COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING THROUGH SPEAKING ACTIVITIES DESIGNED IN A TEXTBOOK

In pursuing the alignment between the goal of communication purpose and communicative approach, six new textbooks were designed to facilitate teaching-learning activities in Center of English for International Communication (CEIC) at Language Institute. Only an impressionistic overview was conducted as a pre-use evaluation due to limitation of time and resources. Thus, the writer attempted to do an in-depth pre-use evaluation of the recently revised textbook. This research aimed at investigating the activity variations and types of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) activities presented in the revised textbook used for teaching Level 1 students. The speaking activities in the textbook were analyzed using Littlewoods (1981) theoretical framework on suggested communicative activities. The results showed that the textbook has various learning activities accommodating CLT activities, pre-communicative activities, structural activities, listening activities, vocabulary building activities, and reading activities. The CLT activities found in the textbook were differentiated between functional communication and social interaction activities. Functional communication activities specifically sharing information with restricted cooperation, in the form of class surveys and information gaps were dominant compared to other activities

Do We Have Enough ICT Specialists in the Period of eDependency?

After overwhelming the crisis period turbulent economic environment is typical for present days as well as permanent increasing dependability of all our activities on information and communication technology (ICT). General basis for using ICT in economy is sufficient number of well-qualified specialists with university education background, especially ICT professionals. In this contribution two research questions are formulated. Answers to them evaluate and compare real starting positions of Slovenia and the Czech Republic from the point of view of number of university graduates (with partially accent on ICT education) as driving potential in the economy. Some recommendations, proposals and forecasts for further development of education system in Slovenia and the Czech Republic are presented at the end of this contribution

Requirements on the competence of ICT managers and their coverage by the educational system – experience in the Czech Republic

Global developments in the information society are placing ever greater emphasis on professionals in the area of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and especially on managers of ICT companies. This article provides a comparison of the trends in the requirements of business practice on ICT managers in 2006 and 2010 and simultaneously draws attention to the coverage of these requirements by fields of study with ICT specialization, on the example of the Czech Republic. The presented results of the obtained data indicate quite good coverage of the requirements on knowledge and skills for the role of ICT manager in the Czech education market. In addition, the article encompasses methodology that can be employed to compare qualitative quantities of the potential of the educational process with the requirements imposed on it. First published online: 12 Sep 201

Trends in incidence and prognosis of the histological subtypes of lung cancer in North America, Australia, New Zealand and Europe

Background: Since the incidence of the histological subtypes of lung cancer in industrialised countries has changed dramatically over the last two decades, we reviewed trends in the incidence and prognosis in North America, Australia, New Zealand and Europe, according to period of diagnosis and birth cohort and summarized explanations for changes in mortality. Methods: Review of the literature based on a computerised search (Medline database 1966-2000). Results: Although the incidence of lung cancer has been decreasing since the 1970s/1980s among men in North America, Australia, New Zealand and north-western Europe, the age-adjusted rate continues to increase among women in these countries, and among both men and women in southern and eastern Europe. These trends followed changes in smoking behaviour. The proportion of adenocarcinoma has been increasing over time; the most likely explanation is the shift to low-tar filter cigarettes during the 1960s and 1970s. Despite improvement in both the diagnosis and treatment, the overall prognosis for patients with non-small-cell lung cancer hardly improved over time. In contrast, the introduction and improvement of chemotherapy since the 1970s gave rise to an improvement in - only short-term (<2 years) - survival for patients with small-cell lung cancer. Conclusions: The epidemic of lung cancer is not over yet, especially in southern and eastern Europe. Except for short-term survival of small cell tumours, the prognosis for patients with lung cancer has not improved significantly. Copyrigh

Diabetes alone should not be a reason for withholding adjuvant chemotherapy for stage III colon cancer

Background: With increasing prevalence of diabetes mellitus and colon cancer, the number of patients suffering from both diseases is growing, and physicians are being faced with complicated treatment decisions. Objective: To investigate the association between diabetes and treatment/course of stage III colon cancer and the association between colon cancer and course of diabetes. Materials and Methods: Additional information was collected from the medical records of all patients with both stage III colon cancer and diabetes (n=201) and a random sample of stage III colon cancer patients without diabetes (n=206) in the area of the population-based Eindhoven Cancer Registry (1998–2007). Results: Colon cancer patients without diabetes were more likely to receive adjuvant chemotherapy compared with diabetic colon cancer patients (OR 1.8; 95% CI 1.2–2.7). After adjustment for age, this difference was borderline significant (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.0–2.6). Diabetic patients did not have: significantly more side-effects from surgery or adjuvant chemotherapy; more recurrence from colon cancer; significantly shorter time interval until recurrence; or a poorer disease-free survival or overall survival. Age and withholding of adjuvant chemotherapy were most predictive of all-cause mortality. After colon cancer diagnosis, the dose of antiglycaemic medications was increased in 22% of diabetic patients, resulting in significantly lower glycaemic indexes than before colon cancer diagnosis. Conclusions: Since diabetic patients did not have more side-effects of adjuvant chemotherapy, and adjuvant chemotherapy had a positive effect on survival for both patients with and without diabetes, diabetes alone should not be a reason for withholding adjuvant chemotherapy.Journal of Comorbidity 2011;1(1):19–2

Reference model of business informatics economics management

This paper is devoted to issues connected with processes that can be used for the management of economic efficiency of business informatics with the support in the area of Business Intelligence. We analyze the processes of the management of business informatics economics. We propose new model that takes into account requirements on the management of economic efficiency necessitated by accounting, managers of companies, differences in the method of accounting of business informatics cost and profits etc. Our model provides information that helps to define prices and costs for services provided by business informatics to other in-house units, provides information for cost analysis of each employee, total cost of each IS/ICT section, identifying the total costs of business informatics etc. First published online: 02 Oct 201