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The Contribution of Cognitive Control Networks in Word Selection Processing in Parkinson’s Disease: Novel Insights from a Functional Connectivity Study
Get PDFData Availability Statement: The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author due to ethical reasons.Supplementary Materials: The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/brainsci14090913/s1, Table S1: Neuropsychological data of HC (healthy control) and PD (Parkinson’s disease) groups of participants.Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients are impaired in word production when the word has to be selected among competing alternatives requiring higher attentional resources. In PD, word selection processes are correlated with the structural integrity of the inferior frontal gyrus, which is critical for response selection, and the uncinate fasciculus, which is necessary for processing lexical information. In early PD, we investigated the role of the main cognitive large-scale networks, namely the salience network (SN), the central executive networks (CENs), and the default mode network (DMN), in word selection. Eighteen PD patients and sixteen healthy controls were required to derive nouns from verbs or generate verbs from nouns. Participants also underwent a resting-state functional MRI. Functional connectivity (FC) was examined using independent component analysis. Functional seeds for the SN, CENs, and DMN were defined as spheres, centered at the local activation maximum. Correlations were calculated between the FC of each functional seed and word production. A significant association between SN connectivity and task performance and, with less evidence, between CEN connectivity and the task requiring selection among a larger number of competitors, emerged in the PD group. These findings suggest the involvement of the SN and CEN in word selection in early PD, supporting the hypothesis of impaired executive control.This research received no external funding
Brain Evoked Response Qualification Using Multi-Set Consensus Clustering: Toward Single-Trial EEG Analysis
Get PDFData availability: This study does not include data collection from individual participants, and public data has been used.Electronic Supplementary Material: Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Supplementary Material 1: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10548-024-01074-y/MediaObjects/10548_2024_1074_MOESM1_ESM.docx .In event-related potential (ERP) analysis, it is commonly assumed that individual trials from a subject share similar properties and originate from comparable neural sources, allowing reliable interpretation of group-averages. Nevertheless, traditional group-level ERP analysis methods, including cluster analysis, often overlook critical information about individual subjects’ neural processes due to using fixed measurement intervals derived from averaging. We developed a multi-set consensus clustering pipeline to examine cognitive processes at the individual subject level. Initially, consensus clustering from diverse methods was applied to single-trial EEG epochs of individual subjects. Subsequently, a second level of consensus clustering was performed across the trials of each subject. A newly modified time window determination method was then employed to identify individual subjects’ ERP(s) of interest. We validated our method with simulated data for ERP components N2 and P3, and real data from a visual oddball task to confirm the P3 component. Our findings revealed that estimated time windows for individual subjects provide precise ERP identification compared to fixed time windows across all subjects. Additionally, Monte Carlo simulations with synthetic single-trial data demonstrated stable scores for the N2 and P3 components, confirming the reliability of our method. The proposed method enhances the examination of brain-evoked responses at the individual subject level by considering single-trial EEG data, thereby extracting mutual information relevant to the neural process. This approach offers a significant improvement over conventional ERP analysis, which relies on the averaging mechanism and fixed measurement interval.The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. The authors have no funding for this study. Open Access funding provided by University of Jyväskylä (JYU)
Exploring new realms or losing touch? Assessing public beliefs about tourism in the metaverse–a big-data approach
Get PDFCode Availability: Source: Authors own creation The Python code is provided in the appendices of the article.Purpose:
The Metaverse is rapidly reshaping the understanding of tourism, yet the public perception of this new domain remains largely uncharted empirically. This paper aims to build on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and diffusion of innovations theory (DIT) to fill this gap, offering crucial insights that could inform scholars and practitioners in both the tourism and technology sectors.
Design/methodology/approach:
Using a big-data approach, the authors applied machine learning to scrape comments made by social media users on recent popular posts or videos related to tourism in the Metaverse from three prominent social media platforms. The cleaning process narrowed down 15,461 comments to 2,650, which were then analysed using thematic, emotion and sentiment analysis techniques.
Findings:
The thematic analysis revealed that virtual tourism evokes a complex range of public beliefs. While many express awe and excitement toward its immersive capabilities, others remain sceptical about authenticity compared to physical travel. Additional themes show people draw comparisons to real-world tourism, discuss technology’s role and note educational value and novelty. However, some comments raise concerns about potential societal harms, exploitation and mental health impacts. Sentiment analysis found over half of the comments positive, though some were negative. Emotion analysis showed contentment, happiness and excitement as most frequent, though sadness, worry and loneliness also featured. Overall, perceptions of Metaverse tourism encompass enthusiasm yet substantial ambivalence.
Originality/value:
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to comprehensively analyse public discussions on Metaverse tourism. It takes TAM and Rogers’s DIT a step further and provides fresh insights into how these theories can be employed in the emerging field of Metaverse tourism. The themes revealed new conceptual insights into multidimensional factors shaping public beliefs about Metaverse tourism and thus informing scholarly research on virtual interaction and technology acceptance regarding Metaverse tourism. In addition, the results can help tourism providers, platforms and marketers address salient public beliefs and sentiments/attitudes in developing marketing offerings, experiences and communications. Over time, this analysis methodology can be used to track the evolving public perceptions of Metaverse tourism
Non-binary individuals, visibility and legitimacy at work: future crafting inclusive organisations in times of inclusion hysteresis
Get PDFData availability statement: The participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly, so due to the sensitive nature of the research supporting data is not available.Non-binary gender identity is central to political and organisational progress towards and backlash against the inclusion of non-binary individuals. We conceptualised the tension between progress and backlash and coined the term, inclusion hysteresis, to frame this period of tension. Drawing on a dramaturgical approach, we studied the experiences of 30 non-binary individuals at work. We identified how non-binary individuals’ experiences are shaped by their counter-narratives for inclusion and dominant narratives of backlash, fuelled by populist campaigns of moral panics, phobias, and exclusion. We offer a theoretical extension by revealing how to overcome inclusion hysteresis through future crafting. We make a practical contribution by operationalising future crafting to help HR professionals overcome populist dominant narratives and design inclusive organisational practices and routines with non-binary individuals, drawing on their counter-narratives of inclusion
Misrecognition and labor market inclusion of refugee mothers
No full textData Availability Statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.185,000 refugees from Ukraine have started working in Poland since the Russian war began. Drawing on Bourdieusian concepts of capitals, misrecognition, habitus, and the field, the paper theorizes the subjective and objective terms of inclusion across intersectional interplay of motherhood, ethnicity, and refugee status. In particular, we explore how intersectional marginalized identities of individuals shape their negotiation power over terms of their labor market inclusion. Using qualitative interview data from 10 Ukrainian working mothers in Poland who became refugees following the Russian war in Ukraine in 2022, we demonstrate that misrecognition leads to uneven relations of power curtailing working refugee mothers' agency to negotiate the terms of their inclusion
Fatigue Analysis Based On Fatigue Failure Approach And Damage Tolerant Approach In Coronary Stent Design
Get PDFOver the last few decades, cardiovascular stents have emerged as crucial biomedical devices. Stents undergo cyclic physiological loading, which can lead to progressive accumulation of structural damage over time eventually resulting in a stent fracture. Considering the critical role of stents, it is necessary to assess their fatigue endurance and predict a potential premature failure due to fatigue loading. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of coronary stent design based on both fatigue failure and damage-tolerant approaches. Employing the fatigue failure approach, S-N analysis was conducted to pinpoint the critical zones of the stent. Initial resistance to fatigue was evaluated using Goodman's and Soderberg's criteria. These criteria were applied to principal and effective stresses obtained using the Finite Element Method. Susceptibility to fatigue damage was performed by simulating the initial crack growth, and it was assessed through the Paris power law. The damage-tolerant approach yields more conservative fatigue stress ranges compared to fatigue failure criteria, ensuring safety under standard physiological loading conditions. The presented approach offers reliable insights into stent durability, with potential for further enhancement.The research was funded by the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia, contract number [451-03-65/2024-03/200107 (Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac)]
Exploring the Challenging Landscape of Transfer Pricing Governance in Low-Income Countries: The Case of Africa
No full textThis article may be purchased at the IBFD online shop at https://www.ibfd.org/shop/journal/exploring-challenging-landscape-transfer-pricing-governance-low-income-countries-case .Mispricing of group transactions among MNEs is a key concern for low-income countries, especially in
Africa, where implementation and regulation of transfer pricing face a range of challenges
Soldiers' and Dayak Sense of Self and Other on Borneo during Confrontation between Britain and Indonesia, 1962-66
Get PDFAvailable for purchase from The Society for Military History at: https://www.smh-hq.org/jmh/jmhvols/884.htmlConfrontation on Borneo tests a thesis on counterinsurgency: winning hearts and minds succeeds if object place/people win over the hearts and minds of subject counterinsurgency soldiers. This psychological transformation depends on fixed objects that counterinsurgency cannot easily change: the counterinsurgency destination and the counterinsurgents’ place of origin that formed soldiers’ unconscious selves. Soldiers encountered on Borneo a transformative, attractive, alien destination that changed their behavior. Soldiers then ratified unconscious behavior by asserting that the cause was their innate decency and official hearts and minds policy. But Borneo had formed the unconscious self that gave form to hearts and minds. This article argues that altered states of being shape counterinsurgency.The author acknowledges A.V. B. Norman Trust funding for U.K. regimental archival research and a Moody Grant for study in the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Librar
Climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance: Rethinking the shameful trade flows of used textiles and the need to slow fast fashion
Get PDFThis thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonClimate change has emerged as a global issue that possesses the capacity to become the preeminent concern of the century. Companies are widely seen as being at the heart of both the problems and the solutions to climate change. This has led to a fundamental rethinking of existing methods of production, which promote the notion that products are meant to be used only a few times and discarded. Spanning across various stages such as agriculture, petrochemical production, manufacturing, logistics, and retail, the clothes we wear have a significant impact on the environment throughout their lifecycle. In other words, while waste production can contribute to a variety of environmental issues, including greenhouse gas emissions, the production of waste from the clothes we wear is no exception. In 2021, Chile, for example, emerged as the fourth largest importer of used textiles and the first in Latin America. Currently, imports have already exceeded 126,000 million tons per year, with China, the US, and Korea being the main contributors to these imports. Nearly 40% of these items are imported through the Iquique free-trade zone in the northern Atacama Desert, where most are discarded since they have no value in the local second-hand clothing market. At present, if any, the industry suffers from a weak regulatory framework that fails to effectively regulate its operations. As a result, brands in the sector often rely on hollow promises, resulting in a phenomenon known as ‘greenwashing,’ where prominent brands make misleading claims about their sustainable practices. Drawing on doctrinal and comparative legal analysis, as well as systematic literature review methodologies, this study establishes the urgent need for immediate legal action to slow fast fashion and end the current practices of dumping low-quality second-hand clothing in regions of the Global South that lack the infrastructure to effectively manage such hazardous materials. On the whole, the study concludes that textile waste, similar to plastic waste, is clearly hazardous and, unfortunately, rather obscurely regulated
Mechanical and environmental evaluation of ground calcium carbonate (CaCO3) filled polypropylene composites as a sustainable alternative to virgin polypropylene
Get PDFData availability: All the data has been included in the manuscript and SI.Supplementary data are available online at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590048X24000360?via%3Dihub#appsec1 .Polypropylene (PP) has raised environmental concerns particularly for its depletion of fossil-fuels and contribution to climate change. To lower environmental impacts, PP can be combined with biobased fillers such as calcium carbonate (CaCO3). The mechanical and environmental properties of CaCO3 filled PP have not yet been explored in depth. Therefore, this study examines the aesthetic, tensile, flexural, impact, and environmental (via life cycle assessment) properties of injection moulded CaCO3 filled PP with filler content ranging from 0% to 40% at 5% increments. As filler percentage increased, yield strength decreased (0% CaCO3: 17.68 MPa, 40% CaCO3: 12.73 MPa), but young's modulus, flexural modulus, and impact strength increased (respectively 69%, 51%, and 35% greater than pure PP). Flexural strength increased initially at 5% CaCO3 but then declined as more filler was added. A yellowish hue was observed within all blends which growed stronger with more filler. The addition of CaCO3 reduced the environmental impact for all 11 impact categories. For every 5% of CaCO3 added, the material's global warming potential (GWP) decreased by 100g CO2 eq. per functional unit (1000 cm3) of composite. Abiotic depletion of fossil fuels declined by 32% when 40% CaCO3 was added. In addition to this study, it would be beneficial to explore other factors that affect the properties of CaCO3 filled PP such as particle size, particle distribution, and binding additives.This research was undertaken whilst receiving a studentship by a UK medical device manufacturer
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