Opinions Of Readers Research Articles

Interruption of vector transmission by native vectors and “the art of the possible”

In a recent article in the Reader’s Opinion, advantages and disadvantages of the certification processes of interrupted Chagas disease transmission (American trypanosomiasis) by native vector were discussed. Such concept, accepted by those authors for the case of endemic situations with introduced vectors, has been built on a long and laborious process by endemic countries and Subregional Initiatives for Prevention, Control and Treatment of Chagas, with Technical Secretariat of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization, to create a horizon target and goal to concentrate priorities and resource allocation and actions. With varying degrees of sucess, which are not replaceable for a certificate of good practice, has allowed during 23 years to safeguard the effective control of transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi not to hundreds of thousands, but millions of people at risk conditions, truly “the art of the possible.”

Press Effects, Public Opinion, and Gender

The press had great potential to influence perceptions of Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign, given her relative obscurity when picked to be the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Prior literature on press treatment of women running for national office suggests that Palin was likely to receive coverage that disadvantaged her due to her gender. We scrutinize press coverage of Palin’s campaign for evidence that she was treated differently and that these differences affected public opinion. Our sample of over 2,500 individual newspaper articles published during the campaign is paired with the 2008 National Annenberg Election Survey. We demonstrate that Palin’s coverage differed in significant ways from that of her male counterpart. Her gender, appearance, and family status were disproportionately mentioned in her coverage, and such mentions tended to dampen public opinion about her. In addition, the tone of Palin’s coverage was markedly negative, increasingly so over time, and was significantly related to reader opinion about her. While Palin was a unique candidate for national-level office, these findings should give pause to those concerned with equitable press treatment of women on the campaign trail.

'Why Choose Us?' Texts in University Websites: A Genre Analysis

The impact of globalisation has caused some huge transformations for higher education institutions. One is the need to publicise themselves much as businesses perform marketisation. Accordingly, a set of academic promotional genres has emerged to respond to these changes. This corpus-driven study attempts to analyse the ‘Why choose us?’ section, embedded with a promotional purpose, in 40 university websites. The aim is to examine how the text is structured and what lexico-grammatical features are employed to realise its communicative functions. Both a textual and a keyword analysis were conducted. A six-move structure in a conventional ‘Why choose us?’ text was identified. Both the overused and underused keywords generated from the corpus were shown to mirror the nature of the promotional language in the texts. In addition, the opinions of potential readers (through questionnaires) were examined to assess the possible impact of the marketing tools that universities use. Different viewers showed divergent reading focuses on the text. Implications and suggestions are provided.

Evaluation of anatomy comic strips for further production and applications

Comic strips have been sketched to explain anatomy humorously. All comic strips in both Korean (550 episodes) and English (300 episodes) can be viewed on the homepage (anatomy.co.kr). They were created with the intention of assisting medical students, but the impact was unknown, so we surveyed responses of students and gained the following results. Anatomy grades were better in the students with exposure to the comic strips. Comic strips helped the trainees chat with medical and non‐medical persons. The authors also paid attention to comments about the comic strips defects and attempted to find solutions. Production and educational uses of comic strips are ongoing. To support that effort, the valuable opinions of readers will be continuously gathered and reflected upon. The article (title, Anatomy comic strips) was published in the journal, Anatomical Sciences Education on September, 2011. In addition, the same homepage presents the science comic strips in order to introduce the comical situations encountered by scientists.

Lexicon-based detection of emotion in different types of texts: Preliminary remarks

Paragraphs of four genres are analysed to detect their emotional colouring, while a lexicon-based approach of linguistic analysis is weighed against reader opinion. The aim is to find out the prospects of automatic detection of emotion in any text by using a very small lexicon of about 600 frequent emotion words. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5128/ERYa8.11

Age banding and its impact on children and their reading

The study described here investigates the thoughts and opinions of young readers related to age banding on children’s books. Emphasizing the views of children themselves, rather than adults such as parents, librarians, teachers and authors, the research involved a series of three focus groups involving children aged 11–13 years. The discussions held by the focus groups revealed that participants thought that age banding is intended primarily for adults, and for readers younger than the participants. Age bands were thought to neglect individualism and to restrict autonomy; they were less obvious than other features on books so their position and appearance were significant.

Reader opinion in the digital age: Tabloid and broadsheet newspaper websites and the exercise of political voice

This article explores interactive opportunities provided by British broadsheet and tabloid newspapers’ websites and the ways their readers make use of these opportunities to express their opinions. The article presents the results of both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis of national British broadsheet and tabloid newspaper websites. The research reveals some similarities between newspapers – for example, that interactive opportunities remain under utilized – but also some significant differences in the ways that visitors to broadsheet and tabloid websites use the interactive facilities on offer and engage in discussion. The conclusion suggests that the deliberative democratic potential of online discussion is a long way from the deliberative ideal.

Rates and predictors of radiographic sacroiliitis progression over 2 years in patients with axial spondyloarthritis

ObjectiveTo assess the progression of radiographic sacroiliitis in a cohort of patients with early axial spondyloarthritis over a period of 2 years and to explore predictors of progression.Methods210 patients with...

Tobacco plain packaging legislation: a content analysis of commentary posted on Australian online news

IntroductionIn April 2010, the Australian government became the first to announce legislation mandating that tobacco products be sold in plain packaging. The announcement generated significant media coverage and public feedback....

Pesquisas de opinião e preferência sobre tipografia para crianças

Considerando pesquisas de legibilidade com crianas leitoras iniciantes, alm da avaliao de parmetros objetivos relacionados ao desempenho de leitura, alguns autores procuram ouvir a opinio e a preferncia dos participantes quanto s opes tipogrficas utilizadas na pesquisa. Esta iniciativa, que pode ser realizada tanto com as prprias crianas quanto com professores alfabetizadores, busca, muitas vezes, gerar dados que subsidiem a seleo de parmetros a serem considerados em um teste de desempenho de leitura. A investigao de fatores subjetivos, como a opinio de leitores, pode levantar novas questes a serem abordadas em pesquisas sobre o tema, assim como a uma compreenso mais abrangente da prtica da leitura. [ Download ]

The impact of newspapers on consumer confidence: does spin bias exist?

It is sometimes argued that news reports in the media suffer from biased reporting. Mullainathan and Shleifer (2002, 2005) argue that there are two types of media bias. One bias, called ideology, reflects a news outlet's desire to affect reader opinions in a particular direction. The second bias, referred to as ‘spin’ or ‘slanting’, reflects the outlet's attempt to simply create a memorable story. Competition between outlets can eliminate the effect of ideological bias, but increases the incentive to spin or slant stories. We examine whether we find some evidence of spin in Dutch newspaper reporting on the state of the economy. If newspapers are indeed able to create memorable stories this should, according to our hypothesis, affect the opinion of readers with respect to the state of the economy. Sentiments about the actual state of the economy could be magnified by spin. As a result, consumer confidence–a variable that routinely measures the opinion on the state of the economy–can be expected to be affected not only by economic fundamentals, but also by the way these fundamentals are reported. We construct a variable that reflects the way consumers perceive economic news reported in newspapers. We find that this variable indeed has a significant impact on consumer confidence, which is short-lived.

Effects of Sources in Coverage of Same-Sex Marriage

This study tested whether perceived prestige of sources about a controversial issue could influence reader opinion. Reader opinions of same-sex marriage did not differ across three conditions.

Ángeles Mastretta: Textual Multiplicity (review)

Reviewed by: Ángeles Mastretta: Textual Multiplicity Sarah Pollack Ángeles Mastretta: Textual Multiplicity Tamesis, 2005 By Jane Elizabeth Lavery Within the academic field, the frequently inverted relationship between a book's market success and its purported literary value offers critics—like Jane Elizabeth Lavery—the opportunity to reconsider authors works that, within certain circles, have been written off as "light" or "easy literature"—such as those by Mexican author Ángeles Mastretta (Puebla, 1949). The publication of the monographic study Ángeles Mastretta: Textual Multiplicity is Lavery's endeavor to "demonstrate the rich complexity and range of Mastretta's narratives" which are "underpinned by serious intent, fulfilling social and documentary functions" (4). In five of the six chapters that comprise this investigation, Lavery focuses primarily on Mastretta's major novels, Arráncame la vida (1985) and Mal de amores (1996), seeking to read them in the intersection of a "multiplicity" of historic, cultural and literary contexts: the Mexican revolutionary novel, testimonial narrative, new historical [End Page 219] fiction, the folletín, farce, melodrama, myth, magical realism, carnival, post-Boom narrative, postmodernist writing, feminism and eroticism. In the final two chapters, the last dedicated to the author's lesser-known works, greater emphasis is given to the textual "body" of Mastretta's styles and techniques. The first chapter, Lavery's initial set of "Contexts," summarizes the major historical events and socio-political atmosphere in Mexico from the Revolution to the mid 1960s, illustrating the chronology with intelligent examples from Mastretta's texts, and then traces a brief genealogy of literary "fathers" and "mothers" of the Mexican revolutionary novel. She concludes that within this literary vein, Mastretta's texts are of the most radical rewritings of a traditionally masculine articulation of history by introducing the "private life" of the (post-)Revolution through the "awakening" and transformation of women. This argument is enhanced in the following chapters through the close and comparative analysis of Catalina Guzmán and Emilia Suárez, the respective protagonists of Arráncame la vida and Mal de amores, who embody the "evolution" of Mastretta's feminist perspective . Lavery's insightful reading does not gloss over the inherent contradictions that provide the depth and meat of these characters, but dwells on their ambiguities which, in turn, reflect the author's own: Is Mastretta a radical feminist? Does her writing of the female body draw on a male gaze or offer a woman's perspective of sexuality? Is her vision limited to the privileged of Mexico's elite? Does she propose a transformative model of female agency for negotiating Mexican modernity, or does she yearn for the stasis of a utopian past? Lavery's ability to convincingly answer affirmatively and negatively these and other questions is, in this reader's opinion, the book's greatest strength. Mastretta's prose is shown to be continually dancing back and forth between seemingly antithetical categories. Unfortunately, instead of rejecting the validity of these facile binary oppositions, some phrases in Lavery's own discourse such as "Emilia possess an almost male logical mind" (99), reaffirm these divisions. In demonstrating Mastretta's ambiguous social and political positioning, Lavery holds up the texts she studies against numerous literary subgenres as sounding boards—with uneven results. For example, her comparison of Arráncame la vida with the testimonial novel, and in particular Elena Poniatowska's Hasta no verte Jesús mío (1969), brings to light journalistic and oral qualities common to both works. Mastretta's novel, however, is not based on testimony, and her protagonist-narrator is of the author's invention; an extended reading vis-à-vis Seymour Menton's sometimes arbitrary but useful theorization of the "New Historical Novel," or Carlos Fuentes's almost parallel work, La muerte de Artemio Cruz (1962), would perhaps be more fruitful. Nevertheless, Lavery's multiple cross-genre assessments make manifest the heterogeneous textual fabric of Mastretta's prose, a prose whose mixed registers and discourses, use of pastiche, parody, popular and high culture lead the critic to classify it as "postmodern" and "post-Boom." It is in the employment of these and other labels that Lavery's project at times is problematic. In order to reevaluate Mastretta's texts in relationship with...

Women, Birth and Death in Jewish Law and Practice (review)

Reviewed by: Women, Birth and Death in Jewish Law and Practice Elizabeth Shanks Alexander Women, Birth and Death in Jewish Law and Practice, by Rochelle L. Millen. Hanover: University Press of New England/Brandeis University Press, 2004. 246 pp. $27.50. This book examines how women draw on and engage the Jewish tradition at the tender and momentous occasions when life is given and taken. The author identifies five different domains within which the tradition structures women's experiences of birth and death: 1) in its attitudes towards birth control and conception, 2) in its embrace of childbearing and responses to infertility, 3) in the rituals it supplies for acknowledging the birth of a daughter, 4) in the recitation of kaddish for a deceased parent, child, or sibling, and 5) at the funeral and gravesite of a deceased parent, child, or sibling. Each of these topics forms the rubric for a single chapter, except for the last two topics, which are combined in a single chapter. With a single exception, each chapter follows a standard format in which the author surveys the traditional sources and Orthodox approaches to the topic with a focus on ritual and legal concerns. Having established a so-called "halakhic baseline," the author then reviews the recent developments in the Conservative and Reform movements. Finally, the author analyzes where the traditional frameworks place women on the spectrum between [End Page 166] public and private domains and how they impact women's realization of autonomy and/or subordinate them to community norms. The most successful part of the book, in this reader's opinion, is the survey of traditional sources and their legal interpretation amongst Orthodox decisors that form the core of each chapter. It is here that the author seems most in her element. Her mastery of a vast range of sources from rabbinic to medieval, modern and contemporary responsa is truly breaktaking. Her analysis of the legal issues at stake is also very clear and informative. These sections of the book provide a valuable resource for anyone interested in or researching life cycle events in the history of Judaism. This reader did not find the sections of each chapter in which the author examines the development of the women's participation in the Conservative and Reform movements to be as strong. Too often it seems that the analysis of Reform Judaism consists of the observation that this movement has rejected the binding authority of halakhah, and so the concepts and issues discussed in the earlier part of the chapter are not relevant for Reform Jews (e.g., pp. 38, 139, 143). To put it another way, the analysis of the liberal movements seems to represent their approach to the topics at hand as the function of the movement's ideology. By way of contrast, the diversity and range of legal interpretations present in the Orthodox movement is vividly represented (e.g., pp. 118–133). Another interesting disparity in the treatment of Orthodoxy, on one hand, and the liberal movements on the other hand, can be seen in the author's observation of a gap between the "official line" of the Reform and Conservative movements (e.g., pp. 38, 139) and the practice in these communities. By way of contrast, when the author notes that Orthodox practice does not follow the stated halakhic norms in the case of laws regarding contraception (p. 35), the phenomenon is noted to be a function of applying a different academic lens: sociological vs. theoretical. One wishes that the same nuance of analysis were present in the sections on the liberal movements. This reader also had difficulties with the analysis of the "four polarities" of private/public spheres and community/autonomy. In these sections, the author provides lengthy surveys of the contemporary American feminist discussion of issues such as whether women should work out of the home and whether or not their biology determines social roles. This reader found it difficult to see the connection between these excurses and the individual topics at hand (contraception, celebrations of the birth of a daughter, kaddish and funeral). Greater clarity about the analytic utility of these polarities would have been helpful. Also confusing was...

Distinguishing Hepatic Metastases From Hemangiomas

To determine the relative value of qualitative (reader opinion) and quantitative (values derived from dual echo T2 fast spin echo [FSE]) measures in distinguishing hepatic metastases from hemangiomas. Forty-nine patients with hemangiomas and 23 with metastases were studied with dual echo respiratory-triggered FSE and dynamic 2-dimensional spoiled gradient echo (GRE) imaging. Lesion T2 was estimated from signal intensity ratios on the first and second echoes. Two experienced radiologists independently evaluated groups of images based on 5 separate qualitative measures: first echo FSE, second echo FSE, first and second echo FSE, dynamic GRE, and all images together. The mean calculated T2s were 226 +/- 74 milliseconds for hemangiomas and 105 +/- 22 milliseconds for metastases (P < 0.001). A T2 cutoff of 130 milliseconds distinguished metastases from hemangiomas with a sensitivity of 94%, specificity of 91%, and accuracy of nearly 94%. There was no significant difference between the best quantitative measure and the best qualitative measure for either reader. Liver lesion T2 relaxation times calculated from dual echo FSE images provide information useful in discriminating metastases from hemangiomas, as does reader opinion.

The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology (review)

Reviewed by: The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology Paul B. Harvey Jr. John Anthony McGuckin The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology The Westminster Handbooks to Christian Theology Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004 Pp. xxiii + 367. $39.95. The publisher's aim for the series in which this volume appears is "to assist scholars and students find concise and accurate treatments of important theological terms." The sole author of this Handbook (and of another in the [End Page 548] same series, on Origen [2003]) has a more realistic vision of his audience, i.e., undergraduate and M.A.-level students as well as lay folk. That is, this Handbook (better: a patristics dictionary) is a reliable ready-reference for those lacking specialized knowledge and not well versed in the scholarly literature nor in foreign tongues ancient or modern. Coverage is broad: topics, terminology, and personalities from the late first through the sixth centuries (with a few relevant entries from later eras, e.g., Photius) significant for the study of early Christianity are listed alphabetically. As McGuckin disarmingly notes in his preface, which is an integral component of the volume, this alphabetical arrangement affords easy consultation-provided you know, first, exactly for what you are looking. Therefore, in lieu of an index, the author supplies prefatory thematic guides with entries grouped by century and by topic (e.g., "Eschatology," "Trinity") as well as a complete alphabetical list of the entries. Throughout the book cross-referencing is visually easy through bold-faced, italicized words directing the reader to other pertinent entries. This is a very user-friendly text. One of the author's expressed prefatory expectations is that his Handbook makes for an edifying, even enjoyable book in which to browse. A high-level of accuracy, a coherent, logical format, and a lucid style have, in this reader's opinion, achieved that end. What of the character and quality of the entries? McGuckin is not only an academic and well-published specialist in Early Church and Byzantine Studies; he is also an Orthodox priest. He thus brings a welcome Orthodox perspective to a variety of topics and thereby reminds Anglophone readers of a distinctive theological and ecclesiastical tradition. See, for example, his entries on "Enhypostasia," "Marriage," and "Purgatory." The author is particularly interested in theological topics and religious praxis as is evident in the fine discussions of "Monophysitism," "Prayer," "Soteriology," and "Soul." Several of the longer entries are jewels of carefully crafted and well balanced exposition. Notable here are the entries on "Persecution" (an admirably cautious, historically-nuanced account), "Patristics," "Patrology" (the latter two entries are significant for setting out what the author conceives his subject to be), "Revelation," and "Sexual ethics." Divergent voices in early Christianity are heard. Thus, concise, lucid entries on "Docetic," "Donatism" (where reference to M. A. Tilley's Donatist Martyr Stories, Translated Texts for Historians 24 [Liverpool, 1996] would have been appropriate), "Encratism," and "Montanism" (where we miss the name Tabbernee in the bibliography) make clear what was and was not distinctive in those espousing particular "heretical" views and practices. Major literary personalities receive the expected full treatment, but certain minor individuals are missing. Romanos the Melodist receives brief, authoritative treatment, but Victorinus of Pettau (and what Jerome did with his work) is absent. That particular omission is unfortunate because reference to Victorinus would have bolstered the short essay on eschatology. Each entry receives a concluding bibliography of varying substance; indeed, it is not entirely clear what were the guiding principles for bibliographic citations. Sometimes an entry lists accessible translations and recent, standard scholarship (Paulinus of Nola, for example); but often, as I have suggested above, standard [End Page 549] scholarship is missing. Where, for example, in the entry on John Cassian is Owen Chadwick's justly acclaimed study? Available translations are not consistently listed. These are not minor quibbles in view of the target audience, which will not always know where to find reliable discussion and translations. We would thus have expected to see reference to Michael W. Holmes' fine second edition (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002) of Lightfoot and Harmer's old standard, The Apostolic Fathers (1891). Bart D. Ehrman's new edition and...

Realistic teenage fiction with a sexrelated theme: Readers’ responses to &lt;i&gt;Slinger-slinger&lt;/i&gt; by Francois Bloemhof

Francois Bloemhof submitted his novel for teenagers, “Slinger-slinger” for the Sanlam competition for youth fiction in 1996. Eventually this prizewinner in the beginners’ category was published in 1997. The main theme of “Slinger-slinger” is the sexual awakening and identity of teenagers. A study was undertaken to obtain the opinions of teenage readers about the success of “Slinger-slinger” as a whole, as well as to gauge the success of integrating sexual aspects in this novel. The study also served to obtain information about the reading needs of teenage readers with regard to realistic teenage fiction and teenage fiction with a sex-related theme. The findings of the study underlying this article indicated that the participating teenage readers regarded “Slinger-slinger” as successful and interesting, and that they would like to read more realistic Afrikaans teenage fiction such as “Slinger-slinger”.

Quality in academic text production

The article discusses quality aspects of academic text production in Translation Studies at various levels. The significance of evaluation criteria such as originality, relevance, methodology, clarity, and presentation are discussed from both the author's and the evaluator's point of view. A detailed description of quality standards in academic text production focussing on feedback already available within existing frameworks can support the harmonisation of academic work in Europe and help students and future authors avoid some typical pitfalls. This of course should not rule out the individual opinions of authors and readers and it must also be added that the experience is garnered mostly from German thesis writing.

The Impact of Newspapers on Consumer Confidence: Does Spin Bias Exist?

It is sometimes argued that news reports in the media suffer from biased reporting. Mullainathan and Shleifer (2002) argue that there are two types of media bias. One bias, called ideology, reflects a news outlet's desire to affect reader opinions in a particular direction. The second bias, referred to as spin, reflects the outlet's attempt to simply create a memorable story. Competition between outlets can eliminate the effect of ideological bias, but increases the incentive to spin stories. We examine whether we find some evidence of spin in Dutch newspaper reporting on the state of the economy. If newspapers are indeed able to create memorable stories this should, according to our hypothesis, affect the opinion of readers with respect to the state of the economy. Sentiments about the actual state of the economy could be magnified by spin. As a result, consumer confidence - a variable that routinely measures the opinion on the state of the economy - can be expected to be affected not only by economic fundamentals, but also by the way these fundamentals are reported. We construct a variable that reflects the way consumers perceive economic news reported in newspapers. We find that this variable indeed has a significant impact on consumer confidence, which is short-lived.

O jornalismo como fonte de ensino

A teacher of the public schwl network talks about her teaching experiente developing a project that uses the elaboration of a newspaper as a source of learning how to write spontaneous texts with logical sequences. The children learn how to read the newspaper, to understand its sections and how they are distributed, what an editorial note is, and even the reader's opinion. They discussed themes among each other, created new articles, selected their preferred subjects, and used collage. Aside from learning spontaneous writing, the teacher also worked on notions of newspaper layout and graphic elaboraiion with the children while the Class Newspaper was being put together. The final product was then shown to the other classrooms in the school so they could also see the work that had been done.