A pragmatic-linguistic approach to autistic communication

This thesis sets out to provide a preliminary descriptive account of some of the linguistic features characteristic of autistic communication, in order that the effect of the disability on interpersonal communication may be more clearly understood. Special reference is made to two young adult autistic people. Further aims are to enhance our understanding of the limitations of autistic discourse, where there appear to be any in comparison with normal discourse, and to provide further support for the current widely held view that autism is largely a developmental disorder. The methodology used is taken from the general area of discourse analysis and pragmatics, and concerns major concepts and constructs - Gricean Implicature, Relevance Theory, and attempts to link these with the idea of 'Theory of Mind' in autism etc. Thus features of interaction such as conversational structure, coherence, phatic communion and repetition are taken into consideration, as well as prosodic and paralinguistic factors such as intonation, proxemics and gesture. Part of this thesis is devoted to an exploration of some aspects of various non-native models of everyday communication, and, it is suggested in this thesis that some of these aspects are not applicable. Particular attention is also paid to what the literature describes as the autistic use of 'literal' language. The applicability of this notion, along with the commonly held idea of 'rigidity of behaviour', are reassessed in light of evidence suggesting that older, more able autistic people are capable of a degree of 'non-literal' language and verbal game playing. Some conclusions have been suggested about autistic communication; autistic speakers have less difficulty with using the 'code model' rather than the 'inferential model'; autistic speakers' communicative intention is more highly developed than their informative intention; there is little or no evidence of any ability to use inference; autistic speakers are fascinated with testing 'possibility of necessity' (ie epistemic status) and seem unable to distinguish between the two - this disability, when taken with the autistic difficulty with inference, adds up to a massive cognitive impairment in ways which help us to account for their specific communicative disabilities. Thus it has been confirmed that, as the literature has suggested, autistic speakers suffer pragmatic failure of many kinds, for example, difficulty with most discourse features such as adjacent pairs, transition relevance, politeness and prosody, as well as with gesture and posture

Can apps and calendar methods predict ovulation with accuracy?

<p><b>Objective:</b> The accuracy of prediction of ovulation by cycle apps and published calendar methods was determined by comparing to true probability of ovulation.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> A total of 949 volunteers collected urine samples for one entire menstrual cycle. Luteinizing hormone was measured to assign surge day, enabling probability of ovulation to be determined across different cycle lengths. Cycle-tracking apps were downloaded. As none provided their methodology, four published calendar-based methods were also examined: standard days, rhythm, alternative rhythm and simple calendar method. The volunteer ovulation data was applied to the app/calendar methods to determine their accuracy.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> Mean cycle length was 28 days (range: 23–35); 34% of women believed they had a 28-day cycle, but only 15% did. No LH surge was seen for 99 women. Most likely day of ovulation for a 28-day cycle was day 16 (21%). Accuracy of ovulation prediction was no better than 21% by the apps. The standard days and rhythm methods were most likely to predict ovulation (70% and 89%, respectively) but had very low accuracy.</p> <p><b>Conclusions:</b> Ovulation day varies considerably for any given menstrual cycle length, thus it is not possible for calendar/app methods that use cycle-length information alone to accurately predict the day of ovulation.</p> <p><b>National Clinical Trial Code:</b> NCT01577147. Registry website: <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov" target="_blank">www.clinicaltrials.gov</a>.</p

Additional file 1: Table S1. of Women’s experiences of ovulation testing: a qualitative analysis

Volunteer individual identification number and demography. (DOCX 24 kb

Dry mass (A), protein (B), glycogen (C), and triglycerides (D) content for F₁ from isofemale lines of <i>D. melanogaster</i> raised on HPS or LPS diets.

<p>Values (means ± standard errors) are given for each isofemale line (numbers 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6) and sex, F = female and M = male.</p

ANOVA of mean number of eggs laid by F₁ females in four days after a single mating.

*<p><i>P</i><0.05,</p>**<p><i>P</i><0.01,</p>***<p><i>P</i><0.001.</p

ANOVA of protein content for F₁ from isofemale lines of <i>D. melanogaster</i> raised on larval diets HPS and LPS.

*<p><i>P</i><0.05,</p>**<p><i>P</i><0.01,</p>***<p><i>P</i><0.001.</p

Preadult Parental Diet Affects Offspring Development and Metabolism in <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i>

<div><p>When <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i> larvae are reared on isocaloric diets differing in their amounts of protein relative to sugar, emerging adults exhibit significantly different development times and metabolic pools of protein, glycogen and trigylcerides. In the current study, we show that the influence of larval diet experienced during just one generation extends into the next generation, even when that subsequent generation had been shifted to a standard diet during development. Offspring of flies that were reared on high protein relative to sugar underwent metamorphosis significantly faster, had higher reproductive outputs, and different metabolic pool contents compared to the offspring of adults from low protein relative to sugar diets. In addition, isofemale lines differed in the degree to which parental effects were observed, suggesting a genetic component to the observed transgenerational influences.</p> </div

ANOVA of glycogen content for F₁ from isofemale lines of <i>D. melanogaster</i> raised on larval diets HPS and LPS.

*<p><i>P</i><0.05,</p>**<p><i>P</i><0.01,</p>***<p><i>P</i><0.001.</p

ANOVA of triglyceride content for F₁ from isofemale lines of <i>D. melanogaster</i> raised on larval diets HPS and LPS.

*<p><i>P</i><0.05,</p>**<p><i>P</i><0.01,</p>***<p><i>P</i><0.001.</p

Intraurban Variation of Fine Particle Elemental Concentrations in New York City

Few past studies have collected and analyzed within-city variation of fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) elements. We developed land-use regression (LUR) models to characterize spatial variation of 15 PM_2.5 elements collected at 150 street-level locations in New York City during December 2008–November 2009: aluminum, bromine, calcium, copper, iron, potassium, manganese, sodium, nickel, lead, sulfur, silicon, titanium, vanadium, and zinc. Summer- and winter-only data available at 99 locations in the subsequent 3 years, up to November 2012, were analyzed to examine variation of LUR results across years. Spatial variation of each element was modeled in LUR including six major emission indicators: boilers burning residual oil; traffic density; industrial structures; construction/demolition (these four indicators in buffers of 50 to 1000 m), commercial cooking based on a dispersion model; and ship traffic based on inverse distance to navigation path weighted by associated port berth volume. All the elements except sodium were associated with at least one source, with <i>R</i>² ranging from 0.2 to 0.8. Strong source-element associations, persistent across years, were found for residual oil burning (nickel, zinc), near-road traffic (copper, iron, and titanium), and ship traffic (vanadium). These emission source indicators were also significant and consistent predictors of PM_2.5 concentrations across years