The acquisition of reading has an extensive impact on the developing brain and leads to enhanced abilities in phonological processing and visual letter perception. Could this expertise also extend to early visual abilities outside the reading domain? Here we studied the performance of illiterate, ex-illiterate and literate adults closely matched in age, socioeconomic and cultural characteristic...

We investigate the origin and evolution of the legal institution of citizenship. We compile a new data set on citizenship laws across countries of the world which documents how these institutions have evolved from the legal tradition of common and civil law established in the course of the 19th century. We show that in the postwar period citizenship laws have responded endogenously and systemat...

Interviews were conducted with 24 older couples in the USA and Japan. Spouses participated in a causal conversation during which they discussed their marital history. The dialogue between the spouses was examined in relation to five forms of communication: prompting, questioning, echoing, contradicting, and teasing. Results from this analysis challenge some of the stereotypes concerning Japanes...

BACKGROUND although there is a wealth of information available about quality improvement tools and techniques in healthcare there is little understanding about overcoming the challenges of day-to-day implementation in complex organisations like hospitals. The 'Quality and Safety in Europe by Research' (QUASER) study will investigate how hospitals implement, spread and sustain quality improvemen...

Petri disease and esca are very destructive grapevine decline diseases that occur in most countries where grapevine (Vitis vinifera) is cultivated. Phaeoacremonium species are among the principal hyphomycetes associated with symptoms of the two diseases, producing a range of enzymes and phytotoxic metabolites. The present study compared the phylogeny of a global collection of 118 Phaeoacremoniu...