Riesgo asociado a la cirugía cardíaca mayor en pacientes octogenarios : una revisión sistemática de la literatura.

Introducción: La enfermedad cardiovascular es la principal causa de muerte a nivel mundial, afectando principalmente la salud pública de países pobres con economías emergentes. La transición epidemiológica en Colombia ha incrementado la proporción de pacientes ancianos con enfermedad cardiovascular y que requieren cirugía cardíaca. Sin embargo, no existe consenso sobre la conducta para la selección de pacientes añosos para este tipo de intervenciones. El objetivo de este estudio fue definir el riesgo mortalidad asociado a cirugía cardíaca en este grupo de pacientes, basados en una revisión sistemática de la literatura. Materiales y Métodos: Se diseñó una revisión sistemática empleando las plataformas PubMed (Medline), EBSCO Discovery Service, Ovid SP-EBMR, Sciverse y MDConsult. Los términos de búsqueda fueron “Aged”, “Cardiac surgery” and “Mortality”, conjugados de acuerdo con el lenguaje de cada buscador. Las publicaciones fueron seleccionadas por consenso. Los resultados se analizaron en un modelo de Mantel-Haenszel. Resultados: La búsqueda arrojó un total de 8.565 publicaciones. Los datos analizados en el modelo incluyeron 81.547 pacientes (7.855 octogenarios y 73.692 más jóvenes). El riesgo de mortalidad asociado a cirugía cardíaca en octogenarios fue de 125% (OR=2,35, IC 95% [2,15 - 2,57]). Discusión: El sometimiento de pacientes octogenarios a cirugías cardíacas mayores es una decisión que requiere un juicio clínico minucioso en el que es importante destacar que la probabilidad de un resultado francamente desfavorable es alta. Se necesitan más estudios diseñados que permitan aumentar la solidez de la evidencia actual en cuanto al riesgo aquí encontrado.

How do inequality affect tax morale in Latin America and Caribbean?

Latin America is well known as an inequitable region. As it is recognized, inequality and corruption perception weaken the way that political institutions works and the democratic system. Focusing on Latin American and Caribbean countries, this paper analyzes what are the elements shaping tax morale. In particular, how the context influences ethical grounds decisions such as the predisposition to pay taxes is analyzed, using the survey carried out in 2005 by Latinobarometro. The objective is to analyze how country performance determines tax morale. To do so, four probitmodels are estimated using Gini index, Transparency International Corruption Perception Index and Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPpc) as explanatory variables. As expected we found that some socio-demographic variables play a relevant role. Interestingly, we also found that, in this attitude, LAC countries do not register a gender bias. However, those are not our main contributions to the literature on the field. The most important results are linked to: 1) the levelmatters, GDPpc increases the probability of people having tax morale, 2) moreover, income distributionalso influence on tax morale but in opposite direction and 3) corruption perception also reduces tax morale. Those results show that the quality of institutions matters and therefore, the way that democracy works play a relevant role.

Postcolonial language : rejection and subversion

Postcolonial literature is often depicted as a form of cultural translation, a privileged space from which to rewrite history and retroactively reflect upon the colonial experience. Based on this notion of cultural translation, the article seeks to examine, respectively, Aimé Césaire’s Une Tempête (1969) and J. M. Coetzee’s Foe (1986) as regards the “written-back” characters Caliban and Friday. Both characters will be compared and contrasted concerning their peculiar use of language as an instrument of power, subversion, and rejection of the European ruling.

Literature guide for parents of preschoolers

This paper examines the need for a literature guide for parents of hearing-impaired preschoolers. It includes a number of literature-based activities to help parents develop and improve their children’s language and literacy skills.

Investigation and literature review of unilateral hearing loss

Literature and research were gathered and analyzed to determine the impact UHL has on a child’s education, speech and language development. The effects of early intervention and amplification were also analyzed.

Resources for non-english speaking parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing and learning english as their primary language

This study examined culturally and linguistically diverse families with deaf and hard of hearing children. A literature review consisted of looking at the rate of immigration to the United States, English speaking parents of children who are deaf and hard of hearing, bilingual education, and the obstacles bilingual parents of children who are deaf and hard of hearing may face. The data obtained was used to compile a list of resources for parents of children who are deaf and hard of hearing available in languages other than English in order to assist these families.

Investigation of language and motor skills in Serbian speaking children with specific language impairment and in typically developing children

Specific language impairment (SLI) is usually defined as a developmental language disorder which does not result from a hearing loss, autism, neurological and emotional difficulties, severe social deprivation, low non-verbal abilities. Children affected with SLI typically have difficulties with the acquisition of different aspects of language and by definition, their impairment is specific to language and no other skills are affected. However, there has been a growing body of literature to suggest that children with SLI also have non-linguistic deficits, including impaired motor abilities. The aim of the current study is to investigate language and motor abilities of a group of thirty children with SLI (aged between 4 and 7) in comparison to a group of 30 typically developing children matched for chronological age. The results showed that the group of children with SLI had significantly more difficulties on the language and motor assessments compared to the control group. The SLI group also showed delayed onset in the development of all motor skills under investigation in comparison to the typically developing group. More interestingly, the two groups differed with respect to which language abilities were correlated with motor abilities, however Imitation of Complex Movements was the unique skill which reliably predicted expressive vocabulary in both typically developing children and in children with SLI.

Research review: reading comprehension in developmental disorders of language and communication

Background: Deficits in reading airment (SLI), Down syndrome (DS) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Methods: In this review (based on a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge database to 2011), the Simple View of Reading is used as a framework for considering reading comprehension in these groups. Conclusions: There is substantial evidence for reading comprehension impairments in SLI and growing evidence that weaknesses in this domain are common in DS and ASD. Further, in these groups reading comprehension is typically more impaired than word recognition. However, there is also evidence that some children and adolescents with DS, ASD and a history of SLI develop reading comprehension and word recognition skills at or above the age appropriate level. This review of the literature indicates that factors including word recognition, oral language, nonverbal ability and working memory may explain reading comprehension difficulties in SLI, DS and ASD. In addition, it highlights methodological issues, implications of poor reading comprehension and fruitful areas for future research.

L2 performance and context of language learning: a comparative study of learners in Tehran and London

The importance of learning context has stirred debates in the field of second language acquisition over the past two decades since studying a second language (L2) abroad is believed to provide authentic opportunities that facilitate L2 acquisition and development. The present paper examines whether language performance of learners studying English in a formal language classroom context at home (AH) is different from performance of learners who study English abroad (SA) where they would have to use English for a range of communicative purposes. The data for this comparative study is part of a larger corpus of L2 performance of 100 learners of English, 60 in Tehran and 40 in London, on four oral narrative tasks. The two groups’ performances are compared on a range of different measures of fluency, accuracy, syntactic complexity and lexical diversity. The results of the analyses indicate that learners in the two contexts are very similar with respect to the grammatical accuracy and aspects of the oral fluency of their performance. However, the SA group appears to have benefited from living and studying abroad in producing language of higher syntactic complexity and lexical diversity. These results have significant implications for language teaching in AH contexts.

Why all counter-evidence to the critical period hypothesis in second language acquisition is not equal or problematic

That adult and child language acquisitions differ in route and outcome is observable. Notwithstanding, there is controversy as to what this observation means for the Critical Period Hypothesis’ (CPH) application to adult second language acquisition (SLA). As most versions of the CPH applied to SLA claim that differences result from maturational effects on in-born linguistic mechanisms, the CPH has many implications that are amendable to empirical investigation. To date, there is no shortage of literature claiming that the CPH applies or does not apply to normal adult SLA. Herein, I provide an epistemological discussion on the conceptual usefulness of the CPH in SLA (cf. Singleton 2005) coupled with a review of Long's (2005) evaluation of much available relevant research. Crucially, I review studies that Long did not consider and conclude differently that there is no critical/sensitive period for L2 syntactic and semantic acquisition.