Guarding the Tongue: A thematic analysis of gossip control strategies among orthodox Jewish women

This article describes the views and experiences of Strictly-Orthodox Jewish women with respect to the metapragmatic ethos of Shmiras HaLoshon (monitoring one's talk, literally 'guarding the tongue'). Eight extended interviews were conducted with Strictly-Orthodox women and teenagers in London, and salient themes were identified, namely: A. Loshon Hora ('evil talk') is the prime exemplar of bad talk. B. Loshon Hora is the hardest (one of the hardest) things to avoid, because it is so easy to do. C. The perceived consequences of Loshon Hora are very serious D. Great caution/various strategies are employed in order to not speak Loshon Hora E. Perceived gender differences exist in proneness to speak Loshon Hora. F. One is reponsible for monitoring others. G. Young children can be(come) aware of the issues. Subjects appeared to take this aspect of religious observance very seriously, and were taking active steps to promote observance. Social desirability bias may be an inappropriate concept for explaining our participants' behaviour. It is also suggested that the perceived importance of Shmiras HaLoshon may be important in helping to maintain community cohesion and preventing conflicts, by improving respect for privacy and reputation in a community where gossip is attractive but divisive

Great Aunt Edna's vase: metaphor use in working with heritage language families

This article explores the use of a particular metaphor—Great Aunt Edna’s Vase—as a means to facilitating multilingual families in contextualizing and engaging with complex emotional connections as linked to language, identity, and belonging. Building from the premise that language is linked to the construction of identity, but that individual family members will have different views and opinions on the heritage language within this context, this article highlights the use of metaphors in family work, before introducing the metaphor of Great Aunt Edna’s Vase and situating it in relevant literature around language, heritage, and identity. The concepts introduced add to the existing body of literature in addressing the growing need for work specifically aimed at multilingual families, in a globally ever-more-diverse society, highlighting the links between language and well-being, and making a contribution to the global knowledge necessary for practitioners and families to explore these links successfully

Promotional Tone in Reviews of Menopausal Hormone Therapy After the Women's Health Initiative: An Analysis of Published Articles

Adriane Fugh-Berman and colleagues analyzed a selection of published opinion pieces on hormone therapy and show that there may be a connection between receiving industry funding for speaking, consulting, or research and the tone of such opinion pieces

SARS-CoV-2 infects the human kidney and drives fibrosis in kidney organoids

Kidney failure is frequently observed during and after COVID-19, but it remains elusive whether this is a direct effect of the virus. Here, we report that SARS-CoV-2 directly infects kidney cells and is associated with increased tubule-interstitial kidney fibrosis in patient autopsy samples. To study direct effects of the virus on the kidney independent of systemic effects of COVID-19, we infected human-induced pluripotent stem-cell-derived kidney organoids with SARS-CoV-2. Single-cell RNA sequencing indicated injury and dedifferentiation of infected cells with activation of profibrotic signaling pathways. Importantly, SARS-CoV-2 infection also led to increased collagen 1 protein expression in organoids. A SARS-CoV-2 protease inhibitor was able to ameliorate the infection of kidney cells by SARS-CoV-2. Our results suggest that SARS-CoV-2 can directly infect kidney cells and induce cell injury with subsequent fibrosis. These data could explain both acute kidney injury in COVID-19 patients and the development of chronic kidney disease in long COVID

Occupational Safety Communication for Hazardous Goods: The Development of a Policy in Israel

Israeli policy governing written occupational safety information for carriage and supply of hazardous goods, and procedures for implementation, are described and evaluated for their potential communicative effectiveness, in view of users’ linguistic abilities and the language employed. We also consider whether the addressee should include the end-user and the reading-impaired. The evaluation is set in the context of broader Israeli language policy, and comparison is made with communication policies for hazardous goods adopted by the European Union, the UK, and the USA

AudiOdyssey: An accessible video game for both sighted and non-sighted gamers

10.1145/1328202.1328255Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on Future Play, Future Play '07251-25

UnWindows: Bringing Multimedia Computing to Users with Disabilities

Will the advent of a new generation of multimedia human--computer interfaces prove a boon to users with disabilities? Or will the coming revolution add millions of hearing impaired people to the ranks of the computer disenfranchised? The UnWindows project is an ongoing effort whose ultimate goal is the development of concepts and software that will make tomorrow 's multimedia interfaces accessible to people who suffer from a broad range of vision and hearing impairments. If successful, an important side effect would be the correction of certain problems which confront visually impaired users, especially those who are blind, when they are faced with today's ubiquitous silent, full screen, graphical interfaces. In this paper, we first discuss design considerations relating to the visual and aural modalities, both in general and for people with disabilities. We then review the recently introduced metawidget technology, which we've adopted for the second stage of UnWindows, now underway...