Validated yes/no vocabulary tests that measure bilinguals’ language proficiency based on vocabulary knowledge have been widely used in psycholinguistic research. However, it is unclear what aspects of test takers’ vocabulary knowledge are employed in these tests, which makes the interpretation of their scores problematic. The present study investigated the contribution of bilinguals’ form-meaning knowledge to their item accuracy on a Malay yes/no vocabulary test. Word knowledge of Malay first- (N = 80) and second-language (N = 80) speakers were assessed using yes/no, meaning recognition, form recognition, meaning recall and form recall tests. The findings revealed that 59% of the variance in the yes/no vocabulary test score was explained by the accuracy of the meaning recognition, form recognition and meaning recall tests. Importantly, the item analysis indicated that yes/no vocabulary tests assess primarily knowledge of form recognition, supporting its use as a lexical proficiency measure to estimate bilinguals’ receptive language proficiency.

Eight atmospheric carbon dioxide samples (as calcium carbonate—CaCO3—precipitates) from Lindesnes site (58ºN, 7ºE), belonging to 1963 and 1980 (four samples from each year) and stored at the National Laboratory for Age Determination (NTNU), have been reevaluated through radiocarbon (14C) analysis. Previous 14C results indicated the presence of a contaminant, which was not removed through different chemical cleansing procedures (e.g., hydrochloric acid—HCl and/or hydrogen peroxide—H2O2). Here, we present a follow up investigation using 14C step-combustion and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. Results from 14C data indicate unsuccessful removal of the contaminant, while further FTIR analysis displayed the presence of moisture. This finding alludes to the possibility that the contaminant is of ambient air-CO2 deeply embedded in CaCO3 powders (within clogged CaCO3 pores and/or bonded to the lattice). Samples were found exposed to air-CO2 and humidity. These conditions may have lasted for years, possibly even decades, leading to the 14C offsets detected here.

Type A3 truncus arteriosus describes pulmonary atresia with non-confluent mediastinal pulmonary arteries in which one pulmonary artery arises from a patent ductus arteriosus and the contralateral pulmonary artery from the aorta resulting in ductal dependent pulmonary blood flow. We describe a premature neonate with caudal regression syndrome and type A3 truncus arteriosus who was palliated with a ductal stent allowing completion of a prolonged neonatal ICU hospitalisation for multiple comorbidities.

Changes between diet quality and health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) over 12 years were examined in men and women, in 2844 adults (46 % males; mean age 47·3 (sd 9·7) years) from the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle study with data at baseline, 5 and 12 years. Dietary intake was assessed with a seventy-four-item FFQ. Diet quality was estimated with the Dietary Guideline Index, Mediterranean-Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Diet Intervention for Neurological Delay Index (MIND) and Dietary Inflammatory Index. HR-QoL in terms of global, physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) was assessed with the Short-Form Health Survey-36. Fixed effects regression models adjusted for confounders were performed. Mean MCS increased from baseline (49·0, sd 9·3) to year 12 (50·7, sd 9·1), whereas mean PCS decreased from baseline (51·7, sd 7·4) to year 12 (49·5, sd 8·6). For the total sample, an improvement in MIND was associated with an improvement in global QoL (β = 0·28, 95 % CI (0·007, 0·55)). In men, an improvement in MIND was associated with an improvement in global QoL (β = 0·28, 95 % CI (0·0004, 0·55)). In women, improvement in MIND was associated with improvements in global QoL (β = 0·62 95 % CI (0·38, 0·85)), MCS (β = 0·75, 95 % CI (0·29, 1·22)) and PCS (β = 0·75, 95 % CI (0·29, 1·22)). Positive changes in diet quality were associated with broad improvements in HR-QoL, and most benefits were observed in women when compared to men. These findings support the need for strategies to assist the population in consuming healthy dietary patterns to lead to improvements in HR-QoL.

Rayleigh–Bénard (RB) convection with free-slip plates and horizontally periodic boundary conditions is investigated using direct numerical simulations. Two configurations are considered, one is two-dimensional (2-D) RB convection and the other one three-dimensional (3-D) RB convection with a rotating axis parallel to the plate, which for strong rotation mimics 2-D RB convection. For the 2-D simulations, we explore the parameter range of Rayleigh numbers $Ra$ from $10^{7}$ to $10^{9}$ and Prandtl numbers $Pr$ from $1$ to $100$. The effect of the width-to-height aspect ratio $\varGamma$ is investigated for $1\leqslant \varGamma \leqslant 128$. We show that zonal flow, which was observed, for example, by Goluskin et al. (J. Fluid. Mech., vol. 759, 2014, pp. 360–385) for $\varGamma =2$, is only stable when $\varGamma$ is smaller than a critical value, which depends on $Ra$ and $Pr$. The regime in which only zonal flow can exist is called the first regime in this study. With increasing $\varGamma$, we find a second regime in which both zonal flow and different convection roll states can be statistically stable. For even larger $\varGamma$, in a third regime, only convection roll states are statistically stable and zonal flow is not sustained. How many convection rolls form (or in other words, what the mean aspect ratio of an individual roll is), depends on the initial conditions and on $Ra$ and $Pr$. For instance, for $Ra=10^{8}$ and $Pr=10$, the aspect ratio $\varGamma _r$ of an individual, statistically stable convection roll can vary in a large range between $16/11$ and $64$. A convection roll with a large aspect ratio of $\varGamma _r = 64$, or more generally already with $\varGamma _r \gg 10$, can be seen as ‘localized’ zonal flow, and indeed carries over various properties of the global zonal flow. For the 3-D simulations, we fix $Ra=10^{7}$ and $Pr=0.71$, and compare the flow for $\varGamma =8$ and $\varGamma = 16$. We first show that with increasing rotation rate both the flow structures and global quantities like the Nusselt number $Nu$ and the Reynolds number $Re$ increasingly behave like in the 2-D case. We then demonstrate that with increasing aspect ratio $\varGamma$, zonal flow, which was observed for small $\varGamma =2{\rm \pi}$ by von Hardenberg et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 15, 2015, 134501), completely disappears for $\varGamma =16$. For such large $\varGamma$, only convection roll states are statistically stable. In-between, here for medium aspect ratio $\varGamma = 8$, the convection roll state and the zonal flow state are both statistically stable. What state is taken depends on the initial conditions, similarly as we found for the 2-D case.

Gut microbiota data obtained by DNA sequencing are not only complex because of the number of taxa that may be detected within human cohorts, but also compositional because characteristics of the microbiota are described in relative terms (e.g., “relative abundance” of particular bacterial taxa expressed as a proportion of the total abundance of taxa). Nutrition researchers often use standard principal component analysis (PCA) to derive dietary patterns from complex food data, enabling each participant's diet to be described in terms of the extent to which it fits their cohort's dietary patterns. However, compositional PCA methods are not commonly used to describe patterns of microbiota in the way that dietary patterns are used to describe diets. This approach would be useful for identifying microbiota patterns that are associated with diet and body composition. The aim of this study is to use compositional PCA to describe gut microbiota profiles in 5 year old children and explore associations between microbiota profiles, diet, body mass index (BMI) z-score, and fat mass index (FMI) z-score. This study uses a cross-sectional data for 319 children who provided a faecal sample at 5 year of age. Their primary caregiver completed a 123-item quantitative food frequency questionnaire validated for foods of relevance to the gut microbiota. Body composition was determined using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, and BMI and FMI z-scores calculated. Compositional PCA identified and described gut microbiota profiles at the genus level, and profiles were examined in relation to diet and body size. Three gut microbiota profiles were found. Profile 1 (positive loadings on Blautia and Bifidobacterium; negative loadings on Bacteroides) was not related to diet or body size. Profile 2 (positive loadings on Bacteroides; negative loadings on uncultured Christensenellaceae and Ruminococcaceae) was associated with a lower BMI z-score (r = -0.16, P = 0.003). Profile 3 (positive loadings on Faecalibacterium, Eubacterium and Roseburia) was associated with higher intakes of fibre (r = 0.15, P = 0.007); total (r = 0.15, P = 0.009), and insoluble (r = 0.13, P = 0.021) non-starch polysaccharides; protein (r = 0.12, P = 0.036); meat (r = 0.15, P = 0.010); and nuts, seeds and legumes (r = 0.11, P = 0.047). Further regression analyses found that profile 2 and profile 3 were independently associated with BMI z-score and diet respectively. We encourage fellow researchers to use compositional PCA as a method for identifying further links between the gut, diet and obesity, and for developing the next generation of research in which the impact on body composition of dietary interventions that modify the gut microbiota is determined.

We perform a numerical study of the heat transfer and flow structure of Rayleigh–Bénard (RB) convection in (in most cases regular) porous media, which are comprised of circular, solid obstacles located on a square lattice. This study is focused on the role of porosity $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$ in the flow properties during the transition process from the traditional RB convection with $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}=1$ (so no obstacles included) to Darcy-type porous-media convection with $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$ approaching 0. Simulations are carried out in a cell with unity aspect ratio, for Rayleigh number $Ra$ from $10^{5}$ to $10^{10}$ and varying porosities $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$, at a fixed Prandtl number $Pr=4.3$, and we restrict ourselves to the two-dimensional case. For fixed $Ra$, the Nusselt number $Nu$ is found to vary non-monotonically as a function of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$; namely, with decreasing $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$, it first increases, before it decreases for $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$ approaching 0. The non-monotonic behaviour of $Nu(\unicode[STIX]{x1D719})$ originates from two competing effects of the porous structure on the heat transfer. On the one hand, the flow coherence is enhanced in the porous media, which is beneficial for the heat transfer. On the other hand, the convection is slowed down by the enhanced resistance due to the porous structure, leading to heat transfer reduction. For fixed $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$, depending on $Ra$, two different heat transfer regimes are identified, with different effective power-law behaviours of $Nu$ versus $Ra$, namely a steep one for low $Ra$ when viscosity dominates, and the standard classical one for large $Ra$. The scaling crossover occurs when the thermal boundary layer thickness and the pore scale are comparable. The influences of the porous structure on the temperature and velocity fluctuations, convective heat flux and energy dissipation rates are analysed, further demonstrating the competing effects of the porous structure to enhance or reduce the heat transfer.

Neurodevelopment is sensitive to genetic and pre/postnatal environmental influences. These effects are likely mediated by epigenetic factors, yet current knowledge is limited. Longitudinal twin studies can delineate the link between genetic and environmental factors, epigenetic state at birth and neurodevelopment later in childhood. Building upon our study of the Peri/postnatal Epigenetic Twin Study (PETS) from gestation to 6 years of age, here we describe the PETS 11-year follow-up in which we will use neuroimaging and cognitive testing to examine the relationship between early-life environment, epigenetics and neurocognitive outcomes in mid-childhood. Using a within-pair twin model, the primary aims are to (1) identify early-life epigenetic correlates of neurocognitive outcomes; (2) determine the developmental stability of epigenetic effects and (3) identify modifiable environmental risk factors. Secondary aims are to identify factors influencing gut microbiota between 6 and 11 years of age to investigate links between gut microbiota and neurodevelopmental outcomes in mid-childhood. Approximately 210 twin pairs will undergo an assessment at 11 years of age. This includes a direct child cognitive assessment, multimodal magnetic resonance imaging, biological sampling, anthropometric measurements and a range of questionnaires on health and development, behavior, dietary habits and sleeping patterns. Data from complementary data sources, including the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy and the Australian Early Development Census, will also be sought. Following on from our previous focus on relationships between growth, cardiovascular health and oral health, this next phase of PETS will significantly advance our understanding of the environmental interactions that shape the developing brain.

Unlike for many other respiratory infections, the seasonality of pertussis is not well understood. While evidence of seasonal fluctuations in pertussis incidence has been noted in some countries, there have been conflicting findings including in the context of Australia. We investigated this issue by analysing the seasonality of pertussis notifications in Australia using monthly data from January 1991 to December 2016. Data were made available for all states and territories in Australia except for the Australian Capital Territory and were stratified into age groups. Using a time-series decomposition approach, we formulated a generalised additive model where seasonality is expressed using cosinor terms to estimate the amplitude and peak timing of pertussis notifications in Australia. We also compared these characteristics across different jurisdictions and age groups. We found evidence that pertussis notifications exhibit seasonality, with peaks observed during the spring and summer months (November–January) in Australia and across different states and territories. During peak months, notifications are expected to increase by about 15% compared with the yearly average. Peak notifications for children <5 years occurred 1–2 months later than the general population, which provides support to the theory that older household members remain an important source of pertussis infection for younger children. In addition, our results provide a more comprehensive spatial picture of seasonality in Australia, a feature lacking in previous studies. Finally, our findings suggest that seasonal forcing may be useful to consider in future population transmission models of pertussis.

Introduction: The risk of recurrent stroke following a transient ischemic attack (TIA) has been estimated to be as much as 5 percent in the first 48 hours and ten percent in the first week following initial TIA symptoms, but can be modified as a result of intensive risk factor management. Care pathways for these patients vary between different regions within Alberta with Edmonton admitting more TIA patients and Calgary using computed tomography angiography (CTA) based triage. To examine regional differences in the quality of care, the rate of admission for stroke within 90 days of an index ED visit for TIA/minor stroke was investigated. Methods: Data analysts from the Data Integration, Measurement and Reporting (DIMR) branch of Alberta Health Services (AHS) used the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) to identify patients in Alberta who were admitted for stroke within 90-days of an index emergency department (ED) visit for TIA/minor stroke from April 2010 to March 2016. Information extracted included patient demographics, region of residence (Edmonton, Calgary or non-major urban [NMU]), return diagnosis and timing of return ED visit. Analysis included descriptive summaries and proportions were compared using a χ2 test. Results: During the study period, there were 26,232 index visits to Alberta EDs for TIA/minor stroke. 5426 (26.1%) of patients were admitted on their index visit. Calgary (22.5%) had lower rates of admission on index visit followed by Edmonton (31.4%) and the NMU (46%). 20,806 (79.3%) were discharged home following their index visit. Of the patients discharged on their index visit 729 (3.5%) had an admission for stroke within 90-days of their index ED visit with rates in Edmonton (3.8%) and the NMU regions (3.8%) being significantly higher than Calgary (2.8%, p<0.01). Conclusion: Our study demonstrates significantly lower rates of admission for stroke within 90-days of ED visit for minor stroke/TIA in Calgary compared to Edmonton and the NMU. Further work should focus on validating this result and consideration of standardized care pathways that promote effective resource utilization and quality of care.

The development of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) as microporous electronic conductors is an exciting research frontier that has the potential to revolutionize a wide range of technologically and industrially relevant fields, from catalysis to solid-state sensing and energy-storage devices, among others. After nearly two decades of intense research on MOFs, examples of intrinsically conducting MOFs remain relatively scarce; however, enormous strides have recently been made. This article briefly reviews the current status of the field, with a focus on experimental milestones that have shed light on crucial structure–property relationships that underpin future progress. Central to our discussion are a series of design considerations, including redox-matching, donor–acceptor interactions, mixed valency, and π-interactions. Transformational opportunities exist at both fundamental and applied levels, from improved measurement techniques and theoretical understanding of conduction mechanisms to device engineering. Taken together, these developments will herald a new era in advanced functional materials.

Over the last century, and especially since the publication of the Belmont Report in 1978, respect for persons, as exemplified by respect for autonomous decision-making, has become a central tenet in the practice of medicine. The authority of cognitively competent adults to make their own healthcare decisions is enshrined in both law and practice in most advanced industrialized nations. The right to consent to or to refuse medical interventions is virtually absolute, but is contingent on the provision of materially relevant information about the benefits and burdens or risks of the proposed treatment as well as the freedom from coercion by others, especially healthcare personnel. This power also extends to the kinds, amounts and details of the proposed intervention, including the option to decline to hear anything, if one so chooses, assuming that this is a rational choice. This respect transfers to other competent individuals who are authorized as surrogates to decide for those who have temporarily or permanently lost the capacity to make their own healthcare decisions.

Renal concentrating capacity following 18 hours of fluid deprivation was measured in 75 patients receiving prophylactic lithium therapy, and in 30 affectively ill subjects receiving other drugs. The lithium-treated patients had significantly lower urine osmolality and higher serum osmolality than the control subjects. Older subjects, patients maintained at higher serum lithium levels and those with a history of previous neurotoxicity showed the most impairment. Ten patients with urine osmolalities of less than 700 mOsm/l following this test were investigated further. Inulin and para-amino hippurate (PAH) clearance rates were determined and the effect of a subpressor challenge of dopamine on these measures was observed. Half of the patients showed some reduction in inulin and PAH clearance, which was greatest in those patients who had been taking lithium for over 10 years. However, all of the patients tested showed the expected increase in renal blood flow and sodium and water excretion in response to dopamine. Six additional patients had clearance estimations made before starting lithium treatment which were repeated after a period of 3–6 months on the drug. No consistent changes in haemodynamics were observed.

Lithium clearly reduces renal concentrating capacity, but other measures of renal tubular function were well preserved in patients receiving long-term therapy. Glomerular function may be slightly reduced in patients taking lithium for long periods. The results show that prophylactic lithium treatment does not affect renal cortical function adversely in the majority of patients, but impaired renal concentrating ability is a common accompaniment.

Research on the efficacy of sensory integration therapy (SIT) is addressed in this article. Initially, past key reviews of intervention studies until 1994 are considered. Subsequently, more recent studies from 1994 until 2007 are examined. Consistent with numerous previous reviews, no robust evidence supporting the efficacy of SIT was found. Alternative and more parsimonious explanations for purported effects of SIT are considered. In light of the accumulated lack of evidence for the effectiveness of SIT, continued use of the technique outside of research contexts does not appear to be justified.

Public participation in natural resource management has been described as paradoxical: citizens want the best science to guide natural resource management decisions, but not to the exclusion of their input; agencies want meaningful citizen involvement in their management decisions, but they also want citizens to trust their scientific expertise. As a result, many studies have focused on developing criteria for designing successful participatory processes. Rather than definitive guidelines, however, studies to date typically indicate broad rules of thumb, which may differ in situation-specific application depending on political and historical context. These observations suggest the need to identify contextual elements that influence the varying success of participatory process designs. One such element is the degree of understanding, or coorientation, between stakeholders and managers. This article expands the concept of coorientation to “coorientation contexts” to describe the real and/or incorrectly perceived barriers and opportunities for communication between natural resource managers and stakeholders. Examining participation philosophies and corresponding techniques reveals that certain types of communication are better suited to certain coorientation contexts. Tailoring participation strategies to the appropriate coorientation context throughout the evolution of public issues, i.e., “matching the forum to the fuss,” may ultimately result in more informed, equitable, and sustainable management decisions. Future empirical testing of this approach may improve natural resource managers' abilities to navigate successfully the paradox of public involvement in natural resource management.

Environmental Practice 9:195–205 (2007)