A potential case of attitude change: The Spanish spoken in the city of Malaga and used on social network sites

The Spanish spoken in the city of Malaga, as Andalusian Spanish in general, was in the past often times considered an incorrect, low prestige variety of Spanish which was strongly associated with the poor, rural, backward South of Spain. This southern Spanish variety is easily recognised because of its innovative phonetic features that diverge from the national standard, even though in the past years in the case of some features a convergence to the standard could be observed. Despite its low prestige the local variety of Spanish is quite often used on social network sites, where it is considered as urban, fashion and cool. Thus, this paper aims at analysing whether the Spanish used in the city of Malaga is undergoing an attitude change. The study draws on naturally occurring speech, data extracted from Facebook and a series of questionnaires about the salience, attitude and perception of the local variety of Spanish. The influence of the social factors age and gender is analysed, since they are both known to play a crucial role in many instances of language change. The first is of special interest, as during the Franco dictatorship dialect use was not accepted in schools and in the media. Results show that, on the one hand, people from Malaga hold a more positive attitude towards non-standard features used on social network sites than in spoken language. On the other hand, young female users employ most non-standard features online and unsurprisingly have an extremely positive attitude towards this use. However, in spoken Spanish the use and attitude of some features is led by men and speakers educated during the Franco dictatorship, while other features, such as elision of intervocalic /d/, elision of final /ɾ/, /l/ and /d/ and ceceo, are predominantly employed by and younger speakers and women. These features are considered as salient in the local variety and work as local identity markers.

Performance of laser fluorescence devices, visual and radiographic examination for the detection of occlusal caries in primary molars

The aim of this in vitro study was to compare the performance of two laser fluorescence devices (LF, LFpen), conventional visual criteria (VE), ICDAS and radiographic examination on occlusal surfaces of primary teeth. Thirty-seven primary human molars were selected from a pool of extracted teeth, which were stored frozen at -20°C until use. Teeth were assessed twice by two experienced examiners using laser fluorescence devices (LF and LFpen), conventional visual criteria, ICDAS and bitewing radiographs, with a 2-week interval between measurements. After measurement, the teeth were histologically prepared and assessed for caries extension. The highest sensitivity was observed for ICDAS at D(1) and D(3) thresholds, with no statistically significant difference when compared to the LF devices, except at the D(3) threshold. Bitewing radiographs presented the lowest values of sensitivity. Specificity at D(1) was higher for LFpen (0.90) and for VE at D(3) (0.94). When VE was combined with LFpen the post-test probabilities were the highest (94.0% and 89.2% at D(1) and D(3) thresholds, respectively). High values were observed for the combination of ICDAS and LFpen (92.0% and 80.0%, respectively). LF and LFpen showed the highest values of ICC for interexaminer reproducibility. However, regarding ICDAS, BW and VE, intraexaminer reproducibility was not the same for the two examiners. After primary visual inspection using ICDAS or not, the use of LFpen may aid in the detection of occlusal caries in primary teeth. Bitewing radiographs may be indicated only for approximal caries detection.

Visual and quantitative electroencephalographic analysis of healthy young and adult cats under medetomidine sedation

A study was designed to investigate the effect of medetomidine sedation on quantitative electroencephalography (q-EEG) in healthy young and adult cats to determine objective guidelines for diagnostic EEG recordings and interpretation. Preliminary visual examination of EEG recordings revealed high-voltage low-frequency background activity. Spindles, k-complexes and vertex sharp transients characteristic of sleep or sedation were superimposed on a low background activity. Neither paroxysmal activity nor EEG burst-suppression were observed. The spectral analysis of q-EEG included four parameters, namely, relative power (%), and mean, median and peak frequency (Hz) of all four frequency bands (delta, theta, alpha and beta). The findings showed a prevalence of slow delta and theta rhythms as opposed to fast alpha and beta rhythms in both young (group A) and adult (group B) cats. A posterior gradient was reported for the theta band and an anterior gradient for the alpha and beta bands in both groups, respectively. The relative power value in group B compared to group A was significantly higher for theta, alpha and beta bands, and lower for the delta band. The mean and median frequency values in group B was significantly higher for delta, theta and beta bands and lower for the alpha band. The study has shown that a medetomidine sedation protocol for feline EEG may offer a method for investigating bio-electrical cortical activity. The use of q-EEG analysis showed a decrease in high frequency bands and increased activity of the low frequency band in healthy cats under medetomidine sedation.

Visual and spectral analysis of sleep EEG in acute hemispheric stroke

BACKGROUND: Reports on the effects of focal hemispheric damage on sleep EEG are rare and contradictory. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Twenty patients (mean age +/- SD 53 +/- 14 years) with a first acute hemispheric stroke and no sleep apnea were studied. Stroke severity [National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS)], volume (diffusion-weighted brain MRI), and short-term outcome (Rankin score) were assessed. Within the first 8 days after stroke onset, 1-3 sleep EEG recordings per patient were performed. Sleep scoring and spectral analysis were based on the central derivation of the healthy hemisphere. Data were compared with those of 10 age-matched and gender-matched hospitalized controls with no brain damage and no sleep apnea. RESULTS: Stroke patients had higher amounts of wakefulness after sleep onset (112 +/- 53 min vs. 60 +/- 38 min, p < 0.05) and a lower sleep efficiency (76 +/- 10% vs. 86 +/- 8%, p < 0.05) than controls. Time spent in slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and total sleep time were lower in stroke patients, but differences were not significant. A positive correlation was found between the amount of SWS and stroke volume (r = 0.79). The slow-wave activity (SWA) ratio NREM sleep/wakefulness was lower in patients than in controls (p < 0.05), and correlated with NIHSS (r = -0.47). CONCLUSION: Acute hemispheric stroke is accompanied by alterations of sleep EEG over the healthy hemisphere that correlate with stroke volume and outcome. The increased SWA during wakefulness and SWS over the healthy hemisphere contralaterally to large strokes may reflect neuronal hypometabolism induced transhemispherically (diaschisis).

Event-related electric microstates of the brain differ between words with visual and abstract meaning

The present study shows that different neural activity during mental imagery and abstract mentation can be assigned to well-defined steps of the brain's information-processing. During randomized visual presentation of single, imagery-type and abstract-type words, 27 channel event-related potential (ERP) field maps were obtained from 25 subjects (sequence-divided into a first and second group for statistics). The brain field map series showed a sequence of typical map configurations that were quasi-stable for brief time periods (microstates). The microstates were concatenated by rapid map changes. As different map configurations must result from different spatial patterns of neural activity, each microstate represents different active neural networks. Accordingly, microstates are assumed to correspond to discrete steps of information-processing. Comparing microstate topographies (using centroids) between imagery- and abstract-type words, significantly different microstates were found in both subject groups at 286–354 ms where imagery-type words were more right-lateralized than abstract-type words, and at 550–606 ms and 606–666 ms where anterior-posterior differences occurred. We conclude that language-processing consists of several, well-defined steps and that the brain-states incorporating those steps are altered by the stimuli's capacities to generate mental imagery or abstract mentation in a state-dependent manner.