| 1. |
- Backman, Helena, et al.
(författare)
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Lung function trajectories and associated mortality among adults with and without airway obstruction
- 2023
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Ingår i: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. - : American Thoracic Society. - 1073-449X .- 1535-4970. ; 208:10, s. 1063-1074
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Rationale: Spirometry is essential for diagnosis and assessment of prognosis in COPD.Objectives: To identify FEV1 trajectories and their determinants, based on annual spirometry measurements among individuals with and without airway obstruction. Furthermore, to assess mortality in relation to trajectories.Methods: In 2002-04, individuals with airway obstruction (AO) (FEV1/VC<0.70, n=993) and age- and sex-matched non-obstructive (NO) referents were recruited from population-based cohorts. Annual spirometries until 2014 were utilized in joint-survival Latent Class Mixed Models to identify lung function trajectories. Mortality data were collected during 15 years of follow-up.Results: Three trajectories were identified among the AO-cases and two among the NO referents. Trajectory membership was driven by baseline FEV1%predicted (%pred) in both groups and additionaly, pack-years in AO and current smoking in NO. Longitudinal FEV1%pred level depended on baseline FEV1%pred, pack-years and obesity. The trajectories were distributed: 79.6% T1AO FEV1-high with normal decline, 12.8% T2AO FEV1-high with rapid decline, and 7.7% T3AO FEV1-low with normal decline (mean 27, 72 and 26 mL/year) among AO-individuals, and 96.7% T1NO FEV1-high with normal decline and 3.3% T2NO FEV1-high with rapid decline (mean 34 and 173 mL/year) among referents. Hazard for death was increased for T2AO (HR1.56) and T3AO (HR3.45) vs. T1AO, and for T2NO (HR2.99) vs. T1NO.Conclusions: Three different FEV1 trajectories were identified among those with airway obstruction and two among the referents, with different outcomes in terms of FEV1-decline and mortality. The FEV1 trajectories among airway obstructive and the relationship between low FVC and trajectory outcome are of particular clinical interest.
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| 2. |
- Bernander, Rasmus, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Post-Verbal Negative Particles in Southern Tanzania: Form, Distribution and Historical Development
- 2022
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Ingår i: Africana Linguistica. - 2033-8732 .- 2034-8436. ; 28, s. 55-113
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper examines the presence, distribution and historical development of post‑verbal negative particles in a sample of Bantu languages found in Southern Tanzania. It focuses on 12 language varieties found in this area which employ post‑verbal negative particles, including an apparent “outlier” in Matengo which employs a pre‑verbal negative particle. The paper also draws on comparative data from some 20 additional languages spoken in the direct vicinity. We show that there is a high level of variation in the negative forms used, but, at the same time, a preponderance of the use of post‑verbal negative particles as the primary strategy for encoding standard negation. We explore both standard negation and non‑standard negation, including non‑declarative and non‑main clause contexts, as well as instances of non‑verbal predication and copula clauses. The use of these forms as negative replies or interjections is also examined. In exploring etymologies we find sources of the post‑verbal particles in negative replies, reflects of *‑tʊ́pʊ́ ‘only, in vain’, content interrogatives and the negative verb ‑lepa. We also discuss contact as a possible explanation for the prevalence of this negative strategy in the region.
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| 3. |
- Black, Melissa H., et al.
(författare)
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Multi-informant International Perspectives on the Facilitators and Barriers to Employment for Autistic Adults
- 2020
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Ingår i: Autism Research. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1939-3792 .- 1939-3806. ; 13:7, s. 1195-1214
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Employment rates for autistic individuals are poor, even compared to those from other disability groups. Internationally, there remains limited understanding of the factors influencing employment across the stages of preparing for, gaining, and maintaining employment. This is the third in a series of studies conducted as part of an International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) policy brief intended to improve employment outcomes for autistic individuals. A multi-informant international survey with five key stakeholder groups, including autistic individuals, their families, employers, service providers, and researchers, was undertaken in Australia, Sweden, and the United States to understand the facilitators and barriers to employment for autistic adults. A total of 687 individuals participated, including autistic individuals (n = 246), family members (n = 233), employers (n = 35), clinicians/service providers (n = 123), and researchers (n = 50). Perceptions of the facilitators and barriers to employment differed significantly across both key stakeholder groups and countries, however, ensuring a good job match and focusing on strengths were identified by all groups as important for success. Key barriers to employment included stigma, a lack of understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and communication difficulties. Results suggest that a holistic approach to employment for autistic individuals is required, aimed at facilitating communication between key stakeholders, addressing attitudes and understanding of ASD in the workplace, using strength-based approaches and providing early work experience. LAY SUMMARY: Autistic individuals experience significant difficulty getting and keeping a job. This article presents a survey study involving autistic individuals, their families, employers, service providers and researchers in Australia, Sweden, and the United States to understand their perspectives on the factors that support or act as barriers to employment. While perspectives varied across key stakeholders, strategies such as using a holistic approach, targeting workplace attitudes and understanding, focusing on strengths, and providing early work experience are important for success.
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| 4. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967, et al.
(författare)
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Paradisets språkliga rötter
- 2022
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Ingår i: Språktidningen. - 1654-5028. ; :2, s. 56-62
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Om swahili och hur Abdulrazak Gurnah använder språket i boken Paradiset
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| 5. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967, et al.
(författare)
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Preparing a corpus of spoken Xhosa
- 2023
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the 2023 CLASP Conference on Learning with Small Data (LSD), Gothenburg and online 11–12 September 2023. - Gothenburg, Sweden : Association for Computational Linguistics. - 2002-9764. - 9798891760004
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)
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| 6. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967
(författare)
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The existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness : The existential copula in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness
- 2020
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Ingår i: Studies in African Linguistics. - : University of Florida George A Smathers Libraries. - 0039-3533 .- 2154-428X. ; 49:2, s. 213-239
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Bare nouns in languages without articles can be semantically ambiguous between definite and indefinite interpretations. It is assumed here that speakers of such languages can still signal to the hearer when such nouns refer to unique and identifiable referents. This paper contributes to the long-standing cross-linguistic question of how bare nouns are interpreted and what means languages without articles have to disambiguate between definite and indefinite readings. This question is largely unexplored for Bantu languages. The answer is sought in the use of different word orders and morphosyntactic constructions, with a focus on the existential, in this paper. In many languages of the world, there is a restriction on definites as pivots in existential constructions, which serves as a motivation for exploring these constructions in Xhosa. Xhosa makes use of a non-verbal copula -kho(na) in prototypical existentials as well as in presentationals. The combination of a long and a short version of the copula, together with a choice between expletive and subject agreement, gives rise to four different forms which express the existence or presence of a referent. The aim of this paper is to answer the question of how these different forms map onto a difference in meaning and function, based on examples from a corpus of natural speech and checked in follow-up elicitation. It is shown that Xhosa has a dedicated existential which is used when the coda, rather than the pivot, is the perspectival center. The existential takes expletive agreement on the copula, and the copula plus pivot have a fixed word order. When the same copula agrees with the theme argument, which can be pre- or postverbal, it functions as a presentational. The existential is used with new referents, which are overwhelmingly indefinite. However, there is no strict definiteness effect. The presentational takes a wider range of referents, which are also mostly indefinite. When it comes to the use of the short and long forms of the copula, the paper reveals an unexpected analogy with the use of the so-called conjoint and disjoint forms in Xhosa tense-aspect paradigms.
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| 7. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967
(författare)
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The role of vowel length and pitch in Xhosa sentence type intonation
- 2022
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Ingår i: Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-Spil Plus. - 1726-541X. ; 62:2, s. 81-111
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper is a first study of intonation across different sentence types in Xhosa1. A recent increase in intonation research of African languages, including Bantu, has shown that intonation involves the manipulation of several distinct prosodic features such as vowel length and voice, next to pitch (Downing and Rialland (2017a)). Xhosa is, as many other African languages, a tonal language, meaning that the use of pitch for intonational purposes interacts with the use of lexical and grammatical tone. Moreover, other means are employed than pitch rise to distinguish different intonational phrases. For example, previous research shows that polar questions in Xhosa are indicated by reducing the lengthening of the penultimate vowel of a phrase, which is long in declaratives (Jones 2001). This paper expands on such previous studies and includes the intonation of different kinds of questions, in order to sketch a more complete picture of Xhosa intonation. Instead of being experimental, it makes use of examples recorded for non-intonational purposes, representing more natural language use. The study shows that the manipulation of penultimate lengthening plays an important role in distinguishing different phrases, in combination with declination. There are also indications of final lowering of pitch. Furthermore, devoicing the last vowel to a whisper indicates end of the utterance. Understanding the interaction of tone, intonation and phonological phrasing is important for understanding the grammatical structure and discourse pragmatics of Bantu languages.
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| 8. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967, et al.
(författare)
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Verum in Xhosa and Zulu (Nguni)
- 2023
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Ingår i: ZEITSCHRIFT FUR SPRACHWISSENSCHAFT. - 0721-9067 .- 1613-3706. ; 42:3, s. 493-524
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we investigate how verum is realized in Xhosa and Zulu, two Southern Bantu languages belonging to the Nguni group. The data for our study were collected through interviews with native speakers who were prompted to produce sentences in discourse contexts that typically license utterances with verum. We found that the main grammatical strategy for the expression of verum in Xhosa and Zulu involves the removal of phrasal constituents from the focus domain (the VP). This leaves the verb as the sole remaining focus host, and allows auxiliary features of the verb, such as polarity, to be marked as focus. Consequently, we analyse verum in Xhosa and Zulu as polarity focus, which is expressed indirectly, via the backgrounding of potentially focusable phrasal material. We also examined the prosodic properties of verum utterances in Xhosa. Based on findings from previous studies on Nguni intonation, we expected to observe lengthening of the penultimate vowels of phrase-final verbs and utterance-final words in our data. However, contrary to expectation, we did not find evidence of penultimate vowel lengthening in Xhosa sentences with verum, a (preliminary) result which suggests that the expression of verum may have an effect on prosody in Nguni languages.
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| 9. |
- Engdahl, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Multicentre, national, investigator-initiated, randomised, parallel-group, register-based superiority trial to compare extended ECG monitoring versus standard ECG monitoring in elderly patients with ischaemic stroke or transient ischaemic attack and the effect on stroke, death and intracerebral bleeding : the AF SPICE protocol
- 2023
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Ingår i: BMJ Open. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 2044-6055. ; 13:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a major risk factor for ischaemic stroke and transient ischaemic attack (TIA), and AF detection can be challenged by asymptomatic and paroxysmal presentation. Long-term ECG monitoring after ischaemic stroke or TIA is recommended by all major societies in cardiology and cerebrovascular medicine as a secondary prophylactic measure. However, data on stroke reduction are lacking, and the recommendations show significant diversity.Methods and analysis: AF SPICE is a multicentre, national, investigator-initiated, randomised, parallel-group, register-based trial comparing extended ECG monitoring versus standard ECG monitoring in patients admitted with ischaemic stroke or TIA, with a composite endpoint of stroke, all-cause-mortality and intracerebral bleeding. Patients aged ≥ 70 years without previous AF will be randomised 1:1 to control (standard ECG monitoring) or intervention (extended ECG monitoring). In the control arm, patients will undergo 48±24 hours (ie, a range of 24-72hours) of continuous ECG monitoring according to national recommendations. In the intervention arm, patients will undergo 14+14 days of continuous ECG monitoring 3months apart using an ECG patch device, which will provide an easy-accessed, well-tolerated 14-day continuous ECG recording. All ECG patch recordings will be read in a core facility. In cases of AF detection, oral anticoagulation will be recommended if not contraindicated. A pilot phase has been concluded in 2022, which will transcend into the main trial during 2023-2026, including approximately 30 stroke units. The sample size was calculated to be 3262 patients. The primary outcome will be collected from register data during a 36-month follow-up.Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval has been provided by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority, reference 2021-02770. The trial will be conducted according to the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and national regulatory standards. Positive results from the study have the potential for rapid dissemination in clinical practice. Trial registration number NCT05134454.
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| 10. |
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