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Metaphors are key to how children conceptualise the world around them and how they engage socially and educationally. This study investigated metaphor comprehension in typically developing Arabic-speaking children aged 3;01-6;07. Eighty-seven children were administered a newly developed task containing 20 narrated stories and were asked to point at pictures that best illustrated the metaphoric expression. The results were examined through a mixed ANCOVA, testing the effects of chronological age, metaphor type (primary, perceptual) and metaphor conventionality (conventional, novel) on metaphor comprehension. Children could understand some metaphors just after their third birthday, and their comprehension increased with age. Children's performance was somewhat better on primary than perceptual, and much better on conventional than novel metaphors. These findings are discussed in light of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 2008) and structure mapping theory (Gentner & Markman, 1997), confirming differences in the acquisition of different metaphor types.
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COVID-19 has struck the world in an unprecedented way. Countries quickly tried to counter the rapid spread of the virus by imposing strict measures and national lockdowns. At the same time, some governments took advantage of the pandemic to besmirch their opponents. We utilize van Dijk (J Polit Ideol 11(2):115-140 2006) critical discourse analysis model to investigate how newspaper headlines reacted to COVID-19 from through ideological lenses. Results show that while the US implied that China is the origin of the virus, headlines in Arab newspapers showed that Saudi Arabia blamed travel to Iran for the early increases of COVID-19 cases.
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Background Malnutrition is associated with adverse outcomes in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. The prognostic nutritional index (PNI) is a validated tool for assessing nutritional status in cardiovascular diseases. This study aims to evaluate the prognostic value of PNI in heart surgery patients, including mortality rate, length of hospital and ICU stays, and infection rate, while investigating correlations with demographic and clinical characteristics. Methods A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in King Fahad Armed Forces Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Data from electronic medical records of patients undergoing heart surgery between 2019 and 2021 were retrospectively reviewed. The study involved patients with valvular heart disease, including those requiring concomitant procedures. Statistical analysis was conducted using t-tests, logistic regression, and Kaplan-Meier survival curve analysis. Results This study included 264 individuals with a mean age of 56.48±12.11 years. The prevalence of low PNI was 50.80% and high PNI was 49.20%. No significant differences in PNI levels were found between individuals with various clinical conditions, except for target vessel revascularization. The mortality rate was slightly higher in the low PNI group, but not statistically significant. Significant differences in laboratory findings were observed between high and low PNI groups. Individuals with low PNI had longer hospital stays. Conclusion Lower PNI levels consistently correlate with longer hospital stays and higher morbidity and mortality rates, suggesting the potential importance of PNI and other nutritional markers in assessing risk and predicting outcomes in cardiac surgery patients.
RESUMEN
Older children with online schooling requirements, unsurprisingly, were reported to have increased screen time during the first COVID-19 lockdown in many countries. Here, we ask whether younger children with no similar online schooling requirements also had increased screen time during lockdown. We examined children's screen time during the first COVID-19 lockdown in a large cohort (n = 2209) of 8-to-36-month-olds sampled from 15 labs across 12 countries. Caregivers reported that toddlers with no online schooling requirements were exposed to more screen time during lockdown than before lockdown. While this was exacerbated for countries with longer lockdowns, there was no evidence that the increase in screen time during lockdown was associated with socio-demographic variables, such as child age and socio-economic status (SES). However, screen time during lockdown was negatively associated with SES and positively associated with child age, caregiver screen time, and attitudes towards children's screen time. The results highlight the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on young children's screen time.