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Background: SATURN (Systematic Accumulation of Treatment practices and Utilisation, Real world evidence, and Natural history data) for the rare condition osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) has the objective to create a common core dataset by utilising existing, well-established data sources to meet the needs of the various stakeholders (physicians, registry/dataset owners, patients and patient associations, OI community leaders, European [EU] policymakers, regulators, health technology assessments [HTA]s, and healthcare systems including payers). This paper describes the steps taken to assess the feasibility of one existing OI registry (i.e., the Registry of OI [ROI]) as a candidate for SATURN. The same methodology will be applied to other existing OI registries in the future and this same concept could be utilised for other rare disease registries. Methods: The approach to assessing the feasibility of the ROI registry consisted of three steps: (1) an assessment of the registry characteristics using the Registry Evaluation and Quality Standards Tool (REQueST); (2) a gap analysis comparing SATURN required Core Variables to those being captured in the registry's Case Report Form (CRF); and (3) a compliance check on the data exchange process following the Title 21 of Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 11/EudraLex Annex 11 Compliance Checklist. The first registry that SATURN has assessed is the ROI database at the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli (IOR) in Italy. Results: The results from the ROI REQueST have demonstrated satisfactory complete responses in terms of methodology, essential standards, interpretability, and interoperability—readiness for data linkage, data sources, and ethics to meet the needs of data customers. However, the ROI data is from a tertiary referral centre which may limit the ability to understand the full patient journey. The gap analysis has revealed that an exact or logical match between SATURN requested variables and the ROI current variables exists for the following items: patient characteristics, treatment of OI (medical and surgical) and treatment of pain (with the exception of frequency of treatment and reasons for discontinuation), fracture history and bone density. However, data on safety was missing. The compliance check has implied that the ROI implemented appropriate controls for the web-based platform (i.e., Genotype–phenotype Data Integration Platform [GeDI]) that is involved in processing the electronic patient data, and GeDI is a validated/compliant application that follows relevant 21 CFR Part 11/EudraLex Annex 11 regulations. Conclusions: This robust feasibility process highlights potential limitations and opportunities to develop and to refine the collaboration with the ROI as the SATURN programme moves forward. It also ensures that the existing datasets in the rare condition OI are being maximised to respond to the needs of patients, data customers and decision-makers. This feasibility process has allowed SATURN to build a compliant methodology that aligns with the requirements from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and HTAs. More data variables will continue to be developed and refined along the way with more registries participating in SATURN. As a result, SATURN will become a meaningful and truly collaborative core dataset, which will also contribute to advancing understanding of OI diagnosis, treatment, and care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Despite ubiquitous use of medical imaging in daily medical practice, the quality of referrals varies significantly across a variety of practice types and locations. This systematic review summarises studies in the literature that have employed interventions aimed at improving radiology referrals, excluding clinical decision support software. A systematic review of literature was conducted in PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, and Cochrane. Two reviewers independently identified studies for inclusion. All studies that included interventions with any outcome measure were included. Any irrelevant studies, non‐English studies or not retrievable studies were excluded. Studies were grouped into Education, Feedback, Rationing, Penalties, and Other. The outcomes of the studies were summarised and qualitatively analysed due to anticipated heterogeneity. Four thousand six hundred and forty‐two studies were identified throughout PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, and Cochrane. One hundred and eighty‐seven duplicates were removed and 4436 abstracts were screened. Two hundred and forty were identified on the first phase of the screening with 167 then excluded for non‐relevancy. Seventy‐five full studies were included in the final analysis following the addition of 2 additional studies. Fifty‐seven studies were grouped into Education, 10 into Feedback, 4 into Rationing, 8 into Penalties, 9 into Other and 11 containing multiple. Eighty‐four percent of the studies reported an improvement in the quality of the referrals. Despite a variable rate of quality referrals, there are many interventions that radiology departments across the world can utilise to improve the referral process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background SATURN (Systematic Accumulation of Treatment practices and Utilisation, Real world evidence, and Natural history data) for the rare condition osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) has the objective to create a common core dataset by utilising existing, well-established data sources to meet the needs of the various stakeholders (physicians, registry/dataset owners, patients and patient associations, OI community leaders, European [EU] policymakers, regulators, health technology assessments [HTA]s, and healthcare systems including payers). This paper describes the steps taken to assess the feasibility of one existing OI registry (i.e., the Registry of OI [ROI]) as a candidate for SATURN. The same methodology will be applied to other existing OI registries in the future and this same concept could be utilised for other rare disease registries. Methods The approach to assessing the feasibility of the ROI registry consisted of three steps: (1) an assessment of the registry characteristics using the Registry Evaluation and Quality Standards Tool (REQueST); (2) a gap analysis comparing SATURN required Core Variables to those being captured in the registry’s Case Report Form (CRF); and (3) a compliance check on the data exchange process following the Title 21 of Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 11/EudraLex Annex 11 Compliance Checklist. The first registry that SATURN has assessed is the ROI database at the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli (IOR) in Italy. Results The results from the ROI REQueST have demonstrated satisfactory complete responses in terms of methodology, essential standards, interpretability, and interoperability—readiness for data linkage, data sources, and ethics to meet the needs of data customers. However, the ROI data is from a tertiary referral centre which may limit the ability to understand the full patient journey. The gap analysis has revealed that an exact or logical match between SATURN requested variables and the ROI current variables exists for the following items: patient characteristics, treatment of OI (medical and surgical) and treatment of pain (with the exception of frequency of treatment and reasons for discontinuation), fracture history and bone density. However, data on safety was missing. The compliance check has implied that the ROI implemented appropriate controls for the web-based platform (i.e., Genotype–phenotype Data Integration Platform [GeDI]) that is involved in processing the electronic patient data, and GeDI is a validated/compliant application that follows relevant 21 CFR Part 11/EudraLex Annex 11 regulations. Conclusions This robust feasibility process highlights potential limitations and opportunities to develop and to refine the collaboration with the ROI as the SATURN programme moves forward. It also ensures that the existing datasets in the rare condition OI are being maximised to respond to the needs of patients, data customers and decision-makers. This feasibility process has allowed SATURN to build a compliant methodology that aligns with the requirements from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and HTAs. More data variables will continue to be developed and refined along the way with more registries participating in SATURN. As a result, SATURN will become a meaningful and truly collaborative core dataset, which will also contribute to advancing understanding of OI diagnosis, treatment, and care.

This study investigated the contributions of flipped and blended teaching to EFL learners' pragmatic awareness. The participants were 90 Iranian intermediate female EFL learners in six intact classes divided into three 30-member groups each comprising two classes (i.e., two experimental and one control group). A Preliminary English Test (PET) was administered to assure language proficiency homogeneity. Next, the three groups received a discourse completion test (DCT) before instruction in flipped and blended modes for the experimental groups and conventional instruction for the control group. After treatment, the posttest of DCT was administered. Moreover, 20 students took part in semi-structured interviews. The results of One-way ANOVA revealed that flipped and blended instruction significantly improved participants' pragmatic awareness. The analysis of interview responses indicated that both groups held positive attitudes towards using flipped and blended instruction. EFL teachers may decide to implement flipped and blended instruction to enhance EFL learners' pragmatic awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Turkic Studies Journal is the property of L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective: Research on corrective feedback (CF) in L2 pragmatics instruction, especially in online teaching, is still in its infancy. To address this gap, this study sought to examine the types of CF provided by EFL teachers in online classes in response to the learners' pragmalinguistically and sociopragmatically inappropriate production of the binary speech acts of request and refusal. Methods: Eighteen hours of online classroom interaction data were analyzed using conversation analysis and a taxonomy that classifies feedback into implicit and explicit input-providing and output-prompting CF. Results: The findings of the study showed that explicit output prompts were largely applied by teachers as the most frequent type of CF. The teachers tended to use prompting questions and metapragmatic clues to help learners better understand request and refusal speech acts, rather than directly offering input or reformulation. In addition, because of the facethreatening nature of speech acts of refusal and request, the teachers applied explicit output prompts as corrective feedback to reinforce the accuracy of learners' production. Conclusions: It can be concluded that the online mode of instruction can impact the explicitness of pragmatic CF. This research is of great value for teachers to employ both implicit and explicit types of CF to develop learners' competency in pragmatics in online instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the state housing policy is to create conditions that will allow each person to have decent housing at an affordable price. Due to high prices and growing demand, there may be market failures, which necessitates government intervention in the functioning of the housing market. When we talk about the involvement of the state in the policy of providing housing, we must also consider the activities of the market. The high demand for housing resources determines the high price of residential areas. There are often cases when housing prices rise and exceed average wage growth, making own housing an unaffordable luxury for many people. The distribution of housing in the world is mainly carried out by market forces. More than 90% of the 1.1 million households in Georgia own their homes. The majority of housing, as the graph shows, was built during the Soviet Union in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, while the construction and distribution of residential areas was mostly done through state intervention. After gaining independence, constructions in Georgia are mainly carried out with private funds, and the number of houses built during this period is within 9% of the total residential area. It is worth noting that after the end of the Second World War, the rented social housing sector in many European countries grew at a rapid pace, as the states tried to solve the housing problems in the shortest possible time. Although Georgia was a part of the socialist system, where the main economic activity, including housing construction, was carried out by the state, the main residential buildings in the country were in the hands of private owners. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and gaining independence, the state-owned houses became the property of the population, and today only 10% of households live in rented or mortgaged apartments (Georgian National Statistics Service), while 90% own their own homes. According to European standards, this is a higher than average rate (70% of households in the EU own their own home). In general, the market system has several important advantages compared to state regulation, however, in the case of housing, an unregulated market is unlikely to be able to distribute resources efficiently and fairly for a number of reasons. The reasons for this are externalities, imperfect information in the housing market and inelasticity of demand. Without government intervention, the housing market will operate inefficiently. Government regulation is necessary to address the problem of externalities that arise as a result of individual decisions to buy or rent housing. In addition, some form of government intervention is needed to help people who cannot afford to buy or rent housing. Consumer awareness in the housing market is often not enough. The decision to move to a new place may be dictated by a change of job, which requires a quick decision to buy a home in a foreign area. An individual may not have the necessary information (or the time to gather it) needed to make an informed decision. Landlords also face information problems since they cannot determine the characteristics of potential tenants in advance. Deposits and letters of recommendation are a form of solution to the problem of information asymmetry for renters. However, some population groups may not have the means to meet such requirements. Therefore, only a narrow segment of this market will be available to them. This leaves them with a very limited choice of poor quality housing that greedy landlords rent out at inflated prices. A situation in which developers build buildings wherever they want would be undesirable for the community. Unregulated construction, taking into account the externalities arising during housing construction, will lead to excessive housing density and environmental pollution. Government intervention may be necessary during construction in already established development areas due to the reluctance of private companies to operate in such problematic areas. At the same time, the construction of new fields may require state intervention to ensure the availability of necessary infrastructure (roads, schools, etc.). For these reasons, the housing market needs state regulation, which allows for a more efficient distribution of resources. In particular, the state regulation of land use allows determining the purpose of individual plots and showing which of them should be reserved for agricultural activities, recreation, and which should be allocated for construction in each specific year. The area of land allocated for construction is usually determined according to the projected number of households in the district, which, in turn, depends on population projections, joint or separate housing assumptions, and estimates of the number of migrants. However, forecasts may turn out to be wrong, since unlike other consumer goods and services, the amount of land allocated for construction does not depend on price changes. The process of allocating lands is decided not by market but by politics. The availability of land for construction is often determined according to annual or five-year plans and does not reflect changes in demand conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing research on intercultural communication has highlighted the importance of both linguistic and pragmatic competence among learners of English as a second language (ESL). Emails serve as a preferred means of communication between university students and professors. This study investigates Saudi ESL learners' pragmatic competence in creating email requests to their professors, addressing questions about greetings, directness, request strategies, and information sequencing. The goal is to show the need for explicit pragmatics instruction. The naturalistic data comprised 50 emails written by Arabic-speaking ESL graduate students in academic contexts, covering requests regarding deadline extensions, retaking exams, lecture absences for various reasons, and letters of recommendation. The analysis was guided by the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989). The findings suggested that explicit pedagogical guidance in speech act performance could benefit non-native English speakers. This study contributes to the growing body of research on institutional email practices, politeness conventions, and interlanguage pragmatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: With assisted dying becoming increasingly available to people suffering from somatic diseases, the question arises whether those suffering from mental illnesses should also have access. At the heart of this difficult and complex matter are values such as equality and parity of esteem. These issues require humane deliberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corrective feedback has been evidenced to be a propitious pedagogical tool to promote second language (L2) knowledge, yet little is known about the role of interactional feedback in maximizing L2 learners’ pragmatic knowledge and their reciprocity patterns to corrective feedback in teacher-student interactions. Therefore, the current study made an attempt to bridge this gap. To do so, twenty (11 male and nine female) intermediate English as a foreign language (EFL) participant with an age range of 19 to 31 were recruited and were provided with recast for their inappropriate request strategies. The participants were assigned to perform requests in various scenarios that varied in terms of power, familiarity, and social distance. To gauge their performance, a pretest and posttest Discourse Completion Test (DCT) was run. The obtained data gave evidence to the efficiency of recast in improving L2 pragmatics. Moreover, classroom interactions were recorded and transcribed to identify the emerging reciprocity patterns. The findings revealed several reciprocity patterns, including repetition of trigger, modification of trigger, acknowledgement, topic continuation, and inability to respond. The findings have implications for L2 teachers and augment our understandings of the role of recast in L2 pragmatics and reciprocity patterns of students.

The study explores the distribution and structure of multimodal clusters presenting a series of communicative moves in expositive dialogues: Request, Elaboration, and Response. We hypothesize that multimodal clustering of moves will be predetermined by the use of either common (for both participants) or novel topic elaboration as a nucleus move within the cluster. To proceed, we conduct a multimodal experiment which recorded the participants’ gesture with motion capture system (Perception Neuron Motion Capture) and gaze with eye-tracking glasses (Tobii Pro Glasses 2), as well as their speech and overall multimodal behavior with a stationary camera. The study reveals significant differences in the use of both face-oriented gaze and contactestablishing gesture as modulated by Request and Response moves within common or novel topic elaboration clusters; however, face-oriented gaze use manifests both higher frequency and diversity. Mutual face-oriented gaze prevails at the Request move preceding common topic elaboration, whereas elaborating a novel topic is found to produce a more involved gaze reaction of the listener during the Response moves. Additionally, simultaneous (by both participants) verbal move is more typical of common topic elaboration. The results evidence that social interaction and communication in expositive dialogue is processed multimodally and predetermines the role of gaze, gesture and verbal moves in communicative moves clusters.

In modern multi-processor systems-on-chip (MPSoCs), requests from different processor cores, accelerators, and their responses from the lower-level memory contend for the shared cache bandwidth, making it a critical performance bottleneck. Prior research on shared cache management has considered requests from cores but has ignored crucial contributions from their responses. Prior cache bypass techniques focused on data reuse and neglected the system-level implications of shared cache contention. We propose COBRRA, a novel shared cache controller policy that mitigates the contention by aggressively bypassing selected responses from the lower-level memory and scheduling the remaining requests and responses to the cache efficiently. COBRRA is able to improve the average performance of a set of 15 SPEC workloads by 49% and 33% compared to the no-bypass baseline and the best-performing state-of-the-art bypass solution, respectively. Furthermore, COBRRA reduces the overall cache energy consumption by 38% and 31% compared to the no-bypass baseline and the most energy-efficient state-of-the-art bypass solution, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Birth is a significant event in women's lives. As Mansfield notes (2008) many women aim for a birth that avoids pharmacological pain relief because they are advised it is better for them and their baby. For women having their first baby, this may not be realistic as 3/4 of primiparous women in Australia will use pharmacological pain relief. This study examines the expectations that a group of women had regarding pain relief, how these expectations developed and what happened to requests for pain relief in labour. Methods: A longitudinal prospective study design was used to recruit 15 women who were having their first baby. Women having low risk pregnancies, hoping for a 'natural birth' (vaginal, no/minimal pharmacological pain relief) were eligible. A semi-structured interview tool was used across all three interviews that asked women about their expectations, then actual labour experience, pain management requests and how these were responded to by carers. Fifteen women were interviewed – at 36 weeks gestation; as soon after delivery of their baby as possible, then six months post-delivery (N = 43 interviews). Interviews were recorded and transcribed and coded by ES using NVivo software with hierarchical thematic analysis used. Results: The study found that women appear to experience a mismatch between expectations they had developed pre-birth, versus actual experience. This appears to cause a specific form of dissonance – which we have termed 'birth dissonance' leaving them feeling traumatised post birth. This is because what women expected to happen in birth was often not realised. In particular, some women requested pain relief in birth and felt that their request was not responded to as hoped, and also seemed to develop post-birth trauma. We proposed that this may have resulted from dissonance arising from their expectations about being able to birth without significant pain relief. Interventions and technology may also contribute to this sense of mismatch and post-birth trauma. Conclusions: Low risk birthing women birthing in a hospital may have to engage with higher levels of technology, intervention and pain relief than that which they expected pre-birth. This could possibly be avoided with four simple changes. Firstly, better pre-birth education for women about how painful labor is likely to be. Secondly, pre-birth education which includes a detailed explanation of the utility of pharmacological and non-pharmacological pain relief. Thirdly, more egalitarian decision-making during labour and finally delivering upon women's requests for pain relief in labor, at the time that they ask for it. Further research is required to determine the extent of birth dissonance and how women making the transition to motherhood can avoid it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the powers of the prosecutor to ensure the admissibility of factual data in the order of providing international legal assistance. These powers are characterized taking into account the general and additional criteria for the admissibility of evidence, which are collected in the order of providing international legal assistance. The issue of assessing the admissibility of actual data obtained as a result of the request by the requested state was considered. It is argued that ensuring the admissibility of factual data by the prosecutor in the procedure for providing international legal assistance (when the requesting state is Ukraine) consists in ensuring compliance with general and additional criteria for the admissibility of evidence in the process of preparing the request and after receiving a response to the req uest. In the process of preparing a request, these are: checking the authority of the subject of preparing the request; checking the content, form and attachments to the request; identification of the correctness of the definition in the request of the procedural actions that must be carried out within the limits of the request; approval of the request. After receiving a response to the request, it is: assessment of compliance with the international cooperation procedure; assessment of who is the competent authority for the execution of the request; assessment of whether the materials received from the requested state were prepared by an official of the competent body of the requesting party or the requested party and sealed with the seal of the competent body; assessment of the available possibilities of compliance with the procedure provided for by the legislation of the requested state; assessment of compliance with the principles of fair justice, human rights and fundamental freedoms, including international reports on the state of human rights in the requested state; checking whether the evidence is used in exactly the criminal proceedings to which the request relates, and if not, whether the requested party has agreed to the use of this evidence and to what extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amon Nsengimana,1 Emmanuel Biracyaza,2,3 Joyce Isimbi,4 Charles Uwambajimana,4 Jean Claude Hategekimana,4 Vedaste Kagisha,4 Domina Asingizwe,5,6 Jean Baptiste Nyandwi4,6 1US Agency for International Development Global Health Supply Chain Program, Procurement and Supply Chain Management, Kigali, Rwanda; 2School of Rehabilitation, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada; 3Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal (CRIR), Montreal, Canada; 4Department of Pharmacy, University of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda; 5Department of Physiotherapy; University of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda; 6East African Community Regional Centre of Excellence for Vaccines, Immunization and Health Supply Chain Management, University of Rwanda, Kigali, RwandaCorrespondence: Amon Nsengimana, Email amonnsengimana@gmail.comPurpose: This study aimed to explore the request and dispensing of antimalarial medicines without a prescription in community pharmacies in Rwanda, as well as factors associated.Methods: We employed an embedded mixed-methods design that involved a convenience sample of 235 licensed community pharmacists between February and April 2022. To simultaneously collect qualitative and quantitative data, we used a self-administered questionnaire containing a combination of close and open-ended questions. Bivariate and multivariate regression analyses were performed to examine the relationship between dispensing antimalarial medicines without a prescription and the selected independent variables. Statistical significance was set at p< 0.05, and a 95% confidence interval was applied. The factors influencing the dispensing of antimalarial medicines without a prescription were analyzed using thematic content analysis as a qualitative analysis approach.Results: Most respondents (88.5%) were asked to dispense antimalarial medicines by clients without a prescription. More than half of them (54%) agreed, but 34.5% refused; instead, they referred clients to malaria diagnostic testing facilities. Those who had rapid diagnostic tests for malaria in stock (OR=2.08, 95% CI:1.1– 3.94), and thought that antimalarials were over-the-counter medicines (OR=7.03, 95% CI:2.01– 24.5) were more likely to dispense antimalarial medicines without prescriptions. The primary reasons reported by community pharmacists for dispensing antimalarial medicines without prescriptions included their prior knowledge of malaria diagnosis, client pressure, and fear of losing clients. However, non-adherence to negative results obtained from formal health facilities and long queues at these institutions have also been cited as additional factors driving clients to seek antimalarial medicines without prescriptions.Conclusion: Dispensing antimalarial medicines without prescriptions is a common practice in community pharmacies in Rwanda. The main factors contributing to this practice include lack of awareness regarding the classification of antimalarials as prescription medicines, the availability of malaria diagnostic tests, client pressure, and fear of losing clients.Keywords: request, antimalarial medicines, dispensing, community pharmacies, Rwanda

There are different formal structures which requests can be made with depending on the register used and the degree of courtesy. During the teaching process, these structures are introduced according to their recursiveness and difficulty, and not necessarily due to their courtesy. This can cause mismatches between the perception of requests in L2 and in L1. In this paper we intend to analyze if this is really the case, or if there are no differences in the perception of these structures in L1 and L2.

A request is one of the most frequently used speech acts in a person’s daily life. Many studies have been conducted on the act of request and several researchers have developed strategies and modifications that are used in delivering requests to mitigate the imposition of the FTA. Thus, this study aims to investigate the internal and external modifications applied in requests by Malay speakers of English and Malay to specific requestees in the workplace context following Blum-Kulka et al.’s (1989) Request Modification framework. To achieve the purpose of this study, a qualitative approach was employed. A number of 30 Malay workers were asked to complete a Written Discourse Completion Task (WDCT) which involves eliciting requests. The findings revealed that the respondents used more internal modifications in their requests with people of equal relative power compared to high and low relative power, and used more external modifications in requests with a higher degree of imposition in certain contexts. This implies the act of request from the viewpoint of the Malaysian workplace context. It offers meaningful insight into the preferences of working Malay speakers of English in modifying their requests, and shows the level of pragmatic competence of Malay speakers of English and Malay in the workplace environment.

AbstractThe current study aimed to examine the realization of the speech act of request by Saudi EFL learners, in Arabic as their first language and English as their foreign language. To this end, 240 Saudi undergraduates completed a discourse completion task consisting of 12 situations, six of which were presented in Arabic while the other six were presented in English. The participants’ responses were coded for the request strategies in addition to internal/external modifiers and initiators. The results showed a clear dominance for the conventionally indirect strategy of “query preparatory” in both languages. However, other statistically significant differences emerged. For instance, while the participants used more direct requests in Arabic than in English, they employed more nonconventionally indirect requests in English than in Arabic. Additionally, the participants apologized significantly more often in English than in Arabic whereas they promised and offered prayers to the hearer more frequently in Arabic than in English. Moreover, the participants used a significantly higher number of downgraders in English than in Arabic. Regarding social variables, the participants exhibited sensitivity to social dominance in the two languages.

Using conversation analysis as the research method, this article investigates the interactional import of the TCU-final particle bei in requesting in Mandarin Chinese conversation. It is found that the particle bei recurrently occurs as a TCU-final of imperative requests in specific sequential contexts where requesters have limited entitlement to make such requests, which are considered inappropriate by participants. The present study argues that by formulating requests as bei -ended imperatives, requesters can adjust, or downgrade their entitlement to make inappropriate requests, either in the first position or after non-granting. The inappropriateness nature of the requests becomes evident in the responses: requestees tend to respond with problematic granting, resistance, or challenges. This study suggests that interlocutors calibrate their ways of requesting based on their assessment of entitlement to the inappropriate requests, and that requesting can be operated on a more granular level with the use of the final particle bei. • An interactional import of the TCU-final particle bei in forming the action of request is argued. • Emphasizing varying degrees of entitlement or other imports conveyed by imperatives with or without different particles. • The inappropriateness of requests in everyday interactions is assessed on the grounds of regular routines, etc. • Shedding light on Chinese particles study in the formation of different social actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pregled is the property of University of Sarajevo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Corrective feedback has been evidenced to be a propitious pedagogical tool to promote second language (L2) knowledge, yet little is known about the role of interactional feedback in maximizing L2 learners' pragmatic knowledge and their reciprocity patterns to corrective feedback in teacher-student interactions. Therefore, the current study made an attempt to bridge this gap. To do so, twenty (11 male and nine female) intermediate English as a foreign language (EFL) participant with an age range of 19 to 31 were recruited and were provided with recast for their inappropriate request strategies. The participants were assigned to perform requests in various scenarios that varied in terms of power, familiarity, and social distance. To gauge their performance, a pretest and posttest Discourse Completion Test (DCT) was run. The obtained data gave evidence to the efficiency of recast in improving L2 pragmatics. Moreover, classroom interactions were recorded and transcribed to identify the emerging reciprocity patterns. The findings revealed several reciprocity patterns, including repetition of trigger, modification of trigger, acknowledgement, topic continuation, and inability to respond. The findings have implications for L2 teachers and augment our understandings of the role of recast in L2 pragmatics and reciprocity patterns of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research mainly explores pragmatic modifiers in shaping teachers’ polite requests in English Foreign Language classroom interaction (henceforth: EFL). The research was designed qualitatively, employing non-participant observation and field-note methods. Audio-video recording and note-taking were used to obtain the data on the male and female teachers’ utterances during classroom interaction. The key apparatuses are a smartphone Vivo of Y21 and a digital voice recorder of 32 GB to capture natural-occurring data. The data were analysed through three interactive procedures of qualitative data analysis; data condensation, display, and conclusion drawing. The data interpretation was primarily drawn on the pragmatic theory of politeness, FTAs, and pragmatic modifiers. Part of the data was analysed from language and gender perspectives. The findings yielded that the male and female teachers applied internal and external pragmatic modifiers to enact polite requests in classroom interaction settings. The internal pragmatic modifiers cover downtoner, politeness marker, appreciative opening, and hedged performative opening. The external pragmatic modifiers include vocative, disarmer, and propitiator. There is a slight difference between male and female teachers in realising those types of pragmatic modifiers. It was partly related to the features of women’s language. However, such empirical evidence could not be directly generated for language and gender. The findings have implications for further investigations to probe the issue in depth.

Introduction. In the presented article the analysis of the phenomenon of platformization with the use of the dialectical method was carried out. Theoretical analysis.The premise of platformization is the identity of the idea and the business model, as well as value and cost. The starting point for the movement of the idea of platformization is the request (of the subject to the platform and back), inseparably connected with its opposite – the access. The synthesis of request and access is seduction as an appeal to make requests to gain access to benefits which in fact turn out to be imaginary. The revealed reality of seduction, which seeks guaranteed and predictable results, is grasped by the notion of surveillance. Surveillance is implemented in the quantitative analysis of the subject’s behavior to calculate the probability of his behavior and to increase it through immersiveness, which allows to collect as much data as possible, and learning. For a subject, learning is a requirement for the constant acquisition of new behavior patterns and is a value without cost, i.e., a form of alienation of the subject from public good. For platforms, learning refers to the acquisition of data-in-themselves-and-for-themselves-being in machine intelligence. Conclusion. Machine intelligence today is an incomplete stage of platformization without pronounced internal moments, so the dialectical analysis should stop at this stage.

There are different formal structures which requests can be made with depending on the register used and the degree of courtesy. During the teaching process, these structures are introduced according to their recursiveness and difficulty, and not necessarily due to their courtesy. This can cause mismatches between the perception of requests in L2 and in L1. In this paper we intend to analyze if this is really the case, or if there are no differences in the perception of these structures in L1 and L2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of the real needs of inhabitants is the subject of many studies. Currently, the provision of social services by a municipality is governed by legislative definitions, with competences specified. The legal system is set across the board and to a great extent universally, and it also depends on the experience of society and the state in this area. The modernisation of social life, the computerisation of public administration and the development of the municipality as a territorial administrative unit, however, raise questions related to the individualisation of the residents’ needs and their saturation. All components are reflected in the community plan of a municipality, which is the fundamental document of a municipality when securing current social services that map the needs and requirements of citizens. The aim of the contribution is to map the specific parameters of community plans and compare them with the legislation; another attribute of the comparison is the needs of citizens based on the analysis of individual community plans. We used the following as research methods: document analysis, analysis and comparison of community plans, whereby the ratios of currently provided social services and the needs of citizens based on a direct analysis of community plans were expressed quantitatively and as a percentage, and we determined quantitative and percentage options reflecting legislation, or the Social Services Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Technology & Chinese Language Teaching is the property of Middle Tennessee State University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This research examines the effect of study abroad experience on L2 English learners' pragmatic competence in terms of strategies used in the speech act of request, refusal and apology. The Discourse Completion Task was administrated among 16 Chinese graduate students who were divided into two groups, including the study-abroad (SA) group and at-home (AH) group. The results do not reveal any evident improvements in the pragmatic competence of learners who have study-abroad experience compared to those who study English at home in China, but some of their strategies of using speech acts do have differences. In terms of requests, the conventionally indirect level strategy is the most frequently used request strategy among both groups of learners, and SA learners are more direct in making requests than AH learners. In terms of refusal strategies, both AH and SA learners prefer indirect refusal strategies. There is no obvious difference in apologies between SA learners and AH learners, and their apologies tend to be more direct. Based on these findings, it is suggested that more emphasis and importance should be placed on the pragmatic knowledge, which should be explicitly taught in the classroom because of the limited chance to enhance pragmatic competence outside the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Game-based instruction has been praised as an effective approach to second language (L2) development, as it can provide a low-stakes, fun, and engaging learning environment. However, in designing digital games for L2 learning, it is important to consider how various game designs and mechanics can affect learning gains. In the current study building on Taguchi (2023), a digital gameinformed application was developed to teach 118 L2 English learners to identify and produce pragmatically appropriate requests in English. Two versions of the game were developed that differed only in one designed game mechanic: version A allowed learners to see one single reaction from interlocutors after selecting one option from a set of request forms. In contrast, version B allowed learners to see the full range of interlocutor reactions across all items in the same set of request form options. Results indicate that both versions of the game had positive effects on learners' pragmatics knowledge. The difference in learners' gains between the two versions of the app had negligible to small effect size (Cohen's d) differences on both the recognition and production knowledge of the learners. Implications are discussed, offering direction for future research aiming to measure the effects of targeted game mechanics implemented in educational technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the use of strategies by Chinese learners of English and English learners of Chinese in making requests in both Chinese and English. Three factors affecting request strategies were also examined, including social power, social distance and degree of imposition. A total of 12 Chinese-speaking and 12 English-speaking students were recruited to complete Chinese and English versions of an oral discourse completion task (ODCT). Request behaviour was examined in both the subjects' native and non-native languages. The results show that the learner and native speaker groups performed differently in making Chinese requests but employed comparable strategies in making English requests. Moreover, social distance was found to be more influential than social power and degree of imposition in making Chinese requests. However, the influence of these factors was similar in making English requests. The findings suggest that it was easier for the learners of Chinese to master English requests than for the learners of English to acquire Chinese requests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to study the procedural possibilities of a request and permission to change the remand in custody to a more lenient preventive measure during pre-trial criminal proceedings. The article uses the methods of system analysis, synthesis, analogy and generalization. The author concludes that a direct appeal to the court with a request to mitigate the preventive measure in the form of detention at the preliminary investigation stage within the meaning of the criminal procedure law by the participants in criminal proceedings on the part of the defense is possible at the time when the court considers the investigator's request to extend the period of detention or to change the preventive measure, or at any time during criminal proceedings in the case of a bail application. When the request for changing the preventive measure is received during the preliminary investigation from the participants in the criminal proceedings on the part of the defense during the period between court sessions on the extension of the preventive measure, the court must assess its content. If there is no evidence of a change in the grounds for changing the preventive measure in the form of detention to a more lenient one, the court shall refuse to accept the request for consideration. If the circumstances indicated in the request show a change in the grounds for applying the preventive measure, the court must adopt it and consider it under the adversarial conditions with the participation of the parties in the order of Article 108 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation. In the event of refusal to satisfy the request, a repeated request on the same ground is not permitted.

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Instant messaging is a powerful communication tool people use to make a request. This paper analyzes the speech act of making and answering requests in instant messages from a pragmatic approach. The statistics result from 217 original instant messages collected, among which 137 are concerned with the process of "asking" and 80 with "answering". These messages are analyzed in terms of "directness" and "indirectness". The result reveals that the degree of directness is differed by illocution, and it is the degree of intimacy that influences the choice of direct and indirect in making a request, while the degree of politeness is mainly influenced by the nature of an event itself. It is hoped that the result of this study will help people better communicate with instant messages domestically and cross-culturally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Enoch attempts to develop a general theory of authority, not by defining the concept of authority or identifying a normative reason for obeying its commands but by describing the mechanism of commanding. According to Enoch, commands are part of a broader phenomenon, the so-called robust reason-giving, which includes promises and requests in addition to commands. By describing the mechanism of robust reason-giving, we also get a description of the mechanism of commanding, Enoch says. Crucial to the theory of robust reason-giving is the intention of the person providing the reason. In other words, commanding, promising, or requesting can only be done by someone who can form a complex intention, that is, to have a will of his own. But it is precisely in intentionality that the problem of the theory of robust reason-giving lies, which Enoch points out. In Enoch's view, adult human beings, not small children and animals, form sufficiently complex intentions. Yet it seems young children and perhaps even animals can request, that is, of providing reasons robustly. This incoherence needs to be resolved if a theory of robust reason-giving, and hence a general theory of authority, is to be plausible. In this text, I have suggested how to understand the requests of small children and animals. Their speech acts resembling requests can be relatively unproblematically considered as communicating needs or wishes or merely triggering motivational reasons-giving. If we do not classify their speech acts as robust reason-giving, the theory of robust reason-giving (at least on this issue) remains coherent and can form the basis of a general theory of authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study investigates the pragmatic and linguistic competencies of Arab postgraduate students and native English-speaking postgraduate students in Malaysian universities, focusing on their speech act strategies for requests and apologies. Using qualitative methods such as Discourse Completion Tests and conversations, the study addresses three research questions related to pragmatic and linguistic forms, gender differences, and cultural norms in English-speaking settings. The participants consisted of 95 individuals, including an equal number of males and females from four universities in Malaysia during the academic year 2022-2023. Of the participants, 32 were of Arab origin, and 63 were native English speakers. The study found significant differences in response rates between the two groups and emphasized the importance of understanding cultural norms for effective communication. The findings suggest that learners from Arab countries must comprehend the differences between cultural norms and conventions in Englishspeaking environments to communicate efficiently. The study has implications for assisting Arab-speaking graduate students in improving their communication abilities and promoting cross-cultural understanding in academic settings in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By drawing on service encounter data in Japanese, this paper analyzes a previously undocumented request action initiated by a service provider to a client as a necessary step to provide the service. The service provider and their client, both exercising respective deontic rights, collaboratively construct a request turn in particular ways. In this case, due to the Japanese SOV word order, the service provider takes advantage of segmenting their request turn to allow the recipient clients to begin compliance, who thereby acquiesce to the service provider's deontic authority at the earliest point. By bringing the request turn to completion after the client's compliance while reflexively showing their deontic and beneficiary stances in the turn final component, the service provider displays commitment to balancing out their relative deontic status to the client. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IntroductionRequesting is considered one of the most threatening speech acts that people tend to use politeness strategies to tone down the request and minimize the face loss of the recipient. These strategies develop over years and while children appear to produce polite speech forms at an early age, less is known about the strategies they use when they make requests in the Jordanian context. This study aims to investigate politeness strategies used by Jordanian children in requests at different age levels in relation to their gender.MethodsThe study included 80 subjects divided into two age groups, namely, six years and ten years, with an equal number of boys and girls. They met a lady puppet who had a box of gifts, and they were told to ask her politely to get the gift they wanted. Their requests were recorded and analyzed using Blum-Kulka’s politeness model to find the most common strategies the children used and whether these strategies differed with age and gender.Results and DiscussionThe study concluded that at the age of six, the concept of politeness is present in children’s linguistic competence, but the assignment of polite expressions to the proper speech act is still ill-defined. There were no significant differences in using politeness strategies according to gender. As children grow older, around the age of ten, they become more able to express politeness in requests. Girls preferred the indirect strategies while boys opted for the direct level in making requests. This study may positively help parents and schoolteachers enhance the pragmatic knowledge and linguistic politeness of children.

Meat-rich diets have a negative impact on animal welfare, consumer health, and the environment. In recent years, research has begun to explore which approaches are most effective at reducing consumption. A question that has been the subject of extensive debate is whether appeals are more effective when they ask people to reduce vs. eliminate meat from their diets. On the one hand, the negative externalities resulting from meat consumption are reduced more if a person fully abstains from eating meat. On the other, stronger requests likely lead to lower compliance rates. Thus, to identify which appeal leads to the overall greatest reduction in meat consumption, one has to balance, (a) how many individuals comply with the request and, (b) by how much individuals reduce their consumption if they comply. In two studies, with participants from the US, UK, Australia, and the Netherlands (N = 705), we explored participants’ reported meat consumption and willingness to comply with different week-long meat reduction appeals (10–100%) to identify which would lead to the greatest overall reduction in intended meat consumption. As expected, larger requests lead to lower reported willingness to comply. Mid-range requests (40–70%) were more effective than small requests (10%) or elimination requests (100%). Although we find some differences across countries, mid-range requests were most effective in each sample. Our findings provide first insights into how to calibrate appeals to achieve the greatest reduction in overall meat consumption.

Considering one of the earliest calls for applying pragmatics in second language, Kasper and Rose’s (2002) study “Is Pragmatic Teachable?”, pragmatic features have been analyzed during the last 20 years in EFL/ESL contexts. The amalgamation of studies has been conducted on many speech acts around the world within the last two decades, among which request, apology, and refusal are considered as the mostappreciated speech acts in Iran. The purpose of the present paper is to unravel the overall effectiveness of the intervention on the speech acts of request, apology, and refusal in an Iranian EFL context. To this aim, out of a total number of 80 studies, 57 papers were chosen based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, which were coded for the analysis. The results of the study revealed that the instruction of request, apology, and refusal is effective and generated a mean of (g = 1.43) which is significant, reflecting a quite large gain of instruction. The paper concludes with pedagogical implications and suggestions for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research mainly explores pragmatic modifiers in shaping teachers' polite requests in English Foreign Language classroom interaction (henceforth: EFL). The research was designed qualitatively, employing nonparticipant observation and field-note methods. Audiovideo recording and note-taking were used to obtain the data on the male and female teachers' utterances during classroom interaction. The key apparatuses are a smartphone Vivo of Y21 and a digital voice recorder of 32 GB to capture natural-occurring data. The data were analysed through three interactive procedures of qualitative data analysis; data condensation, display, and conclusion drawing. The data interpretation was primarily drawn on the pragmatic theory of politeness, FTAs, and pragmatic modifiers. Part of the data was analysed from language and gender perspectives. The findings yielded that the male and female teachers applied internal and external pragmatic modifiers to enact polite requests in classroom interaction settings. The internal pragmatic modifiers cover downtoner, politeness marker, appreciative opening, and hedged performative opening. The external pragmatic modifiers include vocative, disarmer, and propitiator. There is a slight difference between male and female teachers in realising those types of pragmatic modifiers. It was partly related to the features of women's language. However, such empirical evidence could not be directly generated for language and gender. The findings have implications for further investigations to probe the issue in depth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Turcology Research is the property of Ataturk University Coordinatorship of Scientific Journals and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study explores how Chinese and Japanese participants perceived different variables in making, accepting and refusing requests and how they evaluated certain requests between peers on social media. The study comprised two parts: 50 students for each language completed a questionnaire survey, and another four students took part in focus groups. The quantitative results from the questionnaires show both similarities and differences between the perceptions of the Chinese and Japanese participants. The qualitative analyses of the focus groups indicate that both the (in)directness of the request head act and the types and numbers of mitigation influenced the participants' evaluations of requests on social media. Implications for (in)directness and (im)politeness, as well as the triangulation of different methods, are also discussed. • This study explores Chinese and Japanese speakers' perception and evaluation. • Perceptions of making, accepting and refusing requests are investigated. • How Chinese and Japanese evaluate requests between peers on social media are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most interesting and extensive linguistics theory is the theory of speech acts. It emphasizes the character of the action of utterances and makes it clear that description of linguistic formulations is not possible without performing actions. The development of pragmatic competence is particularly difficult for learners, when the foreign language is learned in an environment, where it does not serve daily communication and learners do not receive sustainable input that enables them to apply their knowledge of pragmatic competence in practice. In addition, there is a lack of valid requirements regarding the communicative competencies of the Albanian learners of German: In foreign language teaching, there are few curricula that focus on communicative skills, and there is a significant need for effective ways of improving learners’ communication skills. The aim of this paper is to present and analyze the research of pragmatic competence and its components with foreign language students. In constructing the speech of the request, we refer to the contributions and investigations of Blum-Kulka & Olshtain (1984), Economidou-Kogetsidis & Woodfield (2012), Olshtain & Cohen (1990), Wunderlich (1979), Searle (1975), and others. The data of this research that were gathered and analyzed, as well as the instruments and methods used, are presented in this paper, too.