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This study examines Puerto Rican bilinguals' attitudes towards five speech varieties (Spanish, English, Spanish with English lexical insertions, inter-sentential code-switching, and intra-sentential code-switching). While previous research on language attitudes in Puerto Rico has exclusively employed direct methods (i.e. interviews, surveys, questionnaires), ours is the first to use the matched-guise test. The participants are students at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus, who report code-switching to different degrees. They judged the speech varieties on personality, socio-economic, and ethnicity/identity attributes; their judgements on each of the fifteen attributes were analysed with cumulative link mixed-effects models accounting for the ordinal nature of the ratings. Some findings, such as certain negative attitudes towards English and code-switching and an association between these speech varieties and attributes pertaining to higher socio-economic classes, replicate those from earlier studies in Puerto Rico. However, other results, coinciding with recent studies conducted in Puerto Rico, reflect an attitudinal change in progress, by which participants seem more accepting of lexical insertions and intra-sentential code-switching. New results emerging from this study evidence participants' sensitivity towards different types of code-switching, hence, their awareness of the types of switching that predominate in different speech communities.

The article presents an analysis of the political agenda in Puerto Rico regarding the development and diversification of renewable energy. Particular focus is given to certain regulations regarding electrical energy, which seek to promote its conservation, increase its production, and develop new sources, in order to achieve stability in the country.

Abstract: The pharmaceutical industry is important for the economy of Puerto Rico and is currently trying to improve the understanding of the science and fundamentals behind its operations. The main objectives of our Education and Outreach program at the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez (UPRM), as a member of the Engineering Research Center for Structured Organic Particulate Systems, include the use of K-12 activities to improve student recruitment and to train engineering graduates who are able to disseminate and apply their knowledge across disciplines and advance technology. Here we report the results of an educational initiative where graduate and undergraduate students guide K-12 students through a series of hands-on modules in a pharmaceutical operations laboratory. The modules include solid mixing, tablet compression and tablet dissolution. The students are also exposed to demonstrations about combustible dust and an automated tablet press. The aim of these guided visits is to introduce middle and high school students to basic concepts of Pharmaceutical Engineering in an interactive way and motivate them to attend the University preferably in a related area. From to 2008 to 2011, this initiative impacted 328 students and 18 teachers from 11 K-12 schools in Puerto Rico, 20 undergraduate and 6 graduate students of the Chemical Engineering Department at UPRM. A comparison of the preliminary and final tests demonstrated that the students are learning new pharmaceutical concepts and the results of the satisfaction survey indicate that almost 89% of the participants rated the visits as excellent. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]