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In the current study, late Chinese-English bilinguals performed a facial expression identification task with emotion words in the task-irrelevant dimension, in either their first language (L1) or second language (L2). The investigation examined the automatic access of the emotional content in words appearing in more than one language. Significant congruency effects were present for both L1 and L2 emotion word processing. Furthermore, the magnitude of emotional face-word Stroop effect in the L1 task was greater as compared to the L2 task, indicating that in L1 participants could access the emotional information in words in a more reliable manner. In summary, these findings provide more support for the automatic access of emotional information in words in the bilinguals' two languages as well as attenuated emotionality of L2 processing.

Irish became the 23rd official language of the European Union (EU) in 2007. Due to a lack of qualified translators and interpreters, it is currently subject to a derogation which restricts its use in the EU institutions, a situation which aims to be remedied by 2022. Yet the Irish language represents a unique case even within the Republic of Ireland itself. Under British rule, centuries of repression confined its usage to the rural fringes of society, a state of affairs that an independent Ireland has attempted to improve with limited success. This article analyses how recognition of official EU status for Irish has been depicted in the Republic of Ireland’s English-language print media. By performing a qualitative content analysis of the online archives of the country’s three major English-language newspapers, the aim is to illustrate how official EU status for Irish has been portrayed, paying specific attention to political, cultural and economic factors.

Abstract The investigation of potential stylistic differences between translated and non-translated texts has been proven to be a promising line in corpus-based translation studies, yet similar research on the product of interpreting seems both smaller in scale and slower in development. This study compares the use of hedges in interpreted and spontaneous English speeches collected in similar settings. Specifically, we gathered the two types of speech data from Chinese and American political press briefings respectively and analyzed their differences in the employment of various hedging devices. The results show that interpreted speeches not only contain significantly fewer hedges but they are also dependent on a narrower range of such devices than spontaneous speeches, which is consistent with the tendency towards simplification in translations. Also, our findings suggest that interpreted and spontaneous speeches tend to follow distinct hedging patterns in terms of preferred linguistic choices. Potential factors triggering such differences are discussed.

Word-generation tasks have been frequently used in behavioral and neuroimaging research to explore the mechanisms of semantic retrieval and competition during language production. In the current study, we set out to explore the lexical competition effects in a verb-generation task among Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners with the repetition priming paradigm, in which items had either one dominant response (low competition, LC) or no such dominant response (high competition, HC). Effects of lexical selection demands were observed in English verb generation task, indicating there were lexical competition effects. In addition, the mean response time (RT) of studied HC and LC stimuli was significantly shorter compared to that of non-studied ones, suggesting there were repetition priming effects. Taken together, the current study provides evidence supporting the role of lexical competition and repetition priming effects during second language (L2) verb generation.

Background and objective: associations between gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and atrial fibrillation (AF) are inconclusive. Some studies found that AF was a risk factor for GERD whereas other studies showed opposite results. The primary objective of this study was to systematically evaluate whether GERD and AF have a bidirectional association using a meta-analysis. Methods: a systematic review was conducted of studies on the association between GERD and AF, written in the English language and included in Cochrane CENTRAL, PubMed and EMBASE until February 2017. The search was limited to longitudinal, case-control, and cross-sectional studies. Results: among 548 studies found in the above-mentioned databases, seven fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Among these seven studies, two were longitudinal studies, two were case-control studies, and three were cross-sectional studies. The summary adjusted relative risks (RRs) for AF-induced GERD and GERD-induced AF were 1.54 (95% CI, 1.08-2.17) and 1.06 (95% CI, 0.86-1.31), respectively. The subgroup analysis showed that the associations were not significantly modified by sample size, study design, age, or geographic area. Conclusions: this meta-analysis supported the association of AF with increased risk of GERD.

There are a lot of ailments that would lead to foot impair. For instance, cerebral palsy (CP), stroke, multiple sclerosis (MS), hemiplegia, duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and so on. With the further deterioration of these diseases, gait would become imbalanced and then it may contribute to high risk of fall incidence. Thus, it is urgent to invent a tool to adjust the foot impair. Most of the previous studies had found that the ankle-foot orthoses (AFO) has a significant effect to overcome the foot impair. Studies that investigated the ankle-foot orthoses (AFO) and its effect on patients with foot impair are various and abundant. Nevertheless, there are a little studies that integrated the categories of AFO and its specific effect on patients with foot impair. It is important to integrate the categories of AFO and its specific effect on patients with foot impair because the previous studies had proved that different designs of AFO have different mechanical properties and these would affect outcomes in a way. The purpose of this paper is to review and integrate the published studies on the categories of AFO and its effect on patients with foot impair and thereby offer better guidelines and suggestions for prescriptions and future studies. The publication of all papers about the categories of AFO and its effect on patients with foot impair were obtained from Science Direct(SD), Google Scholar and other peer reviewed journals that were published in English. The keywords used for searching were “AFO,” “material,” “foot impair,” and “systemic review.” There were total 8647 studies regarding these keywords, and 37 studies were eligible to be selected in this research: 2 studies on systemic review, 35 studies on the materials and categories of AFO and its effect on patients with foot impair. Most previous studies had found that the effect of AFO is related to mechanical properties of AFO and disease characteristics. Therefore, this review could provide researchers with more systemic and detailed information about the categories of AFO and its effect on patients with foot impair and promote synthesis of literature.

Death anxiety refers to the human experience of death awareness and the accompanying inescapable disquiet it provokes. It is a phenomenon in human existence which has attracted substantial studies from existential and psychological perspectives. Noting that every individual experiences this anxiety at some point in life, largely as a result of the awareness of the inevitability of death, the manner and extent to which it is experienced vary from individuals. Meanwhile, existential reflections have described ‘death acceptance’ as the healthy route to lessening this angst. It therefore presupposes that acceptance of death (i.e. knowing that one is a being-towards-death and therefore embracing and acknowledging it) is existentially therapeutic. On this note, in studying J. P. Clark’s Of Sleep and Old Age, artistic creativity is being constructed in the study as an existential therapy against death anxiety for the poetic persona. It is premised, on the one hand, on the poet’s eloquent vision of the boredom of existence and the horror of death which characterize the atmosphere of the text. On the other, the poet’s age has been considered as a factor-agent which has bestowed on him the capacity to be conscious of an imminent death, thereby accepting it via keen reflections in his art. The study adopts two theoretical models in existential studies: (1) Monika Ardelt’s ‘Wisdom’, ‘Religiosity’ and ‘Purpose in Life’ and (2) John Sommers-Flanagan and Rita Sommers-Flanagan’s model of ‘Existential Therapy’ to assess the sway and/or centrality of death anxiety to understanding the text.

A survey of twelve translation students in 2017 revealed that they tend to find translating figurative and metaphorical language difficult. In addition, an experiment also conducted in 2017 showed similar results. During the first phase of this experiment, two trained researchers coded metaphorical items in a text from the New Scientist following the Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (MIPVU). Based on Cohen’s kappa, the researchers reached an initial coding agreement of 0.692 (strong agreement) and a final agreement score of 0.958 (almost perfect agreement) after discussion. The second phase of the experiment involved the coding of the metaphorical items previously identified by the researchers in the same text by 47 students who received a two-hour introduction to conceptual metaphor theory and a simplified method to code metaphorical items. However, the results of the students’ coding showed that they had failed to identify metaphors in 49.96% of cases. Nevertheless, a chi-squared test (p < 2.2-16) revealed that the students’ coding was not due to chance alone and therefore not arbitrary.

Traditional Chinese exercise (TCE) has gradually become one of the widespread complementary therapies for treatment and recovery of cancers. However, evidence based on the systematic evaluation of its efficacy is lacking, and there appears to be no conclusion regarding the setting of TCE interventions. The purpose of this systematic review is to summarize the current randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that outline the effects of TCE on cancer patients. Relevant studies were searched by GOOGLE SCHOLAR, SCIENCEDIRECT, and WEB OF SCIENCE using “traditional Chinese exercise” and “cancer.” Only RCTs published in peer-reviewed English journals were included. A total of 27 studies covering 1616 cancer patients satisfied the eligibility criteria for this review. Despite the methodological limitation and relatively high risk of bias possessed by some included studies, positive evidence was still detected on the effects of TCE on these cancer-related health outcomes in physical, psychological, and physiological parameters. The 60-min or 90-min course of TCE intervention for two to three times per week for 10 to 12 weeks was found to be the most common setting in these studies and has effectively benefited cancer patients. These findings add scientific support to encourage cancer patients to practice TCE during or after conventional medical treatment. Nevertheless, future well-designed RCTs with improved methodology and larger sample size on this field are much warranted for further verification. Published version

Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) versus placebo or no intervention in the treatment of tympanic membrane (TM) perforations from randomized controlled trials (RCTs), prospective and retrospective studies. Data Sources: PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases were screened from their inceptions to June 2019. Study Selection: Inclusion criteria: 1) English language; 2) observational (retrospective or prospective) or treatment (RCT) studies; 3) reported the outcomes on the application of bFGF in adult or pediatric population. Exclusion criteria: 1) studies without a control group; 2) animal studies, in vitro studies, review studies, and case reports. Data Extraction: Number of patients, cause of TM perforation, perforation size, treatment, mean age, follow-up time, sex, closure rate, healing time, mean air-bone gap improvement. Data Synthesis: A total of 14 studies were included, including seven RCTs and seven non-RCTs with a total of 1,072 participants. The odds ratio for closure rate of bFGF treatment was 7.33 (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.65 to 11.53; p < 0.01; I2 = 44%) and the standardized mean difference (SMD) for healing time was –5.89 (95% CI: –7.85 to –3.93, p < 0.01, I2 = 98%), suggesting bFGF application has a significant effect on closure of TM perforations. However, no significant change in hearing (SMD: 0.08, 95% CI: –0.11 to 0.27, p = 0.39, I2 = 0%) was seen as a result of bFGF treatment. Conclusions: Our meta-analysis has revealed that the application of bFGF can significantly enhance the closure rate as well as shorten the healing time for TM perforations. In terms of hearing, there is as yet no evidence that bFGF has a significant effect. Given its ease, availability, and safety, bFGF can be used effectively for TM repair.