Steven Bornstein, Associate Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders, College of Health and Human Services, Travels to Rusia

Professor Steven Bornstein traveled to Russia in November 2008 to present a paper at Mari-State University in Yoshkar-Ola, Russia, on the effects of hearing loss on oral language and speech development

Scleroderma and dentistry: Two case reports

© 2016 The Author(s).Background: Scleroderma is a chronic connective tissue disorder with unknown etiology. It is characterized by excessive deposition of extracellular matrix in the connective tissues causing vascular disturbances which can result in tissue hypoxia. These changes are manifested as atrophy of the skin and/or mucosa, subcutaneous tissue, muscles, and internal organs. Such changes can be classified into two types, namely, morphea (localized) and diffuse (systemic). Morphea can manifest itself as hemifacial atrophy (Parry-Romberg syndrome) although this remains debatable. Hence, we present a case of morphea, associated with Parry-Romberg syndrome, and a second case with the classical signs of progressive systemic sclerosis. Case presentation: Case one: A 20-year-old man of Dravidian origin presented to our out-patient department with a complaint of facial asymmetry, difficulty in speech, and loss of taste sensation over the last 2 years. There was no history of facial trauma. After physical and radiological investigations, we found gross asymmetry of the left side of his face, a scar on his chin, tongue atrophy, relative microdontia, thinning of the ramus/body of his mandible, and sclerotic lesions on his trunk. Serological investigations were positive for antinuclear antibody for double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid and mitochondria. A biopsy was suggestive of morphea. Hence, our final diagnosis was mixed morphea with Parry-Romberg syndrome. Case two: A 53-year-old woman of Dravidian origin presented to our out-patient department with a complaint of gradually decreasing mouth opening over the past 7 years. Her medical history was noncontributory. On clinical examination, we found her perioral, neck, and hand skin to be sclerotic. Also, her fingers exhibited bilateral telangiectasia. An oral examination revealed completely edentulous arches as well as xerostomia and candidiasis. Her serological reports were positive for antinuclear antibodies against centromere B, Scl-70, and Ro-52. A hand and wrist radiograph revealed acro-osteolysis of the middle finger on her right hand. Hence, our final diagnosis was progressive systemic sclerosis. Conclusion: Through this article, we have tried to emphasize the importance of a general examination when diagnosing rare systemic diseases such as scleroderma and the role of the general dentist when caring for such patients, even though they can be quite rare in general practice.published_or_final_versio

Suicide around anniversary times

The anniversary of the loss of a loved one is known to induce negative emotions, which for some can be significant. The present study examined the incidence of suicide around the time of such anniversaries using data from the Queensland Suicide Register for the years 1998 to 2008. There were statistically significant increases in suicide events immediately after the loss of a loved one and around the anniversary of the loss. Limitations of the study are noted.Griffith Health, Australian Institute for Suicide Research & PreventionFull Tex

The definition and diagnosis of developmental prosopagnosia.

Over the last 20 years much attention in the field of face recognition has been directed towards the study of developmental prosopagnosia (DP), with some authors investigating the behavioural characteristics of the condition, and many others using these individuals to further our theoretical understanding of the typical face-processing system. It is broadly agreed that the term "DP" refers to people who have failed to develop the ability to recognize faces in the absence of neurological illness or injury, yet more precise terminology in relation to potential subtypes of the population are yet to be confirmed. Furthermore, specific diagnostic techniques and inclusion and exclusion criteria have yet to be uniformly accepted across the field, making cross-paper comparisons and meta-analyses very difficult. This paper presents an overview of the current challenges that face research into DP and introduces a series of papers that attempt to further our understanding of the condition's characteristics. It is hoped that this special issue will provide a springboard for further research addressing these issues, improving the current state of the art by ensuring the quality of theoretical investigations into DP, and by posing advances that will assist those who have the condition

Call Me Caitlyn: Making and making over the 'authentic' transgender body in Anglo-American popular culture

A conception of transgender identity as an ‘authentic’ gendered core ‘trapped’ within a mismatched corporeality, and made tangible through corporeal transformations, has attained unprecedented legibility in contemporary Anglo-American media. Whilst pop-cultural articulations of this discourse have received some scholarly attention, the question of why this 'wrong body' paradigm has solidified as the normative explanation for gender transition within the popular media remains underexplored. This paper argues that this discourse has attained cultural pre-eminence through its convergence with a broader media and commercial zeitgeist, in which corporeal alteration and maintenance are perceived as means of accessing one’s ‘authentic’ self. I analyse the media representations of two transgender celebrities: Caitlyn Jenner and Nadia Almada, alongside the reality TV show TRANSform Me, exploring how these women’s gender transitions have been discursively aligned with a cultural imperative for all women, cisgender or trans, to display their authentic femininity through bodily work. This demonstrates how established tropes of authenticity-via-bodily transformation, have enabled transgender to become culturally legible through the wrong body trope. Problematically, I argue, this process has worked to demarcate ideals of ‘acceptable’ transgender subjectivity: self-sufficient, normatively feminine, and eager to embrace the possibilities for happiness and social integration provided by the commercial domain

Philanthropy or solidarity? Ethical dilemmas about humanitarianism in crisis afflicted Greece

That philanthropy perpetuates the conditions that cause inequality is an old argument shared by thinkers such as Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde and Slavoj Zizek. I recorded the same argument in conversations regarding a growing humanitarian concern in austerity-ridden Greece. At the local level a number of solidarity initiatives provide the most impoverished families with humanitarian help. Some citizens participate in such initiatives wholeheartedly, while some other citizens criticize solidarity movements drawing primarily from Marxist-inspired arguments, such as, for example, that humanitarianism rationalises state inaction. The local narratives presented in this article bring forward two parallel possibilities engendered by the humanitarian face of social solidarity: first, its empowering potential (where solidarity initiatives enhance local social awareness), and second, the de-politicisation of the crisis and the experience of suffering (a liability that stems from the effectiveness of humanitarianism in ameliorating only temporarily the superficial consequences of the crisis). These two overlapping possibilities can help us problematise the contextual specificity and strategic employment of humanitarian solidarity in times of austerity

Social preferences, accountability, and wage bargaining

We assess the extent of preferences for employment in a collective wage bargaining situation with heterogeneous workers. We vary the size of the union and introduce a treatment mechanism transforming the voting game into an individual allocation task. Our results show that highly productive workers do not take employment of low productive workers into account when making wage proposals, regardless of whether insiders determine the wage or all workers. The level of pro-social preferences is small in the voting game, while it increases as the game is transformed into an individual allocation task. We interpret this as an accountability effect

Persuasion: An experimental study of team decision making

This paper studies persuasion within teams and investigates why teams commonly take, by some measures, better decisions than individuals. The analysis is based on data from electronic communication within teams of two players. Thanks to the experimental design, changes of an individual’s decision can be attributed to the content of the team partner’s message. The results for knowledge-related and strategic problems show that individuals’ decisions change upon receiving more informative and sophisticated arguments and remain the same otherwise. This individual behavior is an essential part of the information aggregation in teams and can explain the advantage of teams in decision making and in games