With development, list recall includes more chunks, not just larger ones.

The nature of the childhood development of immediate recall has been difficult to determine. There could be a developmental increase in either the number of chunks held in working memory or the use of grouping to make the most of a constant capacity. In 3 experiments with children in the early elementary school years and adults, we show that improvements in the immediate recall of word and picture lists come partly from increases in the number of chunks of items retained in memory. This finding was based on a distinction between access to a studied group of items (i.e., recall of at least 1 item from the group) and completion of the accessed group (i.e., the proportion of the items recalled from the group). Access rates increased with age, even with statistical controls for completion rates, implicating development of capacity in chunks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved

Adapting an evidence-based intervention for autism spectrum disorder for scaling up in resource-constrained settings: the development of the PASS intervention in South Asia.

Evidence-based interventions for autism spectrum disorders evaluated in high-income countries typically require highly specialised manpower, which is a scarce resource in most low- and middle-income settings. This resource limitation results in most children not having access to evidence-based interventions. This paper reports on the systematic adaptation of an evidence-based intervention, the Preschool Autism Communication Therapy (PACT) evaluated in a large trial in the United Kingdom for delivery in a low-resource setting through the process of task-shifting. The adaptation process used the Medical Research Council framework for the development and adaptation of complex interventions, focusing on qualitative methods and case series and was conducted simultaneously in India and Pakistan. The original intervention delivered by speech and language therapists in a high-resource setting required adaptation in some aspects of its content and delivery to enhance contextual acceptability and to enable the intervention to be delivered by non-specialists. The resulting intervention, the Parent-mediated intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorder in South Asia (PASS), shares the core theoretical foundations of the original PACT but is adapted in several respects to enhance its acceptability, feasibility, and scalability in low-resource settings

Turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate and associated fluxes in the western tropical Atlantic estimated from ocean glider observations

Ocean gliders enable us to collect the high-resolution microstructure observations necessary to calculate the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy, ε, on timescales of weeks to months: far longer than is normally possible using traditional ship-based platforms. Slocum gliders have previously been used to this end; here, we report the first detailed estimates of ε calculated using the Batchelor spectrum method on observations collected by a FP07 fast thermistor mounted on a Seaglider. We use these same fast thermistor observations to calculate ε following the Thorpe scale method and find very good agreement between the two methods. The Thorpe scale method yields larger values of ε, but the average difference, which is less than an order of magnitude, is smaller than reported elsewhere. The spatio-temporal distribution of ε is comparable for both methods. Maximum values of ε (10−7 W kg−1) are observed in the surface mixed layer; values of approximately 10−9 W kg−1 are observed between approximately 200 and 500 m depth. These two layers are separated by a 100 m thick layer of low ε (10−10 W kg−1), which is co-located with a high-salinity layer of Subtropical Underwater and a peak in the strength of stratification. We calculate the turbulent heat and salt fluxes associated with the observed turbulence. Between 200 and 500 m, ε induces downward fluxes of both properties that, if typical of the annual average, would have a very small influence on the heat and salt content of the overlying salinity-maximum layer. We compare these turbulent fluxes with two estimates of double-diffusive fluxes that occur in regions susceptible to salt fingers, such as the western tropical Atlantic. We find that the double-diffusive fluxes of both heat and salt are larger than the corresponding turbulent fluxes

What We Believe

https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/crs_books/1379/thumbnail.jp

Western boundary circulation and coastal sea-level variability in Northern Hemisphere oceans

The northwest basins of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are regions of intense western boundary currents (WBCs): the Gulf Stream and the Kuroshio. The variability of these poleward currents and their extensions in the open ocean is of major importance to the climate system. It is largely dominated by in-phase meridional shifts downstream of the points at which they separate from the coast. Tide gauges on the adjacent coastlines have measured the inshore sea level for many decades and provide a unique window on the past of the oceanic circulation. The relationship between coastal sea level and the variability of the western boundary currents has been previously studied in each basin separately, but comparison between the two basins is missing. Here we show for each basin that the inshore sea level upstream of the separation points is in sustained agreement with the meridional shifts of the western boundary current extension over the period studied, i.e. the past 7 (5) decades in the Atlantic (Pacific). Decomposition of the coastal sea level into principal components allows us to discriminate this variability in the upstream sea level from other sources of variability such as the influence of large meanders in the Pacific. Our result extends previous findings limited to the altimetry era and suggests that prediction of inshore sea-level changes could be improved by the inclusion of meridional shifts of the western boundary current extensions as predictors. Long-duration tide gauges, such as Key West, Fernandina Beach or Hosojima, could be used as proxies for the past meridional shifts of the western boundary current extensions

Twenty Years of the Polyvinyl Chloride Sustainability Challenges

Intense campaigning pressure on the UK PVC sector up to the late 1990s forced strategic engagement with sustainable development. Simplified outcomes from a detailed, consensus-based analysis by science-based NGO The Natural Step (TNS) took the form of five TNS Sustainability Challenges for PVC published in 2000. UK manufacturing companies initially used these Challenges to direct strategic progress. The Challenges have since been progressively taken up across European PVC value chains. The VinylPlus® programme uses an updated version of the five Challenges as a basis for voluntary commitments and transparent auditing of progress against published targets. Initial framing of the five TNS Sustainability Challenges for PVC were drafted consciously for generic relevance to other materials. Assessing the sustainability performance of some alternative materials to PVC against the five Sustainability Challenges reveals different sustainability performance in a range of potential applications. This highlights the danger inherent in automatic selection or deselection of materials in the absence of assessment of options on a ‘level playing field’ of sustainability principles. The five TNS Sustainability Challenges for PVC remain valid today and into the longer-term future as a basis for making stepwise, profitable progress towards the goal of sustainability for PVC and other materials

Sustainability, epistemology, ecocentric business and marketing strategy:ideology, reality and vision

This conceptual article examines the relationship between marketing and sustainability through the dual lenses of anthropocentric and ecocentric epistemology. Using the current anthropocentric epistemology and its associated dominant social paradigm, corporate ecological sustainability in commercial practice and business school research and teaching is difficult to achieve. However, adopting an ecocentric epistemology enables the development of an alternative business and marketing approach that places equal importance on nature, the planet, and ecological sustainability as the source of human and other species' well-being, as well as the source of all products and services. This article examines ecocentric, transformational business, and marketing strategies epistemologically, conceptually and practically and thereby proposes six ecocentric, transformational, strategic marketing universal premises as part of a vision of and solution to current global un-sustainability. Finally, this article outlines several opportunities for management practice and further research

Genetic mechanisms of critical illness in COVID-19.

Host-mediated lung inflammation is present1, and drives mortality2, in the critical illness caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Host genetic variants associated with critical illness may identify mechanistic targets for therapeutic development3. Here we report the results of the GenOMICC (Genetics Of Mortality In Critical Care) genome-wide association study in 2,244 critically ill patients with COVID-19 from 208 UK intensive care units. We have identified and replicated the following new genome-wide significant associations: on chromosome 12q24.13 (rs10735079, P = 1.65 × 10-8) in a gene cluster that encodes antiviral restriction enzyme activators (OAS1, OAS2 and OAS3); on chromosome 19p13.2 (rs74956615, P = 2.3 × 10-8) near the gene that encodes tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2); on chromosome 19p13.3 (rs2109069, P = 3.98 ×  10-12) within the gene that encodes dipeptidyl peptidase 9 (DPP9); and on chromosome 21q22.1 (rs2236757, P = 4.99 × 10-8) in the interferon receptor gene IFNAR2. We identified potential targets for repurposing of licensed medications: using Mendelian randomization, we found evidence that low expression of IFNAR2, or high expression of TYK2, are associated with life-threatening disease; and transcriptome-wide association in lung tissue revealed that high expression of the monocyte-macrophage chemotactic receptor CCR2 is associated with severe COVID-19. Our results identify robust genetic signals relating to key host antiviral defence mechanisms and mediators of inflammatory organ damage in COVID-19. Both mechanisms may be amenable to targeted treatment with existing drugs. However, large-scale randomized clinical trials will be essential before any change to clinical practice