Can an Office Change a Country? The White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives: A Year in Review

Places the White House OFBCI in the context of the institutional presidency and identifies the challenges it presented. Examines campaign creation, transition planning, and future prospects for the OFBCI

Language Production: A complex dynamic system with a chronometric footprint

In this paper we outline a new approach to the study of language production. Central to this approach is the assumption that communication takes place in a dynamic environment in which cognitive resources are deployed to achieve ‘Right-Time’ as distinct from ‘Fast-as-Possible’ solutions. This is based on the assumption that language production includes a single, integrated, interactive process that recruits and coordinates information from a variety of internal, external and interactive sources to build each speech segment. The output of this process is reflected in the longer of the two log-normal pause duration distributions observed in spontaneous speech (Kirsner, Dunn, Hird, Parkin & Clark, 2002). The methodology described here permits the inspection of temporally defined processes under natural speaking conditions. The procedures do not rely on the assumption that language is the product of independent components that can be studied under static, de-contextualised conditions. Results from aphasia, amnesia and bilingualism will be used to illustrate the new paradigm

Page Charges and Article Length in Astronomy Journals

By the kind permission of the ASP Conference Series.A study of 34 journals in astronomy and astrophysics looked at the relationship between journal page charges and the length of articles published. Although some writers contend that page charges encourage contributors to write shorter articles, there was no correlation between page charges and the length of articles published. American journals with relatively high impact factors were more likely to have page charges, but there was no overall correlation between impact factor and either page charges or article length

Aphasia classification: The relationship between objective measures of spontaneous speaking samples and naive listener judgments of similarity and fluency

For an objective measure to be useful in a clinical setting it must correlate with perceptions of the speaker and what is considered “normal” (Kreiman, Gerratt, Kempster, Erman, & Berke, 1993). Perceptions of the functional communicative abilities of people with aphasia do not correlate well with changes on decontextualised linguistic measures (Wertz, 1999). In addition, the current practice of reliance on specific perceptual ratings of fluency of speech has been shown to be unreliable (Gordon, 1998; Kent, 1996,). Using a multidimensional scaling technique Kreiman, Gerratt & Precoda (1990) found that naïve and expert listeners attended to different aspects of voice when making similarity judgments. They recommended that naïve listeners become the “gold standard” for perceptual judgment tasks as their listening experiences were more homogenous. Listeners learn, through the computational analysis of connected speech, that pause duration information is an important factor in determining how spoken discourse is segmented, analyzed and interpreted, as pauses allow the listener to identify discourse structures and links between related materials (Fox Tree & Schrock, 1999). Perception of speech is achieved holistically, and values obtained for any one dimension may be highly influenced by co-occurring dimensions and the range of individual past listening experiences (Kent, 1996, 1997; Lehar, 2003). The development of a classification method derived from acoustic measures offers an objective approach to the correlates of speaking fluency. Fluency in this instance is considered a system measure rather than an isolable characteristic of spontaneous speech. The aim of this study was to explore (a) the relationship between objective pause data and naïve listeners’ similarity judgments of aphasic connected speech samples using MDS (b) the relationship between objective pause data and naïve listeners’ direct magnitude fluency estimates of aphasic connected speech samples and (c) the way listeners employ descriptors and concepts when describing aphasic speech samples

Benefactors, Bonds, and Beholders: The Beliefs and Reality Behind Beethoven’s Behavior

This paper will explore the relationships which Beethoven had during the years he composed and premiered his Eroica Symphony. Some of the individuals who will be discussed in this paper include Prince Lobkowitz, Ferdinand Ries, and Franz Wegeler. After learning about the nature of these relationships, the reader should begin to realize that Beethoven’s notoriously irrational or ill-tempered behavior was only one facet of his life

Eat Smart Move More Weigh Less: A Community Based Weight Management Program for Adults

Describes development of a comprehensive, low cost weight management program to be delivered by local public health educators or cooperative extension agents. The program was developed by a unique partnerships of the NC Cooperative Extension Serive, the NC Division of Public Health and the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University

A genomic analysis and transcriptomic atlas of gene expression in Psoroptes ovis reveals feeding- and stage-specific patterns of allergen expression

Background: Psoroptic mange, caused by infestation with the ectoparasitic mite, Psoroptes ovis, is highly contagious, resulting in intense pruritus and represents a major welfare and economic concern for the livestock industry Worldwide. Control relies on injectable endectocides and organophosphate dips, but concerns over residues, environmental contamination, and the development of resistance threaten the sustainability of this approach, highlighting interest in alternative control methods. However, development of vaccines and identification of chemotherapeutic targets is hampered by the lack of P. ovis transcriptomic and genomic resources. Results: Building on the recent publication of the P. ovis draft genome, here we present a genomic analysis and transcriptomic atlas of gene expression in P. ovis revealing feeding- and stage-specific patterns of gene expression, including novel multigene families and allergens. Network-based clustering revealed 14 gene clusters demonstrating either single- or multi-stage specific gene expression patterns, with 3075 female-specific, 890 male-specific and 112, 217 and 526 transcripts showing larval, protonymph and tritonymph specific-expression, respectively. Detailed analysis of P. ovis allergens revealed stage-specific patterns of allergen gene expression, many of which were also enriched in "fed" mites and tritonymphs, highlighting an important feeding-related allergenicity in this developmental stage. Pair-wise analysis of differential expression between life-cycle stages identified patterns of sex-biased gene expression and also identified novel P. ovis multigene families including known allergens and novel genes with high levels of stage-specific expression. Conclusions: The genomic and transcriptomic atlas described here represents a unique resource for the acarid-research community, whilst the OrcAE platform makes this freely available, facilitating further community-led curation of the draft P. ovis genome

Directed differentiation of pluripotent cells to neural lineages: homogeneous formation and differentiation of a neurectoderm population

During embryogenesis the central and peripheral nervous systems arise from a neural precursor population, neurectoderm, formed during gastrulation. We demonstrate the differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells to neurectoderm in culture, in a manner which recapitulates embryogenesis, with the sequential and homogeneous formation of primitive ectoderm, neural plate and neural tube. Formation of neurectoderm occurs in the absence of extraembryonic endoderm or mesoderm and results in a stratified epithelium of cells with morphology, gene expression and differentiation potential consistent with positionally unspecified neural tube. Differentiation of this population to homogeneous populations of neural crest or glia was also achieved. Neurectoderm formation in culture allows elucidation of signals involved in neural specification and generation of implantable cell populations for therapeutic use

Conducting empirical research with older people

We are investigating the role of online communities on the quality of life and wellbeing of people aged 65 years and over. We have conducted workshops and one-to- one semi-structured interviews, and have had free- flowing informal exchanges with our participants who have shared stories and incidents with us. In this paper, we discuss the challenges and opportunities of conducting empirical research with older people