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- Andersson, Sven, 1940-
(author)
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Social scaling and children's graphic strategies : A comparative study of children's drawings in three cultures
- 1994
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This cultural comparative study examines social scaling in children's drawings and whether children's formal graphic strategies follow the lines of traditional developmental stage models. Moreover, an attempt is made to develop methodological tools for comparative cultural research on children's social worlds.For this purpose, children in three communities were asked to make drawings of classroom life (fourth-graders) and their future family (fifth-graders). In total, 591 children were recruited from three settings: a Tanzanian town, a refugee settlement in Tanzania of the African National Congress, South Africa and a Swedish small-town. These settings were chosen in order to involve cultural variation in terms of pedagogical practices and child-rearing ideologies. Instead of absolute measures, relative rating scales (within drawings) were developed for the scoring of children's drawings and for the comparison of drawings between cultures.The findings of the present work lend support to the notion of social scaling, that is, social space in drawings (relative size, distances and degree of detailing, etc.) reflects children's hierarchies of importance. Thus, children's self-representations in relation to teacher representation vary with pedagogical practices across cultures. Swedish children produced more self-centered (child-centered) representations of classroom life than any of the African groups. The children in the traditional respect-oriented culture (Tanzanian town group) drew the most sociocentric and least child-centered representations, whereas children from South Africa produced drawings that were intermediate. Differences in social scaling were thus related to cultural differences in pedagogical practices and child-rearing ideologies. Likewise, children's social worlds, as reflected in family figure drawings, vary with child-rearing ideologies in the three different settings.The analyses of graphic strategies for both tasks indicated that the African groups employed X-ray strategies to a greater extent than the Swedish children. Quite contradictorily, if viewed from stage-type theorising, the African children simultaneously employed advanced projection systems to a greater extent than the Swedish children. Moreover, the children in the two African settings would in many cases combine these theoretically incompatible drawing strategies. A second analysis of formal graphic strategies showed that children in the two African settings independently employed the same specific local drawing conventions by depicting buildings in a non-representational way. Such local conventions are of theoretical interest in that they question representational models of drawing development. The present results challenge claims for universal or stage-type models in the way children's drawing develops. Instead, the results can be seen to support sociocultural approaches to child development.
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| 3. |
- Riise, Gerdt C., 1956, et al.
(author)
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Bacterial adhesion to oropharyngeal and bronchial epithelial cells in smokers with chronic bronchitis and in healthy nonsmokers
- 1994
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In: Eur Respir J. - 0903-1936. ; 7:10, s. 1759-64
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Bacterial adhesion is probably a prerequisite for colonization of mucous membranes, but adhesion to the bronchial mucosa has not been studied in detail. We investigated adhesion of respiratory pathogens to bronchial epithelial cells, and asked whether chronic bronchitis had an influence on bacterial adhesion. Oropharyngeal and bronchial cells were collected during bronchoscopy from 14 healthy nonsmokers, 22 smokers with nonobstructive chronic bronchitis, and 19 smokers with chronic bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Patients with a forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) less than 50% predicted were excluded. Adhesion of highly adherent test strains of H. influenzae and S. pneumoniae to these cells were studied. The test strains of H. influenzae and S. pneumoniae were found to adhere well to both oropharyngeal and bronchial cells. H. influenzae showed a higher degree of adhesion both to ciliated and goblet cells from the patients with nonobstructive bronchitis than to cells from the healthy nonsmokers. No corresponding difference was found for S. pneumoniae. The patients with COPD did not differ from the controls in their adhesion values. Our results indicate that bacterial adhesion is of importance for the colonization and retention of H. influenzae in the human airways. For S. pneumoniae the role of adhesion is more uncertain.
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| 4. |
- Riise, Gerdt C., 1956, et al.
(author)
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Circulating cell adhesion molecules in bronchial lavage and serum in COPD patients with chronic bronchitis
- 1994
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In: Eur Respir J. - 0903-1936. ; 7:9, s. 1673-1677
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The initial phase of inflammation in bronchial asthma appears to be triggered by the expression of leucocyte-endothelial adhesion molecules on endothelial cell surfaces. Cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) cause adhesion of leucocytes to the endothelium prior to their subsequent extravasation into inflamed tissue. We wanted to determine whether circulating intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (cICAM-1) and circulating E-selectin (cE-selectin) could be detected in bronchial lavage fluid and serum in patients with stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and chronic bronchitis. Bronchoscopy and small volume bronchial lavage was performed in 19 patients with COPD and chronic bronchitis and in 13 control subjects. We found increased mean levels of cICAM-1 both in serum (481 micrograms.l-1) and in bronchial lavage (24 micrograms.l-1) in the COPD patients as compared to the controls (321 micrograms.l-1 in serum, 15 micrograms.l-1 in lavage). We also found higher mean levels of cE-selectin in serum from the COPD patients (86 micrograms.l-1) compared to controls (50 micrograms.l-1). The serum levels of cE-selectin correlated significantly with lung function measured as forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) in percentage of predicted. Patients with significant intrabronchial bacterial colonization had increased levels of serum cE-selectin. Our results indicate that cCAMs may reflect an upregulation of CAMs on endothelial and epithelial airway cells in COPD.
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| 5. |
- Riise, Gerdt C., 1956, et al.
(author)
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The intrabronchial microbial flora in chronic bronchitis patients: a target for N-acetylcysteine therapy?
- 1994
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In: Eur Respir J. - 0903-1936. ; 7:1, s. 94-101
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Chronic bronchitis is common among smokers, often together with recurrent infectious exacerbations. Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae are the pathogens traditionally considered most important. N-acetylcysteine (NAC) treatment has been shown to reduce the number of infectious exacerbations in patients with chronic bronchitis. The mechanism behind this is unknown. We attempted to characterize the intrabronchial bacterial flora in patients with chronic bronchitis in an infection-free interval, and to determine whether pharmacological and immunological factors effected the bacterial occurrence. Twenty two smokers with non-obstructive chronic bronchitis, 19 smokers with chronic bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and 14 healthy nonsmokers underwent bronchoscopy. To obtain uncontaminated intrabronchial samples, a protected specimen brush was used. Quantitative bacterial cultures and virus isolations were performed. Significantly positive bacterial cultures (> 1,000 colony-forming units (cfu).ml-1) were found only in the patients. S. pneumoniae and H. influenzae were found in five patients, and only in the patients without NAC treatment. The most common bacterium was alpha-haemolytic streptococcus. Negative cultures were more common in the healthy controls. Of the various factors examined, only NAC medication had an influence on bacterial numbers. Significantly fewer patients with NAC medication had positive cultures (3 out of 16) than in the group of patients without NAC therapy (15 out of 21). Our results confirm that chronic bronchitis in smokers leads to increased intrabronchial bacterial colonization. We could also confirm that 1,000 cfu.ml-1 is an adequate cut-off level for significant bacterial growth when using the protected specimen brush. NAC medication was associated with low bacterial numbers.
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- Svanberg, Sune, et al.
(author)
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Applications of terawatt lasers
- 1994
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In: LASER SPECTROSCOPY - XITH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE. - : AIP. - 1551-7616 .- 0094-243X. - 1563962624 ; :290, s. 264-269
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)
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