Understanding marine ecosystem services in Malta: A focus on climate regulation, nursery habitat and recreational services

The research explored the relationship that people have with marine environments around Malta through the framework of ecosystem services with the idea that the results of this research could be used as a starting point for the development of a management plan for the marine environment around Malta. Surveys were conducted targeting residents, tourists, and divers to gain an understanding of stakeholder perception of the threats facing climate regulation, provision of nursery habitat and recreation. These data were used to develop a GIS where essential areas and impacts were compared and areas of potential conflict were identified. There were significant numbers of areas of overlap between impacts and essential habitat that were identified. It is likely that these areas of overlap will result in conflict or loss of service in the future. Community based marine spatial planning may be a way to prevent conflict and degradation. Results from the surveys indicated that community involvement in management might be hampered by a lack of comprehension of the complex processes and vocabulary, though stakeholders appear to be well versed with the associated pressures and impacts

Responses to intensity-shifted auditory feedback during running speech

PURPOSE: Responses to intensity perturbation during running speech were measured to understand whether prosodic features are controlled in an independent or integrated manner. METHOD: Nineteen English-speaking healthy adults (age range = 21-41 years) produced 480 sentences in which emphatic stress was placed on either the 1st or 2nd word. One participant group received an upward intensity perturbation during stressed word production, and the other group received a downward intensity perturbation. Compensations for perturbation were evaluated by comparing differences in participants' stressed and unstressed peak fundamental frequency (F0), peak intensity, and word duration during perturbed versus baseline trials. RESULTS: Significant increases in stressed-unstressed peak intensities were observed during the ramp and perturbation phases of the experiment in the downward group only. Compensations for F0 and duration did not reach significance for either group. CONCLUSIONS: Consistent with previous work, speakers appear sensitive to auditory perturbations that affect a desired linguistic goal. In contrast to previous work on F0 perturbation that supported an integrated-channel model of prosodic control, the current work only found evidence for intensity-specific compensation. This discrepancy may suggest different F0 and intensity control mechanisms, threshold-dependent prosodic modulation, or a combined control scheme.R01 DC002852 - NIDCD NIH HHS; R03 DC011159 - NIDCD NIH HH

Increasing Effectiveness of the Surgical Airway Response System: Introduction of the Otolaryngology Airway Pager, Quality Improvement Project of the PGY-2 Class

Introduction: The need for an Otolaryngology airway pager is based on several external and internal factors. The current communication pathway for emergent airways at our institution is well established but often misinterpreted. The protocol is outlined in Figure 1. The priority to reach out to other departments is based on their availability of an attending in house overnight. Furthermore, there is often a delay in contacting the Otolaryngology department. Our service has multiple pagers to accommodate for each of our inpatient teams, which can be confusing for other services. One of the driving events for this project was an incident at JHN where a tracheostomy tube became dislodged. There were several attempts to contact our team through the wrong pager and by the time we were notified the patient had expired. In addition our personal cell phones are commonly used as the primary means of contact for urgent situations. On several occasions the wrong person has been called in the middle of the night or the on-call resident is contacted while they are in the operating room during the day, resulting in a slower response time. From the perspective of the Otolaryngology Department at times we receive multiple pages and answer in the order that the pages were received, not in order of acuity as this is unknown. A dedicated airway pager will help us prioritize our decisions most safely.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/patientsafetyposters/1067/thumbnail.jp

Visual Perspective Taking in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty in recognizing environmental perspectives other than their own. Perspective-taking deficits impact language use and understanding in discourse and more general social and cognitive function. Despite extensive research on perspective taking abilities in individuals with ASD, many factors have not been fully examined. This study further examined the contribution of angular disparity, anthropomorphism of an observer, and language use on visual perspective-taking. Individuals with (ASD) demonstrate a strength in visual spatial cognition and a weakness in visual social cognition. This study examined the factors that may cause people with ASD to have difficulties in taking another’s visual perspective including the impact of angular disparity between the participant’s and observer’s perspectives and the impact of anthropomorphic features on observers. Participants included 15 children with autism spectrum disorders and 15 neurotypical children. This study included three experimental tasks. The first was a visual perspective taking task (VPT2), which examined the participants’ ability to judge how a depicted observer perceived an object. In the visual perspective taking task, the observer viewed the object from different angles, including some trials with angular disparity between the participant’s and the observer’s viewpoints causing opposing views of the same item. The anthropomorphic features of the observer were manipulated by including a block figure, a cartoonish line drawing of a female, and more a naturalistic line drawing of a person (female). The second task included a mental rotation task that required the participant to make judgments about whether two three-dimensional figures were rotations of one another or mirror-images. The third task included the visual perspective taking language task. Participants were required to direct the examiner on how to complete an image based on varying degrees of angular disparity between the participant and examiner’s viewpoints. The VPT2 and mental rotation tasks were computerized and used eye tracking to gather information about participants’ fixations to images and eye gaze patterns. Data analysis examined eye tracking, reaction time, and accuracy data. Visual perspective taking reaction time results were compared to standardized language scores and a standardized non-verbal intelligence standard scores. For the third task, accuracy and language use type were coded. Participants with ASD were less accurate on the visual perspective taking eye tracking task but performed with a similar degree of accuracy on the mental rotation and language tasks. In addition, participants with ASD fixated on the observer more than the object when compare to neurotypical peers. All of the participants used similar language when directing another person on the language visual perspective taking task that did not require looking at the other person. Based on the results of this study, it appears that individuals with ASD are less accurate and use different strategies when completing VPT2 tasks but they use similar language with a similar degree of accuracy when directing another person on a VPT2 task. This may be due to a variety of factors such as the social qualities of the depicted observers, the need to take into account the depicted observers’ location in space, and difficulties suppressing their own egocentric viewpoints. Overall, participants with ASD demonstrated difficulties understanding the visual perspectives of depicted observers which was no the result of mental rotation abilities. Although, they demonstrated this difficulty, they were able to verbally direct another person on a VPT2 task as accurately as their neurotypical counterparts

Towards an ethical culture: American mythologies and the limits of freedom in the work of David Foster Wallace

In this thesis I focus on Wallace’s understanding of ethical agency: how it is constituted, how it manifests or fails, and the nature of its contingencies and limits. To this end, I explore ideas of ethics and freedom throughout Wallace’s oeuvre from four broad theoretical perspectives. Beginning with a study of Emmanuel Levinas’s ‘Ethics as First Philosophy’, I compare Wallace’s and Levinas’s writings on ethics to the theories of Jacques Derrida, Maurice Blanchot, and Slavoj Žižek. I investigate Levinas’s use of the face or the face-to-face encounter as an ethical signifier and read Wallace’s own rich depiction of faces through this lens. In the second chapter I depart from postmodern theory and deploy concepts from clinical and biomedical science to re-evaluate Wallace’s writings on free will and agency in light of the ‘neuroethical’. I show how Wallace’s attention to the materiality of the body and the brain disrupts simple notions of an ethical agency founded on free will and personal choice. This leads to the third chapter’s consideration of how Wallace positions the biopolitical subject under neoliberal social and cultural frameworks, including his interrogation of mythologies around competition and work in contemporary America. Finally, in the fourth and final chapter I analyse Wallace’s oeuvre from the viewpoint of feminist theory, drawing a comparison to Julia Kristeva’s writings on heretical ethics and the abject. I discuss the problem of misogyny in Wallace’s texts and evaluate more recent criticism that reconsiders his collected writings in light of rapidly changing categories of sex and gender

Participants’ perceptions of “C.H.A.M.P. families”: A parent-focused intervention targeting paediatric overweight and obesity

Background: Recently, our team implemented a 13-week group-based intervention for parents of children with obesity (“C.H.A.M.P. Families”). The primary objective of this study was to explore, qualitatively, parents’ perspectives of their experiences in and influence of C.H.A.M.P. Families, as well as their recommendations for future paediatric obesity treatment interventions. Methods: Twelve parents (seven mothers, five fathers/step-fathers) representing seven children (four girls, three boys) with obesity participated in one of two focus groups following the intervention. Focus groups were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim and data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Results: Findings showed that parents perceived their participation in C.H.A.M.P. Families to be a positive experience. Participants highlighted several positive health-related outcomes for children, families, and parents. Parents also underscored the importance and positive impact of the group environment, specific educational content, and additional program components such as free child-minding. Recommendations for future interventions were also provided, including greater child involvement and more practical strategies. Finally, parents identified several barriers including socioenvironmental issues, time constraints, and parenting challenges. Conclusions: Researchers developing family-based childhood obesity interventions should consider the balance of parent and child involvement, as well as emphasize group dynamics strategies and positive family communication