Measuring the outcomes of long-term care

How should we measure the value of long-term (social) care? This paper describes a care-related quality of life instrument (ASCOT) and considers aspects of its validity. In particular the aim is to assess whether ASCOT is better suited to measuring the impact of long-term care services than the EQ5D health-related quality of life measure. Long-term care services tend to be more concerned with addressing the day-to-day consequences of long-term conditions. As such, a quality of life measure should not be overly focused on the potential impact of services on personal ability and should instead consider how services directly help people to function in everyday life. Construct validity was judged by assessing the degree to which measured quality of life improvement was consistent with the theorised positive correlation between quality of life and the use of home care services. In a 2008/9 sample of people using care services in England, we found that the impact of service use was significant when measured by ASCOT, but not significant when using EQ5D. The results support our hypothesis that ASCOT has greater construct validity in this case.     

现代医学视角下的人文精神

在现代医学模式下,对医务工作者的人文素质提出了更高的要求。如今医疗保健的客观现实,医疗活动中人文精神严重缺失不能不令人担忧。在人文的视角下审视医学的本质和价值,正确处理客观性、真理性与主观世界的关系,尤其是医务工作者对人文精神在现代医学中的作用引起重视。     

英语词汇的应用技巧

正确使用英语词汇对跨文化交际具有重大的实际意义.然而汉语和英语之间在语言构成和文化习俗上的本质的区别导致了词义表达上的不同.因此英语学习者要想达到用英语顺利交流的目的,必须克服这些障碍.重点介绍英语词汇方面应当注意的一些问题.     

青少年英语学习焦虑的年级差异及发展轨迹

目的考察青少年英语学习焦虑的年级差异及发展轨迹,了解随年龄增长青少年焦虑的发展特点及变化规律。方法采用英语学习焦虑问卷,对陕西10个不同年级的756名青少年进行调查。结果①不同年级青少年英语学习焦虑总分（F=3．71,P=0．000）及担心（F=4．16,P=0．000）、紧张不安（F=3．22,P=0．001）、害怕说英语（F=3．24,P=0．001）和害怕课堂提问（F=1．99,P=0．038）因子分均存在显著差异,初二学生焦虑总分及担心因子分高于大四学生（P〈0．05）,初二学生紧张不安因子分高于大一、大二学生（P〈0．05）;②随年龄的增长,青少年焦虑总体呈下降趋势（3．34～2．59）,但焦虑总分及4个因子分发展轨迹存在一定差异。结论英语学习焦虑存在年级差异并呈下降趋势,应以其发展特点及轨迹为依据,制定英语教育相关政策,促进青少年焦虑情绪的健康发展。,     

Changes of anxiety in Chinese military personnels over time: a cross-temporal meta-analysis

Background

Schizotypal personality traits are associated with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, stating that schizotypal traits may represent a “prodrome” or other developmental precursor of schizophrenia. Genetic and environmental factors both play importanxt roles in the development of schizotypal traits. Different levels of schizotypal traits across regions may be indicative of similar differences in the incidence of schizophrenia.

Aim

The present study identifying where in a given region, schizotypal personality traits are more or less level of schizotypal personality scores in Chinese male youth of Sichuan province. Not only for research purposes but also for the evaluation of new draft and allocation policy initiatives intended to aid recruitment of mental health employees.

Methods

Data from the Psychological Selection Systems for Chinese Recruits, a mental health screening system used in China, collected in 2011 (67,558 copies) were used to map spatial distribution of schizotypal personality traits using geostatistics and geographic information system (GIS) techniques. Correlation analyses were conducted to explore the effects of years of education and illiterate rate on schizotypal personality traits.

Results

Maps for three schizotypal personality clinical scales (dissociative, Dit; neurotic, Net and sensitive, Set) showed similar geographical trends. The highest T scores were distributed mainly in the eastern and northern counties of Sichuan, with scores decreasing successively from east to west, with the eastern counties generally showing higher scores. Correlation analysis showed that t-scores of Set were negatively correlated with years of education, whereas t-scores of Net were negatively correlated with illiteracy rate.

Conclusions

Schizotypal personality traits in male youth showed specific geographical trends in Sichuan province, providing some evidence that kriging based on GIS can be used to geographically localize genetic and environmental factors associated with schizotypal personality traits. This approach could be used to help allocate public health resources to specific areas and could also have personnel selection applications.     

浅谈中医英译

中医药学理论深奥,医学术语内涵丰富,翻译难度比较大.在此,笔者谈几点对中医英译的看法.     

Topic shift impairs pronoun resolution during sentence comprehension: Evidence from event‐related potentials

This study investigated how topic shift and topic continuation influence pronoun interpretation in Chinese. ERPs recorded on pronouns in topic structure showed stronger and earlier late positive responses (P600) for the topic‐shift than for the topic‐continuation conditions. However, in nontopic structure where the subject (denoting only subjecthood), rather than the topic (denoting both topichood and subjecthood), acted as the antecedent of the pronoun, almost indistinguishable P600 responses were obtained on the pronoun regardless of whether it was referring to the subject (i.e., subject continuation) or the object (i.e., subject shift). Moreover, stronger and earlier P600 responses were elicited by pronouns in the topic‐shift than in the subject‐shift conditions, although there was no difference between the topic‐continuation and the subject‐continuation conditions. These findings suggest that topic shift results in greater difficulty in the resolution stage of referential processing, although the bonding process is not sensitive to the manipulation of topic status, and that topic has a privileged cognitive status relative to other nontopic entities (e.g., subject) in real‐time language processing.