DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DYSLEXIC STUDENTS AND CONTROLS MATCHED FOR EDUCATIONAL LEVEL IN WORD INTELLIGIBILITY AND TEXT COMPREHENSION PRESENTED VIA SYNTHETIC AND NATURAL SPEECH

This study investigated intelligibility and text comprehension for natural and synthetic speech held by a group of dyslexic students and their controls matched for educational level-school grade. Results have shown that both groups identified words and sentences better in natural speech. Dyslexic students however had shown worst performance in synthetic speech than controls. Overall, a significant difference has been observed between the two groups concerning their text comprehension in natural versus synthetic speech.  Article visualizations

A Randomized, Controlled Trial of Meditation for Work Stress, Anxiety and Depressed Mood in Full-Time Workers

Objective. To assess the effect of meditation on work stress, anxiety and mood in full-time workers. Methods. 178 adult workers participated in an 8-week, 3-arm randomized controlled trial comparing a “mental silence” approach to meditation (n = 59) to a “relaxation” active control (n = 56) and a wait-list control (n = 63). Participants were assessed before and after using Psychological Strain Questionnaire (PSQ), a subscale of the larger Occupational Stress Inventory (OSI), the State component of the State/Trait Anxiety Inventory for Adults (STAI), and the depression-dejection (DD) subscale of the Profile of Mood States (POMS). Results. There was a significant improvement for the meditation group compared to both the relaxation control and the wait-list groups the PSQ (P = .026), and DD (P = .019). Conclusions. Mental silence-orientated meditation, in this case Sahaja Yoga meditation, is a safe and effective strategy for dealing with work stress and depressive feelings. The findings suggest that “thought reduction” or “mental silence” may have specific effects relevant to work stress and hence occupational health

First year student expectations: Results from a university-wide student survey

Although much has been written on the first-year experience of students at higher education institutions, less attention has been directed to the expectations of students when they enter an institution for the first time. This paper provides additional insights into the expectations of students at an Australian university and highlights areas in which students’ expectations may not necessarily align with the realities of common university practices. By providing opportunities for students to articulate their expectations, staff are able to use the responses for a constructive dialogue and work towards a more positive alignment between perceived expectations and levels of student satisfaction with their experience.Geoffrey Crisp, Edward Palmer, Deborah Turnbull, Ted Nettelbeck, Lynn Ward, Amanda LeCouteur, Aspa Sarris, Peter Strelan, and Luke Schneide

Variación morfológica y alometría de las vértebras precloacales en el ofidio daboia russelli (viperidae)

Understanding the variation of the ophidian vertebral morphology is an essential tool in snake paleobiology, but so far this field remains hardly investigated. A major problematic is the still scarce knowledge about the basis of homogeneity of intracolumnar shape variation along the vertebrae of the precloacal region in these animals. For instance, this variation can be overwhelmingly low in cases such as in vipers, for which it seems almost impossible to describe a concrete regionalization of the precloacal region without ambiguity. This study has applied geometric morphometrics to analyze if the shape variation of the vertebrae of the precloacal vertebrae of an adult specimen of Daboia russelli allows differentiating any sort of parcellation within the column of this organism. We have also explored if size is associated with the organization of vertebral shape along the axial skeleton. The multivariate analyses showed that the main pattern of vertebral shape variation in D. russelli concerns the neural spine and the hypapophysis, whereas the shape of the vertebral centrum appears to be nearly invariant along the series. Our analysis also showed that the precloacal region can be sudivided into two portions that merge in a transitional boundary of largest vertebrae in the middle of the column. From this middle region towards the distal ends of the column vertebrae become smaller changing their shapes in two antithetical waysFunds provided by the project CGL2009-11838 BTE and a FPU grant (AP2007-00904; MICINN) to I. Sarri

`Island Surfing' Mechanism of Electron Acceleration During Magnetic Reconnection

One of the key unresolved problems in the study of space plasmas is to explain the production of energetic electrons as magnetic field lines `reconnect' and release energy in a exposive manner. Recent observations suggest possible roles played by small scale magnetic islands in the reconnection region, but their precise roles and the exact mechanism of electron energization have remained unclear. Here we show that secondary islands generated in the reconnection region are indeed efficient electron accelerators. We found that, when electrons are trapped inside the islands, they are energized continuously by the reconnection electric field prevalent in the reconnection diffusion region. The size and the propagation speed of the secondary islands are similar to those of islands observed in the magnetotail containing energertic electrons.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to J. Geophys. Res