Transplanting diglossia: attitudes towards Standard and Cypriot Greek among London’s Greek Cypriot community

The linguistic situation in Greek-speaking Cyprus has been traditionally described as a textbook case of diglossia à la Ferguson (1959) with Standard Modern Greek (SModGr) being labelled as the High variety and Cypriot Greek (CypGr), the regional ModGr variety of Cyprus, being labelled the Low variety (Arvaniti, 2011; Moschonas, 1996). More recently, however, it has been proposed that the linguistic repertoire available to speakers features an array of forms of CypGr, which is best described as a continuum ranging from basilectal to acrolectal varieties (Katsoyannou et al., 2006; Tsiplakou et al., 2006). The basilectal end encompasses low prestige varieties predominantly spoken in rural areas. The acrolectal end is occupied by the version of SModGr used in the public domain in Cyprus (Arvaniti, 2006/2010). SModGr is known to carry high prestige in Cyprus. Speakers of CypGr describe speakers of the standard as more attractive, more intelligent, more interesting and more educated than speakers of the Cypriot dialect (Papapavlou, 1998). In this paper, I explore the relation between SModGr and CypGr in a diasporic setting, namely, the Greek Cypriot community of London. The United Kingdom is home to a sizeable Greek Cypriot community, whose population is presently estimated to fall between 200,000 and 300,000 individuals (Christodoulou-Pipis, 1991; National Federation of Cypriots in the UK). Similarly to the Cyprus homeland, the members of the Greek Cypriot parikia (‘community’) share a rich linguistic repertoire, which, in addition to varieties of Greek, crucially includes English. As is often the case with diasporas, the parikia does not form a homogeneous speech community in that not all of its members have an equally good command of Greek or even English. Rather, different types of monolingual and bilingual speakers are found including a large number of heritage speakers in the sense of Benmamoun et al. (2013), Montrul (2008, 2015) and Polinsky & Kagan (2007). Twenty British-born heritage speakers of CypGr were interviewed on their attitudes towards the different varieties of Greek. Results indicate that the prestige relation between SModGr and CypGr that holds in Cyprus has been transplanted to the parikia. SModGr is widely perceived as the prestigious variety and is described in positive terms (‘correct’, ‘proper’). The use of CypGr, on the other hand, enjoys covert prestige: it is perceived as an index of solidarity and in-group membership but at the same time is also viewed by heritage speakers as reminiscent of the hardship and lack of education of the generation that brought CypGr to the UK. In certain cases, the use of CypGr by heritage speakers is actively discouraged by the first generation not only in the public domain but also in private domains such as the home. Active discouragement targets both lexical and grammatical variants that are traditionally associated with basilectal varieties of CypGr, and heritage language features, especially the adoption of morphologically adapted loanwords from English. References Arvaniti, Amalia. 2006/2010. Linguistic practices in Cyprus and the emergence of Cypriot Standard Greek. Mediterranean Language Review 17, 15–45. Benmamoun, Elabbas, Silvina Montrul & Maria Polinsky. 2013. Heritage languages and their speakers: opportunities and challenges for linguists. Theoretical Linguistics 39(3/4), 129–181. Christodoulou-Pipis, Irina. 1991. Greek Outside Greece: Language Use by Greek-Cypriots in Britain. Nicosia: Diaspora Books. Ferguson, Charles A. 1959. Diglossia. Word 15(2), 325–340. Katsoyannou, Marianna, Andreas Papapavlou, Pavlos Pavlou & Stavroula Tsiplakou. 2006. Didialektikes koinotites kai glossiko syneches: i periptosi tis kypriakis [Bidialectal communities and linguistic continuum: the case of Cypriot Greek]. In Mark Janse, Brian D. Joseph & Angela Ralli (eds.), Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of Modern Greek Dialects and Linguistic Theory, Mytilene, Greece, 30 September – 3 October 2004, 156–171. Patras: University of Patras. Montrul, Silvina A. 2008. Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism: Re-examining the Age Factor. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Montrul, Silvina. 2015. The Acquisition of Heritage Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moschonas, Spiros. 1996. I glossiki dimorfia stin Kypro [Diglossia in Cyprus]. In “Ischyres” – “Astheneis” Glosses stin Evropaiki Enosi: Opseis tou glossikou igemonismou [“Strong” – “Weak” Languages in the European Union: Aspects of Linguistic Imperialism], 121–128. Thessaloniki: Kentro Ellinikis Glossas. Polinsky, Maria & Olga Kagan. 2007. Heritage languages: in the ‘wild’ and in the classroom. Languages and Linguistics Compass 1(5), 368–395. Tsiplakou, Stavroula, Andreas Papapavlou, Pavlos Pavlou & Marianna Katsoyannou. 2006. Levelling, koineization and their implications for bidialectism. In Frans L. Hinskens (Eds.), Language Variation – European Perspectives: Selected Papers from the Third International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE 3), Amsterdam, June 2005, 265–279. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Interventions to Promote Follow-up After Trabeculectomy Surgery in Rural Southern China: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance:

Follow-up after trabeculectomy surgery is important to surgical success, but little is known about the effect of interventions on improving follow-up in low-resource areas.

Objective:

To examine whether text message reminders and free eye medications improve follow-up after trabeculectomy in rural southern China.

Design, Setting, and Participants:

This randomized clinical trial studied 222 consecutive patients undergoing trabeculectomy from October 1, 2014, through November 31, 2015, at 4 rural hospitals in Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces, China. Data from the intention-to-treat population were analyzed.

Interventions:

Patients undergoing trabeculectomy were randomized (1:1) to receive text message reminders 3 days before appointments at 1 and 2 weeks and 1 month after surgery and free topical corticosteroid medication (US$5.30) at each visit or to standard follow-up without reminders or free medication.

Main Outcomes and Measure:

Follow-up at 1 month postoperatively.

Results:

Among 222 eligible patients, 13 (5.9%) refused and 209 (94.1%) were enrolled, with 106 (50.7%) randomized to the intervention group (mean [SD] age, 64.4 [12.7] years; 56 women [52.8%]) and 103 (49.3%) to the control group (mean [SD] age, 63.0 [12.7] years; 53 women [51.5%]). A total of 6 patients (2.9%) were unavailable for follow-up. Attendance at 1 month for the intervention group (59 of 102 [57.8%]) was significantly higher than for the control group (34 of 101 [33.7%]) (unadjusted relative risk [RR], 1.72; 95% CI, 1.13-2.63; P = .01). Factors associated with 1-month attendance in multiple regression models included intervention group membership (RR, 1.65; 95% CI, 1.08-2.53; P = .02) and being told to return for suture removal (RR, 1.80; 95% CI, 1.06-3.06; P = .03). One-month attendance among controls not told about suture removal was 3 of 31 (9.7%), whereas it was 44 of 68 (64.7%) among the intervention group with suture removal (unadjusted RR, 6.69; 95% CI, 2.08-21.6; P = .001).

Conclusions and Relevance:

In this setting, low-cost interventions may significantly improve postoperative follow-up after glaucoma surgery, a potential opportunity for interventions known to improve surgical success.

English: its role as the language of comity in an employment programme for Canadian immigrants.

This study explores the experiences of a culturally and linguistically diverse group of immigrant adult students as they attended a 12-week employment preparation course for newcomers to Canada. The main aim of the course was to equip the immigrants with knowledge and skills, including English for employment purposes, which are necessary to be competitive in the labour market. Using ethnographic methods, mainly participant observation with audio recording, to collect data, this paper analyses the communicative strategies that this group of multilingual speakers and their Canadian teachers deployed to discursively construct a ‘heterotopia’ defined here as ‘intensely affective spaces that redefine the experiential feeling of being and becoming’. Analysis of transcribed audio recordings reveals that despite differences in communication conventions and sociocultural backgrounds, the research participants from Congo, Haiti, India, Bangladesh, Jordan and the Philippines managed to establish a socially cohesive team that emphasises shared relational identity and in-group membership. The findings show how they creatively mobilised previously acquired pragmatic strategies and resources from their L1 to suit the demands of the ongoing interaction in English. It is suggested that language teaching in the context of preparing immigrants for labour market integration entails a pedagogical approach that foregrounds the affordances of English not only as the language of employment but perhaps more importantly as the ‘language of comity’. It is therefore suggested that the teaching of the host country’s language should focus less on grammatical correctness and focus more on providing the adult learners with opportunities to activate existing pragmatic resources and strategies which have to do with establishing rapport and friendly relations.

FERTILISER CREDIT AND AGROECOLOGICAL USE OF ORGANIC SOIL AMENDMENTS IN NORTHERN GHANA

Contemporary African agricultural policy embodies the African Green Revolution’s drive towards modernisation and commercialisation. Agroecologists have criticised this movement on ecological, social and political grounds. Northern Ghanaian fertiliser credit schemes provide a good example through which these critiques can be examined in a context where agricultural policy reflects the African Green Revolution’s ideals. This study aimed to determine the relationship of such credit schemes to farmers’ use of organic amendments, elucidate other factors related to organic amendment use, and comment on the relevance of this modernisation policy and its relationship to agroecology. A first research phase employed semi-structured key informant interviews. Qualitative data from these informed construction of a semi-structured questionnaire that was used in a survey of 205 farmers. Multistage sampling purposively identified five villages and selected farmers within who had joined government and donor-funded fertiliser credit schemes. The use of organic and inorganic amendments was compared to that of peers who had not taken part in such schemes. Quantitative data were used in binomial logistic regression, inferential and descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were content analysed. Credit group membership was associated with higher fertiliser application and yield, but had little influence on the extent of commercialisation. Farmers who applied organic amendments were 40% less likely to belong to a fertiliser credit scheme than not, indicating substitution between organic and inorganic fertilisers. Organic amendments were 40% more likely to be applied to compound farms than outfields and six times more likely to be applied by household heads than other household members. However, household heads also preferentially joined credit groups. This was part of an agroecological soil fertility management strategy. Household heads appreciated the soil moisture retention properties of organic amendments, and applied them to compound farms to reduce risk to their household food supply in a semi-arid environment. They simultaneously accessed fertiliser to enhance this household provisioning strategy. They appreciated the increased yields this achieved, yet complained that the repayment terms of credit schemes were unfair, fertiliser did not enhance yields in dry conditions and fertilisers were supplied late. Farmers’ use of credited fertiliser alongside their existing agroecological strategy is helpful to the extent that it raises yields, yet is problematic in that it conflicts with risk-reduction strategies based on organics. There is some potential for modernised and agroecological management paradigms to coexist. For fertiliser credit to play a role in this, schemes must use fairer repayment terms and involve a focus on simultaneous use of organic amendments.

The equity raw-score matrix - a multi-dimensional indicator of potential disadvantage in higher education

Issues surrounding student participation, transition, retention and successful completion in higher education are topical. While the Australian federal government has identified broad groupings of under-represented students, these do not shed light on the complexities underlying the issues of the educationally disadvantaged, such as the compounding problems of multiple equity-group membership or the overlay of the acute or chronic effects of equity sub-group membership. This paper details the Equity Raw-Score Matrix. The matrix is a multi-dimensional indicator of potential disadvantage in learners, created for the specific purposes of diagnosing the complexities of educational disadvantage and creating pre-emptive strategies for the participation, transition and retention of students who are disadvantaged. The paper also describes the qualitative research study that was the catalyst for the creation of the matrix.

Assessing Decision Making Skill in Complex and Dynamic Environments Using Representative and Simulated Tasks

Traditional decision making research has often focused on one's ability to choose from a set of prefixed options, ignoring the process by which decision makers generate courses of action (i.e., options) in-situ (Klein, 1993). In complex and dynamic domains, this option generation process is particularly critical to understanding how successful decisions are made (Zsambok & Klein, 1997). When generating response options for oneself to pursue (i.e., during the intervention-phase of decision making) previous research has supported quick and intuitive heuristics, such as the Take-The-First heuristic (TTF; Johnson & Raab, 2003). When generating predictive options for others in the environment (i.e., during the assessment-phase of decision making), previous research has supported the situational-model-building process described by Long Term Working Memory theory (LTWM; see Ward, Ericsson, & Williams, 2013). In the first three experiments, the claims of TTF and LTWM are tested during assessment- and intervention-phase tasks in soccer. To test what other environmental constraints may dictate the use of these cognitive mechanisms, the claims of these models are also tested in the presence and absence of time pressure. In addition to understanding the option generation process, it is important that researchers in complex and dynamic domains also develop tools that can be used by `real-world' professionals. For this reason, three more experiments were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a new online assessment of perceptual-cognitive skill in soccer. This test differentiated between skill groups and predicted performance on a previously established test and predicted option generation behavior. The test also outperformed domain-general cognitive tests, but not a domain-specific knowledge test when predicting skill group membership. Implications for theory and training, and future directions for the development of applied tools are discussed.

DOD manufacturing technology program points of contact and Manufacturing Technology Advisory Group technical subcommittee membership.

"November 1984."

Online professional communities : understanding the effects of membership on teacher practice

Online communities offer teachers a forum to discuss ideas, seek support, engage in professional discussions and network with a wider peer group. The popularity of online communities for teachers is self-evident by the quantity that has emerged in recent years and they present as opportunities to engage in continued pedagogical growth. The study presented in this paper has focused on the electronic discussions of three online communities for teachers, two Australian-based communities and one UK-based community. The aim was to analyse the content of the messages, via content analysis using the Practical Inquiry Model (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2001) in an attempt to determine if membership had an impact pedagogy. This study will present findings that support the conclusion that membership to online communities provides genuine opportunities for continued pedagogical growth for teachers. It will also show that they are being used as a problem solving resource, provide opportunities for professional discourse and professional support.

Defending the patch : a labour geography analysis of unions’ construction of and responses to the problem of declining union membership amongst youth

If the trade union movement is to remain an influential force in the industrial, economic and socio/political arenas of industrialised nations it is vital that its recruitment of young members improve dramatically. Australian union membership levels have declined markedly over the last three decades and youth union membership levels have decreased more than any age group. Currently around 10% of young workers aged between 16-24 years are members of unions in Australia compared to 26% of workers aged 45-58 (Oliver, 2008). This decline has occurred throughout the union movement, in all states and in almost all industries and occupations. This research, which consists of interviews with union organisers and union officials, draws on perspectives from the labour geography literature to explore how union personnel located in various places, spaces and scales construct the issue of declining youth union membership. It explores the scale of connections within the labour movement and the extent to which these connections are leveraged to address the problem of youth union membership decline. To offer the reader a sense of context and perspective, the thesis firstly outlines the historical development of the union movement. It also reviews the literature on youth membership decline. Labour geography offers a rich and apposite analytical tool for investigation of this area. The notion of ‘scale’ as a dynamic, interactive, constructed and reconstructed entity (Ellem, 2006) is an appropriate lens for viewing youth-union membership issues. In this non-linear view, scale is a relational element which interplays with space, place and the environment (Howett, in Marston, 2000) rather than being ‘sequential’ and hierarchical. Importantly, the thesis investigates the notion of unions as ‘spaces of dependence’ (Cox, 1998a, p.2), organisations whose space is centred upon realising essential interests. It also considers the quality of unions’ interactions with others – their ‘spaces of engagement‘(Cox, 1998a, p.2), and the impact that this has upon their ability to recruit youth. The findings reveal that most respondents across the spectrum of the union movement attribute the decline in youth membership levels to factors external to the movement itself, such as changes to industrial relations legislation and the impact of globalisation on employment markets. However, participants also attribute responsibility for declining membership levels to the union movement itself, citing factors such as a lack of resourcing and a need to change unions’ perceived identity and methods of operation. The research further determined that networks of connections across the union movement are tenuous and, to date, are not being fully utilised to assist unions to overcome the youth recruitment dilemma. The study concludes that potential connections between unions are hampered by poor resourcing, workload issues and some deeply entrenched attitudes related to unions ‘defending (and maintaining) their patch’.

An informal community of practice : the case of the DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group

The DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group has an informal membership of nearly 200 members with an interest in education and virtual worlds within the Australian and New Zealand context. Members come from a variety of academic disciplines and may be teaching or research academics, Research Higher Degree candidates, project managers, virtual world builders and developers. The group acts as an informal Community of Practice, facilitating learning and the transfer of skills through social contact, opportunities to collaborate on projects and publications, and through the sharing of knowledge and experience. This poster provides a snapshot of the activity of this highly active group.

Factors influencing bike share membership : an analysis of Melbourne and Brisbane

The number of bike share programs has increased rapidly in recent years and there are currently over 700 programs in operation globally. Australia’s two bike share programs have been in operation since 2010 and have significantly lower usage rates compared to Europe, North America and China. This study sets out to understand and quantify the factors influencing bike share membership in Australia’s two bike share programs located in Melbourne and Brisbane. An online survey was administered to members of both programs as well as a group with no known association with bike share. A logistic regression model revealed several significant predictors of membership including reactions to mandatory helmet legislation, riding activity over the previous month, and the degree to which convenience motivated private bike riding. In addition, respondents aged 18 - 34 and having docking station within 250m of their workplace were found to be statistically significant predictors of bike share membership. Finally, those with relatively high incomes increased the odds of membership. These results provide insight as to the relative influence of various factors impacting on bike share membership in Australia. The findings may assist bike share operators to maximize membership potential and help achieve the primary goal of bike share – to increase the sustainability of the transport system.

gcs-ma: a group communication system for mobile agents

Reliable messaging is a key component necessary for mobile agent systems. Current researches focus on reliable one-to-one message delivery to mobile agents. But how to implement a group communication system for mobile agents remains an open issue, which is a powerful block that facilitates the development of fault-tolerant mobile agent systems. In this paper, we propose a group communication system for mobile agents (GCS-MA), which includes totally ordered multicast and membership management functions. We divide a group of mobile agents into several agent clusters,and each agent cluster consists of all mobile agents residing in the same sub-network and is managed by a special module, named coordinator. Then, all coordinators form a ring-based overlay for interchanging messages between clusters. We present a token-based algorithm, an intra-cluster messaging algorithm and an inter-cluster migration algorithm to achieve atomicity and total ordering properties of multicast messages, by building a membership protocol on top of the clustering and failure detection mechanisms. Performance issues of the proposed system have been analysed through simulations. We also describe the application of the proposed system in the context of the service cooperation middleware (SCM) project.

A decentralized batch-based group key management potocol for mobile Internet of Thngs (DBGK).

It is anticipated that constrained devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) will often operate in groups to achieve collective monitoring or management tasks. For sensitive and mission-critical sensing tasks, securing multicast applications is therefore highly desirable. To secure group communications, several group key management protocols have been introduced. However, the majority of the proposed solutions are not adapted to the IoT and its strong processing, storage, and energy constraints. In this context, we introduce a novel decentralized and batch-based group key management protocol to secure multicast communications. Our protocol is simple and it reduces the rekeying overhead triggered by membership changes in dynamic and mobile groups and guarantees both backward and forward secrecy. To assess our protocol, we conduct a detailed analysis with respect to its communcation and storage costs. This analysis is validated through simulation to highlight energy gains. The obtained results show that our protocol outperforms its peers with respect to keying overhead and the mobility of members.

A strategy to advance the evidence base in palliative medicine: formation of a palliative care research cooperative group.

BACKGROUND: Palliative medicine has made rapid progress in establishing its scientific and clinical legitimacy, yet the evidence base to support clinical practice remains deficient in both the quantity and quality of published studies. Historically, the conduct of research in palliative care populations has been impeded by multiple barriers including health care system fragmentation, small number and size of potential sites for recruitment, vulnerability of the population, perceptions of inappropriateness, ethical concerns, and gate-keeping. METHODS: A group of experienced investigators with backgrounds in palliative care research convened to consider developing a research cooperative group as a mechanism for generating high-quality evidence on prioritized, clinically relevant topics in palliative care. RESULTS: The resulting Palliative Care Research Cooperative (PCRC) agreed on a set of core principles: active, interdisciplinary membership; commitment to shared research purposes; heterogeneity of participating sites; development of research capacity in participating sites; standardization of methodologies, such as consenting and data collection/management; agile response to research requests from government, industry, and investigators; focus on translation; education and training of future palliative care researchers; actionable results that can inform clinical practice and policy. Consensus was achieved on a first collaborative study, a randomized clinical trial of statin discontinuation versus continuation in patients with a prognosis of less than 6 months who are taking statins for primary or secondary prevention. This article describes the formation of the PCRC, highlighting processes and decisions taken to optimize the cooperative group's success.

The trade unions membership dynamics and union members’ trajectories

This text presents an analysis of aggregated membership’s dynamics for Spanish trade unions, using ECVT data, as well as union memberships’ trajectories, or members’ decisions about joining the organization, permanency and responsibilities, and subsequent attrition. For the analysis of trajectories we make use of information of the records of actual memberships and the record of quitting of CCOO, and of a survey-questionnaire to a sample of leavers of the same union. This study allows us to confirm a linkage between the decision and motivations to become union member, to participate in union activities, the time of permanency, and the motives to quit the organization. We also identify five types of union members’ trajectories, indicating that, far from views that assert a monolithic structure, unions are complex organizations.