Speech Communication

Contains research objectives and reports on three research projects.U.S. Air Force (Air Force Cambridge Research Center, Air Research and Development Command) under Contract AF19(604)-6102National Science Foundatio

"Dreaming in colour’: disabled higher education students’ perspectives on improving design practices that would enable them to benefit from their use of technologies"

The focus of this paper is the design of technology products and services for disabled students in higher education. It analyses the perspectives of disabled students studying in the US, the UK, Germany, Israel and Canada, regarding their experiences of using technologies to support their learning. The students shared how the functionality of the technologies supported them to study and enabled them to achieve their academic potential. Despite these positive outcomes, the students also reported difficulties associated with: i) the design of the technologies, ii) a lack of technology know-how and iii) a lack of social capital. When identifying potential solutions to these difficulties the disabled students imagined both preferable and possible futures where faculty, higher education institutions, researchers and technology companies are challenged to push the boundaries of their current design practices

Genetic variation in complement regulators and susceptibility to age-related macular degeneration.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the commonest cause of blindness in Western populations. Risk is influenced by age, genetic and environmental factors. Complement activation appears to be important in the pathogenesis and associations have been found between AMD and genetic variations in complement regulators such as complement factor H. We therefore investigated other complement regulators for association with AMD

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THE STAFF INTERPRETERS AT THE HELEN KELLER NATIONAL CENTER

Describes the challenges of coordinating interpreting services at a center-based program that includes consumers and staff who are deaf-blind, Deaf, blind and hearing. Includes the logistics of interpreting in a variety of individual and group settings as well specific adaptive equipment and techniques for facilitating individual styles and preferences. VIEWS, Vol. 22, #11, December 2005, pp. 35-3

Seasonality of gregarine parasitism in the damselfly, Nehalennia irene: Understanding unimodal patterns

We studied parasitism by gut protozoans (Apicomplexa: Eugregarinidae) in the damselfly, Nehalennia irene (Hagen) (Odonata: Coenagrionidae).We tested whether there was any seasonal pattern, as has been found for other parasites of damselflies and which has implications for selection on emergence and breeding. Using aggregate data from 12 date-by-site comparisons involving five sites, we found that both prevalence and intensity of gregarine parasitism were seasonally unimodal. Parasitism first increased and then declined seasonally after peaking midseason. This damselfly species has shown seasonal increases in density followed by declines at several sites including a site sampled in this study. Therefore, similar seasonal changes in a directly transmitted parasite were expected and are now confirmed. Other factors that might account for seasonal changes in parasitism by gregarines are either unlikely or can be discounted including sampling of older damselflies mid-season but not late in the season, or sex biases in parasitism and overrepresentation of the more parasitized sex mid-season