revealed that AR knockdown under hormone-deprived conditions resulted in activation of genes involved in apoptosis, cell cycle regulation, protein synthesis, and tumorigenesis. To ensure that tumors were truly castration-resistant in vivo, inducible AR shRNA expressing C4-2 tumors were grown in castrated mice to an average volume of 450 mm(3). In all of the animals, serum PSA decreased, and in 50% of them, there was complete tumor regression and disappearance of serum PSA., Conclusions: Whereas castration is ineffective in castration-resistant prostate tumors, knockdown of AR can decrease serum PSA, inhibit tumor growth, and frequently cause tumor regression. This study is the first direct evidence that knockdown of AR is a viable therapeutic strategy for treatment of prostate tumors that have already progressed to the castration-resistant state.