Empowering Women Through Livelihoods Orientated Agricultural Service Provision: A Consideration of Evidence from Southern Africa

The paper considers the impact of livelihoods oriented agricultural service provision for smallholder farmers on gender relationships and food security. The paper contents that the democratization and liberalization of agricultural services towards participatory, bottom-up approaches, from the early 1990s has brought favourable gender gains to women. The paper examines the background to this shift in agricultural service provision. The resulting gender gains, we argue, should be seen in terms of Sen?s notion of entitlements. We examine evidence of these gains from developments and cases in Malawi and Zambia and draw supporting evidence from Zimbabwe and South Africa. ...gender empowerment, food security, sustainable livelihoods, rural development

Auditory Discrimination and Auditory Sensory Behaviours in Autism Spectrum Disorders

It has been hypothesised that auditory processing may be enhanced in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We tested auditory discrimination ability in 72 adolescents with ASD (39 childhood autism; 33 other ASD) and 57 IQ and age-matched controls, assessing their capacity for successful discrimination of the frequency, intensity and duration differences in pairs of sounds.At the group level, auditory discrimination ability did not differ between the adolescents with and without ASD. However, we found a subgroup of 20% of individuals in the ASD group who showed ‘exceptional’ frequency discrimination skills (defined as 1.65 SDs above the control mean) and who were characterised by average intellectual ability and delayed language onset. Auditory sensory behaviours (i.e. behaviours in response to auditory sensory input) are common in ASD and we hypothesised that these would relate to auditory discrimination ability. For the ASD group, poor performers on the intensity discrimination task reported more auditory sensory behaviours associated with coping with loudness levels. Conversely, those who performed well on the duration discrimination task reported more auditory sensory behaviours across the full range measured. Frequency discrimination ability did not associate with auditory sensory behaviours. We therefore conclude that (i) enhanced frequency discrimination is present in around 1 in 5 individuals with ASD and may represent a specific phenotype; and (ii) individual differences in auditory discrimination ability in ASD may influence the expression of auditory sensory behaviours by modulating the degree to which sounds are detected or missed in the environment

Chronologies for Recent Peat Deposits Using Wiggle-matched Radiocarbon Ages: Problems with Old Carbon Contamination

Dating sediments which have accumulated over the last few hundred years is critical to the calibration of longer-term paleoclimate records with instrumental climate data. We attempted to use wiggle-matched radiocarbon ages to date 2 peat profiles from northern England which have high-resolution records of paleomoisture variability over the last ~300 yr. A total of 65<sup>14</sup>C accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) measurements were made on 33 macrofossil samples. A number of the age estimates were older than expected and some of the oldest ages occurred in the upper parts of the sequence, which had been dated to the late 19th and early 20th century using other techniques. We suggest that the older <sup>14</sup>C ages are the result of contamination by industrial pollution. Based on counts of spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs), the potential aging effect for SCP carbon was calculated and shown to be appreciable for samples from the early 20th century. Ages corrected for this effect were still too old in some cases, which could be a result of fossil CO<sub>2</sub> fixation, non-SCP particulate carbon, contamination due to imperfect cleaning of samples, or the "reservoir effect" from fixation of fossil carbon emanating from deeper peat layers. Wiggle matches based on the overall shape of the depth-<sup>14</sup>C relationship and the <sup>14</sup>C minima in the calibration curve could still be identified. These were tested against other age estimates (<sup>210</sup>Pb, pollen, and SCPs) to provide new age-depth models for the profiles. New approaches are needed to measure the impact of industrially derived carbon on recent sediment ages to provide more secure chronologies over the last few hundred years

Analysis of the Potential Impact of the Current WTO Agricultural Negotiations on Government Strategies in the SADC Region

SADC, trade, WTO, Agreement on Agriculture, subsidies, market access

Reading and arithmetic in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders: Peaks and dips in attainment

In describing academic attainment in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), results are typically reported at the group mean level. This may mask subgroups of individuals for whom academic achievement is incommensurate with intellectual ability. The authors tested the IQ, literacy, and mathematical abilities of a large group (N = 100) of adolescents (14–16 years old) with ASD. Seventy-three percent of the sample had at least one area of literacy or mathematical achievement that was highly discrepant (approximately 14 standard score points) from full-scale IQ (FSIQ). The authors focused on four subgroups with either word reading (“Reading Peak” and “Reading Dip”) or arithmetic (“Arithmetic Peak” and “Arithmetic Dip”) higher or lower than FSIQ. These subgroups were largely mutually exclusive and were characterized by distinct intellectual profiles. The largest was the “Arithmetic Peak” subgroup of participants, who presented with average intellectual ability alongside superior arithmetic skills and who were predominantly in a mainstream educational setting. Overall, the most pervasive profile was discrepantly poor reading comprehension, which associated with severity of social and communication difficulties. The high rate of uneven academic attainment in ASD has implications for educational practice

Testate amoebae as a proxy for reconstructing Holocene water table dynamics in southern Patagonian peat bogs

Funded by Natural Environment Research Council. Grant Numbers: NE/I022809/1, NE/I022981/1, NE/I022833/1, NE/I023104/1 Ricardo Muza and the Wildlife Conservation Society Karukinka Park Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (grant numbers NE/I022809/1, NE/I022981/1, NE/I022833/1 and NE/I023104/1). We thank Ricardo Muza and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Karukinka Park rangers for facilitating access to Karukinka Park. We also thank François De Vleeschouwer, Gaël Le Roux, Heleen Vanneste, Sébastien Bertrand, Zakaria Ghazoui and Jean-Yves De Vleeschouwer for fieldwork assistance. Nelson Bahamonde (INIA, Punta Arenas, Chile) and Ernesto Teneb (UMag, Punta Arenas, Chile) provided logistical support for the fieldwork in Chile. Dr Andrea Coronato (CADIC, Ushuaia) kindly provided logistical support for the research in Argentina. Thanks to Jenny Johnston for cartography, David Jolley for assistance in microscopic photography and Audrey Innes for laboratory assistance. We highly appreciate reviews by Matt Amesbury and an anonymous reviewer. R.P. is supported by an Impact Fellowship from the University of Stirling.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A single case study of a family-centred intervention with a young girl with cerebral palsy who is a multimodal communicator

Background - This paper describes the impact of a family-centred intervention that used video to enhance communication in a young girl with cerebral palsy. This single case study describes how the video-based intervention worked in the context of multimodal communication, which included high-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device use. This paper includes the family's perspective of the video intervention and they describe the impact of it on their family. Methods - This single case study was based on the premise that the video interaction guidance intervention would increase attentiveness between participants during communication. It tests a hypothesis that eye gaze is a fundamental prerequisite for all communicative initiatives, regardless of modality in the child. Multimodality is described as the range of communicative behaviours used by the child and these are coded as AAC communication, vocalizations (intelligible and unintelligible), sign communication, nodding and pointing. Change was analysed over time with multiple testing both pre and post intervention. Data were analysed within INTERACT, a computer software to analyse behaviourally observed data. Behaviours were analysed for frequency and duration, contingency and co-occurrence. Results - Results indicated increased duration of mother's and girl's eye gaze, increased frequency and duration in AAC communication by the girl and significant change in frequency [χ2 (5, n = 1) = 13.25, P < 0.05] and duration [χ2 (5, n = 1) = 12.57, P < 0.05] of the girl's multimodal communicative behaviours. Contingency and co-occurrence analysis indicated that mother's eye gaze followed by AAC communication was the most prominent change between the pre- and post-intervention assessments. Conclusions - There was a trend for increased eye gaze in both mum and girl and AAC communication in the girl following the video intervention. The family's perspective concurs with the results