Head Injuries and the Hearing Screening Inventory

Head trauma can lead to problems with the ear and auditory pathway. These problems can involve tympanic membrane perforation, fragments in squamous epithelium, damage to the ossicles, or ischemia of the cochlear nerve. It is common for behavioral checklists, for concussion or head injuries, to include an item about hearing difficulty. In the present study, 152 introductory psychology students completed a survey in which they indicated if they had ever had a concussion or sustained a head injury. Approximately one-third (35.53%) of the sample had a history of head trauma. The Hearing Screening Inventory was also part of the survey. Overall, participants who had a previous head injury reported more hearing difficulties than participants with no previous head injury (t(150) = 2.15, p \u3c .02). Although this difference had a moderate effect size (d = .37), it suggests that hearing difficulties may linger since participation was not limited to those having a recent head injury but was open to anyone who had a head injury at any point in time. An examination of specific hearing difficulties revealed that the difference between the two groups was based almost exclusively on their ability to distinguish target sounds from background noises. Specifically, the ability to understand words in music (t(150) = 2.36, p \u3c .01; d = .40) and to isolate an individual speaking from background conversations (t(150) = 2.44, p \u3c .01; d = .41) differentiated the two groups. This finding is consistent with Hoover, Souza and Gallun (2017) who also found that head injury can impair target and noise processing

An Experimental Analysis of a Points-Based System for Managing Multispecies Fisheries

An industry group has proposed a novel system for managing the Northeast Multispecies Fishery. Each harvester would be endowed with a budget of points, and each species would have a “point price,†or number of points that must be paid out of his budget when landing that species. By varying the point prices throughout the season, management could redirect effort across species. This paper presents a benchmarked experimental testbed of this management system, and shows that harvesters do respond to point prices, which can be chosen to support harvest of most of the allowable catch of each species without severely over-harvesting any of them.multispecies fishery, points system, economic experiment, quota, derby, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

How Institutions Affect Outcomes in Laboratory Tradable Fishing Allowance Systems

The objective of this paper is to illustrate that economic institutions matter, i.e., that different rules of trade present different incentives for bidding, asking, and trading in new markets, and that these different incentives lead to different price discovery patterns, which yield materially different outcomes. In a laboratory tradable fishing allowance system, when trade takes place through a double auction, which parallels an institution common in extant tradable allowance systems, markets are characterized by high volatility, and equilibrium does not obtain. However, when only leases, and not permanent trades, are permitted in the early periods, volatility is significantly reduced and equilibrium obtains. This dependence of equilibration and outcomes on institutions implies policy-oriented economists must consider institutions in designing new market-based management systems.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Taking the Harper Government’s Refugee Policy to Court

There is no question that significant changes occurred in Canadian refugee policy under the Conservative government of Stephen Harper during its near ten years in power. Indeed, observers note that virtually no aspect was left untouched. The effects of many of these alterations are still unfolding, and while the subsequent Liberal government of Justin Trudeau committed itself to reversing or altering some of them, many will likely be preserved. In this chapter, we focus on changes that occurred to Canada’s inland refugee policy with two larger goals in mind. First, we de-mystify the role of the courts in shaping refugee policy in Canada. Second, we contribute to a growing body of work that reflects on the contentious relationship between the Harper government and the courts. In particular, the chapter examines the mobilization that occurred through and beyond the courts in response to the government’s 2012 cuts to the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) for refugees. Our research shows that while the role of the courts in overseeing Canadian refugee policy is generally quite limited, significant mobilization on behalf of refugees inside and outside the courts occurred in response to the Harper government’s particularly rights-restrictive approach. Overall, we argue that in order to understand the relationship between the courts and public policy, it is necessary to appreciate the broader policy and political contours within which court rulings emerge, and the specific contexts that prompt court involvement in the first instance