Attentional capture by deviant sounds: A non-contingent form of auditory distraction?

The occurrence of an unexpected, infrequent sound in an otherwise homogeneous auditory background tends to disrupt the ongoing cognitive task. This ‘deviation effect’ is typically explained in terms of attentional capture whereby the deviant sound draws attention away from the focal activity, regardless of the nature of this activity. Yet, there is theoretical and empirical evidence suggesting that the attention-capture mechanism underlying this form of distraction could rather be triggered in a task-contingent fashion. The present study aimed at determining whether the auditory deviation effect reflects the action of either a stimulus-driven or a task-contingent orienting mechanism. To do so, we conducted a systematic investigation whereby the impact of verbal deviants—a letter embedded in the repetition of another letter—and spatial deviants—a sound presented contralaterally to the other sounds—on verbal and spatial short-term memory was assessed. This study established that both verbal and spatial deviants can hinder both verbal and spatial order-reconstruction (Experiment 1) and missing-item tasks (Experiment 2). Such results demonstrate that the deviation effect reflects a general form of auditory distraction as interference took place both within and across domains and regardless of the processes engaged in the focal tas

Examining the U.S. Disaster Management Program: A Case Study of the U.S. Virgin Islands Hurricanes Irma and Maria Evacuation

AbstractWhether from natural or human causes, every global community is at risk for overwhelming, destabilizing incidents. Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the U.S. Virgin Islands in late August and early September 2017, necessitating the urgent evacuation of hemodialysis patients over 1000 miles to the U.S. mainland. Because the damage and response to the U.S. territory were unprecedented, the public health implications of the government’s strategies on the evacuated population subset were unexplored. However, available information suggested that some evacuees sustained avoidable harm while in the protracted care and custody of the government. This qualitative case study, conceptually framed by Bronfenbrenner’s socioecological systems, examined the federal disaster management program’s sufficiency to abate or preclude foreseeable risks to the evacuees. Structured interviews and documented evacuee and responder experiences, compared with programmatic specifications, informed equity and efficacy determinations. Decades of research described enhanced vulnerability among individuals impacted by social determinants of health. Despite these known risks, this study revealed operational activities that negatively impacted some evacuees’ health, safety, wellbeing, and community reentry capability. Redirecting policy level disaster management priorities to those at the highest risk for worse outcomes can expose person level procedural gaps. As such, programmatic enhancements can spur transformative holistic positive social change, promoting equity in disaster response

Intercomparison of two-dimensional wave spectra obtained from microwave instruments, buoys and WAModel simulations during the surface wave dynamics experiment

An intercomparison is made of two dimensional wave spectra obtained from buoys and various remote sensing microwave systems and predicted by the WAModel dur- ing the Surface Wave Dynamics Experiment (SWADE). The overall agreement be- tween the measurements and the model is satifactory, but some differences in detail require further investigation. The buoy data yield reliable mean spectral parame- ters, but the maximum likelihood retrieval algorithm tends to produce directional distributions that are broader than those of other instruments. Various microwave instruments (ROWS, RESSAC, SRA) show good promise for the determination of 2d-wave spectra, but exhibit individual shortcomings (calibration uncertainties, di- rectional ambiguity, impact of aircraft motion) that need to be further studied. The SAR system yields reliable retrievals with respect to the general spectral dis- tribution, but suffers in this experiment from an undetermined calibration factor. Deviations between the WAModel and instrumental data could be largely attributed to wind field errors, but the model also exhibits deficiencies in the development of short-fetch wave systems and in the wave spectral response to rapidly turning wind fields

Radiocarbon dating of methane and carbon dioxide evaded from a temperate peatland stream

Streams draining peatlands export large quantities of carbon in different chemical forms and are an important part of the carbon cycle. Radiocarbon (14C) analysis/dating provides unique information on the source and rate that carbon is cycled through ecosystems, as has recently been demonstrated at the air-water interface through analysis of carbon dioxide (CO2) lost from peatland streams by evasion (degassing). Peatland streams also have the potential to release large amounts of methane (CH4) and, though 14C analysis of CH4 emitted by ebullition (bubbling) has been previously reported, diffusive emissions have not. We describe methods that enable the 14C analysis of CH4 evaded from peatland streams. Using these methods, we investigated the 14C age and stable carbon isotope composition of both CH4 and CO2 evaded from a small peatland stream draining a temperate raised mire. Methane was aged between 1617-1987 years BP, and was much older than CO2 which had an age range of 303-521 years BP. Isotope mass balance modelling of the results indicated that the CO2 and CH4 evaded from the stream were derived from different source areas, with most evaded CO2 originating from younger layers located nearer the peat surface compared to CH4. The study demonstrates the insight that can be gained into peatland carbon cycling from a methodological development which enables dual isotope (14C and 13C) analysis of both CH4 and CO2 collected at the same time and in the same way

Background risk of breast cancer and the association between physical activity and mammographic density

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The phantom midge menace: Migratory Chaoborus larvae maintain poor ecosystem state in eutrophic inland waters

Chaoborus spp. (phantom midge) are prevalent in eutrophic lakes with methane-rich, oxygen depleted hypolimnion and sediments, and the methane-poor, oxygen-rich epilimnion. Using a combination of experiments and system modelling, we demonstrated that the larvae’s burrowing activities in and out of the sediment perturbed the sediment and reintroduced sequestered phosphorus into the overlying water, thereby exacerbating internal nutrient loading in the water column. Fluxes of sediment methane and other reduced solutes enhanced by the larval bioturbation sustain the hypoxic/anoxic condition below the thermocline. Migrating larvae also directly transported methane in their gas vesicles from the deep water and release it in the surface water, potentially contributing to methane emission to air. As nutrient pollution and climate warming persist or worsen in the coming decades, proliferation of Chaoborus could intensify this positive feedback loop and delay lake recovery