«That’s just my opinion»: The principle of expression and the public debate

Public debate is commonly understood as deliberation; as the weighing of arguments for and against choices of future action. A principle of deliberation entails that interlocutors approach one another through argumentation in favour and against a given point of view. In this article, I outline a competing debate ideal, the principle of expression, and demonstrate its pervasiveness in contemporary public rhetoric. According to this communicative ideal, public debate is understood not as an exchange of opinion but rather a display of opinions. The beliefs and opinions voiced in the public debate should, moreover, be seen as purely expressive: They arise out of the individual’s inviolable interiority and individuality. As such, argumentation is neither required nor legitimate. In the article, I outline the principle of expression and discuss its implications for the democratic public debate. I do so, by drawing on a case study of public debate in social media, as well as recent utterances spoken by political leaders. In moving between the utterances of ordinary people engaged in public debate in the informal setting of social media and the utterances of political leaders in formal settings, I demonstrate the pervasiveness of the principle of expression in contemporary public rhetoric.

1062 Are CT-KUB Requests Adequately Completed by Urologists in Emergency Settings?

Aim Imaging requests are an essential communication tool between urologists and radiologists. Poorly completed request forms, especially in acute settings, directly translates to substandard patient care. We aimed to evaluate and improve our request completion practice in emergency settings. Method 40 randomly selected CT-KUB images were reviewed to assess the completion of clinical background, question, patient data, location, and requester data. A multiple cycle audit followed by minor intra-departmental interventions were carried out over ten months to evaluate compliance. In December 2019, 55% and 52.5% of the requests lacked a good clinical history and question, respectively. The remaining three domains achieved the target of 100%. Subsequently, the literature and the audit data were shared and discussed, and a verbal agreement was made to improve practice. Result A re-audit revealed a 22.5% and 2.5% improvement in providing sufficient clinical background and questions. Findings were presented at an informal setting, and feedback was obtained on improving compliance. Simple posters or notices and occasional reminders were found as acceptable approaches. Following the implementation of feedback and orientation for joining junior doctors, a third audit cycle showed a significant improvement in compliance with 90% and 82.5%. A final cycle to assess the maintenance improvements in background and question provision was at a high of 97.5% and 90%. Conclusions CT-KUB request completion is essential in emergency settings to ensure optimal patient care. Improving compliance can be achieved using small interventions catered to the department, such as peer-to-peer discussions, reminder posters, and orientations.

Does recall time matter in verbal autopsies? Evidence from urban informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya

Background: To assign a cause of death to non-medically certified deaths, verbal autopsies (VAs) are widely used to determine the cause of death. The time difference between the death and the VA interview, also referred to as recall time, varies depending on social and operational factors surrounding the death. We investigated the effect of recall time on the assignment of causes of death by VA. Methods: This is a secondary analysis of 2002-2015 survey data of the Nairobi Urban Health Demographic Surveillance System (NUHDSS). The independent variable recall time was derived from the date of death and the date when the VA was conducted. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression methods were used to calculate odds ratios of assigning a cause of death in defined categories of recall time. Results: There were 6218 deaths followed up between 2002 and 2016, out of which 5495 (88.3%) had VAs done. Recall time varied from 1-3001 days (median 92 days, IQR 44-169 days). Majority of the VAs (45.7%) were conducted between 1-3 months after death. The effect of recall time varied for different diseases. Compared to VAs conducted between 1-3 months, there was a 24% higher likelihood of identifying HIV/AIDS as the cause of death for VAs conducted 4-6 months after death (AOR 1.24; 95% CI 1.01-1.54; p-value = 0.043) and a 40% increased chance of identifying other infectious diseases as the cause of death for VAs conducted <1 month after death (AOR 1.4; 95% CI 1.02-1.92, p-value = 0.024). Conclusions: Recall time affected the assignment of VA cause of death for HIV/AIDS, other infectious diseases,maternal/neonatal and indeterminate causes. Our analysis indicates that in the urban informal setting, VAs should be conducted from one month up to 6 months after the death to improve the probability of accurately assigning the cause of death.

Experiences with informal student panel for continuous formative course evaluation

Background: Summative student evaluations of teaching is widely used to evaluatecourse content and instruction. However, this feedback does not benefit the students who are pro­viding the feedback, and may postpone feedback such that the evaluation is not useful in correctingissues in the course. There are several issues with this type of feedback that are tacled in this work:(i) The evaluation is not a help for the current students. (ii) The feedback is often imprecise. (iii)Evaluations focus on the quality of the teaching, rather than the impact of the learning. Previouswork [1, 2] have shown that continuous student involvement can improve the feedback received.The idea in this project is to perform this student panel interaction in an informal setting, conti­nously throughout the semester.Methods: This intervention has been performed for two consecutive semesters in different courses.During the first lecture of the semester, students were recruited to participate in a weekly informalmeeting to discuss the instruction in the course. Weekly meetings were held for one full semester,with each meeting lasting around 45 minutes. Notes were taken on all actionable items, and asummarizing report was written. This intervention has been evaluated through the inspection ofactionable items in the notes, as well as the implemented items.Results: 104/116 actionable items were identified during spring/fall 2020, of which 57/65 were im­plemented immidiately. Participation in the student panel group was high and stable.

“I Want to Be a Herpetologist!”

The out-of-doors provides unique opportunities to engage youth in the natural environment and to teach STEM content in a more informal setting. In this chapter, the authors share findings from a study focused on elementary-aged students as they participated in a week-long herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians) program at an environmental education center. Informal science education centers provide a context for participants to use STEM to address local, place-based issues, exercise agency in how they practice autonomy within learning activities, and broaden their perceptions of what it means to “do science” through participation in normative scientific practices. However, there is a dearth of literature addressing the use and benefits of environmental education. Using a lens focused on agency and normative scientific practices, the authors examine the ways engagement in environmental education impact participants' perceptions of their abilities to engage in STEM-related practices.

Striving to Be Different but Becoming the Same: Creativity and Destination Brands’ Promotional Videos

Social networks have become an important supplement to traditional forms of marketing channels for destination branding. YouTube is believed to be one of the most influential social media and video sharing platforms. Its visual character, informal setting and address of the youth segment would expectedly mean a high level of creativity in the process of destination branding. By means of qualitative analysis of what are considered to be the best videos as self-selected by the European destination management organizations (DMOs), we wished to ascertain how creative these best case examples really were. The results show that the videos are extremely similar, with the most common type a “collage” of only loosely connected visuals with rare elements of storytelling or humor as the most typical creative approaches. While following the desire to show the diversity of a destination, the destination branding videos paradoxically become a collection of similar visual images and thus fail to contribute to the differentiation of the destination brand. The results show that future advice to practitioners of destination marketing for YouTube is to go beyond the typical “collage” genre of a destination marketing video and focus more on storytelling, humor and especially the most difficult step in the destination branding: strategically focusing on the smaller number of specifics that differentiate a destination rather than on the multitude of the highly diverse experiences.

The Sociolinguistic Aspect of Ukrainian Russian Child Bilingualism on the Basis of a Survey of Ukrainian Families

The Sociolinguistic Aspect of Ukrainian Russian Child Bilingualism on the Basis of a Survey of Ukrainian FamiliesThe article explores the linguistic situation in Ukraine, where a key sociolinguistic peculiarity is the large-scale spread of various types of Ukrainian–Russian bilingualism. A special focus is put on bilingualism among children speaking two closely related languages, which represents a current language situation beyond any historical or political context. The article describes the peculiarities of the formation of child bilingualism, which are a result of the changing priorities of the primary and secondary tools of communication. The article presents the findings of a survey covering the family environment, undertaken in order to identify key trends in children's speech in Ukraine. This knowledge subsequently allows for the tracing of the correlation between a mother tongue / parents' second language, the language of family communication, and the national language in Ukraine. Moreover, it helps when it comes to the decision of whether or not to introduce bilingual practices in the early stages of the linguistic personality formation of a child. The concept of a ‘bilingual linguistic personality' is covered, and certain aspects pertaining to how bilingual children perceive the world are listed. The article takes into consideration the issues and criteria of the ‘mother tongue' concept in bilingual settings. The notion of ‘linguistic code switching' is characterized, as well as its impact on the formation of bilingual communicative competence in children. A focus is laid on the use of mixed forms of Ukrainian–Russian bilingualism in the context of the communicative practices of bilingual children. The article also examines a peculiar type of bilingualism, typical of a certain category of bilingual pre-schoolers and primary school children, in which each party of a communicative act tends to preserve their dominant language in an informal setting. Socjolingwistyczny aspekt ukraińsko-rosyjskiej dwujęzyczności dzieci na podstawie badań rodzin ukraińskichW artykule przedstawiona zostaje sytuacja językowa na Ukrainie, gdzie kluczową osobliwością socjolingwistyczną jest masowe rozprzestrzenianie się różnych typów i rodzajów dwujęzyczności ukraińsko-rosyjskiej. Szczególny nacisk kładzie się na dwujęzyczność dzieci, posługujących się blisko spokrewnionymi językami, która reprezentuje rzeczywistą sytuację językową poza jakimkolwiek kontekstem historycznym lub politycznym. Opisano specyfikę formowania się dwujęzyczności dzieci przez pryzmat zmieniającego się priorytetu pierwotnego i wtórnego medium społecznego dla dziecka. Wyniki badania obejmują środowisko rodzinne, którego analiza jest metodą identyfikacji kluczowych trendów w mowie dzieci na Ukrainie, co pozwala następnie na śledzenie korelacji między językiem ojczystym / drugim językiem rodziców, językiem komunikacji rodzinnej a językiem narodowym na Ukrainie. Ponadto pomaga rozważyć możliwość wprowadzenia / niewprowadzania praktyk dwujęzycznych na wczesnych etapach kształtowania się osobowości językowej dziecka. Omówiono też koncepcję „dwujęzycznej osobowości językowej” i wymieniono pewne aspekty postrzegania świata przez dzieci dwujęzyczne. Rozważono kwestie i kryteria koncepcji „języka ojczystego” w środowiskach dwujęzycznych. Scharakteryzowano pojęcie „przełączania kodu językowego”, a także jego wpływ na kształtowanie się dwujęzycznych kompetencji komunikacyjnych u dzieci. Nacisk położono na wykorzystanie mieszanych form dwujęzyczności ukraińsko-rosyjskiej w kontekście praktyk komunikacyjnych dzieci dwujęzycznych. Poddano analizie osobliwy typ dwujęzyczności, typowy dla pewnej kategorii dwujęzycznych przedszkolaków i dzieci ze szkół podstawowych, kiedy każda strona aktu komunikacji ma tendencję do zachowania swojego dominującego języka w nieformalnym otoczeniu.

“I’m Very Happy in the Summer...”: S. F. Platonov’s Correspondence From Valuyki

Scientific, administrative, teaching, educational activities of the outstanding Russian scientist S. F. Platonov have found reflection in numerous publications. His daily life, his behavior in an informal setting, in the family, during the vacation period are of great interest. Summer vacation of S. F. Platonov in 1909 in the district town of Valuyki continues to arouse interest among researchers. It attracts attention, first of all, by the archaeological excavation that was carried out here. Its results were the subject of analysis by the outstanding archaeologist A. A. Spitsyn, who wrote an article, the manuscript of which has been in the archive for over a hundred years. At the same time, a lot of inaccuracies and mistakes were made in the works of the Voronezh researchers who addressed the topic. An important direction of S. F. Platonov had a correspondence in the summer. While on vacation, S. F. Platonov continued to maintain active ties with his colleagues and institutions. Therefore, the place of rest was chosen taking into account the availability of postal services. Interesting archival materials have been identified that allow us to call new names of those who wrote to Valuyki, to outline the geography of sending letters. Among them are the chairman of the Tver province scientific archival commission I. A. Ivanov (Tver), Chairman of the Novgorod Society of Antiquity Lovers M. V. Muravyov (Novgorod), employee of the Archaeographic Commission V. V. Maikov (St. Petersburg), teachers of the Women’s Pedagogical Institute V. Volkovich and Z. Capital (Geneva). Most of the letters by S. F. Platonov from Valueki have been published, but they continue to come to light. One unfinished letter is published in the article. The letter allows us to concretize some little-known facts about the stay of the Platonov’s family in the district town of the Voronezh province. Keywords: S. F. Platonov, Valuyki, historiography, archival materials, archaeological excavation, correspondence

Does recall time matter in verbal autopsies? Evidence from urban informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya

Background: To assign a cause of death to non-medically certified deaths, verbal autopsies (VAs) are widely used to determine the cause of death. The time difference between the death and the VA interview, also referred to as recall time, varies depending on social and operational factors surrounding the death. We investigated the effect of recall time on the assignment of causes of death by VA. Methods: This is a secondary analysis of 2002-2015 survey data of the Nairobi Urban Health Demographic Surveillance System (NUHDSS). The independent variable recall time was derived from the date of death and the date when the VA was conducted. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression methods were used to calculate odds ratios of assigning a cause of death in defined categories of recall time. Results: There were 6218 deaths followed up between 2002 and 2016, out of which 5495 (88.3%) had VAs done. Recall time varied from 1-3001 days (mean 115.5 days, sd216.8). Majority of the VAs (45.7%) were conducted between 1-3 months after death. The effect of recall time varied for different diseases. Compared to VAs conducted between 1-3 months, there was a 24% higher likelihood of identifying HIV/AIDS as the cause of death for VAs conducted 4-6 months after death (AOR 1.24; 95% CI 1.01-1.54; p-value = 0.043) and a 40% increased chance of identifying other infectious diseases as the cause of death for VAs conducted <1 month after death (AOR 1.4; 95% CI 1.02-1.92, p-value = 0.024). Conclusions: Recall time affected the assignment of VA cause of death for HIV/AIDS, other infectious diseases and maternal/neonatal causes. Our analysis indicates that in the urban informal setting, VAs should be conducted from one month up to 6 months after the death to improve the probability of accurately assigning the cause of death.