The communication, speech and gesture of a group of hearing-impaired children

The communication skills, speech and gesture of 20 hearing-impaired children were assessed. The children were all being educated in a school using an oral/aural approach. Assessment result comparison indicated the importance of assessing gesture and speech separately for these children and comparing the use of both skills. More informal and formal assessment of gesture and the tools to complete this task effectively are needed to ensure that these children's communication skills are described accurately

Should Energy Taxation “Go Dutch”?

Ökosteuer, Steuerwirkung, Optimale Besteuerung, Vergleich, Niederlande, Environmental tax, Effects of taxation, Optimal taxation, Comparison, Netherlands

Efficacy of speech intervention using electropalatography with a cochlear implant user

Electropalatography (EPG) has become relatively well established as a safe and convenient technique for use in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of children and adults with articulation disorders. EPG's wide applicability is reflected in the range of different cases that has been researched in recent years. Some research has been carried out using EPG therapy for deaf individuals who use hearing aids, however there are no similar studies for cochlear implant users. The purpose of this single case study is to explore the technique of EPG as a therapeutic intervention to treat voiceless velar stop consonant sound production in a deaf child cochlear implant user. EPG therapy was offered as a last resort when traditional therapy failed to achieve specific changes. During therapy, a list of familiar words was practised, using the visual feedback provided by EPG. The client's articulation was assessed using objective (EPG printouts) and subjective (listener ratings) measures at four assessment points. Changes were found to be statistically significant. Generalization of the newly‐acquired skills to untaught words containing voiceless velars was also observed. The results are discussed in the broader context of implications of this type of therapy with deaf clients

Initiation of non-tropical thunderstorms by solar activity

Correlative evidence accumulating since 1926 suggests that there must be some physical coupling mechanism between solar activity and thunderstorm occurrence in middle to high latitudes. Such a link may be provided by alteration of atmospheric electric parameters through the combined influence of high-energy solar protons and decreased cosmic ray intensities, both of which are associated with active solar events. The protons produce excess ionization near and above 20km, while the Forbush decreases a lowered conductivity and enhanced fair-weather atmospheric electric field below that altitude. Consequent effects ultimately lead to a charge distribution similar to that found in thunderclouds, and then other cloud physics processes take over to generate the intense electric fields required for lightning discharge

An analysis of the Venera 8 measurements

Analysis of the Venera 8 measurements yielded equatorial morning terminator horizontal and vertical winds which are similar to the winds obtained from the Venera 7 measurements. The lower boundary of the horizontal retrograde 4-day wind is defined by a 50-60% decrease in wind speed in the vicinity of 44 km and there exists a retrograde wind plateau of 15 to 40 m/s winds extending from 40 km down to the vicinity of 18 km where the winds decrease rapidly to the order of 0.1 m/s near the surface. Up drafts of 2 to 5 m/s exist in the vicinity of 20 to 30 km and are apparently associated with a slightly super adiabatic lapse rate. The temperature lapse-rate, surface radius, surface topography, and atmospheric structure are discussed

Thunderstorms observed by radio astronomy Explorer 1 over regions of low man made noise

Radio Astronomy Explorer (RAE) I observations of thunderstorms over regions of low man-made noise levels are analyzed to assess the satellite's capability for noise source differentiation. The investigation of storms over Australia indicates that RAE can resolve noise generation due to thunderstorms from the general noise background over areas of low man-made noise activity. Noise temperatures observed by RAE over stormy regions are on the average 10DB higher than noise temperatures over the same regions in the absence of thunderstorms. In order to determine the extent of noise contamination due to distant transmitters comprehensive three dimensional computer ray tracings were generated. The results indicate that generally, distant transmitters contribute negligibly to the total noise power, being 30DB or more below contributions arriving from an area immediately below the satellite

On the reality of the Venus winds

The Venera measurements of wind speed along with the Mariner measurements of lower-region of strong turbulence are evidence for a wide band of variable high speed retrograde horizontal winds which girdle Venus at the equator. In one interpretation of the Mariner 10 UV photographs, the 20km region above the top of the visible cloud is characterized by variable high-speed retrograde horizontal winds which orbit Venus with an average period of 4 earth days, and by many features indicating vertical convection. This suggests that the Venera-Mariner band of winds at 45km extends to the top of the UV cloud and beyond, and that the upper-region of strong turbulence detected by the Mariners may result from vertical convection currents carried along by high speed horizontal winds. In another interpretation, the predominate motions are attributed to wavelike disturbances with a 4-day period. For this case the upper-region of strong turbulence may be due in large part to vertical wind-shear resulting from a rapid decrease in wind speed within a relatively short distance about the Venera-Mariner band of high speed winds

An analysis of the Venus measurements

Plots of the Mariner 5 and Venera 4, 5, and 6 pressure vs temperature show that the Venera profiles are essentially congruent with the Mariner 5 day and night profiles, but are displaced 28 percent higher in pressure. Data suggest a variability in the atmospheric water vapor content in the region from 30 to 50 km. The Venera 7 measurements are interpreted as evidence for updrafts, down-drafts, horizontal wind layers, and nonaqueous precipitation. The previously observed band of retrograde winds which circle the equator with an average speed of 110 m/s is found to extend downward to the one atmosphere level at the equatorial morning terminator. The possibility of a low altitude equator-to-pole circulation with warm gas rising at the poles is inferred. Venera 7 temperature data used with radar topography and microwaves interferometer measurements suggest that the variation of surface temperature with altitude in a band about the equator is less than 5 K/km. The available data are used to calculate a model of the structure of the Venus atmosphere for the first 75 km above the equatorial region

Total destruction of invariant tori for the generalized Frenkel-Kontorova model

We consider generalized Frenkel-Kontorova models on higher dimensional lattices. We show that the invariant tori which are parameterized by continuous hull functions can be destroyed by small perturbations in the $C^r$ topology with $r<1$