An independently analysed impact study of Read On!

A summary of the findings of the evaluation of the Read On! extensive English reading project in secondary schools in Italy

Impact of time to treatment of oseltamivir on influenza hospitalization cost among Korean children

BackgroundAlthough oseltamivir is a common influenza treatment, there is a lack of data on the economic benefits of timely oseltamivir treatment.MethodsFrom February 2004 through June 2007, 116 hospitalized children ≤15 years of age with laboratory‐confirmed influenza who received oseltamivir were identified via retrospective medical chart review. Demographic, clinical, and cost data were abstracted and multivariate linear regression was used to assess the association between oseltamivir time to treatment and treatment‐related costs among hospitalized children with laboratory‐confirmed influenza.ResultsOverall, 28% (n = 33) of patients were treated with oseltamivir ≥day 3 of admission. Rapid influenza diagnostic test was used in a significantly lower proportion of patients treated with oseltamivir ≥day 3 of admission compared with those who received oseltamivir earlier. On multivariate linear regression, initiation of oseltamivir ≥day 3 of admission was associated with a 60.84% increase (95%CI: 32.59–95.11) in treatment‐related hospital costs, compared with initiation on admission.ConclusionDelayed initiation of oseltamivir was found to be associated with increased treatment‐related hospital costs among children hospitalized with laboratory‐confirmed influenza.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111958/1/ped12526.pd

The Association Between Influenza Treatment and Hospitalization-Associated Outcomes Among Korean Children with Laboratory-Confirmed Influenza

There are limited data evaluating the relationship between influenza treatment and hospitalization duration. Our purpose assessed the association between different treatments and hospital stay among Korean pediatric influenza patients. Total 770 children ≤ 15 yr-of-age hospitalized with community-acquired laboratory-confirmed influenza at three large urban tertiary care hospitals were identified through a retrospective medical chart review. Demographic, clinical, and cost data were extracted and a multivariable linear regression model was used to assess the associations between influenza treatment types and hospital stay. Overall, there were 81% of the patients hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed influenza who received antibiotic monotherapy whereas only 4% of the patients received oseltamivir monotherapy. The mean treatment-related charges for hospitalizations treated with antibiotics, alone or with oseltamivir, were significantly higher than those treated with oseltamivir-only (P \u3c 0.001). Influenza patients treated with antibiotics-only and antibiotics/oseltamivir combination therapy showed 44.9% and 28.2%, respectively, longer duration of hospitalization compared to those treated with oseltamivir-only. Patients treated with antibiotics, alone or combined with oseltamivir, were associated with longer hospitalization and significantly higher medical charges, compared to patients treated with oseltamivir alone. In Korea, there is a need for more judicious use of antibiotics, appropriate use of influenza rapid testing

Determinants of cognitive performance and decline in 20 diverse ethno-regional groups: A COSMIC collaboration cohort study.

BACKGROUND: With no effective treatments for cognitive decline or dementia, improving the evidence base for modifiable risk factors is a research priority. This study investigated associations between risk factors and late-life cognitive decline on a global scale, including comparisons between ethno-regional groups. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We harmonized longitudinal data from 20 population-based cohorts from 15 countries over 5 continents, including 48,522 individuals (58.4% women) aged 54-105 (mean = 72.7) years and without dementia at baseline. Studies had 2-15 years of follow-up. The risk factors investigated were age, sex, education, alcohol consumption, anxiety, apolipoprotein E ε4 allele (APOE*4) status, atrial fibrillation, blood pressure and pulse pressure, body mass index, cardiovascular disease, depression, diabetes, self-rated health, high cholesterol, hypertension, peripheral vascular disease, physical activity, smoking, and history of stroke. Associations with risk factors were determined for a global cognitive composite outcome (memory, language, processing speed, and executive functioning tests) and Mini-Mental State Examination score. Individual participant data meta-analyses of multivariable linear mixed model results pooled across cohorts revealed that for at least 1 cognitive outcome, age (B = -0.1, SE = 0.01), APOE*4 carriage (B = -0.31, SE = 0.11), depression (B = -0.11, SE = 0.06), diabetes (B = -0.23, SE = 0.10), current smoking (B = -0.20, SE = 0.08), and history of stroke (B = -0.22, SE = 0.09) were independently associated with poorer cognitive performance (p < 0.05 for all), and higher levels of education (B = 0.12, SE = 0.02) and vigorous physical activity (B = 0.17, SE = 0.06) were associated with better performance (p < 0.01 for both). Age (B = -0.07, SE = 0.01), APOE*4 carriage (B = -0.41, SE = 0.18), and diabetes (B = -0.18, SE = 0.10) were independently associated with faster cognitive decline (p < 0.05 for all). Different effects between Asian people and white people included stronger associations for Asian people between ever smoking and poorer cognition (group by risk factor interaction: B = -0.24, SE = 0.12), and between diabetes and cognitive decline (B = -0.66, SE = 0.27; p < 0.05 for both). Limitations of our study include a loss or distortion of risk factor data with harmonization, and not investigating factors at midlife. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that education, smoking, physical activity, diabetes, and stroke are all modifiable factors associated with cognitive decline. If these factors are determined to be causal, controlling them could minimize worldwide levels of cognitive decline. However, any global prevention strategy may need to consider ethno-regional differences

Power and paradox: Positioning English proficiency, accents and selves during interviews

The research interview has been subjected to increasing scrutiny as a widely-used yet under-theorised methodology in language studies. Too often, interview data are taken at face value and treated as a ‘report’ that accurately and objectively represents an outside ‘reality’ (Talmy 2010). In reality, interviews occur within situated spaces that involve relations of power, agentive negotiations, and the intermingling of the identities and subjectivities of both the interviewer and the interviewee(s). Informed by these theoretical considerations, this paper conceptualises the interview as a space of social practice in which interlocutors collaboratively construct and enact their positions, identities and beliefs to provide evidence for the analytical advantages of this conceptualisation. Specifically, utilising the tactics of intersubjectivity the present paper aims to describe the ways in which interview participants (re)position and (re)negotiate self-conceptions of proficiency, attitudes towards language and accents, and their selves during interviews. By drawing on selected excerpts of interviews with one English language user, the interconnectedness of these constructs and how their construction hinges on agency, creativity, and complexity are brought to the fore

“Don’t Mask the Truth”. Analyzing Anti-Mask Discourses Advanced by a ‘Trusted Expert’ and Activists Acting On- and Offline

This paper investigates how health-related disinformation and conspiracy theories (CTs) about masks were constructed in the US in the roughly eighteen months since the COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic. It examines the anti-mask discourses propagated by different actors using different media – renowned conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, users who signed an online petition against school mask mandates, and anti-mask activists speaking at Board of education meetings – to create a more comprehensive view of the processes involved in the delegitimization of scientific, political, and mediatic authority, and the development and perpetuation of alternative truths. These discourses were analyzed principally by means of critical discourse analysis (CDA), and specifically the strategies of self- and other-presentation (Reisigl, Wodak, 2001; van Dijk 2000; Wodak 2011) and of (de)legitimation (Reyes 2011; van Leeuwen 2007). Findings suggest that these anti-mask actors leveraged extant conspiratorial beliefs and distrust of authorities to foster anti-mask sentiment, cast doubt on the interests served by key political and scientific figures, and question the veracity of the information imparted by left-leaning news networks, government institutions, and the scientific community, undermining trust in health recommendations

An independently analysed impact study of Read On! for eCLIL

This paper reports on a mixed-methods study of the effectiveness of Read On! for eCLIL, an English language extensive reading project that incorporates the use of technology and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), and has been implemented in upper secondary schools throughout Italy. The primary goals of this independent evaluation were to investigate the impact of the Read On! for eCLIL project on students’ reading abilities in English, their self-perceived English competences, and their attitudes towards reading and learning English. While pre-post measures suggest some increases in students' reading skills, as measured by student Lexile levels, by far the most salient result was their attitudinal changes, with respect to English and reading, that students underwent from the start to the end of their participation in the project

The Discursive (De)Construction of Climate Change Advocacy: Framing the US Green New Deal Resolution

This paper studies the climate-related discourses of two (sets of) actors with a significant following on the two poles of the current US climate debate: the climate advocacy of one of the most vociferous US environmentalists in office, House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the delegitimizing climate counternarratives fashioned by mainstream conservative media outlet Fox News. Specifically, it centres on the processes that govern the argumentative framing of the 2019 policy proposal known as the (US) Green New Deal Resolution (GND) within Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s tweets and news segments on the GND posted on the official Fox News YouTube site. Guided by the analytical framework delineated in Fairclough and Mădroane (2020), this paper seeks to lay bare the ways in which these two deliberating agents made selected premises salient and overriding, used linguistic devices to (re)define and (re)categorize phenomena, and had recourse to macro speech acts such as explanations and narratives to support their intended aims. In exposing the mechanisms that govern the framing of the critical issue of climate change and the debate of an environmental policy, it hopes to contribute to understanding how framing strategies are employed within policy debates that unfold in less formal contexts and to shed light on the communication of climate-related issues in ways that more effectively resonate with the public and counteract climate scepticism and denial