Chistabino (Pyrenean Aragonese)

Chistabino is the variety of Aragonese, a Romance dialect descended from Latin, like Spanish, still spoken in the Valley of Gistau, bordering on France and formed by the River Cinqueta, in the central part of the Spanish Pyrenees (Province of Huesca). Although it is spoken mainly in the village of Gistaín (c. 240 inhabitants; c. 1400 m above sea-level, near latitude 42°35′), and is fairly well preserved by the older generations there, fluent speakers can still be found also in the nearby locality of San Juan. The other inhabited villages in the valley (Plan, Serveto, Sin and Saravillo) have suffered much greater degrees of erosion by Castilian (Standard Spanish), which has increased its influence through much improved communications, leading to the development of tourism in the area and emigration by the young in search of greater prosperity. The remaining village, Señes, has been uninhabited since 1970.

The present state of aragonese

How much Aragonese is still spoken remains largely an unknown quantity. Naturally, establishing the number of speakers of any variety begs the question of what speaking a language actually means, and the picture is often clouded by the political interests of particular groups, as is the case in Aragon. The strong claim to the continued widespread use of Aragonese made by such associations as the Consello d"a Fabla in Huesca is counterbalanced by that of the more reactionary, sceptical academics at the University of Saragossa, who maintain that Aragonese varieties, ignoring the Catalan of Aragon spoken right down La Franja, the transition area between Aragon and Catalonia, now only survive in certain pockets of resistance across the north of Huesca. This paper will attempt to provide a summary of the available facts and report on some of the author"s own findings during his more recent trips to Aragon. Keywords Spanish dialectology, Aragonese, standardization of Aragonese, vitality of Aragonese

Traditional cockney and popular London speech

This paper gives a full description of the phonetics and phonology of Traditional Cockney and Popular London speech, treating these varieties as constituting a continuum rather than two separate dialects. Exemplification of the vowels, diphthongs and consonants is provided, both in isolate words and in connected speech, along with their range of variation. The frequencies of the vowels have been charted on the basis of the pronunciation of three elderly male speakers. Regarding the consonants, there are detailed observations on the features typically associated with the linguistic varieties examined: strong aspiration of unvoiced plosives, glottalization, H-dropping, L-vocalization and TH-fronting. A section on prosody provides coverage of lexical stress, rhythm and intonation. The paper takes into account up-to-date research on these phenomena, but does not deal with the most recent vowel shifts, some of which form part of Multi-cultural London English.

Analyzing and supporting interaction in complex scenarios: the case of DS106

DS106 promotes learners to build a digital identity + personal infrastructure, but how can be the global course infrastructure be improved?

Building an open social learning community around a Dspace repository on Statistics

LORs, addressing content management and preservation, have the positive collaterals of institutional positioning and dissemination, but their main benefit is the empowerment of interest-centred learning communities, as we recognise that learning is much more than content, which becomes infrastructure: the LOR provides the learner interaction with the LOs, but also with other learners and teachers.

Long-term functional improvements in the 2-year treatment of schizophrenia outpatients with olanzapine long-acting injection

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the long-term changes in the functioning of schizophrenia patients receiving maintenance therapy with olanzapine long-acting injection (LAI), and whether observed changes differ from those seen with oral olanzapine. METHODS: This study describes changes in the levels of functioning among outpatients with schizophrenia treated with olanzapine-LAI compared with oral olanzapine over 2 years. This was a secondary analysis of data from a multicenter, randomized, open-label, 2-year study comparing the long-term treatment effectiveness of monthly olanzapine-LAI (405 mg/4 weeks; n=264) with daily oral olanzapine (10 mg/day; n=260). Levels of functioning were assessed with the Heinrichs-Carpenter Quality of Life Scale. Functional status was also classified as 'good', 'moderate', or 'poor', using a previous data-driven approach. Changes in functional levels were assessed with McNemar's test and comparisons between olanzapine-LAI and oral olanzapine employed the Student's t-test. RESULTS: Over the 2-year study, the patients treated with olanzapine-LAI improved their level of functioning (per Quality of Life total score) from 64.0-70.8 (P<0.001). Patients on oral olanzapine also increased their level of functioning from 62.1-70.1 (P<0.001). At baseline, 19.2% of the olanzapine-LAI-treated patients had a 'good' level of functioning, which increased to 27.5% (P<0.05). The figures for oral olanzapine were 14.2% and 24.5%, respectively (P<0.001). Results did not significantly differ between olanzapine-LAI and oral olanzapine. CONCLUSION: In this 2-year, open-label, randomized study of olanzapine-LAI, outpatients with schizophrenia maintained or improved their favorable baseline level of functioning over time. Results did not significantly differ between olanzapine-LAI and oral olanzapine.