Cautionary tales in the interpretation of systematic reviews of therapy trials

This is the second in a series of articles emphasizing the cautions in the interpretation of health-care studies. Systematic reviews are presented as comprehensive, unbiased summaries of evidence and are often referred to by clinicians, guideline developers and health policy-makers. Their strengths and limitations, and how their results can be subject to bias and misinterpretation, are discussed.

De l'espace au temps: des verbes de mouvements aller et venir à leur grammaticalisation en auxiliaires temporels dans quelques langues romanes (français, catalan, espagnol, italien, portugais) et en anglais

De nombreuses langues du monde grammaticalisent les formes lexicales itive (aller) et ventive (venir) en auxiliaires temporels. Si ce fait a été abondamment décrit dans des langues particulières, on ne dispose pas d’une étude contrastive des deux tours, ce que nous proposons d’entreprendre dans la présente communication, sur quelques langues, A partir des premiers constats suivants : - la forme itive est plus fréquemment grammaticalisée que la forme ventive : en anglais p. ex. seul go est grammaticalisé ; - si le plus souvent l’itif s’est grammaticalisé dans l’expression de l’imminence-ultériorité (le train va partir) et le ventif dans celle de la récence (le train vient de partir), ce n’est pas toujours le cas : en catalan, anar + inf. est un prétérit (el tren va marchar : ‘le train est parti’), et actualise donc le procès non comme ultérieur mais comme antérieur ; - certaines langues, comme le français, ont développé sur ces auxiliaires, outre les effets de sens temporel d’imminence-ultériorité pour l’itif et de récence pour le ventif, un effet de sens d’extraordinaire, qui peut être signifié aussi bien par l’un que par l’autre tour (il va pas / vient pas me dire) - l’imminence-ultériorité sur l’itif et la récence sur le ventif souffrent des restrictions temporelles, plus accusées pour le premier : en francais p. ex., aller, dans cet effet de sens, se conjugue aux seuls présent et imparfait (le train va / allait / * irait / *est allé partir) ; venir admet en plus le futur et le conditionnel (le train vient/ venait/viendra/ viendrait/ *est venu de partir). On se propose (i) d’expliciter les différents éléments de l’asymétrie dans la grammaticalisation des deux formes itive et ventive dans les langues retenues (anglais, catalan, espagnol, français, italien, portugais), et (ii) de formuler une hypothèse explicative de ces faits hétérogènes.

The representation of motherhood in contemporary Catalan fiction

This dissertation analyzes four twenty-first-century Catalan novels which present the complex positions occupied by mothers in the last seven decades. Its conceptual framework posits motherhood as both a changing social construction and a political institution in a constant state of flux. In Inma Monsó´s Todo un carácter (2001), Eva Piquer´s Una victoria diferente (2002), Carme Riera´s La mitad del alma (2004), and Najat El Hachmi´s El último patriarca (2008) motherhood is explored as a metaphorical act, a gender-constructing experience, as well as the locus of expression with regard to gender and power relations. During the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939–1975), the majority of women were excluded from public spaces, and forced to stay home to care for their husbands and children. Furthermore, the state criminalized abortion, made contraception and divorce illegal, and promoted an ideal of femininity based on silence, sacrifice, and self-denial. The political changes of the late 1970s allowed women greater personal autonomy, and many women writers began to challenge stereotypical views of women’s social roles. Yet in the 70s and 80s, the narratives of Esther Tusquets, Ana María Moix, and Montserrat Roig represent the mother as a repressive figure whom the daughter must reject in order to liberate herself and regain her voice. It is not until the 90s when the novelists Mercedes Abad, Maruja Torres, Carme Riera, Imma Monsó, Eva Piquer, and María Barbal rehumanize the mother figure, recovering their matrilineal heritage. However, far from suggesting a unified trend in representations of motherhood in Catalan fiction, the diverse points of view of the novels under discussion here reveal that differences in attitudes among women authors about mother-daughter conflict are far from resolved. The theoretical background for this dissertation draws mainly on the work of Adrienne Rich, Nancy Chodorow, and Julia Kristeva. It includes psychoanalytic studies as well as sociologically based essays by Anna López Puig, Amparo Acereda, Jacqueline Cruz, Barbara Zecchi, Ángeles de la Concha, and Raquel Osborne, among others.

História da matemática e teatro nas aulas sobre Teorema de Tales: um script proposto

This study will present the results of an investigation of how the history of mathematics and theater can contribute to the construction of mathematical knowledge of students in the 9th year of elementary school, through the experience, preparation and execution of a play, beyond presentation of the script. This brings a historical approach, defining space and time of events, putting the reader and viewer to do the route in the biography of Thales of Miletus (624-546 a.C), creating situations that led to the study and discussion of the content related to the episode possible to measure the height of the pyramid Khufu and the Theorem of Thales. That said, the pedagogical proposal implemented in this work was based on theoretical and methodological assumptions of the History of Mathematics and Theatre, drawing upon authors such as Mendes (2006), Miguel (1993), Gutierre (2010), Desgrandes (2011), Cabral (2012). Regarding the methodological procedures used qualitative research because it responds to particular issues, analyzing and interpreting the data generated in the research field. As methodological tools we have used participant observation, the questionnaire given to the students, field diary and dissertativos texts produced by students. The processing and analysis of data collected through the questionnaires were organized, classified and quantified in tables and graphs for easy viewing, interpretation, understanding and analysis of data. Data analysis corroborated our hypothesis and contributed to improving the use and display of the play as a motivating activity in mathematics classrooms. Thus, we consider that the script developed, ie the educational product proposed will bring significant contributions to the teaching of Mathematics in Primary Education

Teorema de Tales e suas aplicações

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES

Tales from a small island: applying the ‘path-dependency’ thesis to explore migration to a remote rural community

Peer reviewed

Commodification of health care systems: The Catalan case

Commodification of the public healthcare system has been a growing process in recent decades, especially in universal healthcare systems and in high-income countries like Spain.  There are substantial differences in the healthcare systems of each autonomous region of Spain, among which Catalonia is characterized by having a mixed healthcare system with complex partnerships and interactions between the public and private healthcare sectors.  Using a narrative review approach, this article addresses various aspects of the Catalan healthcare system, characterizing the privatization and commodification of health processes in Catalonia from a historical perspective with particular attention to recent legislative changes and austerity measures.  The article approximates, the eventual effects that commodification and austerity measures will have on the health of the population and on the structure, accessibility, effectiveness, equity and quality of healthcare services.

Wondrous transformations: rereading and rewriting wonder in contemporary anglophone and francophone fairy tales

This thesis compares contemporary anglophone and francophone rewritings of traditional fairy tales for adults. Examining material dating from the 1990s to the present, including novels, novellas, short stories, comics, televisual and filmic adaptations, this thesis argues that while the revisions studied share similar themes and have comparable aims, the methods for inducing wonder (where wonder is defined as the effect produced by the text rather than simply its magical contents) are diametrically opposed, and it is this opposition that characterises the difference between the two types of rewriting. While they all engage with the hybridity of the fairy-tale genre, the anglophone works studied tend to question traditional narratives by keeping the fantasy setting, while francophone works debunk the tales not only in relation to questions of content, but also aesthetics. Through theoretical, historical, and cultural contextualisation, along with close readings of the texts, this thesis aims to demonstrate the existence of this francophone/anglophone divide and to explain how and why the authors in each tradition tend to adopt such different views while rewriting similar material. This division is the guiding thread of the thesis and also functions as a springboard to explore other concepts such as genre hybridity, reader-response, and feminism. The thesis is divided into two parts; the first three chapters work as an in-depth literature review: after examining, in chapters one and two, the historical and contemporary cultural field in which these works were created, chapter three examines theories of fantasy and genre hybridity. The second part of the thesis consists of textual studies and comparisons between francophone and anglophone material and is built on three different approaches. The first (chapter four) looks at selected texts in relation to questions of form, studying the process of world building and world creation enacted when authors combine and rewrite several fairy tales in a single narrative world. The second (chapter five) is a thematic approach which investigates the interactions between femininity, the monstrous, and the wondrous in contemporary tales of animal brides. Finally, chapter six compares rewritings of the tale of ‘Bluebeard’ with a comparison hinged on the representation of the forbidden room and its contents: Bluebeard’s cabinet of wonder is one that he holds sacred, one where he sublimates his wives’ corpses, and it is the catalyst of wonder, terror, and awe. The three contextual chapters and the three text-based studies work towards tracing the tangible existence of the division postulated between francophone and anglophone texts, but also the similarities that exist between the two cultural fields and their roles in the renewal of the fairy-tale genre.