Bio-Acoustic Tracking and Localization Using Heterogeneous, Scalable Microphone Arrays

Microphone arrays are an essential tool in the field of bioacoustics as they provide a non-intrusive way to study animal vocalizations and monitor their movement and behavior. Microphone arrays can be used for passive localization and tracking of sound sources while analyzing beamforming or spatial filtering of the emitted sound. Studying free roaming animals usually requires setting up equipment over large areas and attaching a tracking device to the animal which may alter their behavior. However, monitoring vocalizing animals through arrays of microphones, spatially distributed over their habitat has the advantage that unrestricted/unmanipulated animals can be observed. Important insights have been achieved through the use of microphone arrays, such as the convergent acoustic field of view in echolocating bats or context-dependent functions of avian duets. Here we show the development and application of large flexible microphone arrays that can be used to localize and track any vocalizing animal and study their bio-acoustic behavior. In a first experiment with hunting pallid bats the acoustic data acquired from a dense array with 64 microphones revealed details of the bats’ echolocation beam in previously unseen resolution. We also demonstrate the flexibility of the proposed microphone array system in a second experiment, where we used a different array architecture allowing to simultaneously localize several species of vocalizing songbirds in a radius of 75 m. Our technology makes it possible to do longer measurement campaigns over larger areas studying changing habitats and providing new insights for habitat conservation. The flexible nature of the technology also makes it possible to create dense microphone arrays that can enhance our understanding in various fields of bioacoustics and can help to tackle the analytics of complex behaviors of vocalizing animals

Effects of Non-Pharmacological Interventions as Vaccine Adjuvants in Humans:a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Declaration of interest: We have read and understood the policy on declaration of interests and declare that CMT has received funding from Nestle Nutrition for projects unconnected with this study. All other authors do not have any conflicting interests

A national survey of services for the prevention and management of falls in the UK

Background: The National Health Service (NHS) was tasked in 2001 with developing service provision to prevent falls in older people. We carried out a national survey to provide a description of health and social care funded UK fallers services, and to benchmark progress against current practice guidelines. Methods: Cascade approach to sampling, followed by telephone survey with senior member of the fall service. Characteristics of the service were assessed using an internationally agreed taxonomy. Reported service provision was compared against benchmarks set by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). Results: We identified 303 clinics across the UK. 231 (76%) were willing to participate. The majority of services were based in acute or community hospitals, with only a few in primary care or emergency departments. Access to services was, in the majority of cases, by health professional referral. Most services undertook a multi-factorial assessment. The content and quality of these assessments varied substantially. Services varied extensively in the way that interventions were delivered, and particular concern is raised about interventions for vision, home hazard modification, medication review and bone health. Conclusion: The most common type of service provision was a multi-factorial assessment and intervention. There were a wide range of service models, but for a substantial number of services, delivery appears to fall below recommended NICE guidance

‘Engage the World’: examining conflicts of engagement in public museums

Public engagement has become a central theme in the mission statements of many cultural institutions, and in scholarly research into museums and heritage. Engagement has emerged as the go-to-it-word for generating, improving or repairing relations between museums and society at large. But engagement is frequently an unexamined term that might embed assumptions and ignore power relationships. This article describes and examines the implications of conflicting and misleading uses of ‘engagement’ in relation to institutional dealings with contested questions about culture and heritage. It considers the development of an exhibition on the Dead Sea Scrolls by the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto in 2009 within the new institutional goal to ‘Engage the World’. The chapter analyses the motivations, processes and decisions deployed by management and staff to ‘Engage the World’, and the degree to which the museum was able to re-think its strategies of public engagement, especially in relation to subjects,issues and publics that were more controversial in nature

Reporting interventions in communication partner training: a critical review and narrative synthesis of the literature

Background: Communication partner training (CPT) is an umbrella term for a complex behavioural intervention for communications partners (CPs) of people with aphasia (PWA) and possibly PWA themselves, with many interacting components, deployed in flexible ways. Recent systematic reviews (Simmons-Mackie, Raymer, Armstrong, Holland, & Cherney, 2010; Simmons-Mackie, Raymer, & Cherney, 2016) have highlighted the effectiveness of CPT in addressing the skills of conversation partners and the communicative participation of people with aphasia but have suggested that CPT has been variably delivered, with no clear picture of what the essential elements of CPT are and how CPT is expected to achieve its results through hypothesised mechanisms of change (Coster, 2013). Aim: This paper aims broadly to consider specification of CPT and describes how CPT has been conducted overall and in relation to treatment recipients. Recommendations for CPT and areas for future research are considered. Methods & Procedures: A critical review and narrative synthesis was carried out through: (i) the systematic application of the 12-item TIDieR checklist (Hoffmann et al., 2014) to the 56 studies appraised in the Simmons-Mackie et al. (2010, 2016)) reviews, providing a quantitative overview of the completeness of CPT intervention reporting; and (ii) a qualitative synthesis of the reviewed CPT literature according to TIDieR items. Outcomes & Results: Half of the TIDieR checklist items were reported by 71% or more of the studies, and the rest of the items were reported by 0–63% of studies. TIDieR items relating to the treatment (goal, rationale or theory of essential elements, materials and procedures) and provision (provider, mode, timing, dose) were more frequently reported; however, the level of detail provided was often inadequate or incomplete. The interventions were insufficiently specified to enable replication for most of the studies considered. The most infrequently reported items were: name, location, intervention tailoring and modification, and planned and actual intervention adherence/fidelity. Conclusion: For a better understanding of an intervention, it is necessary to identify and describe potentially central elements and perhaps especially in complex interventions as CPT, where it is likely also more difficult. Whilst the reviewed CPT studies are on average reporting on slightly more than half of the TIDieR items, they are overall insufficiently detailed. Some items appear easier to report on, whereas other items have not been attended to, are too complex in nature to give a full report on, or simply have not been relevant for the individual study to include

The smart grid as commons: exploring alternatives to infrastructure financialisation

This paper explores a tension between financialisation of electricity infrastructures and efforts to bring critical urban systems into common ownership. Focusing on the emerging landscape of electricity regulation and e-mobility in the United Kingdom (UK), it examines how electricity grid ownership has become financialised, and why the economic assumptions that enabled this financialisation are being called into question. New technologies, such as smart electricity meters and electric vehicles, provide cities with new tools to tackle poor air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. Electricity grids are key enabling infrastructures but the companies that run them do not get rewarded for improving air quality or tackling climate change. UK government regulation of electricity grids both enables financialisation and forecloses opportunities to manage the infrastructure for wider environmental and public benefit. Nonetheless, the addition of smart devices to this network - the ‘smart grid’ – opens up an opportunity for common ownership of the infrastructure. Transforming the smart grid into commons necessitates deep structural reform to the entire architecture of infrastructure regulation in the UK

Hemodynamic impact of isobaric levobupivacaine versus hyperbaric bupivacaine for subarachnoid anesthesia in patients aged 65 and older undergoing hip surgery

BackgroundThe altered hemodynamics, and therefore the arterial hypotension is the most prevalent adverse effect after subarachnoid anesthesia. The objective of the study was to determine the exact role of local anesthetic selection underlying spinal anesthesia-induced hypotension in the elderly patient. We conducted a descriptive, observational pilot study to assess the hemodynamic impact of subarachnoid anesthesia with isobaric levobupivacaine versus hyperbaric bupivacaine for hip fracture surgery.DescriptionHundred twenty ASA status I-IV patients aged 65 and older undergoing hip fracture surgery were enrolled. The primary objective of our study was to compare hemodynamic effects based on systolic blood pressure (SBP) and dyastolic blood pressure (DBP) values, heart rate (HR) and hemoglobin (Hb) and respiratory effects based on partial oxygen saturation (SpO2%) values. The secondary objective was to assess potential adverse events with the use of levobupivacaine versus bupivacaine. Assessments were performed preoperatively, at 30 minutes into surgery, at the end of anesthesia and at 48 hours and 6 months after surgery.Among intraoperative events, the incidence of hypotension was statistically significantly higher (p <0.05) in group BUPI (38.3%) compared to group LEVO (13.3%). There was a decrease (p <0.05) in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) at 30 minutes intraoperatively (19% in group BUPI versus 17% in group LEVO). SpO2% increased at 30 minutes after anesthesia onset (1% in group BUPI versus 1.5% in group LEVO). Heart rate (HR) decreased at 30 minutes after anesthesia onset (5% in group BUPI versus 9% in group L). Hemoglobin (Hb) decreased from time of operating room (OR) admission to the end of anesthesia (9.3% in group BUPI versus 12.5% in group LEVO). The incidence of red blood cell (RBC) transfusion was 13.3% in group BUPI versus 31.7% in group LEVO, this difference was statistically significant. Among postoperative events, the incidence of congestive heart failure (CHF) was significantly higher in group BUPI (8,3%). At 6 months after anesthesia, no differences were found.ConclusionsGiven the hemodynamic stability and lower incidence of intraoperative hypotension observed, levobupivacaine could be the agent of choice for subarachnoid anesthesia in elderly patients

The mother of all sudden stops: capital flows and reversals in Europe, 1919-32

New data documenting European bond issues in major financial centres from 1919 to 1932 show that conditions in international capital markets and not just in borrowing countries are important for explaining the surge and reversal in capital flows. In particular, the sharp increase in stock market volatility in the major financial centres at the end of the 1920s figured importantly in the decline in foreign lending. This article draws parallels with Europe after 200

Positive mood on the day of influenza vaccination predicts vaccine effectiveness: a prospective observational cohort study

Influenza vaccination is estimated to only be effective in 17–53% of older adults. Multiple patient behaviors and psychological factors have been shown to act as ‘immune modulators’ sufficient to influence vaccination outcomes. However, the relative importance of such factors is unknown as they have typically been examined in isolation. The objective of the present study was to explore the effects of multiple behavioral (physical activity, nutrition, sleep) and psychological influences (stress, positive mood, negative mood) on the effectiveness of the immune response to influenza vaccination in the elderly. A prospective, diary-based longitudinal observational cohort study was conducted. One hundred and thirty-eight community-dwelling older adults (65–85 years) who received the 2014/15 influenza vaccination completed repeated psycho-behavioral measures over the two weeks prior, and four weeks following influenza vaccination. IgG responses to vaccination were measured via antigen microarray and seroprotection via hemagglutination inhibition assays at 4 and 16 weeks post-vaccination. High pre-vaccination seroprotection levels were observed for H3N2 and B viral strains. Positive mood on the day of vaccination was a significant predictor of H1N1 seroprotection at 16 weeks post-vaccination and IgG responses to vaccination at 4 and 16 weeks post-vaccination, controlling for age and gender. Positive mood across the 6-week observation period was also significantly associated with post-vaccination H1N1 seroprotection and IgG responses to vaccination at 16 weeks post-vaccination, but in regression models the proportion of variance explained was lower than for positive mood on the day of vaccination alone. No other factors were found to significantly predict antibody responses to vaccination. Greater positive mood in older adults, particularly on the day of vaccination, is associated with enhanced responses to vaccination