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Hearing loss affects over 1.3 billion individuals worldwide, with the greatest burden among adults. Little is known regarding the association between adult-onset hearing loss and employment.
Methods
Seven databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, ABI/Inform Collection, Business Source Ultimate, Web of Science and Scopus) were searched through to October 2018. The key word terms used related to hearing loss and employment, excluding paediatric or congenital hearing loss and deaf or culturally deaf populations.
Results
The initial search resulted in 13 144 articles. A total of 7494 articles underwent title and abstract screening, and 243 underwent full-text review. Twenty-five articles met the inclusion criteria. Studies were set in 10 predominantly high-income countries. Seven of the 25 studies analysed regionally or nationally representative datasets and controlled for key variables. Six of these seven studies reported associations between hearing loss and employment.
Conclusion
The highest quality studies currently available indicate that adult-onset hearing loss is associated with unemployment. However, considerable heterogeneity exists, and more rigorous studies that include low- and middle-income countries are needed.
Most older adults perceive themselves as good drivers; however, their perception may not be accurate, and could negatively affect their driving safety. This study examined the accuracy of older drivers’ self-awareness of driving ability in their everyday driving environment by determining the concordance between the perceived (assessed by the Perceived Driving Ability [PDA] questionnaire) and actual (assessed by electronic Driving Observation Schedule [eDOS]) driving performance. One hundred and eight older drivers (male: 67.6%; age: mean = 80.6 years, standard deviation [SD] = 4.9 years) who participated in the study were classified into three groups: underestimation (19%), accurate estimation (29%), and overestimation (53%). Using the demographic and clinical functioning information collected in the Candrive annual assessments, an ordinal regression showed that two factors were related to the accuracy of self-awareness: older drivers with better visuo-motor processing speed measured by the Trail Making Test (TMT)-A and fewer self-reported comorbid conditions tended to overestimate their driving ability, and vice versa.
Two studies were conducted to examine the relationship between three different types of intergroup contact (i.e., direct contact, extended contact, and online contact) and outgroup evaluation, and the moderating effect of group status and sociopolitical contexts across two cultural contexts. A total of 75 European Americans (majority) and 44 Chinese Americans (minority) participated in Study 1; whereas 61 Javanese (majority) and 72 Chinese Indonesians (minority) participated in Study 2. In both studies, participants completed an outgroup feeling thermometer as well as a set of questionnaires measuring intergroup contact, perceived outgroup political power, perceived outgroup economic power, perceived government support, and perceived quality of the current intergroup relations. Results from the two studies revealed that although contact was beneficial in both cultural contexts, there were notable moderators of the links between contact and outgroup evaluations. Specifically, the value of direct contact was greater for the minority group members in the United States, extended contact only mattered in a specific condition when the perceived government support was taken into account in the United States, and online contact was beneficial across group status in the Indonesian context. Overall, the findings provide evidence of the need to take into account the role of specific sociopolitical relations between the two groups in intergroup relations research.
Two phases of diabase-sill-forming magmatism are recorded within the Badu anticline where magmas were emplaced into upper Palaeozoic carbonates and clastic rocks of the Youjiang fold-and-thrust belt in the SW South China Block, China. Zircons from these diabase units yield weighted mean U–Pb ages of 249.2±2.0 Ma and 187.1±3.3 Ma, and magmatic oxygen fugacity values from ‒20 to ‒6 (average of ‒12, equating to FMQ +5) and ‒20 to ‒10 (average of ‒15, equating to FMQ +2), respectively. These data indicate that the sills were emplaced during Early Triassic and Early Jurassic times. The discovery of c. 250 Ma mafic magmatism in this area was probably related to post-flood-basalt extension associated with the Emeishan mantle plume or rollback of the subducting Palaeo-Tethys slab. The c. 190 Ma diabase sills indicate that the southwestern South China Block records Early Jurassic mafic magmatism and lithospheric extension that was likely associated with a transition from post-collisional to within-plate tectonic regimes. The emplacement of diabase intrusions at depth may have driven hydrothermal systems, enabling the mobilization of elements from sedimentary rocks and causing the formation of a giant epigenetic metallogenic domain. The results indicate that high-oxygen-fugacity materials within basement rocks caused crustal contamination of the magmas, contributing to the wide range of oxygen fugacity conditions recorded by the Au-bearing Badu diabase. In addition, data from inherited xenocrystic zircons within the Badu diabase and detrital zircons from basement rocks suggest that the Neoproterozoic Jiangshao suture extends to the south of the Badu anticline.
Introduction: Medical journals are an essential venue for knowledge translation. Skilled reviewers and editors are required to ensure quality standards in research publications and yet postgraduate programs rarely include this training in their curricula. Imparting appropriate skills and developing capacity in journalship has thus proved challenging. The Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine (CJEM) is the national journal for Emergency Medicine (EM) in Canada. The CJEM editorial board recently decided to provide longitudinal mentorship for junior academic faculty members and trainees through an editorial internship. The internship had three goals for participants: (1) introduce and develop the responsibilities and skills of a good editor; (2) enhance a career in academic EM; and, (3) galvanize future participation as a reviewer or editor in scientific publications. Methods: The senior editorial board of CJEM and the inaugural intern developed a one-year Editorial Internship that was launched in June 2017. The curricular framework was designed by current and prior CJEM senior editors from four Canadian universities, and was informed by similar programs in the United States. The curriculum was refined iteratively based on feedback and discussion between the senior editors and intern. The internship was designed for a single individual in the Canadian EM community, including residents, pediatric fellows and practicing emergency physicians. Results: To develop the responsibilities and skills of being a good editor, the intern performed six mentored reviews of manuscripts either under current review at CJEM or previous submissions identified as difficult peer review decisions. In addition, the intern learned about CJEM values and norms by participating in monthly videoconference meetings and quarterly editorial board meetings. To enhance an academic career, the intern was assigned two writing projects under the guidance of senior editors for publication in CJEM, and completed an online critical appraisal course. Conclusion: The inaugural editorial intern gained experience as an editor and produced scholarly work. We feel the internship met its first two goals, and CJEM has committed to continue the internship annually. The ultimate determination of whether the internship achieved its third goal will only be known after longitudinal tracking of participants career involvement in academic publishing and editing.
We present preliminary results from a study exploring the origin of Milky Way substructures, and show initial evidence of a common “kicked-out” formation mechanism for two low-latitude substructures. In this scenario, stars in these substructures formed in the disk and were subsequently “kicked-out” by an external perturbation, such as the merger of an accreted satellite, which created an oscillation in the Galactic disk. To test this origin scenario, we found the fraction of different stellar populations – M giants and RR Lyrae stars – in the Monoceros Ring (also known as GASS) and A13, supplementing a study of stellar populations in the Triangulum-Andromeda cloud. This work provides: (1) the first analysis of the GASS and A13 features based upon their stellar populations; and (2) preliminary evidence of disk stars in the Milky Way that have been relocated to the disk-halo interface due to vertical oscillations of the Milky Way’s disk.
A group of traditional pottery workshops in Sichuan Province, China, produce a unique coal-clay composite ceramic that is fired using a similarly unique kiln design and two-stage firing procedure not seen in any other ceramic tradition. Here we report on field and laboratory efforts to better understand this unusual ceramic material and technology, the functional advantages as cookware, braziers, and large storage vessels that include high strength and high thermal shock resistance, and the cultural context that supported the creativity and experimentation needed to develop such an innovative technology.
Unusual raw materials are used to produce Tibetan black pottery in Puma township of Derge County, Sichuan Province, China. Carbonaceous, calcareous pyrite-rich illitic lakebed clay is mixed in equal proportions with a ferruginous talc-chlorite steatite. A two-stage firing process results in a dark, lustrous surface. The large amount of talc imparts many useful functional qualities to this pottery; most significant are the low thermal expansion and good thermal conduction properties of talc that make these ceramics highly suitable for heating and cooking in this high mountain region. Although used in some modern ceramics, and even in modern stoves, talc is an unusual ingredient in non-industrialized ceramics. Procurement and preparation of this resource adds to the production time but its properties and performance make talc an excellent choice for the well-being and comfort of local Tibetan households.
Average differences in children's language abilities by socioeconomic status (SES) emerge early in development and predict academic achievement. Previous research has focused on coarse-grained outcome measures such as vocabulary size, but less is known about the extent to which SES differences exist in children's strategies for comprehension and learning. We measured children's (N = 98) comprehension of passive sentences to investigate whether SES differences are more pronounced in overall knowledge of the construction or in more specific abilities to process sentences during real-time interpretation. SES differences in comprehension emerged when syntactic revision of passives was necessary, and disappeared when the need to revise was removed. Further, syntactic revision but not knowledge of the passive best explained the association between SES and a standardized measure of syntactic development. These results demonstrate that SES differences in syntactic development may result from how children recruit syntactic information within sentences.
In the present paper, the phylogeographies of two monogenean species, Pseudokuhnia minor and Kuhnia scombri, on the same species of host, Scomber japonicus, were studied. Fragments of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene were sequenced for 264 individuals of P. minor and 224 individuals of K. scombri collected from 10 localities along the coast of China. Genetic diversity of K. scombri was higher than that of P. minor, which may imply that P. minor has a lower evolution rate and/or is a younger species. The neighbour-joining (NJ) trees of both parasites were comprised of two clades without association to sample sites, which is the signature of remixing populations following past division. Analyses of molecular variance and pairwise fixation index revealed different genetic structures for the populations of these two closely related species along the coast of China: P. minor without significant genetic structure, while K. scombri has some genetic differentiation. Both neutrality tests and mismatch distribution suggested that the populations of these two species of parasites experienced population expansion in the late Pleistocene era due to the glacial–interglacial cycles induced by climatic oscillations.
A higher intake of fruits and vegetables (F&V) compared with animal-derived foods is associated with lower risks of all-cause-, cancer- and CVD-related mortalities. However, the association between consumption patterns and medical costs remains unclear. The effects of various food group costs on medical service utilisation and costs were investigated. The study cohort was recruited through the Elderly Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan between 1999 and 2000 and followed-up for 8 years until 2006. It comprised free-living elderly participants who provided a 24-h dietary recall. Daily energy-adjusted food group costs were estimated. Annual medical service utilisation and costs for 1445 participants aged 65–79 years were calculated from the National Health Insurance claim data. Generalised linear models were used to appraise the associations between the food group costs and medical service utilisation and costs. Older adults with the highest F&V cost tertile had significantly fewer hospital days (30 %) and total medical costs (19 %), whereas those in the highest animal-derived group had a higher number of hospital days (28 %) and costs (83 %) as well as total medical costs (38 %). Participants in the high F&V and low animal-derived cost groups had the shortest annual hospitalisation stays (5·78 d) and lowest costs (NT$38 600) as well as the lowest total medical costs (NT$75 800), a mean annual saving of NT$45 200/person. Older adults who spend more on F&V and less on animal-derived foods have a reduced medical-care system burden. This provides opportunities for nutritionally related healthcare system investment strategies.
Whole pulses (beans, peas, chickpeas and lentils) elicit low postprandial blood glucose (BG) responses in adults; however, their consumption in North America is low. One potential strategy to increase the dietary intake of pulses is the utilisation of commercial pulse powders in food products; however, it is unclear whether they retain the biological benefits observed with whole pulses. Therefore, the present study examined the effects of commercially prepared pulse powders on BG response before and after a subsequent meal in healthy young men. Overall, three randomised, within-subject experiments were conducted. In each experiment, participants received whole, puréed and powdered pulses (navy beans in Expt 1; lentils in Expt 2; chickpeas in Expt 3) and whole-wheat flour as the control. All treatments were controlled for available carbohydrate content. A fixed-energy pizza meal (50·2 kJ/kg body weight) was provided at 120 min. BG concentration was measured before (0–120 min) and after (140–200 min) the pizza meal. BG concentration peaked at 30 min in all experiments, and pulse forms did not predict their effect on BG response. Compared with the whole-wheat flour control, navy bean treatments lowered peak BG concentrations (Expt 1, P< 0·05), but not the mean BG concentration over 120 min. The mean BG concentration was lower for all lentil (Expt 2, P= 0·008) and chickpea (Expt 3, P= 0·002) treatments over 120 min. Processing pulses to powdered form does not eliminate the benefits of whole pulses on BG response, lending support to the use of pulse powders as value-added food ingredients to moderate postprandial glycaemic response.
We conduct a case study on a normal star-forming galaxy (z=0.05) observed by the SAMI Galaxy Survey and demonstrate the feasibility and potential of using large integral field spectroscopic surveys to investigate the prevalence of galactic-scale outflows in the local Universe. We perform spectral decomposition to separate the different kinematic components overlapping in the line-of-sight direction that causes the skewed line profiles in the integral field data. The three kinematic components present distinctly different line ratios and kinematic properties. We model the line ratios with the shock/photoionization code mappings iv and demonstrate that the different emission line properties are caused by major galactic outflows that introduce shock excitation in addition to photoionization. These results set a benchmark of the type of analysis that can be achieved by the SAMI Galaxy Survey on large numbers of galaxies.
We conducted a systematic review summarizing data on incidence of high- and low-grade lesions in women with normal baseline cervical cytology, stratified by age (<30 and ⩾30 years), and baseline human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. Incidence of high- and low-grade lesions in women aged ⩾30 years with a baseline HPV infection increased over follow-up time (5–127 months), although incidence generally remained <10%. Without baseline HPV infection, incidence of high-grade lesions remained low over follow-up time (<5% over 5–122 months). Incidence of high-grade lesions in women aged ⩾30 years with baseline HPV infection appeared similar to that in women aged <30 years. In some women aged <30 years, high-grade lesions can develop relatively shortly after initial HPV infection. We observed an increase in low-grade lesions over time in women aged ⩾30 years with baseline HPV infection, potentially indicative of an HPV infection that is potentially progressing to higher grade lesions.
Thin silicate nanoplatelets, derived from the exfoliation of natural Sodium montmorillonite (Na+-MMT) clays, show an unexpected antimicrobial property. A physical trapping mechanism has been proposed because the clay nanoplatelets can indiscriminately inhibit the growth of a broad spectrum of bacteria, including drug-resistant species such as methicillin-resistance S. aureus (MRSA) and silver ion-resistant E. coli. The ability to generate singlet oxygen species was first observed for the clay platelets that showed a high-aspect-ratio geometric shape and the presence of surface ionic charges. By comparison, the pristine clay with a multilayered structure failed to generate any singlet oxygen species. The ability to emit singlet oxygen species provides direct evidence for the antimicrobial ability of clay through a non-chemical mechanism, which opens the potential for medical use.
With the goal of constructing Star-Formation Rates (SFR) from AKARI Infrared Camera (IRC) data, we analyzed an IR-selected GALEX-SDSS-2MASS-AKARI(IRC & Far-Infrared Surveyor) sample of 153 nearby galaxies. The far-infrared fluxes were obtained from AKARI diffuse maps to correct the underestimation for extended sources raised by PSF photometry. SFRs of these galaxies were derived using the SED fitting program CIGALE. In spite of complicated features contained in these bands, both the S9W and L18W emissions correlate with the SFR of galaxies. The SFR calibrations using S9W and L18W are presented for the first time. These calibrations agree well with previous work based on Spitzer data within the scatter, and should be applicable to dust-rich galaxies.
Semiconducting hexathiapentacene (HTP) single–crystal nanowires were synthesized using a simple solution-phase route. Quartz Crystal Microbalance and complex resistance measurements were employed to investigate the sensing properties of an HTP nanowire to analytes including acid, amine, and hydrocarbon vapors. Cole-Cole plots (0.01Hz-4 MHz) of measured impedance spectra, modeled using equivalent circuits, were used to resolve the effects of adsorption and charge migration.