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Previous work on children's acquisition of complex sequences points to a tendency for affricates to be acquired before clusters, but there is no clear evidence of a difference in order of acquisition between clusters with /s/ that violate the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), such as /s/ followed by stop in onset position, and other clusters that obey the SSP. One problem with studies that have compared the acquisition of SSP-obeying and SSP-violating clusters is that the component sounds in the two types of sequences were different. This paper examines the acquisition of initial /s/-stop and stop-/s/ sequences by sixty Greek children aged 2 through 5 years. Results showed greater accuracy for the /s/-stop relative to the stop-/s/ sequences, but no difference in accuracy between /ts/, which is usually analyzed as an affricate in Greek, and the other stop-/s/ sequences. Moreover, errors for the /s/-stop sequences and /ts/ primarily involved stop substitutions, whereas errors for /ps/ and /ks/ were more variable and often involved fricative substitutions, a pattern which may have a perceptual explanation. Finally, /ts/ showed a distinct temporal pattern relative to the stop-/s/ clusters /ps/ and /ks/, similar to what has been reported for productions of Greek adults. (Contains 5 figures and 6 tables.)

The article explores the long-term effectiveness of in-service teacher training courses for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in the Greek educational context. It presents the results of a questionnaire designed and issued to teacher-trainees a year after the completion of 60-hour courses. The questionnaire assessed, among others, (a) teacher trainees' beliefs regarding the relevance of the knowledge acquired to their individual needs, (b) the extent to which they used the materials provided in the course, and (c) the usefulness of the subjects offered. The data are discussed in relation to strategies for optimising teacher training services and implications are drawn for the implementation of change in a broader educational context. A "cooperative model" is proposed for the promotion of change involving active cooperation between all agents involved in the educational process and necessitating top-down and bottom-up cooperation. (Contains 1 figure, 3 tables, and 3 notes.)

This paper examines empowerment as a strategy, from the resource-based perspective, for the development of Greek tertiary education. As the literature suggests, empowerment enables individuals to make decisions and simultaneously take responsibility for their actions. Moreover, it increases the quality of research and teaching procedures as well as amplifying educators' and students' satisfaction and performance. In this respect, the paper uses the well-known Whetten and Cameron questionnaire for empowerment in a survey conducted among students studying in the B, D, F and H semesters at a Greek university operating in Thessaloniki. The principal component factor analysis of a sample 395 students revealed the existence of four dimensions of student empowerment: meaning/self-efficacy, self-determination, trust and personal control. After discussion of the findings, a number of recommended tactics and policies concerning the enhancement of student empowerment conclude the paper. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper investigates spatio-temporal variability during the production of the lingual consonants /t, k, s, x, n, l, "r"/ by four Greek speakers with profound hearing impairment and with differences in the intelligibility of their speech. It examines important factors that have been documented to influence intelligibility, i.e. durational variability, articulatory (token-to-token) variability, and coarticulatory patterns. The technique of electropalatography was used to record tongue-palate contact patterns during consonant production in order to examine differences in articulatory variability among speakers and in V-to-C coarticulatory effects. The study reports durational differences in consonant production between speakers with hearing impairment and normal hearing and investigates the relationship between token-to-token variability in tongue-palate contact patterns and duration. The results indicate a negative relationship between duration and variability, i.e. as segmental duration decreases there is an increase in variability in tongue-palate contact patterns. Significant speaker-dependent differences in duration, articulatory variability and coarticulatory patterns are reported and are discussed in relation to differences in intelligibility among the speakers with hearing impairment. (Contains 2 tables, 9 figures and 2 notes.)

In view of the increasing demand for in-service training in Greece, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki launched English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher training courses, offered for the first time by a Greek state university. This paper discusses issues regarding the design and running of the courses as well as briefly presenting trainee feedback and its role in the continuous improvement of the courses. The rationale and the principles adopted in the design of the courses were in line with current approaches to teacher training. In addition, the design of the courses was based on a national survey involving a needs analysis of practising EFL teachers in Greece. The feedback received from the trainees was very positive with regard to the design and organization of the courses, the usefulness of the knowledge acquired and the fulfillment of their expectations.

A prospective molecular epidemiology study of HIV-1 infection was conducted in newly diagnosed and antiretroviral-naive patients in Northern Greece between 2009 and 2010 using a predefined enrolling strategy. Phylogenetic trees of the pol sequences obtained in this study with reference sequences indicated that subtypes B and A1 were the most common subtypes present and accounted for 44.9% and 42.9%, respectively, followed by subtype C (3.1%), CRF02_AG (4.1%), CRF04_cpx (2.0%), and subtypes CRF01_01, F1, and G (1.0%). A high rate of clustered transmission of subtype A1-resistant strains to reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors was observed among men having sex with men. Indeed, 15 out of 17 study subjects (88.2%) infected with transmitted drug resistance (TDR) strains were implicated in transmission clusters, 10 of whom (66.7%) were men who have sex with men (MSM), and were also infected with subsubtype A1 strains. The main cluster within subtype A1 (I) included eight men reporting having sex with men from Thessaloniki infected with dual-class RT-resistant strains carrying both T215C and Y181C mutations.

The emergence of resistance against current antiretroviral drugs to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) is an increasingly important concern to the continuous success of antiretroviral therapy to HIV-1-infected patients. In the past decade, a number of studies reported that the prevalence of transmitted drug resistance among newly diagnosed patients has reached an overall 9% prevalence worldwide. Also, a number of studies using longitudinal HIV-1 patient study cohorts demonstrated that the cellular HIV-1 DNA level in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) has a prognostic value for the progression of HIV-1 disease independently of plasma HIV-1 RNA load and CD4 count. Using a previously established molecular-beacon-based real-time PCR methodology, cellular HIV-1 DNA levels were quantified in newly diagnosed and antiretroviral-naive patients in Northern Greece recruited between 2009 and 2010 using a predefined enrolling strategy, in an effort to investigate whether there is any relationship between cellular HIV-1 DNA levels and HIV-1 transmitted drug resistance. As part of the same study, DNA sequences encoding the env (C2-C5 region of gp120) were also amplified from PBMC-extracted DNA in order to determine the genotypic coreceptor tropism and genetic subtype. Cellular HIV-1 DNA levels had a median of 3.309 log10 HIV-1 copies per 10(6) PBMCs and demonstrated no correlation between cellular HIV-1 DNA levels and HIV-1 transmitted drug resistance. An absence of association between cellular HIV-1 DNA levels with plasma viral HIV-1 RNA load and CD4 levels was also found reconfirming the previously published study. Genotypic analysis of coreceptor tropism indicated that 96% of samples, independently of the presence or not of genotypic drug resistance, were CCR5-tropic. Overall, the findings reconfirmed the previously proposed proposition that transmitted drug resistance does not have an impact on disease progression in HIV-1-infected individuals. Also, CCR5 coreceptor tropism dominance suggests that both drug-resistant and drug-sensitive strains behave similarly in early infection in newly diagnosed patients.

In homozygous beta-thalassemia, the organ damage is mainly attributed to excessive iron deposition through the formation of oxygen free radicals. Despite appropriate transfusion and chelation therapy and low ferritin levels, patients still develop organ failure, heart failure being the main cause of death. This study was designed to determine whether the decreased antioxidant activity of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) 4 allele could represent a genetic risk factor for the development of left ventricular failure (LVF) in beta-thalassemia homozygotes. A total of 251 Greek beta-thalassemia homozygotes were studied. Patients were divided in three groups: group A (n = 151) with no cardiac impairment, group C (n = 47) with LVF, and 53 patients with LV dilatation and normal LV systolic function constituted the group B. DNA was obtained from all patients, and the polymerase chain reaction was used to analyze the polymorphism at the APOE locus. The APOE allele frequencies were compared with those of a Greek control sample of 216 healthy blood donors. Patients with no cardiac impairment had an APOE 4 allele frequency (7.9%) not different from population controls (6.5%, P > .05), while patients with LVF had a significantly higher frequency of APOE 4 (12.8%) than the controls (P < .05, odds ratio = 2.11, 95% confidence interval 1.03 to 4.32). The APOE 4 allele may represent an important genetic risk factor for the development of organ damage in homozygous beta-thalassemia., (Copyright 1998 by The American Society of Hematology)