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Nonverbal action interpretation guides novel word disambiguation in 12-month-olds
Get PDFWhether young infants can exploit sociopragmatic information to interpret new words is a matter of debate. Based on findings and theories from the action interpretation literature, we hypothesized that 12-month-olds should distinguish communicative object-directed actions expressing reference from instrumental object-directed actions indicative of one’s goals, and selectively use the former to identify referents of novel linguistic expressions. This hypothesis was tested across four eye-tracking experiments. Infants watched pairs of unfamiliar objects, one of which was first targeted by either a communicative action (e.g., pointing) or an instrumental action (e.g., grasping) and then labeled with a novel word. As predicted, infants fast-mapped the novel words onto the targeted objects after pointing (Experiments 1 and 4) but not after grasping (Experiment 2) unless the grasping action was preceded by an ostensive signal (Experiment 3). Moreover, whenever infants mapped a novel word onto the object indicated by a communicative action, they tended to map a different novel word onto the distractor object, displaying a mutual exclusivity effect. This reliance on nonverbal action interpretation in the disambiguation of novel words indicates that sociopragmatic inferences about reference likely supplement associative and statistical learning mechanisms from the outset of word learning
Convolutional neural networks-based framework for early identification of dementia using MRI of brain asymmetry
Get PDFComputer-aided diagnosis of health problems and pathological conditions has become a substantial part of medical, biomedical, and computer science research. This paper focuses on the diagnosis of early and progressive dementia, building on the potential of deep learning (DL) models. The proposed computational framework exploits a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain asymmetry biomarker, which has been associated with early dementia, and employs DL architectures for MRI image classification. Identification of early dementia is accomplished by an eight-layered convolutional neural network (CNN) as well as transfer learning of pretrained CNNs from ImageNet. Different instantiations of the proposed CNN architecture are tested. These are equipped with Softmax, support vector machine (SVM), linear discriminant (LD), or k -nearest neighbor (KNN) classification layers, assembled as a separate classification module, which are attached to the core CNN architecture. The initial imaging data were obtained from the MRI directory of the Alzheimer’s disease neuroimaging initiative 3 (ADNI3) database. The independent testing dataset was created using image preprocessing and segmentation algorithms applied to unseen patients’ imaging data. The proposed approach demonstrates a 90.12% accuracy in distinguishing patients who are cognitively normal subjects from those who have Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and an 86.40% accuracy in detecting early mild cognitive impairment (EMCI)
On stories, storytelling, and the quiet politics of welcome
Get PDFFocusing on a collaborative storytelling project with refugees and asylum seekers in the London borough of Waltham Forest, this paper explores the potential offered by creative storytelling and story-sharing for providing alternative narratives and spaces for inclusion, welcome and mutual care against a backdrop of hostility and exclusion. It challenges tendencies within prevailing discourses to either treat asylum narratives as ‘bogus’ or to essentialise individual refugee stories through the prevailing tropes of ‘victim’ or ‘hero’. Instead, we draw attention to the actual process of making, telling and sharing stories between refugees and local residents, in the Global Story Café project led by Stories & Supper. The paper examines how the spaces that emerged through sharing stories with refugees and asylum seekers in a series of creative workshops and targeted storytelling cafes with public participation opened up possibilities for what we refer to as a quiet politics of welcome – a form of welcome that moves beyond notions of charity or sympathy, disrupts perceived host-guest binaries and instead demonstrates the importance of ‘being with’. The paper highlights the need for more engagement and understanding of these ‘quiet’ acts of welcome, which can provide insights for challenging the overriding discourses about, and practices towards, refugees and asylum seekers
Curved sixth fingers: flexible representation of the shape of supernumerary body parts
Get PDFA recent perceptual illusion induces the feeling of having a sixth finger on one's hand. It is unclear whether the representation of supernumerary fingers is flexible for shape. To test whether we can embody a sixth finger with a different shape from our own fingers, we induced a sixth finger which curved laterally though 180°. Participants reported feeling both curved and straight sixth fingers, depending on the stimulation pattern. Visual comparative judgements of the felt curvature of the supernumerary finger, showed means of 182° in the curved condition, and 35° in the straight condition. Our results show we can feel a supernumerary finger with different shape from our actual fingers, indicating that shape is represented flexibly in the perception of our hands. This study also adds evidence to the independence of the supernumerary finger from the actual fingers, showing we can represent the sixth finger with its own shape
Nature of disruption, disruption of nature: during and after the pandemic
No full textEsther Leslie argues that catastrophe and crisis have been an integral part of human history during capitalism. Although we live in vicious times, times have long been vicious. It is true that the Corona pandemic has gripped everyone today and brought us to a dark age, but – Leslie asks herself – is the situation truly worse than in the period of the first primitive accumulation as peasants were thrown off the lands and dispossessed, not just of place but also of their own energies? The way she sees it, the old ways reassert themselves, in the pressure for a return to the normal, to the status quo. She also reminds us that in Walter Benjamin’s outstanding analysis, it is precisely this desired ‘status quo’ that is the true catastrophe. Leslie’s central argument is that despite all its exceptionality the pandemic only acuminated existing problems. Its odd merit is that henceforth these problems appear in a clearer light. Granted that we overcome the romantic idea that nature is something which would save us from our own self-inflicted (self-)destruction, from now on we might begin to think how to “save ourselves along with everything and everyone else.
The evolution of ancient fluvial systems in Memnonia Sulci, Mars: impact crater damming, aggradation, and a large water body on the dichotomy?
Get PDFThere is conflicting evidence for an ancient ocean which occupied the northern hemispheric basin on Mars. Along different regions of the dichotomy boundary, sediment fans have been interpreted as either forming into a large water body or a series of smaller paleolake basins. Here, we investigate fluvial systems in the Memnonia Sulci region of Mars, set along the dichotomy, which comprise erosional valley networks, paleolake basins, inverted channel systems, and sediment fans. We focus our analysis on the evolution of the upslope catchment and characterizing the ancient environment of a large, downslope basin, bound by the topographic dichotomy and the Medusae Fosse Formation. The catchment fluvial systems comprise highly degraded valley networks and show a complex history of incision and filling, influenced by paleolake basin overflow, impact crater damming, aggradation, and possibly a downstream water body. The morphology of the sediment fans is consistent with either fluvial fans or deltas and they form at discrete elevations, rather than a common elevation plane. Our analysis is consistent with the sediment fans forming into a series of paleolake basins set along the dichotomy, rather than into a large inner sea or ocean-sized water body. The fluvial systems were likely active between the mid Noachian and early Hesperian periods. Our results demonstrate the complex, multi-phase evolution of fluvial systems on ancient Mars and highlight the importance of regional and local studies when characterizing ancient regions of the dichotomy
The economic crisis of the 1690s in England
Get PDFBeginning in 1689, England was struck by not one but three economic shocks. First, the war against France – Europe's greatest military power – attracted swarms of hostile warships and privateers that heavily damaged English maritime trade, while military expenses also led to a doubling of the tax burden. Second, wartime conditions and government mismanagement sparked a currency crisis in 1695–7 that halted much domestic commerce and caused a run on the recently founded Bank of England. Third, William III's reign brought rapid inflation in the cost of the necessities of life, especially food and fuel, which resulted in prolonged widespread hunger from 1693 onwards. Yet, these hardships have rarely received more than a passing mention in political histories of the Glorious Revolution and do not fit easily into the narratives of economic expansion in the later Stuart period. Close analysis of these ‘hard times’ demonstrates the limits of histories that emphasize long-term developments over short-term crises. Using evidence from a wide range of local and national archives, this article shows the impact of these shocks on the lives of ordinary people
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