Potential factors influencing the rhetorical patterns of research article discussion sections

The present study reports potential factors influencing the rhetorical patterns of research articles (RA) discussion sections. The study was conducted by utilizing descriptive qualitative research. The researcher purposefully focused on investigating 10 bilingual writers who wrote both one English and one Indonesian research article. The selected writers were those who had an educational background in language and language teaching. The interviews covered the interviewees’ background information, current activities, writing activities, and their rhetorical patterns of discussion sections. The interviews were conducted by utilizing the snowball technique to search for more information. The interview data were analyzed into some steps namely, transcribing the interview data, organizing data, summarizing data, and interpreting data. All data transcription was then categorized and coded. Research findings revealed that the writers’ choice of move structure could be as a result of learning from other people’s rhetorical patterns, believing themselves, having high self-confidence, having high writing frequency, and having high awareness in the micro and macrostructure of writing discussion sections. The Indonesian writers have opened their minds to learn and read other researchers’ articles and then determine whether the patterns are suitable for them or not. The writers’ starting point of experiencing to have their RA published made them believe in themselves and felt self-confident. Thus, the more they wanted to write RA, the higher they had writing frequency and awareness in the micro and macrostructure of writing discussion sections.

Burundian Teachers’ Conceptualisations of Philosophy-Based Language Teaching Approach in Developing EFL Students’ Speaking Skill

This study investigated the EFL teachers’ conceptualisations of the use of PBLT in EFL instruction. Thirteen EFL teachers selected from two higher education institutions in Burundi participated in the inquiry. The inquiry set out to assess participants’ beliefs and attitudes towards three constructs, namely the use of philosophical questions in the EFL classroom, the use of the EFL classroom as a community of inquiry, and the impact of PBLT in developing the EFL students’ speaking skill. A background information questionnaire, a Likert scale questionnaire, and an online structured interview were used to collect data from participants. The findings revealed participants’ positive views and attitudes towards the role of PBLT in EFL instruction. The use of philosophical questions in the EFL classroom as well as the use of the EFL classroom as a community of inquiry in enhancing EFL students’ productive and receptive skills was found to be highly favoured among participants. Furthermore, it was found that participants believe in the high potential of PBLT in developing the five components of speaking, namely fluency, accuracy, range, coherence, and content. Participants, however, showed a relatively diminished trust in PBLT when it comes to its role in enhancing the accuracy component, and this diminished trust may be attributed to the fact that accuracy relates much more to the linguistic form while PBLT puts greater focus on meaning.

The strength and conditioning practices and perspectives of soccer coaches and players

Strength and conditioning (S&C) is implemented across various sports and levels, but there is limited understanding of the personnel responsible for this, including their S&C practices and perspectives. Whereas recent evidence has shown that coaches and players are often tasked with the responsibility. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate: 1) the personnel responsible for delivering S&C across different levels of soccer, 2) the practices and perspectives of soccer coaches and players, and 3) to ascertain whether the practices employed align with contemporary evidence and guidelines. Forty-two soccer coaches and 30 soccer players completed an online survey with six sections: (a) informed consent, (b) background information, (c) education, qualifications, and prescription, (d) views on S&C, (e) exercise selection and preferences, and (f) issues and improvements. Frequency analysis was used to report responses to fixed-response questions and thematic analysis for open-ended questions. Most respondents reported S&C to be ‘important’ to ‘very important’ for all soccer, physical fitness, and injury parameters, with perspectives being predominantly aligned with S&C guidelines and research in soccer. Although S&C coaches were mostly responsible for delivering S&C sessions, over 60% of respondents disclosed S&C sessions were delivered independently or by support staff. This is problematic given only four coaches held S&C qualifications, and issues and improvements were mostly regarding a lack of S&C expertise and education. This study provides valuable information for S&C and soccer organizations. Particularly regarding the additional support required to ensure those responsible for delivering S&C in soccer have the appropriate knowledge and qualifications.

Children Use Non-referential Gestures in Narrative Speech to Mark Discourse Elements Which Update Common Ground

While recent studies have claimed that non-referential gestures (i.e., gestures that do not visually represent any semantic content in speech) are used to mark discourse-new and/or -accessible referents and focused information in adult speech, to our knowledge, no prior investigation has studied the relationship between information structure (IS) and gesture referentiality in children’s narrative speech from a developmental perspective. A longitudinal database consisting of 332 narratives performed by 83 children at two different time points in development was coded for IS and gesture referentiality (i.e., referential and non-referential gestures). Results revealed that at both time points, both referential and non-referential gestures were produced more with information that moves discourse forward (i.e., focus) and predication (i.e., comment) rather than topical or background information. Further, at 7–9 years of age, children tended to use more non-referential gestures to mark focus and comment constituents than referential gestures. In terms of the marking of the newness of discourse referents, non-referential gestures already seem to play a key role at 5–6 years old, whereas referential gestures did not show any patterns. This relationship was even stronger at 7–9 years old. All in all, our findings offer supporting evidence that in contrast with referential gestures, non-referential gestures have been found to play a key role in marking IS, and that the development of this relationship solidifies at a period in development that coincides with a spurt in non-referential gesture production.

Biomass Valorization of Walnut Shell for Liquefaction Efficiency

Globally, lignocellulosic biomass has great potential for industrial production of materials and products, but this resource must be used in an environmentally friendly, socially acceptable and sustainable manner. Wood and agricultural residues such as walnut shells as lignocellulosic biomass are one of the most affordable and important renewable resources in the world, which can partially replace fossil resources. The overall objective of the research is to provide background information that supports new applications of walnut shells in a biorefinery context and to increase the economic value of these non-wood forest products. This paper presents the properties characterization of liquefied biomass according to their chemical composition. All results were compared to liquefied wood. In this study, the liquefaction properties of five different walnut shell particle sizes were determined using glycerol as the liquefaction reagent under defined reaction conditions. The liquefied biomass was characterized for properties such as percentage residue, degree of liquefaction, and hydroxyl OH numbers. The chemical composition of the same biomass was investigated for its influence on the liquefaction properties. Accordingly, the main objective of this study was to determine the liquefaction properties of different particle sizes as a function of their chemical composition, also in comparison with the chemical composition of wood. The study revealed that walnut shell biomass can be effectively liquefied into glycerol using H2SO4 as the catalyst, with liquefaction efficiency ranging from 89.21 to 90.98%.

Data Checkers: A Grid-Based UI for Managing Patient-Generated Data Sharing to Support Collaborative Self-Care

Chronic health conditions are becoming increasingly prevalent. As part of chronic care, sharing patient-generated health data (PGHD) is likely to play a prominent role. Sharing PGHD is increasingly recognized as potentially useful for not only monitoring health conditions but for informing and supporting collaboration with caregivers and healthcare providers. In this paper, we describe a new design for the fine-grained control over sharing one's PGHD to support collaborative self-care, one that centers on giving people with health conditions control over their own data. The system, Data Checkers (DC), uses a grid-based interface and a preview feature to provide users with the ability to control data access and dissemination. DC is of particular use in the case of severe chronic conditions, such as spinal cord injuries and disorders (SCI/D), that require not just intermittent involvement of healthcare providers but daily support and assistance from caregivers. In this paper, after providing relevant background information, we articulate our steps for developing this innovative system for sharing PGHD including (a) use of a co-design process; (b) identification of design requirements; and (c) creation of the DC System. We then present a qualitative evaluation of DC to show how DC satisfied these design requirements in a way that provided advantages for care. Our work extends existing research in the areas of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp), and Health Informatics about sharing data and PGHD.

Readiness of Application of Electronic Medical Records in Health Services (Literature Study)

Background: Information and Communication Technology is advancing rapidly and has a major impact on all life, especially in the health sector, especially medical records. This is manifested in the Electronic Medical Record (EMR), which has now been further developed into an Electronic Health Record (EHR). This technology is used to replace or complement paper medical records. The purpose of this literature study is to determine the readiness to apply electronic medical records in health services.Methods: This study uses a literature study obtained from searching scientific research articles from the 2010–2020 range. Keywords used in this study is readiness and DOQ-IT. The database used comes from Google Sholar, Garuda, Neliti, and One Search. The search found 130 articles, then a critical appraisal process was carried out to produce 10 suitable manuscripts.Results: Various literatures found that the readiness to apply electronic medical records using the DOQ-IT method was influencedby 4 factors including the readiness of human resources, orgnizational culture, insfrastructure, and leadership governance. It can be concluded that the readiness for the application of electronic medical recors in health services with the very ready category is 30%, the moderately ready category is 50%, then the unready category is 20%.Conclusions: From the discussion above, it can be concluded that EMR readiness in health services is categorized as quite ready (50%), very ready (30%), and not ready (20%).

Interpretable machine learning for high-dimensional trajectories of aging health

We have built a computational model for individual aging trajectories of health and survival, which contains physical, functional, and biological variables, and is conditioned on demographic, lifestyle, and medical background information. We combine techniques of modern machine learning with an interpretable interaction network, where health variables are coupled by explicit pair-wise interactions within a stochastic dynamical system. Our dynamic joint interpretable network (DJIN) model is scalable to large longitudinal data sets, is predictive of individual high-dimensional health trajectories and survival from baseline health states, and infers an interpretable network of directed interactions between the health variables. The network identifies plausible physiological connections between health variables as well as clusters of strongly connected health variables. We use English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA) data to train our model and show that it performs better than multiple dedicated linear models for health outcomes and survival. We compare our model with flexible lower-dimensional latent-space models to explore the dimensionality required to accurately model aging health outcomes. Our DJIN model can be used to generate synthetic individuals that age realistically, to impute missing data, and to simulate future aging outcomes given arbitrary initial health states.

Communication in the face of death and dying - how does the encounter with death influence the patient management competence of medical students? An outcome-evaluation

Background information As part of an elective course, the Interdisciplinary Centre for Palliative Medicine at Duesseldorf University Hospital offers medical students the opportunity to personally meet and talk to a seriously ill patient on one or more occasions. The future physicians are provided with an opportunity to broaden their professional competence, i.e. their knowledge and skills in patient-centred communication at the end of life, and enhance their personal competence, for example in how to professionally handle their own emotions. A topical e-learning module helps the students to prepare for the meetings, and writing a reflection paper forms the basis for the concluding reflection seminar. Objectives The study’s objective is a global and outcome-based evaluation of the elective blended-learning course that provides real-world patient interaction. The outcome-based evaluation or outcome assessment aims to objectively evaluate changes identified in knowledge, skills and attitude among the participants of the elective-course. Furthermore, the evaluation aims to answer the question of whether changes especially in attitude (social skills and self-competence) should be expected after the students have met with severely ill or dying patients. Method On two questionnaires specifically developed for this survey the students were able to provide a global rating of the elective course and describe their learning gains in palliative care. The students’ learning gains were measured by means of 14 items reflecting the specific educational objectives of the offered elective course. Using the German school grading system as a rating scale, the students assessed their learning progress by retrospectively evaluating their skills before and after completion of the elective course (Comparative Self-Assessment, CSA). Results In the time from April 2018 till March 2020, 62 students participated in the evaluation. Overall, learning progress among students could be observed across all areas of competence, and in 50% of all retrospective self-assessment items the learning gains were ≥ 50%. The highest learning gain (63.6%) was observed in the students’ ability to meet a severely ill patient without fear. The lowest learning gain was observed when students had to confront and accept their own mortality. Conclusions The offered elective course supports students in achieving social and self-competence development goals. According to the obtained results, contact with real-world patients helps mould the students’ attitude.

Shifting Paradigms for Suppressing Fibrosis in Kidney Transplants: Supplementing Perfusion Solutions With Anti-fibrotic Drugs

Great efforts have been made toward addressing the demand for donor kidneys. One of the most promising approaches is to use kidneys from donation after circulatory death donors. These kidneys, however, suffer from more severe ischemia and reperfusion injury than those obtained via donation after brain death and are thus more prone to develop interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy. Even though machine perfusion is increasingly used to reduce ischemia and reperfusion injury, there are no effective treatments available to ameliorate interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy, forcing patients to resume dialysis, undergo re-transplantation, or suffer from premature death. Safe and effective anti-fibrotic therapies are therefore greatly desired. We propose a new therapeutic approach in which machine perfusion solutions are supplemented with anti-fibrotic compounds. This allows the use of higher concentrations than those used in humans whilst eliminating side effects in other organs. To the authors' knowledge, no one has reviewed whether such an approach could reduce interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy; we therefore set out to explore its merit. In this review, we first provide background information on ischemia and reperfusion injury as well as interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy, after which we describe currently available approaches for preserving donor kidneys. We then present an evaluation of selected compounds. To identify promising compounds, we analyzed publications describing the effects of anti-fibrotic molecules in precision-cut kidneys slices, which are viable explants that can be cultured ex vivo for up to a few days whilst retaining functional and structural features. LY2109761, galunisertib, imatinib, nintedanib, and butaprost were shown to exert anti-fibrotic effects in slices within a relatively short timeframe (<48 h) and are therefore considered to be excellent candidates for follow-up ex vivo machine perfusion studies.