Unpublished Papers Research Articles

Asserting Authorial Identity through Stance and Voice: Expert vs. Novice Scientific Writers

Successful scientific writers make use of various lexico-grammatical features to assert their authorial voice in ways that their target audience finds most convincing. While many studies have focused on the use of stance markers in scientific writing, very few have reported on the voice construction of Malaysian scientific writers. To address this, this paper reports a three-way comparative study of stance-taking made by Malaysian scientific writers, their international counterparts as well as novice writers. Analyses were conducted on a 1.2-million-word corpus of 212 published research articles written by local and international writers and 14 unpublished papers by local writers. Using Hyland’s (2005b) taxonomy of authorial stance markers, we found that both Malaysian experts and their international counterparts displayed similar patterns, albeit different approaches to stance-taking. In particular, Malaysian experts were found to prefer boosters the most when establishing their niche, while their international counterparts chose to use first-person plural pronouns and hedges for positioning their results. Novice writers, on the other hand, consistently showed a lack of strategies but tended to take an attitudinal stance in the discussion and conclusion segments. The differences found in novice and expert writers as well as between Malaysian writers and their international counterparts, point towards the complexity of stance-taking and stance-marking in research writing. This study shows that linguistics devices for marking attitudinal commitments towards propositions possibly mark individual aspects of voice and contribute to a broader conception of a writer’s self-representation within a text.

JBI systematic review protocol of text/opinions on how to best collect race-based data in healthcare contexts

IntroductionRacialized population groups have worse health outcomes across the world compared with non-racialized populations. Evidence suggests that collecting race-based data should be done to mitigate racism as a barrier to...

Form, communication, meaning

Abstract An interesting article by Hongbing Yu (Yu, Hongbing. 2019. Meaning generation. Chinese Semiotic Studies 15(3). 429–447) “Meaning generation” led me to reconsider an unpublished paper from 15 years ago on Roman Jakobson’s much-criticized basic communication model, and the functions of language published in the Closing Statement of Style in language (Jakobson, Roman. 1960. Linguistics and poetics. In Thomas Sebeok (ed.), Style in language, 350–377. New York: MIT Press). In this article it is about using the semiotic nonagon operative model, derived from the three Peircean categories, to review Jakobson’s model, and in turn, think about the limits of agency for the production of meaning in relation to three other authors like Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, and Charles S. Peirce himself.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of Virtual Reality-Based Rehabilitation Therapy on Reducing the Degree of Pain Experienced by Individuals with Low Back Pain.

The concept of virtual reality (VR)-based rehabilitation therapy for treating people with low back pain is of growing research interest. However, the effectiveness of such therapy for pain reduction in clinical settings remains controversial. The present study was conducted according to the reporting guidelines presented in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses statement. We searched the PubMed, Embase, CENTRAL, and ProQuest databases for both published and unpublished papers. The Cochrane risk of bias tool (version 2) was used to evaluate the quality of the selected studies. GRADEprofiler software (version 3.6.4) was used to evaluate the level of evidence. We analyzed the included research results using RevMan software (version 5.4.1). We included a total of 11 articles in the systematic review and meta-analysis, with a total of 1761 subjects. Having assessed the quality of these studies, the risk of bias was generally low with high heterogeneity. The results revealed a small to medium effect (standardized mean difference = ±0.37, 95% confidence interval: 0.75 to 0) based on evidence of moderate overall quality. There is evidence that treatment using VR improves patients' pain. The effect size was small to medium, with the studies presenting evidence of moderate overall quality. VR-based treatment can reduce pain; therefore, it may help in rehabilitation therapy.

Education and training for infection prevention and control provided by long-term care homes to family caregivers: a scoping review protocol.

The objective of this review is to map the infection prevention and control education and training that long-term care homes use with families during a pandemic or infectious outbreak. During the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions were imposed on visits to long-term care homes to decrease the risk of virus transmission. These restrictions had negative consequences for both residents and families. A scoping review of infection prevention and control education and training used with families will inform family visitation practices and policies during future infectious outbreaks. This review will examine literature describing infection prevention and control education and training provided to families in long-term care homes. Research and narrative papers, including experimental, quasi-experimental, descriptive observational quantitative and qualitative studies, reviews, text, policy, and opinion papers, will be considered for inclusion. A 3-step approach will be followed, in line with the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. Published literature will be searched for in databases including CINAHL, Embase, ERIC, MEDLINE, and AgeLine. Published and unpublished papers will be considered from 1990 to the present, in English or in French. The World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control, and the Public Health Agency of Canada websites will be searched for unpublished and gray literature. Two authors will independently review and assess studies for inclusion and extract the data. The findings will be charted in a narrative summary and tables.

Telehealth in Occupational Therapy in India

Background: Telehealth was first used in 1998 and refers to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to provide rehabilitation services at a distance. In 2014, the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) acknowledged telehealth as an appropriate service delivery model for occupational therapy (OT) services. The WFOT published a telehealth position statement, which defined telehealth as “the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to deliver health-related services when the provider and the client are in different physical locations.” Objective: The purpose of this review was to analyze the empirical studies on teletherapy in OT over the past 20 years in India and then propose recommendations for future research. This review study was guided by the following research question: What literature exists on telehealth in OT in India? Study Design: A review of literature. Methods: A systematic process was used to search the literature for this review. First, the data sources were identified. The database included Scopus, PubMed, Eric, Emerald, EBSCO, and ScienceDirect, and gray literature (books, unpublished papers, doctoral dissertations, etc.) was done using Google Scholar. Quantitative and qualitative studies were included in the review using Petticrew and Roberts (2006) as the basis. The next step included criteria for assessing the quality of the studies. The search keyword strings were “occupational-therapy” AND “teletherapy,” OR “tele rehabilitation,” OR “telehealth,” OR “virtual-therapy,” OR “online-therapy,” OR “teleconsultation” AND “India,” which appeared in the title, abstract, or keyword fields. The third step included data interpretation and analysis findings. The publication descriptor data were summarized after critical appraisal, study period, research theme, and research method. Certain criteria were followed to select the studies like, only full text journal articles available in English, studies that were produced from January 2001 to December 2021. Recurring themes were identified from the empirical research. Results: We went through all the databases (PubMed, Scopus, Eric, Emerald, EBSCO, Science Direct, and APA Psycinfo) where the total number of identified articles from the searches of these databases was 2260. Duplicate references were removed. We further excluded articles by reading the title, abstracts, and complete articles of the study. The final number of articles in the analysis was five. Conclusion: This study helped to identify the gaps with the intent to inform practice, policy, and future research by comprehensively synthesizing evidence to map a broad, complex, or emerging field of telehealth in OT.

ELITE FACTOR AND ELECTORAL CHOICE OF CANDIDATES IN NIGERIA: A STUDY OF PARTY PRIMARIES FOR THE 2023 GENERAL ELECTION

Election in modern liberal democracy remains an important element that guarantees citizens’ right to political participation either as aspirants/candidates or as electorates. The emergence of candidates of political parties preparatory to the general election is a function of the party primary. It is at this stage of the electoral competition that unpopular candidates resort to manipulation of the processes in order to clinch the ticket. The paper, therefore, examines the factor of the elite in the conduct of primaries for the 2023 elections in Nigeria. The paper relied on secondary and primary sources and collected data from related secondary documents such as; articles in journals, newspapers, unpublished papers, INEC official documents, etc. The primary source includes raw data in its original form through interview methods/verbal discussions with relevant stakeholders in the field on one-to-one interviews and small group discussions. Findings in the paper revealed among others that, the Political elites whose children aspired to inherit them in the primaries for the 2023 election cut across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria with many of them “selected” as party candidates at various levels. The paper recommended among others strict enforcement of sanctions on violators as provided in the electoral act 2022.

Predictive validity of integrity tests for workplace deviance across industries and countries in the past 50 years: A meta-analytic review

The current meta-analysis provides a comprehensive and updated review on integrity-testing findings across industries and countries in the past 50 years (k = 150, N = 67,016). Integrity tests were coded into the types of overt tests, covert tests, biodata, organizational measures, value/moral reasoning/situational judgment tests, integrity-related cognitive ability tests, and novel measures. The criterion measures of workplace deviance included CWBs, unethical pro-organizational behaviors, and other workplace deviant behaviors. For the information source, both computer and manual searches were performed to locate relevant published and unpublished papers. A variety of sources were examined to avoid publication bias, and publication bias analyses were conducted to uphold the methodological rigor. Results indicated that all the integrity tests analyzed were significant in predicting workplace deviance, with an overall mean validity estimate corrected for indirect range restriction and measurement error as .43 (95% CI [.32; .52]; p < .001). Among the tests, the value-oriented tests and cognitive ability tests indicated relatively large validity estimates of .60 (95% CI [.41; .75]; p < .001) and .65 (95% CI [.53; .74]; p < .001), respectively. The relationship between integrity tests and workplace deviance was found to be significantly moderated by the type of integrity test, industry, country, and criterion source. The effect size of integrity tests was largest in predicting deviance in the military and law enforcement sector, and relatively large in the work samples of Canada, Germany, Israel, Romania, and the United States. However, the moderating effects of the nature of deviance, validation sample, validation strategy, publication status, medium of test, and gender, were nonsignificant. Compared with previous reviews, our study was unique in its cross-cultural direction, which included primary studies of integrity testing in countries with different languages (e.g., publications in Chinese) and associated cultural variations. New insights and comparisons with previous meta-analytic findings were discussed.

Эпическая традиция Кенозерья: фактор женского исполнения эпоса

This paper attempts to analyze the changes in the Kenozero epic tradition that marked the acceleration of its degradation and of its disappearance in the 19th and 20th centuries. One of these changes was the increasing female involvement in the performance of the epos (byliny). The female performance of the byliny and its specific attributes are reflected in the field data and in the repertoire. In this study, I analyze the materials that were obtained by P. N. Rybnikov and A. F. Gilferding, who were the first to collect and study the folklore of the Olonetz region in the 19th century. I also use the materials that were gathered in expeditions undertaken in the early 1920’s and in the late 1950’s and the texts that are included in the volume of the Kenozero byliny of the Svod russkogo folklora (Code of Russian folklore) series, which is presently awaiting publication. I also discuss Yurii Novikov’s unpublished paper on the epic tradition of the Kenozero region. The results of this study demonstrate the ambivalent impact of female performance on the preservation of the Kenozero epic tradition: although the tradition is maintained, it shows signs of decline.

ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF PGPR TRAITS FROM SOIL SAMPLES OF THE SAURASHTRA REGION

Indian Journal of Scientific Research(IJSR):Calls for Unique, Unpublished research papers in Botany, Zoology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Medical Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Natural Sciences Technological Sciences and any other branch of related sciences

STUDY OF A NONUNIFORMLY HEATING VISCOELASTIC FLUID IN TWO DIMENSIONS OVER A SLIPPING STRETCHING SHEET

Indian Journal of Scientific Research(IJSR):Calls for Unique, Unpublished research papers in Botany, Zoology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Medical Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Natural Sciences Technological Sciences and any other branch of related sciences

LOCAL AUTHORITIES’ PERFORMANCE IN ZIMBABWE-A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

There has been a global uproar recently as local authority service delivery has fallen short of ratepayer expectations, despite the fact that local authority performance, particularly service delivery, is seen as a major motivator of nations towards global sustainability and competitiveness. The current study was therefore founded on the requirement to reduce the gap between ratepayers’ expectations and the performance of the corresponding local authorities in Zimbabwe. For this investigation, we used the search engines Scopus, Google Scholar and Web of Science (WoS). The review took into account empirical studies up until June 2022. Because the emphasis was on the performance of local governments, the initial search used variants of the terms ‘efficiency,’ ‘performance assessment,’ ‘local government,’ and ‘local authority.’ The databases produced more than 250 books, articles, and unpublished research papers when these keywords were used. We disregarded conference presentations and dissertations to reduce the overall number of results. The results were then qualitatively screened to make sure they answered the research topic. We ultimately collected 78 studies. The review provides a contextualized view of earlier research in discourses, techniques, and frameworks that draw attention to the difficulties local authorities have in performing their functions, with a focus on service delivery and strategic growth toward sustainable futures. As we go on with our empirical inquiry, the systematic review technique has been a helpful organised way to provide a preliminary source of knowledge in local authority performance assessment and more generally. Future research has a number of prospective directions that have been identified.

Protocol for a scoping review of potential vaccine candidates predicted by VaxiJen for different viral pathogens between 2017–2021

BackgroundVaccination is essential for the prevention of infectious diseases and has helped to reduce disease-related mortality, such as pneumonia. However, traditional vaccine development is time-consuming and risky. Reverse vaccinology (RV) is a promising alternative to developing vaccines based on the in silico discovery of antigens, often termed ‘potential vaccine candidates’ (PVCs), using a pathogen’s proteome. RV prediction technologies, such as VaxiJen (founded in 2007), are used to take the first step toward vaccine development. VaxiJen is used by researchers to identify PVCs for various diseases. A 10-year review of these PVCs was published in 2017. There has since been no review of viral PVCs predicted by VaxiJen from 2017 to 2021. The proposed scoping review aims to address this gap.MethodsThis protocol is reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 checklist. The review will employ Arksey and O’Malley’s five-stage methodological framework, which was later enhanced by Levac et al. and the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI). The PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) reporting guideline will be utilized with this framework. PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCOhost, and ProQuest One Academic will be searched using the term ‘vaxijen’. The inclusion criteria will be English-only full-text original articles published in peer-reviewed journals and unpublished papers from 2017 to 2021. Rayyan will be used to deduplicate, screen titles and abstracts of articles. The articles’ full texts will be examined. The data will be extracted using Microsoft Excel. Using a data charting form, data will be sifted and organized by key categories and themes.DiscussionThis protocol was submitted for publication and went through an extensive peer review process. The review has implications for novel vaccine development against various viruses. The key limitation of this study is language bias due to the selection of English-only papers because of limited resources. This study will not require ethical clearance since it will use secondary data and will not include patients. Nevertheless, this research is part of a larger project that was submitted for ethical consideration to the Biomedical Research Ethics Committee of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. This study’s findings will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and provided to relevant stakeholders.Systematic review registrationOpen Science Framework (OSF): https://osf.io/ht8wr

Fighting for Time: Rhodesia’s Military and Zimbabwe’s Independence by Charles D. Melson

<i>Fighting for Time: Rhodesia’s Military and Zimbabwe’s Independence</i> by Charles D. Melson

The Early Reception of the Phillips Curve in the United Kingdom: New Evidence from the Papers of the Council on Prices, Productivity, and Incomes

As shown in a 2018 article by Cristiano and Paesani, the element of Phillips's 1958 article that immediately obtained attention in the policy debate was the estimate of the unemployment rate compatible with price stability. Building on this previous work and based on the unpublished papers of the Council on Prices, Productivity, and Incomes and other published sources, the present article throws fresh light on why the curve paper failed to influence policymaking. At least two reasons may account for this. First, by the late 1950s and early 1960s, works based on inferential statistics still failed to obtain widespread attention among professional economists in the United Kingdom. Second, Phillips's 1958 article came at the beginning of a process that led to the abandonment, for some time at least, of the idea of buying price stability at the cost of increasing the unemployment rate.

Bauman: A Biography

Bauman: A Biography

Prevalence and incidence of carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae colonization: systematic review and meta-analysis

BackgroundKlebsiella pneumoniae is a gram-negative rod belonging to the order Enterobacterales and having a wide distribution in the environment, including the human colon. Recently, the bacterium is one of the known problems in the healthcare setting as it has become resistant to last-resort drugs like carbapenems. The colonized person can serve as a reservoir for his/herself and others, especially in the healthcare setting leading to nosocomial and opportunistic infections. Therefore, we aimed to quantitatively estimate the rate of prevalence and incidence of colonization with carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae.MethodsA literature search was conducted on PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Cochrane Library, WHO Index Medicus, and university databases. The study includes all published and unpublished papers that addressed the prevalence or incidence of K. pneumoniae colonization. Data were extracted onto format in Microsoft Excel and pooled estimates with a 95% confidence interval calculated using Der-Simonian-Laird random-effects model. With the use of I2 statistics and prediction intervals, the level of heterogeneity was displayed. Egger’s tests and funnel plots of standard error were used to demonstrate the publication bias.ResultsA total of 35 studies were included in the review and 32 records with 37,661 patients for assessment of prevalence, while ten studies with 3643 patients for incidence of colonization. The prevalence of carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae colonization varies by location and ranges from 0.13 to 22%, with a pooled prevalence of 5.43%. (3.73–7.42). Whereas the incidence of colonization ranges from 2 to 73% with a pooled incidence of 22.3% (CI 12.74–31.87), both prevalence and incidence reports are majorly from developed countries. There was a variation in the distribution of carbapenem resistance genes among colonizing isolates with KPC as a prominent gene reported from many studies and NDM being reported mainly by studies from Asian countries. A univariate meta-regression analysis indicated continent, patient type, study design, and admission ward do not affect the heterogeneity (p value>0.05).ConclusionThe review revealed that colonization with K. pneumoniae is higher in a healthcare setting with variable distribution in different localities, and resistance genes for carbapenem drugs also have unstable distribution in different geographic areas.

The Relationship between Maternal Metabolic Variables and Gestational Diabetes in Bangladesh: A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) causes hyperglycemia throughout pregnancy. Overweight/obesity, westernized food, nutritional inadequacies, advanced maternal age, and family history of insulin resistance and/or diabetes are risk factors. GDM normally resolves after birth, but it may have long-term health implications, including an increased risk for T2DM and CVD in the mother and obesity, CVD, T2DM, and/or GDM in the child. This creates a vicious cycle of obesity and diabetes that harms the community's health. Pregnancy serves as a natural "stress test" for the body, hence it's frequently called a "window" into future health. In Bangladesh, GDM studies focus on awareness, risk factors, etc., but not maternal metabolic characteristics. Methods: This meta-analysis was done. Online database searches on Cumulative Index to NCBI, PubMed, Google scholar, and Bangladesh Journals Online, as well as manual searches of potentially relevant references in review articles, were utilized to locate acceptable research. 3,824 citations were found. 3,252 abstracts/titles were discarded, leaving 176 for full- text analysis. Another 127 were deleted, leaving 49 electronic studies. No unpublished conference papers met our inclusion criteria. Final Systematic review includes 12 publications. Results: Significant association was found between BMI, HbA1c, Hormone level, CRP. However, no association was found among lipid profile. But association was found betwen TG and LDL-C with GDM. Conclusion: The meta-analysis suggests that early pregnancy screening of a cluster of metabolic variables may help detect and treat individual risk factors for gestational diabetes. Given the number and quality of included studies, further, better and larger research is needed to corroborate these conclusions.

Hannah Claire Haines, 1891–1974: Not the Average “Militant Female”

Hannah Claire Haines, 1891–1974: Not the Average “Militant Female”

Pandemic management, citizens and the Indian Smart cities: Reflections from the right to the smart city and the digital divide

The technologically endowed Smart Cities take credit for managing the COVID-19 pandemic more effectively than other urban centers. However, Indian smart cities seemed unprepared for the outbreak, with reported highest cases of death and positivity rates. Thus, it becomes essential to understand why these smart cities could not handle the pandemic despite their technologically advanced infrastructures and the citizen’s role in managing it. This paper analyzes the impact of the Smart City Mission (SCM) interventions from a citizen-centric perspective and its influence on pandemic management and citizen inclusivity. The study draws from the right to the smart city framework along with stages of the digital divide. The study conducted a content analysis using secondary sources like published and unpublished papers, policy reports, and news analyses spanning the timeline of 2015-2022. The analysis infers that the lack of initiatives to link marginalized citizens with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) through the SCM policy led to the underutilization of the various initiatives launched during the pandemic, deepening the digital divide. The deduction from the analysis highlights that the ‘chatur citizens’ act as a solution by transitioning their formal access to ICTs into effective access enabling the marginalized communities to bridge the divide.