Imams' language use in mosque sermons

PhDReligion plays a pivotal role in some societies, but the interaction between language and religion from a bilingualism perspective has not been fully explored. The overlap between the two, including “the way that religion and language interact to produce language contact” (Spolsky, 2003, p. 81), has recently been considered by Omoniyi and Fishman (2006). Many studies have been conducted regarding language use within institutional settings, such as schools, universities, workplaces and courtrooms. However, less attention has been paid to language use outside of these settings, such as within religious contexts, although mosques are viewed as institutional in nature. In particular, imams may switch between languages in their sermons in the mosque, perhaps similar to priests’ practices in churches where they may switch between Latin and English. The shortage of such studies regarding this phenomenon could be a result of the assumption that secularism is increasingly dominant and widespread, especially in Europe. This assumption can lead to an underestimation of the depth of religion in peoples’ lives and of the significance of the languages to express it. Another salient aspect may be that prayers tend not to change much over time and thus there is no need for such studies to be conducted. Yet, this is not actually true, especially in the case of Friday sermons, which tend to be less formulaic than prayers and in which ordinary talk also occurs. To explore this phenomenon, a qualitative study was undertaken by means of simulated recall interviews and non-participant observation with imams (n=10) and mosque audiences (n=7). The study reveals that employing more than one language in one-way religious speech is a means of increasing historical authenticity, exposing audiences to Arabic, overcoming a lack of easy equivalents in English (such as for the word bidah), emphasizing religious authority (given the very close links between Arabic and Islam), an assumption of audiences’ knowledge of some Arabic features (mostly in the form of words), or accommodating the iv diverse backgrounds of the audience, some of whom have knowledge of Arabic. This has been described as having spiritual, historical and emotional significance, invoking religious links associated between Arabic and Islam. Stakeholders, especially audiences, claim benefits beyond the language used in the sermons themselves. Imams, in addition, also tend to see the use of both English and Arabic as socially and culturally salient, a means of uniting people in an otherwise often fractured world, or one frequently presented as such in the media. Attitudes towards this phenomenon in mosques have been reported by all those involved as being very positive.Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Saudi Cultural Bureau in London)

The Saudi Critical Care Society practice guidelines on the management of COVID-19 in the ICU: Therapy section

BACKGROUND: The rapid increase in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases during the subsequent waves in Saudi Arabia and other countries prompted the Saudi Critical Care Society (SCCS) to put together a panel of experts to issue evidence-based recommendations for the management of COVID-19 in the intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS: The SCCS COVID-19 panel included 51 experts with expertise in critical care, respirology, infectious disease, epidemiology, emergency medicine, clinical pharmacy, nursing, respiratory therapy, methodology, and health policy. All members completed an electronic conflict of interest disclosure form. The panel addressed 9 questions that are related to the therapy of COVID-19 in the ICU. We identified relevant systematic reviews and clinical trials, then used the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach as well as the evidence-to-decision framework (EtD) to assess the quality of evidence and generate recommendations. RESULTS: The SCCS COVID-19 panel issued 12 recommendations on pharmacotherapeutic interventions (immunomodulators, antiviral agents, and anticoagulants) for severe and critical COVID-19, of which 3 were strong recommendations and 9 were weak recommendations. CONCLUSION: The SCCS COVID-19 panel used the GRADE approach to formulate recommendations on therapy for COVID-19 in the ICU. The EtD framework allows adaptation of these recommendations in different contexts. The SCCS guideline committee will update recommendations as new evidence becomes available

Erratum to: 36th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s13054-016-1208-6.]

Spoken and Written Language as Medium of Communication: A Self-reflection

Speaking and writing are the most important communicative tools among human beings. While speaking is considered to be older and more widely employed, spoken and written language have not been treated equally. Spoken language is seen as the natural productive tool among people that is more common and normal, whereas written language is seen as being intricate and complicated due to its extensive rules. Therefore, spoken language has attracted the attention of researchers to a greater extent compared to written language due to the belief that spoken language has primacy over written language. This paper is an attempt to shed some light on these two communicative elements and the differences between them. A self-reflection, based on Dewey’s (1997) ground-breaking work, is presented in terms of when/where spoken or written language is more appropriate as a medium of communication. It can be argued, therefore, that both speaking and writing are important means of communication without prioritising one over the other; yet, conventions are the real indicators as to which medium of communication is more appropriate

Impact of a national collaborative project to improve the care of mechanically ventilated patients

This prospective quasi-experimental study from the NASAM (National Approach to Standardize and Improve Mechanical Ventilation) collaborative assessed the impact of evidence-based practices including subglottic suctioning, daily assessment for spontaneous awakening trial (SAT), spontaneous breathing trial (SBT), head of bed elevation, and avoidance of neuromuscular blockers unless otherwise indicated. The study outcomes included VAE (primary) and intensive care unit (ICU) mortality. Changes in daily care process measures and outcomes were evaluated using repeated measures mixed modeling. The results were reported as incident rate ratio (IRR) for each additional month with 95% confidence interval (CI). A comprehensive program that included education on evidence-based practices for optimal care of mechanically ventilated patients with real-time benchmarking of daily care process measures to drive improvement in forty-two ICUs from 26 hospitals in Saudi Arabia (\u3e27,000 days of observation). Compliance with subglottic suctioning, SAT and SBT increased monthly during the project by 3.5%, 2.1% and 1.9%, respectively (IRR 1.035, 95%CI 1.007–1.064, p = 0.0148; 1.021, 95% CI 1.010–1.032, p = 0.0003; and 1.019, 95%CI 1.009–1.029, p = 0.0001, respectively). The use of neuromuscular blockers decreased monthly by 2.5% (IRR 0.975, 95%CI 0.953–0.998, p = 0.0341). The compliance with head of bed elevation was high at baseline and did not change over time. Based on data for 83153 ventilator days, VAE rate was 15.2/1000 ventilator day (95%CI 12.6–18.1) at baseline and did not change during the project (IRR 1.019, 95%CI 0.985–1.053, p = 0.2812). Based on data for 8523 patients; the mortality was 30.4% (95%CI 27.4–33.6) at baseline, and decreased monthly during the project by 1.6% (IRR 0.984, 95%CI 0.973–0.996, p = 0.0067). A national quality improvement collaborative was associated with improvements in daily care processes. These changes were associated with a reduction in mortality but not VAEs