Self-Reported Capabilities Among Young Male Adults in Switzerland: Translation and Psychometric Evaluation of a German, French and Italian Version of a Closed Survey Instrument

There is a shortage of empirical applications of the capability approach that employ closed survey instruments to assess self-reported capabilities. However, for those few instruments that have been designed and administered through surveys until now, no psychometric properties (reliability, validity, and factor structure) were reported. The purpose of this study is the assessment of the psychometric properties of three new language versions (German, French, and Italian) of an established (English) set of eight self-reported capability items. The set of items is taken from a previously published British study by Anand and van Hees (J Soc Econ 35(2):268–284, 2006). Our sample consists of 17,152 young male adults aged 18–25 years from the three major language regions in Switzerland. The results indicate good reliability of the three language versions. The results from the exploratory factor analyses suggest a one-dimensional factor structure for seven domain specific items. Furthermore, the results from multiple regression analyses suggest that a global summary item on overall capabilities represents a measurement alternative to the set of seven domain specific capability items. Finally, the results confirm the applicability of the closed capability instrument in a large scale survey questionnaire and represent the first attempt to measure self-reported capabilities in Switzerland.

New approach to direct stenting using a novel "all-in-one" coronary stent system via 5 French diagnostic catheters: a pilot study

OBJECTIVES We sought to evaluate the strategy success and short term clinical outcomes of direct stenting via 5 French (F) diagnostic catheters using a novel bare metal stent with integrated delivery system (IDS) (Svelte Medical Systems, New Providence, NJ) and compare the results to a conventionally treated matched group. METHODS Fifteen consecutive patients with lesions deemed suitable for direct stenting using a bare metal stent were included. The primary endpoint was the strategy success defined as the ability to successfully treat a target lesion via a 5 F diagnostic catheter with a good angiographic result (TIMI III flow, residual stenosis ≤20%). Procedure and fluoroscopy times, contrast agent use, cost, and short-term clinical outcomes were compared to a matched group treated via conventional stenting. RESULTS The primary endpoint was reached in 14/15 patients (93%). There were no significant differences in procedural (58.6 min ± 12.7 vs. 57.4 min ± 14.2) or fluoroscopy times (10.0 min ± 4.3 vs.10.1 min ± 3.9) or contrast agent use (193.7 ml ± 54.8 vs. 181.4 ml ± 35.6). However, there were significant reductions in materials used in the study group compared to the control group equating to cost savings of almost US $600 per case (US $212.44 ± 258.09 vs. US $804.69 ± 468.11; P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Direct stenting using a novel bare metal stent with an IDS via 5 F diagnostic catheters is a viable alternative to conventional stenting in selected patients and is associated with significant cost savings.

Die Chrétien- und Wolfram-Überlieferung des Perceval-/Parzival-Romans und ihre textkritische Erschließung

This paper discusses the manuscript transmission of Chrétien’s Roman de Perceval ou le Conte du Graal and Wolfram’s Parzival in terms of their textual tradition and editorial criticism. It shows that the most recent edition of the Old French Perceval (K. Busby 1993) can be viewed as a landmark of the art of conventional editing that appeared at the peak of the discussion of ‘New Philology’ and took its own position in this context. At the same time, the Perceval was subject of critical studies based on the principle of ‘unrooted trees’ that questioned the genealogical concept of traditional ‘Lachmannian’ stemmatology. Conversely, a new edition of Wolfram’s Parzival, based on all known manuscripts, remained a desideratum for decades in German studies. Specific research on the textual tradition played a rather marginal role for a long time, but has been reinforced in the recent years in the context of a new critical edition presenting the totality of manuscripts as well as different textual versions in electronic form. The concept of ‘unrooted trees’ visualizing relationships of manuscript readings can be integrated in this concept. The article gives an overview of these methods, presents examples of editorial techniques, and develops ideas on how to combine the research on the manuscript tradition of both the German text and its French counterpart.

Russian language maintenance through bedtime story reading?: Linguistic strategies and language negotiation in Russian-French speaking families in Switzerland

This article proposes an interactional approach to the question of Russian language maintenance through the activity of bedtime story-reading in Russian-French bilingual families in French speaking Switzerland. Reading stories appears to be a language maintenance strategy commonly employed by the Russian speaking parent. The ritual and recreational moment of story-reading therefore becomes an opportunity for language learning. Drawing upon a language socialization perspective, this paper proposes an interactional analysis of the language use in the activity of story-reading. It shows how the language choice of the participants may be requested, negotiated and challenged during the interaction. The analysis further informs us about the language choice pattern and the bilingual competences in these families. We will gain insight into (Russian) language maintenance as a daily social and linguistic practice.

Words, words, words: Philology and Beyond: Festschrift for Andreas Fischer on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday

This Festschrift comprises a series of papers written in honour of the philologist Andreas Fischer, on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday. As in Andreas Fischer s own research, the main focus of the volume is on words: words in modern varieties, such as emergent conjunctions in Australian, American and British English; words in their cultural and historical context, such as English keywords in Old Norse literature; and words in a diachronic perspective, such as Romance suffixation in the history of English. Many contributions are anchored in the philological tradition that has informed much of Andreas Fischer s own scholarship, such as the study of verbal duelling in the late thirteenth-century romance Kyng Alisaunder. Others examine the construction ofdiscourses, such as those surrounding the Black Death. The volume, with its innovative studies,offers fascinating insights into words, discourses,and their contexts, both past and present.

Linkage in narratives: A comparison between monolingual speakers of French and Italian, and early and late French-Italian bilinguals

In the course of language acquisition learners have to deal with the task of producing narrative texts that are coherent across a range of conceptual domains (space, time, entities) -- both within as well as across utterances. The organization of information is analyzed in this study, on the basis of retellings of a silent film, in terms of devices used in the coordination and subordination of events within the narrative sequence. The focus on subordination reflects a core grammatical difference between Italian and French, as Italian is a null-subject language while French is not. The implications of this contrast for information structure include differences in topic management within the sequence of events. The present study investigates in how far Italian-French bilingual speakers acquire the patterns of monolingual speakers of Italian. It compares how early and late bilinguals of these two languages proceed when linking information in narratives in Italian.

Norms on the gender perception of role nouns in Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Slovak

We collected norms on the gender stereotypicality of an extensive list of role nouns in Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Slovak, to be used as a basis for the selection of stimulus materials in future studies. We present a Web-based tool (available at https://www.unifr.ch/lcg/) that we developed to collect these norms and that we expect to be useful for other researchers, as well. In essence, we provide (a) gender stereotypicality norms across a number of languages and (b) a tool to facilitate cross-language as well as cross-cultural comparisons when researchers are interested in the investigation of the impact of stereotypicality on the processing of role nouns.

Index-Oriented Methodologies for Landslide Consequence Analysis: An Application to a Mountain Community in the French Alps

Consequence analysis is a key aspect of anchoring assessment of landslide impacts to present and long-term development planning. Although several approaches have been developed over the last decade, some of them are difficult to apply in practice, mainly because of the lack of valuable data on historical damages or on damage functions. In this paper, two possible consequence indicators based on a combination of descriptors of the exposure of the elements at risk are proposed in order to map the potential impacts of landslides and highlight the most vulnerable areas. The first index maps the physical vulnerability due to landslide; the second index maps both direct damage (physical, structural, functional) and indirect damage (socio-economic impacts) of landslide hazards. The indexes have been computed for the 200 km2 area of the Barcelonnette Basin (South French Alps), and their potential applications are discussed.