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This paper reports findings from an evaluation study of the Communication Aids Project (CAP), focussing on the perspective of children at points of educational transition and the parents, education staff and Speech and Language Therapists who support them. All participants took part in structured interviews, the individual children face-to-face on a one-to-one basis and the adults over the telephone. Those involved with the study reported positive effects of the communication aid, including in speech and communication activities relevant at transition. They also raised three main concerns regarding the use of the aids during and after transition, namely the portability and security of aids in the new setting; managing the flow of information between schools and in particular the availability of continued training in the support and use of communication aids.

The findings presented in this paper are part of an independent evaluation study of the Communication Aids Project (CAP). The study was carried out between July 2003 and April 2004 and looked at the impact of CAP on children receiving communication aids and evaluated the CAP strategy of assessment and delivery. In this paper the views of education staff and speech and language therapists who were working with communication aid users in school are presented. The professionals who were interviewed provided positive feedback on the existence of CAP, on the assessment for the communication aid, particularly where the use of the aid in the classroom was considered, and on the children's increased participation in classroom and learning activities since receiving the aid. They also highlighted the issue of managing parents' expectations regarding the use of aids and the value of and need for continued training for professionals working with communication aids in the classroom. The authors of this article, Jannet Wright, senior lecturer, Chris Donlan, senior lecturer, Caroline Newton, lecturer, and Michael Clarke, lecturer, from University College London; Claire Lister, from the Institute of Child Health, London; and Jasmina Cherguit, assistant psychologist, draw upon their findings to develop recommendations for future policy, practice and professional development.

The term 'biodiversity,' while casually used in practice, is a complicated subject to measure, interpret, contextualize, and compare. Yet the possible advent of deep-sea mining in the mid-2020's compels us to compare potential impacts of biodiversity loss across ecologically distant realms, a formidable task. Supplying the world's green infrastructure is expected to lead to shortages of nickel, cobalt and other metals; meanwhile polymetallic nodules sitting atop the abyssal plains of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) of the Pacific Ocean contain billions of tons of nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese, enough to solve the supply issues. Implicit in society's decision of whether to exploit this resource is a tradeoff of harm to biodiversity in the CCZ's abyssal seafloor and its overlying water column, versus intensification of harm to rainforests and other terrestrial mining habitats. Here we frame the challenges of comparing biodiversity impacts across such different realms, spanning the gamut from normative to fundamental: ambiguities in definitions, lack of protocol standardization, physical challenges in measurement, difficulties to integrate measures among different taxonomic groups, profound differences between ecologically distant realms, contextual necessity to attribute value to mathematical index results, and constraints of current knowledge about species, ecosystems and system level impacts of biodiversity change. Quantitative biodiversity measures alone cannot rank one system above the other; measures must be supplemented with qualitative judgements of the tangible and intangible values of species and habitats to natural systems and to humans, along with consideration of other threats that they and we face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess whether there is an enduring gender difference in the ability of self-rated health to predict mortality and investigate whether self-reported physical health problems account for this difference. Design and Methods: Cox models for 4-year survival were fitted to data from successive cohorts aged 75-81 years registered with a primary care practice in the U.K. Midlands surveyed in 1981, 1988, and 1993-1995. Results: Self-rated health was consistently a stronger predictor in men (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.7; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.1-3.5) than it was in women ([HR] = 1.9; 95% CI = 1.5-2.4). Women surveyed in 1993-1995 were more likely than men to report problems that were disabling but not life-threatening, whereas men were more likely to report potentially life-threatening problems. However, these differences did not explain the association of self-rated health with mortality. More than half of those who reported a potentially life-threatening problem said that their health was good. Implications: Self-rated health is more strongly associated with mortality in men, but this is unlikely to be explained by differences in the nature of their physical health problems.