Trends in the economic geography of Malta since 1800

Not availabl

Exorcising the positivist ghost in the priority-setting machine: NICE and the demise of the 'social value judgement'

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the UK's primary health care priority-setting body, has traditionally described its decisions as being informed by 'social value judgements' about how resources should be allocated across society. This paper traces the intellectual history of this term and suggests that, in NICE's adoption of the idea of the 'social value judgement', we are hearing the echoes of welfare economics at a particular stage of its development, when logical positivism provided the basis for thinking about public policy choice. As such, it is argued that the term offers an overly simplistic conceptualisation of NICE's normative approach and contributes to a situation in which NICE finds itself without the necessary language fully and accurately to articulate its basis for decision-making. It is suggested that the notion of practical public reasoning, based on reflection about coherent principles of action, might provide a better characterisation of the enterprise in which NICE is, or hopes to be, engaged

Assessing Behavioral Health Risks, Health Conditions, and Preventive Health Practices among American Indians/Alaska Natives in Nevada

The 2004 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey was administered to American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults in Nevada to determine whether health disparities exist between AI/ANs and the state’s general population. Results showed AI/ANs were 1.5 times more likely to smoke cigarettes, 3.5 times more likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke, 3.2 times more likely to lack leisure-time physical activity, 9.7 times more likely to report fair/poor health status, and 7.7 times more likely to have a disability. In addition, AI/ANs were more likely to have current asthma (OR=5.0) and diabetes (OR=1.8). AI/AN women were 4.8 times as likely to report no Pap test in the past 3 years. Our findings suggest that Nevada’s AI/AN population face many health disparities related to risk behaviors, poor health status and health conditions, and healthcare access. Partnerships among tribal, state and federal public health systems are needed to address these disparities

Estimating the active space of male koala bellows: propagation of cues to size and identity in a Eucalyptus forest

Examining how increasing distance affects the information content of vocal signals is fundamental for determining the active space of a given species’ vocal communication system. In the current study we played back male koala bellows in a Eucalyptus forest to determine the extent that individual classification of male koala bellows becomes less accurate over distance, and also to quantify how individually distinctive acoustic features of bellows and size-related information degrade over distance. Our results show that the formant frequencies of bellows derived from Linear Predictive Coding can be used to classify calls to male koalas over distances of 1–50 m. Further analysis revealed that the upper formant frequencies and formant frequency spacing were the most stable acoustic features of male bellows as they propagated through the Eucalyptus canopy. Taken together these findings suggest that koalas could recognise known individuals at distances of up to 50 m and indicate that they should attend to variation in the upper formant frequencies and formant frequency spacing when assessing the identity of callers. Furthermore, since the formant frequency spacing is also a cue to male body size in this species and its variation over distance remained very low compared to documented inter-individual variation, we suggest that male koalas would still be reliably classified as small, medium or large by receivers at distances of up to 150 m

Age differences in fMRI adaptation for sound identity and location

We explored age differences in auditory perception by measuring fMRI adaptation of brain activity to repetitions of sound identity (what) and location (where), using meaningful environmental sounds. In one condition, both sound identity and location were repeated allowing us to assess non-specific adaptation. In other conditions, only one feature was repeated (identity or location) to assess domain-specific adaptation. Both young and older adults showed comparable non-specific adaptation (identity and location) in bilateral temporal lobes, medial parietal cortex, and subcortical regions. However, older adults showed reduced domain-specific adaptation to location repetitions in a distributed set of regions, including frontal and parietal areas, and to identity repetition in anterior temporal cortex. We also re-analyzed data from a previously published 1-back fMRI study, in which participants responded to infrequent repetition of the identity or location of meaningful sounds. This analysis revealed age differences in domain-specific adaptation in a set of brain regions that overlapped substantially with those identified in the adaptation experiment. This converging evidence of reductions in the degree of auditory fMRI adaptation in older adults suggests that the processing of specific auditory “what” and “where” information is altered with age, which may influence cognitive functions that depend on this processing