The Future of Business Discourse Teaching

This chapter will:; ; ; Explore ways in which new media and digital technologies are shaping business communication and highlight the importance of digital communicative competence for learners and teachers;; ; ; Discuss ways in which the digital workplace can be brought into the business discourse classroom;; ; ; Discuss the role of Business English and other business languages in international business and what this means for business discourse teaching;; ; ; Consider how the multicultural workplace can inform business discourse teaching;; ; ; Provide a case study that illustrates some of the above developments, together with a set of tasks appropriate for the business discourse classroom, and a set of further readings

Feasibility of a wiki as a participatory tool for patients in clinical guideline development

Contains fulltext : 107901.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: Patient participation is essential in developing high-quality guidelines but faces practical challenges. Evidence on timing, methods, evaluations, and outcomes of methodologies for patient participation in guideline development is lacking. OBJECTIVE: To assess the feasibility of a wiki as a participatory tool for patients in the development of a guideline on infertility determined by (1) use of the wiki (number of page views and visitors), (2) benefits of the wiki (ie, number, content, and eligibility of the recommendations to be integrated into the guideline), and (3) patients' facilitators of and barriers to adoption, and the potential challenges to be overcome in improving this wiki. METHODS: To obtain initial content for the wiki, we conducted in-depth interviews (n = 12) with infertile patients. Transcripts from the interviews were translated into 90 draft recommendations. These were presented on a wiki. Over 7 months, infertile patients were invited through advertisements or mailings to formulate new or modify existing recommendations. After modifying the recommendations, we asked patients to select their top 5 or top 3 recommendations for each of 5 sections on fertility care. Finally, the guideline development group assessed the eligibility of the final set of recommendations within the scope of the guideline. We used a multimethod evaluation strategy to assess the feasibility of the wiki as a participatory tool for patients in guideline development. RESULTS: The wiki attracted 298 unique visitors, yielding 289 recommendations. We assessed the 21 recommendations ranked as the top 5 or top 3 for their eligibility for being integrated into the clinical practice guideline. The evaluation identified some challenges needed to be met to improve the wiki tool, concerning its ease of use, website content and layout, and characteristics of the wiki tool. CONCLUSIONS: The wiki is a promising and feasible participatory tool for patients in guideline development. A modified version of this tool including new modalities (eg, automatically limiting the number and length of recommendations, using a fixed format for recommendations, including a motivation page, and adding a continuous prioritization system) should be developed and evaluated in a patient-centered design

Common surgical procedures in pilonidal sinus disease: A meta-analysis, merged data analysis, and comprehensive study on recurrence

Abstract We systematically searched available databases. We reviewed 6,143 studies published from 1833 to 2017. Reports in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish were considered, as were publications in other languages if definitive treatment and recurrence at specific follow-up times were described in an English abstract. We assessed data in the manner of a meta-analysis of RCTs; further we assessed non-RCTs in the manner of a merged data analysis. In the RCT analysis including 11,730 patients, Limberg & Dufourmentel operations were associated with low recurrence of 0.6% (95%CI 0.3–0.9%) 12 months and 1.8% (95%CI 1.1–2.4%) respectively 24 months postoperatively. Analysing 89,583 patients from RCTs and non-RCTs, the Karydakis & Bascom approaches were associated with recurrence of only 0.2% (95%CI 0.1–0.3%) 12 months and 0.6% (95%CI 0.5–0.8%) 24 months postoperatively. Primary midline closure exhibited long-term recurrence up to 67.9% (95%CI 53.3–82.4%) 240 months post-surgery. For most procedures, only a few RCTs without long term follow up data exist, but substitute data from numerous non-RCTs are available. Recurrence in PSD is highly dependent on surgical procedure and by follow-up time; both must be considered when drawing conclusions regarding the efficacy of a procedure