Search Results (178)

Background: Given the central role of writing and typing in contemporary communication, integrating writing assessments into clinical practice is crucial for improving the diagnosis and management of primary progressive aphasia (PPA). This scoping review summarizes evidence on writing abilities in PPA, examining task types, their strengths and limitations, the linguistic features of stimuli, and the influence of language differences. Methods: A literature search was conducted using the Google Scholar and PubMed databases. We included papers published in peer-reviewed journals and written in English that present data from at least one PPA subject and report a quantitative score relative to a writing task. Fifty-one studies were included (forty-seven behavioral; four with neuroimaging). Results: Overall, the literature is fragmented, with marked variability in task design and the control of psycholinguistic variables. Writing to dictation is the most frequently used task but fails to capture the full spectrum of writing impairments, whereas tasks tapping lexico-semantic, morpho-syntactic, and discourse-level abilities are rarely employed. At the syndromic description level, svPPA typically shows surface dysgraphia, nfvPPA presents phonological dysgraphia and agrammatic writing, and lvPPA displays mixed error profiles. Neuroimaging findings are highly heterogeneous. Conclusions: The review underscores the need for systematic, linguistically grounded approaches to writing assessments in PPA to enhance diagnostic precision and cross-linguistic comparability. Full article

This study investigated the effects of computer-assisted writing on the written language production of secondary school students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SLD), particularly dyslexia. Writing is a complex cognitive process requiring the coordination of spelling, lexical retrieval, syntactic organization, transcription, and revision, areas in which students with SLD often experience persistent difficulties. The study compared handwritten and computer-based texts produced by 40 students with SLD and 20 students without learning difficulties using a counterbalanced design, with an interval of approximately two weeks between the two writing sessions. In the handwriting condition, students used printed reference materials, whereas in the computer-based condition they had access to general-purpose digital tools, including spell-checkers, electronic dictionaries, online resources, and word-processing software. Written texts were evaluated using the Spelling Accuracy Index and holistic scores assigned by independent raters. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests (Mann–Whitney U and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests). The findings revealed statistically significant improvements in favor of computer-based writing for both groups, with particularly strong gains among students with SLD. Computer-written texts demonstrated higher spelling accuracy and received higher evaluation scores, indicating improved performance in the assessed writing outcomes. The findings suggest that computer-assisted writing may support written language production in secondary school students with SLD, particularly in relation to spelling accuracy and overall text evaluation, and may offer a useful avenue for more inclusive writing instruction. Full article

Syntactic complexity is a crucial aspect of assessing writing quality in Chinese as a second language. While existing literature predominantly focuses on synchronic features of syntactic complexity, particularly changes in complexity indices, less attention has been paid to its diachronic development and interactions among these indices. Drawing upon Dynamic Systems Theory, this exploratory longitudinal study traces the developmental trajectories of syntactic complexity indices and their interactions in CSL writings of 15 native Cambodian speakers within a single instructional context. The main results are as follows: (i) The syntactic complexity indices exhibited fluctuating and nonlinear growth. Among them, the length of topic chain clauses showed notable variation (range: 1.12 to 9.05), while relatively small changes (range: 0.4 to 2.39) occurred in the number of topic chain clauses. (ii) The development trends in the number of topic chains and the number of zero components showed no significant difference (p = 0.086, Cohen’s d = 0.31). In contrast, the development trends in the number of topic chain clauses and the length of topic chain clauses differed significantly (p = 0.039, Cohen’s d = 0.65). (iii) Individual differences in syntactic complexity were observed among learners in similar learning environments. These findings provide a detailed, context-bound description of the dynamic and complex syntactic development observed in the Chinese writing of 15 participants. The study highlights the value of employing multiple perspectives to capture such complexity and underscores the need for future research with more diverse samples and designs to test the generalizability of these patterns. Full article

Forest Action Plans (FAPs) are strategic documents guiding forest management across the United States (U.S.), yet agroforestry terminology is used inconsistently within these plans. This study analyzed 50 state FAPs to assess how agroforestry practices are communicated. Using a predetermined list of 29 terms, including the five main agroforestry practices in the U.S. (alley cropping, forest farming, riparian forest buffers, silvopasture, and windbreaks), a descriptive content analysis was conducted, examining the frequency of agroforestry terms and their associated terms across all states. Results revealed wide variation in FAP document page length and regional differences in terminology usage. FAPs ranged from about 15–681 pages and the Midwestern (Great Plains) states demonstrated the highest frequency of agroforestry term mentions. Among the five main agroforestry practices, riparian forest buffers were mentioned most frequently (437 times across 44 states), while alley cropping and forest farming appeared in only two states. Notably, some states with established agroforestry traditions and practices showed minimal explicit agroforestry term usage in their FAPs. These findings highlight the need for clearer guidance within FAPs to improve the consistency and visibility of agroforestry terminology in the U.S. This analysis establishes a benchmark for understanding how agroforestry is communicated in FAPs and offers guidance for future research and FAP writing cycles beyond the current 2025–2026 updates. Full article

This study examines the relationship between writing performance, assessed with the Early Writing Alert System (SISAT), and linguistic patterns in student narratives from one public and one private university in northeastern Mexico. Variables such as lexical density and richness, text volume, and thematic progression were analyzed to explore how institutional context influences narrative writing and its assessment. A non-experimental, descriptive–comparative design with interpretive triangulation was employed. The corpus comprised 148 narratives produced over three academic periods, analyzed using automated linguistic tools alongside SISAT scores. Descriptive statistics, Spearman correlations, and Kruskal–Wallis tests were applied to examine differences between the two institutions and across periods. The results indicate intermediate performance at both universities, with differentiated patterns: at the public university, lexical richness and density positively correlated with SISAT scores, while greater text volume was negatively associated; at the private university, both text length and diversity were positively related, though excessive lexical density appeared counterproductive. No statistically significant differences were observed between periods or between the two universities. Our findings highlight that quantitative linguistic indicators complement normative assessment and underscore the role of institutional context in writing development. The study also emphasizes the formative and expressive functions of narrative writing, supporting pedagogical strategies that integrate automated assessment with qualitative analysis to foster self-regulation, symbolic expression, and ethical reflection. Full article

Reflective writing is a core component of teacher education, especially during practical internships. However, providing high-quality feedback on reflections is resource-intensive. This study examines descriptively observable associations between an early dual-feedback approach combining basic (automated) and elaborate (human-generated) feedback and structural features of preservice physics teachers’ reflective writing, prior to the widespread adoption of generative AI in education. Using an exploratory, non-equivalent, non-concurrent cohort design, we analyzed participant-level aggregates of written reflections from a non-intervention cohort (N = 22) and an intervention cohort (N = 32), applying a validated reflection-supporting model to assess structural composition and discursive elements of reflective writing. In the intervention, basic feedback was generated by a previously validated BERT-based machine learning model focusing on structural reflection elements, while elaborate feedback addressed content-related and pedagogical depth. In this study, the automated model was employed as an analytic measurement instrument drawing on validation work demonstrating its transferability across comparable reflection contexts. Quantitative analyses did not reveal systematic longitudinal growth in indicators of reflective writing quality in either cohort. Across comparable measurement points, descriptively different structural reflection profiles were observed between cohorts, without permitting causal or developmental interpretations. Feedback acceptance was high overall, although structural AI feedback was perceived as less personalized and less useful. These findings highlight the descriptive value of early, non-generative AI-based approaches for scalable structural diagnostics of reflective writing, while underscoring the continued importance of human-generated, content-focused feedback. The study establishes an empirical baseline for evaluating contemporary generative AI–based feedback systems in teacher education. Full article

The ability to revise texts to meet the needs and expectations of the target audience requires sustained and deliberate practice. Revision becomes more complex when working on somebody’s else text and in a second language. Against this background, we conducted an exploratory and descriptive case study qualitatively shedding light on the characteristics of the processes and the products of revision. We collected data from three graduate students revising a business text in English (their second language) and from an experienced writer/editor, native English speaker, revising the same text in his first language. Using keystroke logging, screen recording, and text analysis, we observed an alternation between revision and rewriting, as well as a combination of expert features (e.g., inclusion of reader-oriented explanations) and less expert features (e.g., fewer rounds of revision) among graduate students. There were also differences between the students and the expert in the way in which they spatially organised their tasks. We interpreted these results within the context of cognitive and sociocultural models of writing, and especially the notion of agency. Full article

Generative AI (GenAI) is increasingly embedded in higher education workflows for teaching preparation and academic work, yet lecturers’ affective readiness and perceived alignment between AI use and professional values remain underexplored. This mixed-methods study investigated 191 Indonesian university English lecturers’ GenAI-related anxiety and satisfaction, mapped adoption patterns through profile analysis, and identified key integration challenges. Quantitative data were collected using a reliable 10-item AI Anxiety Scale (α = 0.89) and a global satisfaction item and analyzed using descriptive statistics, Spearman’s correlations, and K-means clustering. The strongest anxieties concerned over-reliance (M = 4.20, SD = 0.80, d = −1.12) and content accuracy (M = 3.70, SD = 1.10, d = −0.76). Anxiety was negatively associated with satisfaction, most notably for perceived complexity (r = −0.197, p = 0.006) and dependency concerns (r = −0.184, p = 0.012). Three profiles emerged: high-anxiety lecturers reported distrust and pedagogical discomfort; moderate-anxiety lecturers adopted GenAI conditionally with verification; and low-anxiety lecturers used GenAI confidently and proactively. Qualitative reflections and interviews revealed five dominant use cases, involving writing support, material development, assessment design, translation, and lesson planning, while stressing persistent barriers related to ethical uncertainty, mistrust in AI-generated outputs, and concerns about diminished educator agency. The findings suggest that aligning GenAI with higher education workflows requires human-centered support, including context-sensitive AI literacy, clear ethical guidance, and institutional governance that strengthens responsible adoption. Full article

Public health restrictions during COVID-19 disproportionately affected older adults, especially those in long-term care (LTC) and their families. Family caregivers (FCs) are essential care partners in LTC settings, yet pandemic policies largely excluded them, creating emotional and systemic consequences. This study explored FCs’ experiences of visitation restrictions in British Columbia, Canada, using an arts-based qualitative approach within a larger mixed-methods project. Eight FCs participated in completing a total of twelve artworks, including photographs, collages, and creative writing that reflected their experiences. Virtual talking circles were used to facilitate the sharing and description of their experiences. Findings revealed three interconnected theme categories with eleven sub-themes. These themes suggest a plausible pathway: infection-control rules may lead to caregiver exclusion, disrupting relational continuity and oversight and contributing to distress and task-centered care. While context-specific and exploratory, results underscore the need for trauma-informed, family-inclusive policies and cultural safety in LTC. Arts-based research methods provided a powerful lens for capturing emotional realities often missed by conventional research. Full article

Purpose: Research drives clinical advancement in oral and craniomaxillofacial surgery by generating evidence that guides practice and innovation. However, limited literature exists describing research engagement among surgeons within AO CMF in the Middle East and North Africa. This study evaluated awareness, participation, and perceived barriers to research among AO CMF members and affiliated surgeons in the MENA region. Methods: A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey was distributed electronically to AO CMF members, affiliates, and professional CMF surgeon networks between October and December 2024. The 14-item survey assessed demographics, research awareness, attitudes, productivity, and barriers. Responses were anonymized and analyzed descriptively using SurveyPlanet analytics. Results: A total of 144 surgeons from 21 countries completed the survey. Pakistan (35%), Morocco (9.8%), Kuwait (7.7%), and the United Arab Emirates (7%) contributed the largest proportions. Most respondents (47.6%) expressed strong interest in research but reported difficulty initiating projects, while 32.2% cited lack of time as a major constraint. The most frequently reported barriers included challenges in research methodology (14.6%), publishing (14.6%), and manuscript writing (14.1%). Only 18.9% of participants had published more than ten articles, while 29.4% had none. Mentorship demand was high (94.4%), but awareness of the AO PEER program remained limited (37.8%). Conclusion: Surgeons expressed strong enthusiasm for research yet face substantial barriers. Strengthening research methodology training, establishing structured mentorship, expanding AO PEER engagement, and facilitating multicenter collaboration are key strategies to enhance research productivity across the region. Full article

Attending to Elizabeth Bowen’s environmental descriptions in her short fiction, including her landscapes, weather, flora, and fauna, reveals a modernist ecological sensibility. In stories such as ‘Summer Night’ and ‘Human Habitation,’ Bowen’s characters find themselves estranged from the kinds of attachment to place fostered by a national ecological imaginary. While Bowen’s own nationality, and the effect of her Anglo-Irish class and heritage on her writing, has been a central area of consideration for many scholars, this essay offers an ecocritical reading of her short stories and argues that these works interrogate the viability of national ecologies to help understand the experiences of her characters within a modern world. Whether they find themselves in Ireland or in England, Bowen’s characters inhabit a world that perpetually leads to feelings of detachment and alienation from the terms of belonging and place that underlie such national ecologies. By building on the recent modernist and ecocritical turn in scholarship on Elizabeth Bowen, this essay argues that her short stories challenge the explanatory qualities of romantic national ecologies by instead evoking a modernist ecology of estrangement. Full article

Objective: This study provides timely insights into how faculty perceive the role of generative AI in academic collaboration and offers a case study on aligning institutional policy with emerging technological opportunities in higher education. It investigates how generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are perceived and utilized in the formation of academic research groups, focusing on faculty at the University of Jordan. Design/Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study involving a mixed-methods survey of 100 faculty members primarily principal investigators (PI) was conducted, gathering quantitative data on AI familiarity, usage across research group (RG) planning tasks, perceived benefits and risks, and qualitative feedback on recommended institutional actions. Findings: The results indicate moderate adoption of generative AI in RG formation, especially for creative and writing tasks, with younger and junior faculty significantly tending to be more optimistic about AI’s benefits (e.g., increased efficiency, improved content quality) than senior faculty, who reported having greater concerns. The top concerns identified include data privacy, academic integrity (plagiarism), the accuracy of AI outputs, and overreliance on AI at the expense of human expertise. Despite reservations, a large majority agree on the need for official policies and training to guide AI’s ethical and effective use. Conclusion: The findings underscore a generational divide in attitudes, suggesting targeted interventions to support senior academics and influence juniors’ interest. Institutions should craft clear guidelines, provide training, and ensure access to AI tools to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation, while safeguarding academic standards. Full article

The methodology is developed here to write Ricci solitons on the newly found structure of the pseudo-spherical cylinder. The methodology is specified for Schwarzschild solitons and for Generalized-Schwarzschild solitons. Accordingly, a new classification is written for the Schwarzschild solitons and for the Generalized-Schwarzschild solitons. The rotational field is spelled out. The potential for a tangent vector field is used. The conditions are recalled to discriminate which submanifold of a Ricci manifold is a soliton or is an almost-Ricci soliton. It is my aim to prove that a concurrent vector field is uniquely determined after the 4-velocity vector of a Schwarzschild soliton. As a result, the analytically specified manifold, which is a spacelike submanifold of the Schwarzschild spacetime that admits Ricci solitons. The rotational killing fields are tangent to the event horizon. The conditions that are needed to match the new aspects are spelled out analytically. As a result, the two manifolds described in the work of Bardeen et al. about the requested mass of a stationary, axisymmetric solution of the Einstein Field Equations of the spacetime, which contains a blackhole surrounded with matter from the new results obtained after correcting the work of Hawking 1972 about would-be point ’beyond the conjugate point’ on the analytic continuation of the would-be geodesics: they are proven here to become the tangent manifold (which is expressed from the tangent bundle in General-Relativistic notation). The prescription here is based on one of the books of Landau et al., that the matter is not put into the metric tensor, not even in the ultra-Relativistic limit. This way, the pseudo-spherical cylinder is one implemented from the Minkowskian description and whose asymptotical limit is proven. The new methodology allows one to describe the outer region of the blackhole as one according to which the (union of the trapped) regions is one with null support. For the purpose of the present investigation, the definition of concurrent vector fields in General-Relativity is newly developed. As a further new result, the paradigm is implemented for the shrinking case, which admits as subcase the Schwarzschild manifolds and the Generalized-Schwarzschild manifolds. The Penrose 1965 Theorem is discussed for the framework outlined here; in particular, the presence of trapped hypersurfaces is discarded. The no-hair theorem can now be discussed. Full article

This study examined changes in the attitudes of early childhood teachers resulting from their participation in the ONDAS Training Program, a Colombian government strategy designed to strengthen professional skills and dispositions through reflective practice and the integration of research into training. A quantitative, non-experimental longitudinal design with a descriptive-comparative scope was employed. The sample consisted of 56 female teachers evaluated before and after the program. The 12-month intervention combined a three-module virtual course on innovation, research, and academic writing with an editorial stage and expert mentoring. Data were collected through a validated survey on three dimensions: support and resources, research skills, and pedagogical appropriation. Analyses applied descriptive statistics and intra-group non-parametric tests, with the Benjamini–Hochberg adjustment used to control Type I error. The results revealed improvements in research skills, stronger pedagogical appropriation, and more positive evaluations of support and resources. These transformations also included shifts in teachers’ attitudes toward research, greater openness to feedback, and increased confidence in implementing innovative proposals. Findings confirm that early childhood teacher education is a complex process that benefits from reflective, collaborative, and situated approaches, underscoring the program’s role in strengthening professional competences and enhancing teachers’ ability to critically examine practice and adapt to diverse educational contexts. Importantly, these results provide evidence to inform national teacher training strategies in Colombia, offering practical guidance for policymakers and institutions seeking to strengthen research-based, reflective, and contextually responsive professional development programs. Full article

Background/Objectives: Palliative care nurses are at risk of burnout, trauma, and poor well-being. Expressive writing interventions are shown to promote self-reflection, personal growth, and resilience. A pilot study was designed to test the feasibility and use of a self-reflexive blog writing intervention to promote the subjective well-being, resilience, and personal growth of palliative care nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A sample of N = 144 registered nurses working in palliative care settings were enrolled in the study. Recruitment was performed using university alumni, nursing, and palliative care organization member listservs. Self-reported surveys such as the Subjective Well-Being Inventory (SUBI), Brief Resiliency Scale (BRS), and Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) scales were used to evaluate study outcomes. Pre- and post-surveys were obtained at baseline, 4 weeks, and 6 weeks. Upon baseline survey completion, participants were randomly assigned to control and intervention groups. Participants in the intervention group were asked to write two weekly blog entries for a period of four weeks using a blog template on Qualtrics software. Descriptive statistical measures were used to evaluate the study outcomes and content analysis to analyze descriptive survey responses and blog narratives. Results: A total of N = 57 participants completed this study. Most participants were females (93%), White (89.5%), married (93%), and full-time employees (96.5%) and underwent PC training (93%). The findings indicate significant improvement in the subjective well-being (MD = 2.43, p < 0.05) and resilience scores (MD = 0.244, p < 0.05) in the intervention group. No significant changes were found in post-traumatic growth scores post-intervention. Most participants found blog writing as a supportive tool to reflect on their personal experiences and to ventilate their emotions and feelings. Conclusions: Self-reflexive blog writing is convenient and a potentially effective method for promoting the resilience and well-being of nurses. Future studies are needed to evaluate its effectiveness in a larger sample across different practice settings. Full article