Viewing dialect change through acceptability judgments:A case study in Shetland dialect

Acceptability judgments are the standard methodology for investigating syntactic variation. While acceptability judgments have been shown to be reliable in cases of assumed stable variation, there has been little discussion of how syntactic 'change' plays out in judgment tasks. This is despite evidence from sociolinguistics that at the end of a change, speakers’ behaviour in production is “unpredictable”. How does this “unpredictability” play out in judgment tasks, where speakers are asked to perform metalinguistic assessments on their use of a changing variable? In this paper, I present the results of acceptability judgment tasks focusing on a particle, –'n', available in some biased questions in the Shetland dialect of Scots. This variety has been claimed to be rapidly obsolescing (e.g. Smith & Durham 2011). Combining quantitative analysis of acceptability judgments with qualitative comments made by the speakers, I argue young speakers exhibit 'perceptual hyperdialectalism' in their judgments: extending acceptability of the variable to contexts where older speakers don’t accept it; giving higher ratings than expected given their qualitative comments when the variable is being lost, and generally rating examples which could be perceived as “dialectal” higher. I argue these patterns arise from Preston’s (2013) definition of linguistic insecurity: younger speakers are aware their grammar diverges from a more “traditional” grammar, but the traditional grammar is an important identity marker. These speakers therefore attempt to demonstrate knowledge of an older grammar – but their knowledge is not accurate. These patterns highlight the importance of combining quantitative and qualitative analysis in dialect syntax

Impact of Missouri Reading Initiative on Student Achievement: An Administrative Perspective

Reading and critical thinking skills are a source of concern when analyzing student achievement relative to No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In Fort Zumwalt, middle school Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) test scores in communication arts have not consistently met NCLB requirements. To address this concern, Fort Zumwalt implemented Missouri Reading Initiative (MRI) as a pilot at North Middle School during the 2007-08 school year. Collaborative researchers collected data derived from student test scores on the 2006-07 and 2007-08 communication arts MAP to assess MRI effectiveness. Quantitatively, this study examined the relationship between implementation of MRI and student achievement on the communication arts MAP test. Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) data were examined, and student performance on process skills was reviewed. Qualitatively, this study examined the impact of teacher perceptions of MRI on student achievement. To gather teacher perceptions, the MRI End-of-the-Year Questionnaire was given to 18 reading and communication arts teachers who were involved in MRI implementation. Frequency of teacher ratings were tallied and analyzed in the areas of (a) delivery and format, (b) process, (c) student achievement, (d) overall program rating. Using a z-test for proportions, AYP analysis concluded that statistically significant results were rarely achieved. Analysis of process skill performance showed gains in the majority of skills tested, and nearly 50% of skills tested showed statistically significant gains. When reviewing teacher perspectives, the results indicated that 83% of the teachers believed MRI definitely changed or reinforced their teaching. When iii reflecting on the effectiveness of MRI as a whole, 39% of the teachers felt it was “excellent.” No teacher felt that the program was “poor.” The researchers recommend these changes for future practice: (a) teacher involvement early in the MRI implementation; (b) instead of the MAP, the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) should be utilized to more accurately measure student achievement in the area of reading; (c) teacher accountability for effectively implementing MRI strategies during classroom instruction; and (d) identification of the teachers by grade level on the End-of-the-Year Questionnaire in order to make a connection between teacher attitudes and perceptions and impact on student achievement

Exploring Features for Predicting Policy Citations

In this study we performed an initial investigation and evaluation of altmetrics and their relationship with public policy citation of research papers. We examined methods for using altmetrics and other data to predict whether a research paper is cited in public policy and applied receiver operating characteristic curve on various feature groups in order to evaluate their potential usefulness. From the methods we tested, classifying based on tweet count provided the best results, achieving an area under the ROC curve of 0.91.Comment: 2 pages, accepted to JCDL '1

Violence in Popular U.S. Prime Time TV Dramas and the Cultivation of Fear: A Time Series Analysis

Gerbner and Gross’s cultivation theory predicts that prolonged exposure to TV violence creates fear of crime, symptomatic of a mean world syndrome. We tested the theory’s prediction in a time series model with annual changes in violence portrayal on popular US TV shows from 1972 to 2010 as a predictor of changes in public perceptions of local crime rates and fear of crime. We found that contrary to the prediction that TV violence would affect perceptions of crime rates, TV violence directly predicted fear of crime holding constant national crime rates and perceptions of crime rates. National crime rates predicted fear of crime but only as mediated by perceptions of local crime rates. The findings support an interpretation of cultivation theory that TV drama transports viewers into a fictive world that creates fear of crime but without changing perceptions of a mean world

Dependencia de la densidad en los ánades norteamericanos

The existence or otherwise of density dependence within a population can have important implications for the management of that population. Here, we use estimates of abundance obtained from annual aerial counts on the major breeding grounds of a variety of North American duck species and use a state space model to separate the observation and ecological system processes. This state space approach allows us to impose a density dependence structure upon the true underlying population rather than on the estimates and we emonstrate the improved robustness of this procedure for detecting density dependence in the population. We adopt a Bayesian approach to model fitting, using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods and use a reversible jump MCMC scheme to calculate posterior model probabilities which assign probabilities to the presence of density dependence within the population, for example. We show how these probabilities can be used either to discriminate between models or to provide model–averaged predictions which fully account for both parameter and model uncertainty.La existencia o ausencia de efectos dependientes de la densidad en una población puede acarrear importantes repercusiones para la gestión de la misma. En este artículo empleamos estimaciones de abundancia obtenidas a partir de recuentos aéreos anuales de las principales áreas de reproducción de diversas especies de ánades norteamericanos, utilizando un modelo de estados espaciales para separar los procesos de observación y los procesos del sistema ecológico. Este enfoque basado en estados espaciales nos permite imponer una estructura que depende de la densidad de la población subyacente real, más que de las estimaciones, además de demostrar la robustez mejorada de este procedimiento para detectar la dependencia de la densidad en la población. Para el ajuste de modelos adoptamos un planteamiento bayesiano, utilizando los métodos de Monte Carlo basados en cadenas de Markov (MCMC), así como un programa MCMC de salto reversible para calcular, por ejemplo, las probabilidades posteriores de los modelos que asignan probabilidades a la presencia de una dependencia de la densidad en la población. También demostramos cómo pueden emplearse estas probabilidades para discriminar entre modelos o para proporcionar predicciones promediadas entre modelos que tengan totalmente en cuenta tanto la incertidumbre referente a parámetros como a modelos

Dietary Diversity and Overlap Between Two Subspecies of Spadefoot Toads (Scaphiopus holbrookii holbrookii and S. h. hurterii) in Arkansas

The food habits of adult spadefoot toads (Scaphiopus h. holbrookii and S. h. hurterii) collected in Arkansas were exam ined during this study. Thirty-six adult S. h. holbrookii (29 males and 7 females) and 48 adult S. h. hurterii (23 males and 2 females) were necropsied. Most specimens were collected over a 10-year span oftime (1985-94). Alltoads were taken from breeding aggregations which were visited periodically inany given year (frommid-February to late April).Prey items wer found in the stomachs of 13 (36.1%) of the S. h. holbrookii and 23 (48.0%) ofthe S. h. hurterii. Scaphiopus h. holbrookii and h. hurterii have similar diets. Both subspecies feed on a variety of ground-dwelling arthropods with 19 taxa being ident tied to the order or the familiallevel. The data suggested that there was considerable dietary overlap based upon the fa that beetles and catepillars were the primary food items. The presence ofonly one aquatic insect inall the stomachs inc cated that the toads restrict their feeding activity after arriving at breeding ponds. Additional seasonal collections ai required to better understand dietary diversity

Technology transfer potential of an automated water monitoring system

The nature and characteristics of the potential economic need (markets) for a highly integrated water quality monitoring system were investigated. The technological, institutional and marketing factors that would influence the transfer and adoption of an automated system were studied for application to public and private water supply, public and private wastewater treatment and environmental monitoring of rivers and lakes