Examination of the Impact of Living Arrangements and Marital Status on Depression among Older Adult Male Veterans

As the older adult population grows, depression rates are also on the rise. This is especially evident among American veterans, who experience a depression incidence close to 30%, making it one of the most common diagnoses treated within the Veterans Health Administraiton (Hankin, Spiro, Miller et al, as cited in Cully, Zimmer, Khan & Petersen, 2008). The purpose of this study is to identify key demographic variables associated with depression among older male veterans. The results could help improve patterns of care, hopefully improving the management of depression. The retrospective descriptive study uses existing medical record data to identify patterns of factors commonly occurring in veterans with depression. Demographic variables, depression screening scores, and patterns of International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 9th Revision (ICD9 codes) are analyzed for patterns that can improve care. Descriptive findings and relevant correlations are reported with recommendations to improve care for older adult male veterans diagnosed with depression

Impact of Age and Body Site on Adult Female Skin Surface pH

Background: pH is known as an important parameter in epidermal barrier function and homeostasis. Aim: The impact of age and body site on skin surface pH (pH(SS)) of women was evaluated in vivo. Methods: Time domain dual lifetime referencing with luminescent sensor foils was used for pH(SS) measurements. pH(SS) was measured on the forehead, the temple, and the volar forearm of adult females (n = 97, 52.87 +/- 18.58 years, 20-97 years). Every single measurement contained 2,500 pH values due to the luminescence imaging technique used. Results: pH(SS) slightly increases with age on all three investigated body sites. There are no significant differences in pH(SS) between the three investigated body sites. Conclusion: Adult pH(SS) on the forehead, the temple and the volar forearm increases slightly with age. This knowledge is crucial for adapting medical skin care products. Copyright (C) 2012 S. Karger AG, Base

Maternal input and infants’ response to infant‐directed speech

Caregivers typically use an exaggerated speech register known as infant‐directed speech (IDS) in communication with infants. Infants prefer IDS over adult‐directed speech (ADS) and IDS is functionally relevant in infant‐directed communication. We examined interactions among maternal IDS quality, infants’ preference for IDS over ADS, and the functional relevance of IDS at 6 and 13 months. While 6‐month‐olds showed a preference for IDS over ADS, 13‐month‐olds did not. Differences in gaze following behavior triggered by speech register (IDS vs. ADS) were found in both age groups. The degree of infants’ preference for IDS (relative to ADS) was linked to the quality of maternal IDS infants were exposed to. No such relationship was found between gaze following behavior and maternal IDS quality and infants’ IDS preference. The results speak to a dynamic interaction between infants’ preference for different kinds of social signals and the social cues available to them

The role of linguistic experience in the hemispheric processing of lexical tone

This is the publisher's version, made available with the permission of the publisher.This study investigated hemispheric lateralization of Mandarin tone. Four groups of listeners were examined: native Mandarin listeners, English–Mandarin bilinguals, Norwegian listeners with experience with Norwegian tone, and American listeners with no tone experience. Tone pairs were dichotically presented and listeners identified which tone they heard in each ear. For the Mandarin listeners, 57% of the total errors occurred in the left ear, indicating a right-ear (left-hemisphere) advantage. The English– Mandarin bilinguals exhibited nativelike patterns, with 56% left-ear errors. However, no ear advantage was found for the Norwegian or American listeners (48 and 47% left-ear errors, respectively). Results indicate left-hemisphere dominance of Mandarin tone by native and proficient bilingual listeners, whereas nonnative listeners show no evidence of lateralization, regardless of their familiarity with lexical tone

Abilities to explicitly and implicitly infer intentions from actions in adults with autism spectrum disorder

Previous research suggests that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) might be associated with impairments on implicit but not explicit mentalizing tasks. However, such comparisons are made difficult by the heterogeneity of stimuli and the techniques used to measure mentalizing capabilities. We tested the abilities of 34 individuals (17 with ASD) to derive intentions from others’ actions during both explicit and implicit tasks and tracked their eye-movements. Adults with ASD displayed explicit but not implicit mentalizing deficits. Adults with ASD displayed typical fixation patterns during both implicit and explicit tasks. These results illustrate an explicit mentalizing deficit in adults with ASD, which cannot be attributed to differences in fixation patterns

“The Authors” Make Me Think Equally of Women and Men: Exploring Mixed-Gender Representations in a Visual Categorisation Task

A common goal for gender-fair language policies is to promote terms that elicit balanced activation of gender categories. Expanding previous research on the activation of feminine versus masculine categories through person nouns, we used a word-picture response priming design with gendered human faces as target stimuli, to explore whether a simultaneous activation of more than one gender category can be captured empirically. Focusing on Norwegian (Bokmål), we tested whether reading stereotypical (i.e. role nouns, e.g. “care givers”) and categorical gendered person nouns (i.e. name pairs, e.g. “Elin and Sandra”) facilitates the categorisation of face pairs that match the gender of the designated people. In Experiment 1 (N = 32), gender-specific (feminine or masculine) word primes were tested, before gender-balanced word primes (non-stereotyped role nouns; pairs of a female and a male name) were added in Experiment 2 (N = 39). In both experiments, the visual targets were pairs of faces (two female faces, two male faces, or one male and one female face). Consistent with previous results for English, we found gender-specific priming effects, supporting the notion that gender categories activated by linguistic stimuli may also exert influence outside of language processing. Most importantly, mixed-gender faces were successfully primed by non-stereotypical role nouns providing initial support for the idea of a balanced activation of gender categories.publishedVersio

Plain-to-clear speech video conversion for enhanced intelligibility

Clearly articulated speech, relative to plain-style speech, has been shown to improve intelligibility. We examine if visible speech cues in video only can be systematically modified to enhance clear-speech visual features and improve intelligibility. We extract clear-speech visual features of English words varying in vowels produced by multiple male and female talkers. Via a frame-by-frame image-warping based video generation method with a controllable parameter (displacement factor), we apply the extracted clear-speech visual features to videos of plain speech to synthesize clear speech videos. We evaluate the generated videos using a robust, state of the art AI Lip Reader as well as human intelligibility testing. The contributions of this study are: (1) we successfully extract relevant visual cues for video modifications across speech styles, and have achieved enhanced intelligibility for AI; (2) this work suggests that universal talker-independent clear-speech features may be utilized to modify any talker’s visual speech style; (3) we introduce “displacement factor” as a way of systematically scaling the magnitude of displacement modifications between speech styles; and (4) the high definition generated videos make them ideal candidates for human-centric intelligibility and perceptual training studies

Isoflurane promotes early spontaneous breathing in ventilated intensive care patients: A post hoc subgroup analysis of a randomized trial

Background: Spontaneous breathing is desirable in most ventilated patients. We therefore studied the influence of isoflurane versus propofol sedation on early spon taneous breathing in ventilated surgical intensive care patients and evaluated poten tial mediation by opioids and arterial carbon dioxide during the first 20 h of study sedation. Methods: We included a single-center subgroup of 66 patients, who participated in a large multi-center trial assessing efficacy and safety of isoflurane sedation, with 33 patients each randomized to isoflurane or propofol sedation. Both sedatives were titrated to a sedation depth of −4 to −1 on the Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale. The primary outcome was the fraction of time during which patients breathed spontaneously. Results: Baseline characteristics of isoflurane and propofol-sedated patients were well balanced. There were no substantive differences in management or treatment aside from sedation, and isoflurane and propofol provided nearly identical sedation depths. The mean fraction of time spent spontaneously breathing was 82% [95% CI: 69, 90] in patients sedated with isoflurane compared to 35% [95% CI: 22, 51] in those assigned to propofol: median difference: 61% [95% CI: 14, 89], p < .001. After ad justments for sufentanil dose and arterial carbon dioxide partial pressure, patients sedated with isoflurane were twice as likely to breathe spontaneously than those se dated with propofol: adjusted risk ratio: 2.2 [95%CI: 1.4, 3.3], p < .001. Conclusions: Isoflurane compared to propofol sedation promotes early spontaneous breathing in deeply sedated ventilated intensive care patients. The benefit appears to be a direct effect isoflurane rather than being mediated by opioids or arterial carbon dioxide