Reading books in the second half of life: What correlations are there with aspects of quality of life and health?

This DZA Aktuell is intended to provide an initial contribution on book reading and possible positive correlations with health-related aspects in the second half of life. In addition to differentiations according to age, gender and educational status, correlations between the volume of reading and emotional well-being (positive affect), subjective health and cognitive performance are presented. Key messages: The average number of books read has remained largely stable over the last 20 years. People between the ages of 46 and 85 read an average of eight to nine books a year between 2008 and 2021, compared to just seven in 2002. Around two-fifths of people in the second half of life are avid readers, reading at least 6 books a year. A good quarter of all respondents, on the other hand, do not read at all. A differentiation by education and gender clearly shows that highly educated people and women are particularly likely to be avid readers. In 2021, around half belonged to the group of avid readers, but also a good quarter of respondents with a low level of education. However, reading has nothing to do with age. All age groups read roughly the same amount. Over 85 per cent of avid readers reported positive feelings. Among non-readers, this proportion was significantly lower at 72 per cent to 79 per cent. Almost two thirds of avid readers rate their health as good or very good. Among non-readers, on the other hand, there are roughly as many people with poor as good subjective health. In the cognition test conducted in 2017, 96 per cent of avid readers scored well. This was only the case for around 89 per cent of non-reader

Bücherlesen in der zweiten Lebenshälfte: Welche Zusammenhänge gibt es mit Aspekten von Lebensqualität und Gesundheit?

Dieses DZA Aktuell liefert einen Beitrag zum Bücherlesen und möglichen positiven Zusammenhängen mit gesundheitsrelevanten Aspekten in der zweiten Lebenshälfte in Deutschland. Neben Differenzierungen nach Alter, Geschlecht und Bildungsstatus, werden Zusammenhänge des Lesevolumens zu emotionalem Wohlbefinden (positiver Affekt), subjektiver Gesundheit und kognitiver Leistung dargestellt. Mit Daten des Deutschen Alterssurveys wurde untersucht, wie viele Bücher die 46- bis 85-Jährigen in den vorangegangenen zwölf Monaten gelesen haben. Es zeigte sich, dass mehr als zwei Fünftel (41,7 Prozent) 6 Bücher und mehr gelesen hatte. Auch konnte festgestellt werden, dass die durchschnittlich gelesene Zahl der Bücher in den letzten 20 Jahren nicht abgenommen hat. Von einer Krise des Lesens kann in dieser Altersgruppe also keine Rede sein. Zudem zeigte sich, dass Menschen, die vergleichsweise viele Bücher gelesen haben, eher von häufigen positiven Emotionen berichteten und ihre Gesundheit besser einschätzten als Menschen, die gar nicht lasen. So gaben fast 86 Prozent der "Viel-Leser*innen" an, häufige positive Gefühle zu erleben und über 63 Prozent in dieser Gruppe schätzten ihre Gesundheit gut oder sehr gut ein. Diese Ergebnisse sind mit Vorsicht zu betrachten, da die Wirkrichtung hier nicht abgebildet werden konnte, das heißt, dass nicht zwingend das Bücherlesen Emotionen und Gesundheitsempfinden positiv beeinflusst, sondern es auch sein könnte, dass Menschen, die sich wohl und gesund fühlen, mehr lesen. Studien aus anderen Ländern legen jedoch nahe, dass das Lesen von Büchern sich sehr wohl positiv auf verschiedene Aspekte eines guten Alterns auswirken kann. Dabei spielt scheinbar das "vertiefte Lesen", auch "Deep Reading" genannt, eine entscheidende Rolle, bei dem sich die/der Leser*in empathisch und emotional auf das Gelesene einlässt - im Gegensatz zu dem oft flüchtigen Lesen in digitalen Medien. Wenn sich der Befund erhärtet, dass das Lesen von Büchern für die Lebensqualität in der zweiten Lebenshälfte förderlich ist, sollte es Interventionen geben, um Lesen auch in dieser Lebensphase besser zu fördern und zu ermöglichen: Durch Aufrechterhaltung bzw. Förderung von Bibliotheksangeboten sowie von Bücherbussen und Onlineangeboten, oder durch Lesepatenschaften, bei denen ältere Menschen Kinder und Jugendliche beim Lesenlernen unterstützen und durch ihr Engagement selbst sozial eingebunden werden

Do learners need semantics to spell syntactic markers? Plural spellings in real vs. pseudowords in a French L2 setting

Inaudible syntactic markers are especially difcult to spell. This paper examines how 455 fourth graders spell silent French plural markers in a dictation with real and pseudowords after one year of formal French instruction (L2). The Generalized Linear Mixed Model analysis shows frst that noun plural spelling (real and pseudo) is a strong predictor for verb and adjective plural spelling. Second, the performance on real verb plural is higher than the performance on real adjective plural. In con‑ trast, the performance on pseudoadjective plural is higher than on pseudoverb plural. Our fndings indicate the strong infuence of semantics and frequency in instruction input on plural spelling: noun plural is semantically grounded, and nouns are most frequent in the curriculum. Verbs and verb plural are also frequent, and infection is mostly taught by means of memorizing the verb infection paradigm. Adjectives are taught least frequently. The fndings are discussed in the context of French L2 instruction, as the extremely low results on adjectives and pseudoverbs seem to be a consequence of instruction methods

The German National Registry of Primary Immunodeficiencies (2012-2017)

Introduction: The German PID-NET registry was founded in 2009, serving as the first national registry of patients with primary immunodeficiencies (PID) in Germany. It is part of the European Society for Immunodeficiencies (ESID) registry. The primary purpose of the registry is to gather data on the epidemiology, diagnostic delay, diagnosis, and treatment of PIDs. Methods: Clinical and laboratory data was collected from 2,453 patients from 36 German PID centres in an online registry. Data was analysed with the software Stata® and Excel. Results: The minimum prevalence of PID in Germany is 2.72 per 100,000 inhabitants. Among patients aged 1–25, there was a clear predominance of males. The median age of living patients ranged between 7 and 40 years, depending on the respective PID. Predominantly antibody disorders were the most prevalent group with 57% of all 2,453 PID patients (including 728 CVID patients). A gene defect was identified in 36% of patients. Familial cases were observed in 21% of patients. The age of onset for presenting symptoms ranged from birth to late adulthood (range 0–88 years). Presenting symptoms comprised infections (74%) and immune dysregulation (22%). Ninety-three patients were diagnosed without prior clinical symptoms. Regarding the general and clinical diagnostic delay, no PID had undergone a slight decrease within the last decade. However, both, SCID and hyper IgE- syndrome showed a substantial improvement in shortening the time between onset of symptoms and genetic diagnosis. Regarding treatment, 49% of all patients received immunoglobulin G (IgG) substitution (70%—subcutaneous; 29%—intravenous; 1%—unknown). Three-hundred patients underwent at least one hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Five patients had gene therapy. Conclusion: The German PID-NET registry is a precious tool for physicians, researchers, the pharmaceutical industry, politicians, and ultimately the patients, for whom the outcomes will eventually lead to a more timely diagnosis and better treatment

QCD and strongly coupled gauge theories : challenges and perspectives

We highlight the progress, current status, and open challenges of QCD-driven physics, in theory and in experiment. We discuss how the strong interaction is intimately connected to a broad sweep of physical problems, in settings ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to strongly coupled, complex systems in particle and condensed-matter physics, as well as to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. We also discuss how success in describing the strong interaction impacts other fields, and, in turn, how such subjects can impact studies of the strong interaction. In the course of the work we offer a perspective on the many research streams which flow into and out of QCD, as well as a vision for future developments.Peer reviewe

Spelling and Learning of French Plural Markers in Fourth Graders in Luxembourg

Over the last 30 years, many studies have shown that French plural spelling is challenging for learners. The difficulty lies in the fact that, although the plural is regularly marked in written language, there is no audible counterpart in spoken language. Additionally, the correct plural spelling requires more than knowledge of declarative rules. It requires knowledge of the underlying syntactic structures. Plural is part of the curriculum and is taught in the schoolbooks. Nevertheless, even after 1.5 years of French instruction, the students’ spellings still show some deficits that can be improved through syntactic training. The present dissertation pursued two overarching aims. First, we analyzed the plural spelling of fourth graders in Luxembourg after they had received 1.5 years of French L2 instruction. Second, we wanted to analyze how the learners' performance could be improved through syntactic training. We conducted two studies with a total of 710 students. In a first study, we inspected 517 students’ spelling on a syntactic spelling test (pretest) after 1.5 years of French L2 instruction. We investigated how proficient and nonproficient plural spellers spelled words from the three word categories nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and whether nonproficient spellers were also able to recognize the plural forms in writing. Furthermore, we wanted to know whether the spelling of noun plural predicted the spelling of verb and adjective plural. Therefore, we analyzed the spelling of the plural forms of real and pseudowords. The results for real words showed that noun plural was spelled best, followed by verb plural, and lastly by adjective plural. For pseudowords, noun plural was also spelled best, but then followed by adjective plural, and lastly by verb plural. The results on plural spelling recognition showed that nonproficient learners were able to recognize noun plural spellings. Our results also showed that the spelling of noun plural indeed predicted the spelling of verb an adjective plural, for both real words and pseudowords. In a second study, we analyzed how learners’ spelling performance could be improved. To do so, we conducted an intervention study that was part of a larger project by Weth et al. (C18/SC/12675187/GRASP/Weth). A total of 193 students participated in the intervention study for the current dissertation. The experimental group received 2 weeks of syntactic video- based training in French, and the control group received a parallel syntactic video-based training in German. The students were tested at four time points (T1-T4) on a syntactic spelling test (gap dictation). Our results showed that syntactic training focusing on the underlying sentence structure and fostering metalinguistic awareness significantly improved overall spelling performance as well as performance in each word category (nouns, verbs, adjectives).The present dissertation was designed to contribute to existing research by investigating the plural spelling and learning of early L2 French learners in more detail. Furthermore, our findings show the influence of regular instruction in school in the Luxembourgish context (Aim 1) as well as the impact of syntactic training (Aim 2) and provide a basis for further developing training material on French plural spelling

Sports-related children and youth association work considering social changes : recommendations for a reformation of the youth statutes in North Rhine-Westphalia in terms of contemporary participation appropriate for youth

nicht vorhande

Les apprentissages des marqueurs du pluriel en français écrit au primaire : Enjeux de la grammaire orthographique

peer reviewe

Effects of parallel syntactic training in French plural spelling and German noun capitalization

peer reviewedFrench plural markers and German noun capitalization encode syntactic information. Both syntactic markers present the syntactic information needed reliably and saliently, and both are unrelated to phonology. A main difference between both is that French plural spelling is part of inflection morphology and encodes the plural morphemes in written French. German noun capitalization is not a morpheme or a grapheme, but an allograph licensed in a particular function of the sentence, the head of the NP. Although both are substantially different, studies have shown that syntactic training is effective at improving the spelling of these syntactic markers. The current study presents two intervention studies in Grade 4 (N = 176) to examine whether learners who become literate in German and French benefit from a syntactic training in French plural spelling and German noun capitalization. All participants were trained in both languages and tested at four test points. Instruction was provided through learner videos (10 x 10 minutes) shown in a classroom setting. In both languages, the main goal of the training was to raise awareness of the syntactic unit of the NP as well as the syntactic information encoded in spelling. The results show large, short-term and long-term effects of the French training. However, unlike in previous studies, no training effects were found in German when compared with the control group. The paper discusses the results with a focus on the detailed comparison of French plural spelling and German noun capitalization as well as the feedback of the participating teachers in order to provide hypothetical explanations of the mixed training results. The discussed findings have an impact on the conception of syntactic spelling, as well as its teaching and learning.Effects of Grammatical Reflection on Spelling among multilingual pupils (GRASP