Youth unemployment in South Africa revisited

One of the most pressing socio-economic problems of the South African economy is high youth unemployment. Recent studies only briefly examined how the youths fared since the transition by comparing the 1995 October Household Survey (OHS) with a Labour Force Survey (LFS), and hardly investigated whether the discouraged workseekers are different from the unemployed. Moreover, a new labour market status derivation methodology has been adopted since the inception of Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) in 2008. Although the unemployed in QLFSs are derived similarly as in OHSs and LFSs, the discouraged workseekers are distinguished very differently. This paper applies the QLFS methodology with minor revisions on all LFSs to derive comparable youth labour market trends since 2000, before re-examining the extent of youth unemployment. The characteristics of discouraged workseekers and narrow unemployed are then compared, before investigating whether different policies are needed to boost youth employment in each group.International Bibliography for Social Science

Artificial nest sites used by Southern Bald Ibis Geronticus calvus

This note reports on Southern Bald Ibises breeding at artificial sites which are characterised by significant levels of human disturbance

Less is more: possibility and necessity as centres of gravity in a usage-based classification of core modals in Polish

In this paper we present the results of an empirical study into the cognitive reality of existing classifications of modality using Polish data. We analyzed random samples of 250 independent observations for the 7 most frequent modal words (móc, można, musieć, należy, powinien, trzeba, wolno), extracted from the Polish national corpus. Observations were annotated for modal type according to a number of classifications, including van der Auwera and Plungian (1998), as well as for morphological, syntactic and semantic properties using the Behavioral Profiling approach (Divjak and Gries 2006). Multiple correspondence analysis and (polytomous) regression models were used to determine how well modal type and usage align. These corpus-based findings were validated experimentally. In a forced choice task, naive native speakers were exposed to definitions and prototypical examples of modal types or functions, then labeled a number of authentic corpus sentences accordingly. In the sorting task, naive native speakers sorted authentic corpus sentences into semantically coherent groups. We discuss the results of our empirical study as well as the issues involved in building usage-based accounts on traditional linguistic classifications

The meaning of negation in the second language classroom: evidence from 'any'

This article brings together an experimental study involving L2 knowledge of negation in English and an analysis of how English language textbooks treat negation, in order to consider whether textbook explanations of negation could better exploit linguistic insights into negation. We focus on the English negative polarity item any, whose distribution is contingent on negation, whether through the explicit negator not or through lexical semantic negators (e.g. hardly). Our experiment compares Chinese-speaking learners with existing data from Arabic-speaking learners, finding lower accuracy on any with lexical semantic negators in both groups. Our textbook analysis reveals an approach to negation that is limited to form, focusing on the explicit negator not without explicit treatment of other types of negation. We propose that emphasizing the meaning of negation, with explicit treatment of the full range of negative forms could facilitate more complete acquisition across a range of grammatical properties where negation plays a role

Antiinflammatory Therapy with Canakinumab for Atherosclerotic Disease

Background: Experimental and clinical data suggest that reducing inflammation without affecting lipid levels may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Yet, the inflammatory hypothesis of atherothrombosis has remained unproved. Methods: We conducted a randomized, double-blind trial of canakinumab, a therapeutic monoclonal antibody targeting interleukin-1β, involving 10,061 patients with previous myocardial infarction and a high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level of 2 mg or more per liter. The trial compared three doses of canakinumab (50 mg, 150 mg, and 300 mg, administered subcutaneously every 3 months) with placebo. The primary efficacy end point was nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or cardiovascular death. RESULTS: At 48 months, the median reduction from baseline in the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level was 26 percentage points greater in the group that received the 50-mg dose of canakinumab, 37 percentage points greater in the 150-mg group, and 41 percentage points greater in the 300-mg group than in the placebo group. Canakinumab did not reduce lipid levels from baseline. At a median follow-up of 3.7 years, the incidence rate for the primary end point was 4.50 events per 100 person-years in the placebo group, 4.11 events per 100 person-years in the 50-mg group, 3.86 events per 100 person-years in the 150-mg group, and 3.90 events per 100 person-years in the 300-mg group. The hazard ratios as compared with placebo were as follows: in the 50-mg group, 0.93 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.80 to 1.07; P = 0.30); in the 150-mg group, 0.85 (95% CI, 0.74 to 0.98; P = 0.021); and in the 300-mg group, 0.86 (95% CI, 0.75 to 0.99; P = 0.031). The 150-mg dose, but not the other doses, met the prespecified multiplicity-adjusted threshold for statistical significance for the primary end point and the secondary end point that additionally included hospitalization for unstable angina that led to urgent revascularization (hazard ratio vs. placebo, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.73 to 0.95; P = 0.005). Canakinumab was associated with a higher incidence of fatal infection than was placebo. There was no significant difference in all-cause mortality (hazard ratio for all canakinumab doses vs. placebo, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.83 to 1.06; P = 0.31). Conclusions: Antiinflammatory therapy targeting the interleukin-1β innate immunity pathway with canakinumab at a dose of 150 mg every 3 months led to a significantly lower rate of recurrent cardiovascular events than placebo, independent of lipid-level lowering. (Funded by Novartis; CANTOS ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01327846.

Presupposed ignorance and exhaustification: how scalar implicatures and presuppositions interact

International audienceWe investigate the interactions between scalar implicatures and presuppositions in sentences containing both a scalar item and presupposition trigger. We first critically discuss Gajewski and Sharvit’s previous approach.We then closely examine two ways of integrating an exhaustivity-based theory of scalar implicatures with a trivalent approach to presuppositions. The empirical side of our discussion focuses on two novel observations: (i) the interactions between prosody and monotonicity, and (ii) what we call presupposed ignorance. In order to account for these observations, our final proposal relies on two mechanisms of scalar strengthening, the Presupposed Ignorance Principle and an exhaustivity operator which lets the presuppositions of negated alternatives project

Presupposition Triggers and Presumptive Interpretation

Pragmatic presuppositions are analyzed considering their relation with the notion of commitment, namely the dialogical acceptance of a proposition by an interlocutor. The attribution of commitments carried out by means of pragmatic presupposition is shown to depend on the reasonableness of the underlying presumptive reasoning, ultimately grounded on hierarchies of presumptions. On this perspective, the ordinary interpretation of pragmatic presuppositions as the “taking for granted” of propositions signaled by semantic or syntactic triggers becomes only the presumptive, prototypical interpretation of a complex linguistic and pragmatic phenomenon. It will be shown how the prototypical interpretation is subject to default in cases of conflicts of presumptions, which lead to reconstructing the speaker’s meaning non-presumptively at a pragmatic, semantic, or syntactic level. The phenomena of presupposition cancellation and neutralization can be explained in terms of presumptive and non-presumptive articulation and interpretation of an utterance, through which the speaker can impose, correct, or refuse implicit commitments