4,879 research outputs found
Sonography in early arthritis
No full textThe ability of ultrasonography to visualise soft tissue changes provides a possibility to differentiate between exudative and proliferative synovial tissue changes as well as tenosynovitis. Superficial cartilage and bone lesions can be detected earlier by ultrasonography than by conventional radiography. The application of power Doppler ultrasonography and contrast agents is especially helpful in the further differentiation of synovial changes and makes a differentiation between active and inactive inflammation possible. Musculoskeletal ultrasonography is helpful in the diagnosis of early arthritis, especially in patients with inconspicuous conventional radiography or suspicious clinical findings. It is a convenient method for follow-up analysis and therefore has impact on therapy monitoring. It is a patient friendly method and has proved to be an important tool for the diagnostic work-up of arthritis
Ultrasonographic assessment of finger and toe joint inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis: comment on the article by Szkudlarek et al
No full textMusculoskeletal ultrasonography is an examiner-dependent technique. Is this statement still valid?
No full textMusculoskeletal ultrasonography has become an established imaging technique in rheumatology, especially in the detection of early inflammation. It has been stated that the main disadvantage is its examiner-dependency. However, an inter-reader reliability between a larger number of ultrasonographers has not yet been systematically evaluated. Contrary to previous opinions, recent studies showed moderate to good inter-observer reliabilities between ultrasonographers. The kappa values were comparable to those achieved by radiologists evaluating magnetic resonance imaging. However, the studies also show that a dynamic examination of all joints and an inclusion of the palmar and dorsal sides of the finger joints are necessary. In musculoskeletal ultrasonography a differentiation between healthy and pathological tissue can roughly be performed by taking the mean with a 2-fold standard deviation of healthy tissue, a more precise cut-off can be calculated by ROC analysis with the necessity of adding data of pathological tissue
Polyphony
No full textThis book looks at the rich and complex history of broadcasting and community broadcasting in the multicultural and multilingual milieu in India. It explores the world of community radio and how community radio broadcasters hear and speak to their audiences under the overarching theme of polyphony.
The book discusses the socio-historical contexts which allowed community radio to thrive in India. It highlights its potential to create alternative spaces of representation, and opportunity and its importance in preserving and disseminating local knowledge and traditions. The author weaves together ethnographic research and literature, as well as personal narratives and stories of those involved in the field. Further, the monograph critically examines the impact of development agendas on community projects and processes, discussing in detail the pervasiveness of the development discourse in every aspect of community radio and how it manifests on air. It also illustrates the limitations of community radio, within the context of its participation in the “spectacle of development”.
Accessible and deeply insightful, this book will be of interest to researchers and students of cultural studies, sociology, social anthropology, media and communication studies, and South Asian studies.Full Tex
Forschungsbasierter Wissenstransfer und Gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt: Theorie, Empirie, Konzepte und Instrumente
No full textFücker S, Backhaus-Maul H, Grimmig M, Nuske J, Kamuf V, Quent M, eds. Forschungsbasierter Wissenstransfer und Gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt: Theorie, Empirie, Konzepte und Instrumente. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus; 2023
Wissen »was die Welt […] zusammenhält« – Verständigungen über nützliches Wissen
No full textFücker S. Wissen »was die Welt […] zusammenhält« – Verständigungen über nützliches Wissen. In: Backhaus-Maul H, Fücker S, Grimmig M, Kamuf V, Quent M, eds. Forschungsbasierter Wissenstransfer und Gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt: Theorie, Empirie, Konzepte und Instrumente. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus; 2023
Accurate Prediction of the Response of Freshwater Fish to a Mixture of Estrogenic Chemicals
No full textReproduced with permission from Environmental Health Perspectives.Existing environmental risk assessment procedures are limited in their ability to evaluate the combined effects of chemical mixtures. We investigated the implications of this by analyzing the combined effects of a multicomponent mixture of five estrogenic chemicals using vitellogenin induction in male fathead minnows as an end point. The mixture consisted of estradiol, ethynylestradiol, nonylphenol, octylphenol, and bisphenol A. We determined concentration–response curves for each of the chemicals individually. The chemicals were then combined at equipotent concentrations and the mixture tested using fixed-ratio design. The effects of the mixture were compared with those predicted by the model of concentration addition using biomathematical methods, which revealed that there was no deviation between the observed and predicted effects of the mixture. These findings demonstrate that estrogenic chemicals have the capacity to act together in an additive manner and that their combined effects can be accurately predicted by concentration addition. We also explored the potential for mixture effects at low concentrations by exposing the fish to each chemical at one-fifth of its median effective concentration (EC50). Individually, the chemicals did not induce a significant response, although their combined effects were consistent with the predictions of concentration addition. This demonstrates the potential for estrogenic chemicals to act additively at environmentally relevant concentrations. These findings highlight the potential for existing environmental risk assessment procedures to underestimate the hazard posed by mixtures of chemicals that act via a similar mode of action, thereby leading to erroneous conclusions of absence of risk.European Commission under the 5th Framework Programme (contract EVK1-2001-00091)
Book Review: Backhaus, Peter (2007): Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters; 158 Pages ISBN 9781853599460
No full textBackhaus examines urban multilingualism in the linguistic landscape of Tokyo, the capital city of Japan. In this monograph, the linguistic landscape is seen as a sub-discipline of sociolinguistics. The significance of this monograph to linguistic landscape research is that it represents the first comprehensive approach tackling multilingualism in the linguistic landscape and overcoming a range of methodological problems facing former studies. In this sense, Backhaus’s approach in data collection and analysis may help linguistic landscapers and researchers to undertake research in multilingualism in the linguistic landscape. The current work comprises acknowledgements, a foreword by Bernard Spolsky, six chapters, an appendix, references, and an index. While the first three chapters represent an introduction and theoretical background, the fourth chapter in turn paves the way for the application of an empirical study in Tokyo’s linguistic landscape, applied in chapter five.That chapter one discusses the examination of written language in the public space of metropolises is the bulk of Backhaus’s work. In this respect, the author (p.1) refers to previous studies such as Halliday (1972), who considers the city not only a place of talk, but also a place of writing and reading. At the same time, this work focuses on ‘urban language contact in the written medium: the languages of the signs’. Backhaus (p.1) holds:Every urban environment is a myriad of written messages on public display: office and shop signs, billboards, and neon advertisements, traffic signs, topographic information and area maps, emergency guidance and political poster campaigns, stone inscriptions, and enigmatic graffiti discourse.The author maintains that these messages contribute to the making of the linguistic landscape of any given place.In chapter two, Semiotic Background and Terminology, Backhaus gives an introduction to the main features of language use on signs, arguing that the examination of multilingualism on signs in the public space differs from other modes of communication in written and spoken contexts. In addition, the writer discusses different definitions and interpretations of the term linguistic landscape and senses and types of the term ‘sign’. After Itagi and Singh (2002), the author (p.10) draws a distinction between the noun ‘linguistic landscape’ and the gerund ‘linguistic landscaping’. While the former refers to ‘the planning and implementation of actions pertaining to language on signs’, the latter relates to ‘the result of these actions’. Throughout his monograph, Backhaus maintains a distinction between these two terms as cited above. As maintained by Backhaus (p.12), only the paper introduced by Landry and Bourhis (1997) established this field of study as a coherent discipline, even though several previous studies employed linguistic landscape research. This is mainly apparent in Backhaus’s expansion upon the definition of survey items suggested by Landry and Bourhis (1997). In chapter three, Previous Approaches to the Linguistic Landscape: An Overview, Backhaus gives a comprehensive overview of previous linguistic landscape studies conducted in different urban settings, including Brussels (Tulp, 1978), Montreal (Monnier, 1989), Paris and Dakar (Calvet, 1990,1994), and Lira, a town in Uganda (Reh, 2004). In light of these studies, the author notices that the language policy of the state does not indicate which code(s) prevail(s) in the public space, whose language(s) is /are mainly manifested in language practices on nonofficial signs.. The author also discusses the methodological issues followed in the above studies to arrive at a congruent methodological framework aiming at examining multilingualism from a sociolinguistic point of view.In the light of the methodology followed in the abovementioned studies, Chapter four outlines the main concerns that envelope the sociolinguistics of the linguistic landscape. Interestingly, the chapter aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice by introducing three research questions aiming at directing the current work. These research parameters include linguistic landscape by whom, for whom, and the general language situation. To accomplish this study, the writer applies both qualitative and quantitative procedures while gathering and analysing data. According to the writer, this chapter attempts to find a coding scheme suitable for carrying out a sociolinguistic study in the linguistic landscape and devoid of methodological problems.In chapter five, the author (p.64) introduces a frame for studying the linguistic landscape and applies a fine-grained coding scheme to a corpus of signs. According to Backhaus, a sound data collection procedure requires two conditions: the determination of the geographical limits of the survey area and the unit of analysis. Backhaus investigated the linguistic landscape of 29 survey areas of the Yamanote Line, a circular railway line connecting a number of major city centres in Tokyo. These stations represent a multi-layered picture of the city centre in the sense that they include very busy and less crowded districts. The boundaries of each survey area were specified as consisting of an area located between the traffic lights of two consecutive intersections , wherein the poles of traffic lights represent the end of any given survey area. The survey items were also thoroughly defined (p.66):A sign was considered to be any piece of written text within a spatially definable frame. The underlining definition is physical, not semantic. It is rather broad, including anything from the small handwritten sticker attached to a lamp-post to huge commercial billboards outside a department store. Items such as push and pull stickers at entrance doors, lettered foot mats, or botanic explanation plates on trees were considered signs, too.In analysing data collected, the first step is to categorise countable items into monolingual and multilingual signs. Backhaus has excluded monolingual Japanese signs from data collected because he wants to examine urban multilingualism in Tokyo. A sign will be considered multilingual if it contains two languages or more, say Japanese and English (p.67). Backhaus presents a congruent methodology to study the linguistic landscape by introducing research parameters and analytical categories. These research questions include ‘linguistic landscaping by whom?, linguistic landscaping for whom?, and linguistic landscape quo vadis?’. These guiding questions are analysed according to nine criteria: languages contained, combinations, top-down and bottom-up forces, geographic distribution, code preference, part writing, visibility, idiosyncrasies, and layering (p.65).In chapter six, the writer closes his book by summarising the findings of the Tokyo sample, which are guided by the questions cited above. It reveals that nonofficial agencies are almost the main responsible for the majority of multilingual signs in the linguistic landscape of Tokyo, whereas official forces participate in the construction of multilingualism on signs by less than 30 per cent. The presence of complete and partial translations and transliterations on signs is very useful for the readers from the foreign and Japanese populations. It was noticed that English is generally confined to slogans, titles, and business names, while Japanese relates to more specific information. The general linguistic situation reveals the impact of language interference from Japanese into English, which is apparent in the number of linguistic idiosyncrasies noticed in the linguistic landscape. In comparing the older and newer versions of signs, there is a noticeable preference toward the use of foreign languages at the expense of Japanese, which shows signs of multilingualism in Tokyo’s linguistic landscape. However, Japanese will be the predominant language at least in the near future. As pointed out throughout, Backhaus presents a congruent methodological approach, which has added new dimensions to the existing field of linguistic landscape. More specifically, Backhaus identifies three guiding research questions: Linguistic Landscape by whom? Linguistic landscape for whom? Linguistic landscape quo vadis?. At the same time, his definition of the unit of analysis as described above contributed greatly to linguistic landscape research. Although Backhaus relies on former studies, Backhaus has created analytical categories neglected by previous studies, especially linguistic idiosyncrasies, and uses his own terminology, particularly ‘part writing’ with its main types adopted from the field of musicology: homophonic, mixed, polyphonic, monophonic signs. The same notions with the exception of monophonic signs have been implemented by Reh (2004), but the terminological designations are different. I wonder why Backhaus uses the term ‘polyphonic signs’, which might be replaced by code mixing or switching in that it may be mainly subdivided into intra-sentential code-switches and inter-sentential code-switches. This work also counts on the observations made by Scollon and Scollon (2003), especially those on code prominence and layering. For example, code preference as an analytical category in Backhaus’ quantitative study relies on placement and size in case that there is a conflict, font size outweighs order. As far as my current project is concerned, the relevance of this work comes from the methodological considerations provided, which will help to expand upon Backhaus’ paradigm to apply in the linguistic landscape of urban Jordan. In other words, we will adapt and build upon this methodological framework to devise a coding scheme suitable for the linguistic landscape of Jordanian cities.
- …
