The pronunciation of a number of English words by Dutch hearing impaired and normal hearing students in Dutch special and ordinary secondary education: Preliminary results

In 1986, a research project was started in the Institute of Phonetic Sciences of Groningen University to investigate the pronunciation of English by hearing-impaired students in Dutch special secondary education. With the help of a tailor-made articulation test, we compare the pronunciation of English by these students to the pronunciation of English by students with normal hearing in ordinary secondary education. This article presents the results of 11 normal hearing and 11 hearing-impaired students on one of the items of our test: pronouncing a number of isolated words. Group I consists of five normal hearing and five hearing-impaired speakers in their first year at secondary school. Group II consists of three normal hearing and three hearing-impaired speakers from the second year intermediate level. Group III consists of three normal hearing and three hearing-impaired speakers from the second year lower level. It can be seen that more or less the same English sounds are regarded as difficult by both the hearing-impaired students and the normal hearing students, but that there is a much wider range of realizations within the groups of hearing-impaired students.     

Former Substance Users Working as Counselors. A Dual Relationship

All helping professionals risk participation in “dual relationships.” But in the case of former substance users working as counselors, specific dilemmas and problems are accentuated. A qualitative analysis highlights some of the ethical and personal dilemmas faced by these counselors. The data are derived from an interview study initiated in 2000 in Denmark on former substance users with 4–8 years of abstinence. Through an analysis of interview data from a larger group of former substance users, it became evident that those working as counselors experienced specific dilemmas and problems. The current article is based on individual reports of five counselors with recovery status.     

Modeling of activity landscapes for drug discovery

Introduction: Activity landscapes (ALs) are graphical representations that integrate compound structure and potency relationships. These computer-generated models enable the interactive large-scale analysis of structure–activity relationships (SARs) and complement traditional approaches to study SARs of individual compound series in a qualitative or quantitative manner. A variety of AL designs have been reported.

Areas covered: The concept of activity landscapes is introduced and different methodologies to represent 2D or 3D AL representations of large compound data sets are described on the basis of original literature references. Several AL variants and extensions have been generated for special applications in medicinal chemistry. These include, for example, AL views of evolving data sets with constant topology, selectivity landscapes and multi-target ALs, or molecular mechanism and multi-property maps. Furthermore, the applicability domain of the AL concept is discussed including specific requirements for practical utility in medicinal chemistry opportunities for further developments.

Expert opinion: AL modeling has substantially extended conventional ways to study SARs. The AL concept is inseparable from the notion of activity cliffs that are of high interest in SAR analysis. AL design is an area of active research at the interface between chemoinformatics and medicinal chemistry with potential for further growth. Special emphasis must be put on increasing the usability of AL models for practicing medicinal chemists.     

The burden of relatives of psychiatric patients: Comparisons between parents,spouses, and grown-up children of voluntarily and compulsorily admitted psychiatric patients

As part of an ongoing study of the quality of the mental health services in two Swedish county councils, relatives of both voluntarily and compulsorily admitted patients were interviewed with regard to family burden. The aims of this part of the study were to investigate differences in burden between subgroups of relatives, differences in family burden between 1986 and 1991, and differences between relatives of voluntarily and compulsorily admitted patients. The relatives investigated consisted of 79 spouses, 118 parents, and 31 grown-up children. The results showed that relatives of severely mentally ill persons have a considerable amount of burden, of both an external and a psychologic internal nature. Subjective burden was generally more pronounced than objective external burden. Spouses had to a greater extent external burdens. Relatives experienced more internal burden in 1986 and more external burden in 1991. There were no differences between relatives of voluntarily and compulsorily admitted patients. It is concluded that the psychiatric services in their work with relatives have to consider the specific burden of different subgroups of relatives.     

Comparative analysis of vestibular ecomorphology in birds

The bony labyrinth of vertebrates houses the semicircular canals. These sense rotational accelerations of the head and play an essential role in gaze stabilisation during locomotion. The sizes and shapes of the semicircular canals have hypothesised relationships to agility and locomotory modes in many groups, including birds, and a burgeoning palaeontological literature seeks to make ecological interpretations from the morphology of the labyrinth in extinct species. Rigorous tests of form–function relationships for the vestibular system are required to support these interpretations. We test the hypothesis that the lengths, streamlines and angles between the semicircular canals are related to body size, wing kinematics and flying style in birds. To do this, we applied geometric morphometrics and multivariate phylogenetic comparative methods to a dataset of 64 three‐dimensional reconstructions of the endosseous labyrinth obtained using micro‐computed tomography scanning of bird crania. A strong relationship between centroid size of the semicircular canals and body size indicates that larger birds have longer semicircular canals compared with their evolutionary relatives. Wing kinematics related to manoeuvrability (and quantified using the brachial index) explain a small additional portion of the variance in labyrinth size. We also find strong evidence for allometric shape change in the semicircular canals of birds, indicating that major aspects of the shape of the avian labyrinth are determined by spatial constraints. The avian braincase accommodates a large brain, a large eye and large semicircular canals compared with other tetrapods. Negative allometry of these structures means that the restriction of space within the braincase is intense in small birds. This may explain our observation that the angles between planes of the semicircular canals of birds deviate more strongly from orthogonality than those of mammals, and especially from agile, gliding and flying mammals. Furthermore, we find little support for relationships between labyrinth shape and flying style or wing kinematics. Overall, our results suggest that the topological problem of fitting long semicircular canals into a spatially constrained braincase is more important in determining the shape of the avian labyrinth than the specifics of locomotory style or agility. Our results tentatively indicate a link between visual acuity and proportional size of the labyrinth among birds. This suggests that the large labyrinths of birds compared with other tetrapods may result from their generally high visual acuities, and not directly from their ability to fly. The endosseous labyrinths of extinct birds and their close dinosaurian relatives may allow broad inferences about flight or vision, but so far provide few specific insights into detailed aspects of locomotion.