Assessing children's internal representations of relationships after sibling arrival using the Storystem technique

This study attempted to increase understanding of preschool children's reactions to sibling arrival. The aims were two-fold: First to assess how sibling arrival affected behaviour and internal representations of children's relationships, using a representational measure called the Storystem technique. Secondly, to explore the associations between children's storystem responses and behaviour, along with two maternal functioning factors implicated in affecting mother-child relationships and adjustment to siblinghood. 21 mother-child dyads participated in the pre-birth and post-birth home visits (mean age of children 60.14 months). Overall, two features of children's internal representations of relationships altered after sibling arrival: story resolution decreased and Disciplinary representations increased. Behaviour problems were unrelated to storystem responses pre-birth and did not increase across transition. Interestingly however, associations were found post-birth: more negative aspects of story responses were related to greater behaviour problems, while more positive aspects were related to fewer behaviour problems. In addition gender differences were found in children's storystem responses: boys' provided more negative stories than girls' and, across transition, became worse to suggest that boys' were more adversely affected by sibling arrival. No differences were found according to first or second time experience of sibling arrival. Maternal functioning was stable and high with respect to marital satisfaction across transition, while mothers' well-being improved. Storystem responses were largely unrelated to maternal functioning, except that greater marital satisfaction was associated with fewer Disciplinary representations pre-birth

An investigation into dry and wet textile friction and lubrication in practical applications.

The lubrication of dry viscose fibres by a two component finish, and the lubrication of wet Iyocell fabric against metal, with various aqueous lubricant systems, has been studied. Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) was investigated as a means of providing direct chemical information from finished fibre surfaces. The composition and distribution of a two component finish applied to viscose fibres was determined successfully. When applying finish from a bath, the surface composition of the finished fibres was not controlled by the bath conditions. Increasing the concentration of finish in the bath did, however, increase the total amount of finish deposited, and increasing the concentration of antistat relative to lubricant in the bath increased the amount of antistat relative to lubricant deposited on the finished fibres. Fibre friction was determined using the capstan method. The friction forces, measured for finished viscose fibres, were correlated with the finish application conditions. Increasing the emulsion concentration in the finish bath reduced fibre/metal friction, but finish component ratio, emulsion concentration, dip time and bath temperature did not affect fibre/fibre friction. Spray applying the finish resulted in unfinished regions on the fibre surfaces and the electrical resistance of fibre bundles was not reduced. Bath application of finish did lower electrical resistance in comparison with unfinished fibre, but none of the bath deposition variables had a significant effect on electrical resistance

An Indonesian Society and Its Universe: A Study of the Bugis of South Sulawesi (Celebes) and Their Role Within a Wider Social and Economic System.

The Bugis are a "centrifugal" society, with a tendency constantly to expand outwards from their homeland in South Sulawesi into other widely scattered regions of the Malay world. This expansion takes place through the ability of the Bugis to exploit resources which have previously been neglected or under-utilised by the indigenous society. The present study examines in general terms, and in historical perspective, the peculiar ecological niches occupied by the Bugis within the Indonesian archipelago; small-scale interisland trade and pioneer settlement. To illuminate the process of Bugie expansion, a detailed analysis is made of Bugis society in a village in South Sulawesi - its kinship system, status distinctions, political institutions and economy - and factors conducive to outward migration are examined. Political unrest in Sulawesi has led to waves of emigration to Sumatra and elsewhere, while at other times there has been a steady outward movement due to economic factors. The nobility's monopoly of political power is also seen as a factor encouraging the emigration of ambitious individuals; these have often been the pioneers who started chains of migration to new areas. The history of Bugis settlement on the Sumatra coast, and the links maintained with Sulawesi, are examined. Migration to Sumatra is shown to provide opportunities for economic and political advancement which are absent or limited in the Bugis homeland. It is concluded that this migration is significant not only for the development of the area of settlement, but may also be necessary for the continued functioning of many of the institutions of Bugis society, in particular the system of social stratification and political domination by an aristocratic elite. As a result of the long tradition of movement to other parts of Indonesia and formerly to Malaya, the boundaries of the Bugis social universe extend far beyond the limits of his village or region to encompass the entire Malay world

Efficient time-domain simulation of nonlinear, state-space, transmission-line models of the cochlea

Nonlinear models of the cochlea are best implemented in the time domain, but their computational demands usually limit the duration of the simulations that can reasonably be performed. This letter presents a modified state space method and its application to an example nonlinear one-dimensional transmission-line cochlear model. The sparsity pattern of the individual matrices for this alternative formulation allows the use of significantly faster numerical algorithms. Combined with a more efficient implementation of the saturating nonlinearity, the computational speed of this modified state space method is more than 40 times faster than that of the original formulation

Fit for the frontline? A focus group exploration of auditory tasks carried out by infantry and combat support personnel

In order to preserve their operational effectiveness and ultimately their survival, military personnel must be able to detect important acoustic signals and maintain situational awareness. The possession of sufficient hearing ability to perform job-specific auditory tasks is defined as auditory fitness for duty (AFFD). Pure tone audiometry (PTA) is used to assess AFFD in the UK military; however, it is unclear whether PTA is able to accurately predict performance on job-specific auditory tasks. The aim of the current study was to gather information about auditory tasks carried out by infantry personnel on the frontline and the environment these tasks are performed in. The study consisted of 16 focus group interviews with an average of five participants per group. Eighty British army personnel were recruited from five infantry regiments. The focus group guideline included seven open-ended questions designed to elicit information about the auditory tasks performed on operational duty. Content analysis of the data resulted in two main themes: (1)the auditory tasks personnel are expected to perform and (2) situations where personnel felt their hearing ability was reduced. Auditory tasks were divided into subthemes of sound detection, speech communication and sound localization. Reasons for reduced performance included background noise, hearing protection and attention difficulties. The current study provided an important and novel insight to the complex auditory environment experienced by British infantry personnel and identified 17 auditory tasks carried out by personnel on operational duties. These auditory tasks will be used to inform the development of a functional AFFD test for infantry personnel

COAST (Cisplatin ototoxicity attenuated by aspirin trial): A phase II double-blind, randomised controlled trial to establish if aspirin reduces cisplatin induced hearing-loss

Background: Cisplatin is one of the most ototoxic chemotherapy drugs, resulting in a permanent and irreversible hearing loss in up to 50% of patients. Cisplatin and gentamicin are thought to damage hearing through a common mechanism, involving reactive oxygen species in the inner ear. Aspirin has been shown to minimise gentamicin-induced ototoxicity. We, therefore, tested the hypothesis that aspirin could also reduce ototoxicity from cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Methods: A total of 94 patients receiving cisplatin-based chemotherapy for multiple cancer types were recruited into a phase II, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial and randomised in a ratio of 1:1 to receive aspirin 975 mg tid and omeprazole 20 mg od, or matched placebos from the day before, to 2 days after, their cisplatin dose(s), for each treatment cycle. Patients underwent pure tone audiometry before and at 7 and 90 days after their final cisplatin dose. The primary end-point was combined hearing loss (cHL), the summed hearing loss at 6 kHz and 8 kHz, in both ears. Results: Although aspirin was well tolerated, it did not protect hearing in patients receiving cisplatin (p-value = 0.233, 20% one-sided level of significance). In the aspirin arm, patients demonstrated mean cHL of 49 dB (standard deviation [SD] 61.41) following cisplatin compared with placebo patients who demonstrated mean cHL of 36 dB (SD 50.85). Women had greater average hearing loss than men, and patients treated for head and neck malignancy experienced the greatest cHL. Conclusions: Aspirin did not protect from cisplatin-related ototoxicity. Cisplatin and gentamicin may therefore have distinct ototoxic mechanisms, or cisplatin-induced ototoxicity may be refractory to the aspirin regimen used here

Fluid coupling between the elements in a discrete model of cochlear mechanics

When analysing the coupled mechanics of the cochlea, due to the interaction between fluid coupling and basilar membrane motion, it is convenient to divide the cochlea longitudinally into a discrete number of sections. This report considers the fluid coupling in such a discrete model. The fluid coupling is analysed using a wavenumber formulation and is separated into long wavelength and short wavelength components. The short wavelength components are then seen as one of a number of sources of additional longitudinal coupling that could be incorporated into a modified model of basilar membrane dynamics. The effects of non-uniformity and asymmetry in the fluid chamber areas can then be taken into account to predict both the pressure difference between the chambers and the mean pressure. The results from the analytic formulation, in which the fluid is assumed to be incompressible, are also compared with those of an acoustic finite element model for the fluid coupling. Although the agreement is good at low frequencies, a resonance is observed at about 11 kHz due to the compressibility of the fluid, although this does not appear to affect the coupled cochlear response

Theoretical analysis of signal-to-noise ratios for transient evoked otoacoustic emission recordings.

Recordings of transient-evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs) suffer from two main sources of contamination: Random noise and the stimulus artifact. The stimulus artifact can be substantially reduced by using a derived non-linear recording paradigm. Three such paradigms are analyzed, called here the level derived non-linear (LDNL), the double-evoked (DE), and the rate derived non-linear (RDNL) paradigms. While these methods successfully reduce the stimulus artifact, they lead to an increase in contamination by random noise. In this study, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) achievable by these three paradigms is compared using a common theoretical framework. This analysis also allows the optimization of the parameters of the RDNL paradigm to achieve the maximum SNR. Calculations based on the analysis with typical parameters used in practice suggest that when ranked in terms of their SNR for a given averaging time, RDNL performs best followed by the LDNL and DE paradigm