The Stolen Children: Their Stories: Aboriginal Child Removal Policy and Consequences

From 1910 to 1970, the Australian government embarked on a policy of Aboriginal child removal which sought to acculturate Aborigine children of mixed descent into white Australian society. The 1997 report, Bringing Them Home, records the individual testimonies of hundreds of victims of child removal and argues that prolonged familial separation caused irreparable damage to native Australian communities. Carmel Bird’s edited version of the report, The Stolen Children: Their Stories, was published in 1998 to disseminate the report\u27s findings and advocate for legislative action. Her book includes the stories of seventeen individuals and responses to the original report from prominent politicians and historians

Morphological brain differences between adult stutterers and non-stutterers

BACKGROUND: The neurophysiological and neuroanatomical foundations of persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) are still a matter of dispute. A main argument is that stutterers show atypical anatomical asymmetries of speech-relevant brain areas, which possibly affect speech fluency. The major aim of this study was to determine whether adults with PDS have anomalous anatomy in cortical speech-language areas. METHODS: Adults with PDS (n = 10) and controls (n = 10) matched for age, sex, hand preference, and education were studied using high-resolution MRI scans. Using a new variant of the voxel-based morphometry technique (augmented VBM) the brains of stutterers and non-stutterers were compared with respect to white matter (WM) and grey matter (GM) differences. RESULTS: We found increased WM volumes in a right-hemispheric network comprising the superior temporal gyrus (including the planum temporale), the inferior frontal gyrus (including the pars triangularis), the precentral gyrus in the vicinity of the face and mouth representation, and the anterior middle frontal gyrus. In addition, we detected a leftward WM asymmetry in the auditory cortex in non-stutterers, while stutterers showed symmetric WM volumes. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide strong evidence that adults with PDS have anomalous anatomy not only in perisylvian speech and language areas but also in prefrontal and sensorimotor areas. Whether this atypical asymmetry of WM is the cause or the consequence of stuttering is still an unanswered question

Acquired and congenital disorders of sung performance: A review.

Many believe that the majority of people are unable to carry a tune. Yet, this widespread idea underestimates the singing abilities of the layman. Most occasional singers can sing in tune and in time, provided that they perform at a slow tempo. Here we characterize proficient singing in the general population and identify its neuronal underpinnings by reviewing behavioral and neuroimaging studies. In addition, poor singing resulting from a brain injury or neurogenetic disorder (i.e., tone deafness or congenital amusia) is examined. Different lines of evidence converge in indicating that poor singing is not a monolithic deficit. A variety of poor-singing "phenotypes" are described, with or without concurrent perceptual deficits. In addition, particular attention is paid to the dissociations between specific abilities in poor singers (e.g., production of absolute vs. relative pitch, pitch vs. time accuracy). Such diversity of impairments in poor singers can be traced to different faulty mechanisms within the vocal sensorimotor loop, such as pitch perception and sensorimotor integration

Preliminary analysis of gain measurements at the HFBR liquid hydrogen moderator

The High Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR) is a 60 MW steady state neutron source. As part of the facility a cold neutron source is included in one of the beam tubes (H-9). The arrangement of this source is shown in Figure 1, which shows the reactor core, beam tube H-9, and the cold source with its attached helium cooling lines and hydrogen feed lines. The liquid hydrogen chamber is in the shape of an oblate spheroid and has a volume of 1.466 liters, and an aspect ratio of 1:3. Aluminum is used as the material of construction. The wall thickness of the chamber varies, with the thinnest value being on the flatter parts of the oblate spheroid. This design minimizes the amount of metal in the direction of the neutron beam of interest. Gain is defined as the ratio of the flux at a specific wave length leaking from the front face of the cold source, with and without the liquid hydrogen present. Measurements of the gain were made at several wavelength for the HFBR cold source. The change in the neutron spectrum at a particular wave length is a strong function of the scattering kernel of the moderator. Thus, these measurements can be used as integral data to validate calculational models and scattering kernel data for liquid hydrogen, and shed light on the actual mixture of ortho/para hydrogen in the cold source. Two scattering kernels for each of the states of liquid hydrogen (ortho and para) were available at the beginning of the study. The total scattering cross section for each of these are shown. The two ortho kernels are seen to be quite similar. However, in the case of para-hydrogen there is seen to be a significant difference between the two cross sections at lower energies or longer wavelengths. This difference implies a similar difference in the scattering kernel. In the following analysis both para-hydrogen kernels and only one ortho-hydrogen kernel will be used. In addition, a free proton gas kernel (no molecular binding) will be used for comparison purposes