Exploring contested authenticity among speakers of a contested language: the case of ‘Francoprovençal'

This paper explores the notion of speaker authenticity in the context of obsolescent ‘Francoprovençal’: a highly fragmented grouping of Romance varieties spoken in parts of France, Italy, and Switzerland by less than 1% of the total regional population. While Francoprovençal has long been losing ground to the dominant language(s) with which it is in contact, new speakers have begun to emerge within the context of revitalisation movements and activities geared more favourable language planning policies and increased literacy. The emergence of these new speakers has polarised native-speaker communities, and has blurred the lines associated with the traditional view of sociolinguistic authenticity. Through an analysis of qualitative data collected in 2012, this article argues in particular that it may not be sufficient to simply examine contested authenticities from a native–non-native perspective, but rather it is important to consider how new speakers might themselves form a complex spectrum of speaker types with new sets of tensions as has been argued elsewhere

Migratory shorebird adheres to Bergmann’s Rule by responding to environmental conditions through the annual lifecycle

The inverse relationship between body size and environmental temperature is a widespread ecogeographic pattern. However, the underlying forces that produce this pattern are unclear in many taxa. Expectations are particularly unclear for migratory species, as individuals may escape environmental extremes and reorient themselves along the environmental gradient. In addition, some aspects of body size are largely fixed while others are environmentally flexible and may vary seasonally. Here, we used a long-term dataset that tracked multiple populations of the migratory piping plover Charadrius melodus across their breeding and non-breeding ranges to investigate ecogeographic patterns of phenotypically flexible (body mass) and fixed (wing length) size traits in relation to latitude (Bergmann’s Rule), environmental temperature (heat conservation hypothesis), and migratory distance. We found that body mass was correlated with both latitude and temperature across the breeding and non-breeding ranges, which is consistent with predictions of Bergmann’s Rule and heat conservation. However, wing length was correlated with latitude and temperature only on the breeding range. This discrepancy resulted from low migratory connectivity across seasons and the tendency for individuals with longer wings to migrate farther than those with shorter wings. Ultimately, these results suggest that wing length may be driven more by conditions experienced during the breeding season or tradeoffs related to migration, whereas body mass is modified by environmental conditions experienced throughout the annual lifecycle

Migratory shorebird adheres to Bergmann’s Rule by responding to environmental conditions through the annual lifecycle

The inverse relationship between body size and environmental temperature is a widespread ecogeographic pattern. However, the underlying forces that produce this pattern are unclear in many taxa. Expectations are particularly unclear for migratory species, as individuals may escape environmental extremes and reorient themselves along the environmental gradient. In addition, some aspects of body size are largely fixed while others are environmentally flexible and may vary seasonally. Here, we used a long-term dataset that tracked multiple populations of the migratory piping plover Charadrius melodus across their breeding and non-breeding ranges to investigate ecogeographic patterns of phenotypically flexible (body mass) and fixed (wing length) size traits in relation to latitude (Bergmann’s Rule), environmental temperature (heat conservation hypothesis), and migratory distance. We found that body mass was correlated with both latitude and temperature across the breeding and non-breeding ranges, which is consistent with predictions of Bergmann’s Rule and heat conservation. However, wing length was correlated with latitude and temperature only on the breeding range. This discrepancy resulted from low migratory connectivity across seasons and the tendency for individuals with longer wings to migrate farther than those with shorter wings. Ultimately, these results suggest that wing length may be driven more by conditions experienced during the breeding season or tradeoffs related to migration, whereas body mass is modified by environmental conditions experienced throughout the annual lifecycle

Canada-Africa Relations in Changing Core-Periphery Dynamics: A Chance to "Come Back" Differently

The Department of Foreign Affairs Canada sees the dynamism at play across the African continent as calling out for Canadian engagement. Africa in the twenty-first century is no longer the continent emerging from colonial rule; it seeks new forms of relationships with international partners. The African Development Bank, for instance, has identified five priorities for inclusive growth on the continent. The challenges are huge, as is the potential for transformative change. But the conditions for international collaboration in achieving these goals have changed; African leaders are seeking new forms of associations and teamwork. Canada has an opportunity to "come back" differently if it can look beyond its narrow mining interests and become an active partner working with public authorities in need of new and bold international partnerships. Unfortunately, Trudeau's "Canada is back" campaign does not look set to change the status quo. And, in a world where the political economic power is moving east, African countries do not have much reason to listen to Canada

Beyond obsolescence: a twenty-first century research agenda for the langues régionales

This Special Issue of the Journal of French Language Studies celebrates a recent surge in enthusiasm for sociolinguistic studies involving the regional languages of France. Taking our cue from the contributions to the volume, which we introduce here, we argue that a changing twenty-first century landscape offers an exciting new agenda for these regional languages (and minority languages more widely), and set out what we see as six key directions for contemporary research

New Speakers and Language Revitalisation: Arpitan and Community (Re)formation

Today, it is uncontroversial to claim that France’s regional (minority) languages (RLs) are in decline. However, revitalisation movements have nonetheless continued to surface, and this chapter considers one by-product of such efforts: the emergence of new speakers in RL contexts. The term ‘new speaker’ refers to individuals who acquire the target language not through traditional transmission contexts (e.g. home, family), but instead as adults through language revitalisation initiatives. The chapter focuses on revitalisation efforts in the context of Francoprovençal, a severely endangered and understudied RL spoken transnationally across French, Italian and Swiss borders. A critical examination of current studies supplemented with recently collected empirical data shows new speakers to be central agents in a movement championing proto-nation-statehood across national borders, reorienting the region’s traditional sociolinguistic field

SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 is associated with greater disease severity among hospitalised women but not men: multicentre cohort study.

BACKGROUND: SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 has been associated with an increased rate of transmission and disease severity among subjects testing positive in the community. Its impact on hospitalised patients is less well documented. METHODS: We collected viral sequences and clinical data of patients admitted with SARS-CoV-2 and hospital-onset COVID-19 infections (HOCIs), sampled 16 November 2020 to 10 January 2021, from eight hospitals participating in the COG-UK-HOCI study. Associations between the variant and the outcomes of all-cause mortality and intensive therapy unit (ITU) admission were evaluated using mixed effects Cox models adjusted by age, sex, comorbidities, care home residence, pregnancy and ethnicity. FINDINGS: Sequences were obtained from 2341 inpatients (HOCI cases=786) and analysis of clinical outcomes was carried out in 2147 inpatients with all data available. The HR for mortality of B.1.1.7 compared with other lineages was 1.01 (95% CI 0.79 to 1.28, p=0.94) and for ITU admission was 1.01 (95% CI 0.75 to 1.37, p=0.96). Analysis of sex-specific effects of B.1.1.7 identified increased risk of mortality (HR 1.30, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.78, p=0.096) and ITU admission (HR 1.82, 95% CI 1.15 to 2.90, p=0.011) in females infected with the variant but not males (mortality HR 0.82, 95% CI 0.61 to 1.10, p=0.177; ITU HR 0.74, 95% CI 0.52 to 1.04, p=0.086). INTERPRETATION: In common with smaller studies of patients hospitalised with SARS-CoV-2, we did not find an overall increase in mortality or ITU admission associated with B.1.1.7 compared with other lineages. However, women with B.1.1.7 may be at an increased risk of admission to intensive care and at modestly increased risk of mortality.This report was produced by members of the COG-UK-HOCI Variant substudy consortium. COG-UK-HOCI is part of COG-UK. COG-UK is supported by funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) part of UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and Genome Research Limited, operating as the Wellcome Sanger Institute

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead