1,721,065 research outputs found
When the mental number line involves a delay: The writing of numbers by children of different arithmetical abilities
No full textOur study focused on number transcoding in children. It investigated how 9-year-olds with and without arithmetical disabilities wrote Arabic digits after they had heard them as number words. Planning time before writing each digit was registered. Analyses revealed that the two groups differed not only in arithmetical abilities but also in verbal and reading abilities. Children with arithmetical disabilities were overall slower in planning Arabic digits than were control children with normal arithmetical abilities. In addition, they showed a number size effect for numbers smaller than 10, suggesting a semantically mediated route in number processing. Control children did not need more planning time for large numbers (e.g., 8) than for small numbers (e.g., 3), suggesting a direct nonsemantic route. For both two- and three-digit numbers, both groups of children showed a number size effect, although the effect was smaller each time for control children. The presence of the stronger number size effect for children with arithmetical disabilities was seen as a delay in the development of quick and direct transcoding. The relation between transcoding problems and arithmetical disabilities is discussed. A defect in the linking of numerical symbols to analog numerical representations is proposed as an explanation for the transcoding problems found in some children
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Hitting the target : exploring motor learning and performance in schizophrenia and ageing
No full textAbstract: Schizophrenia is a severe disorder that is, next to the well-known positive and negative symptoms, characterized by a cognitive and motor deterioration. Although there still is conflicting evidence whether this deterioration has a neurodegenerative etiology, it has been suggested that some motor and cognitive changes in schizophrenia resemble those observed during normal ageing51,52. In contrast to extensively demonstrated deficits in explicit learning, it remains unclear whether implicit learning is impaired in schizophrenia and normal ageing. We performed a non-interventional study, using a wide battery of motor and cognitive tests, in order to observe which motor and cognitive processes are most disrupted in schizophrenia and to test whether patients with schizophrenia would show similar patterns of cognitive and motor deficits as elderly participants. In this thesis, 30 stable schizophrenia patients were compared with 30 healthy age- and sex-matched controls and 30 elderly controls (>65 years) on six categories of motor learning: motor speed, writing, tracking, single aiming, as well as explicit and implicit adaptation and explicit and implicit sequence learning. The tasks, which were performed on 2 consecutive days and after one week, are described in detail in Chapter II and their analyses and results are depicted in the subsequent Chapters. All patients and elderly individuals showed significant learning across all tasks but even on the simplest motor tasks patients with schizophrenia showed considerable motor slowing. Our investigation revealed distinct patterns of reduced motor abilities between the two experimental groups. Specifically, the elderly performed worse on tasks requiring more complexity and fine motor control, such as tracking, writing numbers in the SDST and explicit sequence learning, probably due to a less accurate and more variable motor output system. Individuals with schizophrenia performed worse on implicit and explicit adaptation and on most of tests that require more explicit, cognitive capacities, including verbal learning. This suggests different neurobiological underpinnings between ageing and schizophrenia which challenges the notion of the accelerated ageing hypothesis of schizophrenia. The severity of positive symptoms in schizophrenia seemed to be associated with adaptation deficits. This thesis supports the notion that many specific subprocesses contribute to psychomotor slowing in schizophrenia, and that the relationship between cognitive and motor subprocesses is strongly intertwined. Considering the well-established neural foundations of sequence learning and adaptation paradigms, these were chosen as the primary domains of investigation. To capture the cognitive contributions to learning, we utilized methods to extract the explicit cognitive engagement within these domains. Our findings highlight that an explicit learning component holds significant sway within sequence and adaptation tasks, domains that have historically been perceived as primarily implicit. This underscores the need for a comprehensive reevaluation of the role of explicit cognitive processes in motor skill acquisition paradigms. Future research is urged to devise methodologies for capturing these cognitive mechanisms in rudimentary motor tasks. With a more elaborate comprehension of psychomotor slowing's underpinnings, we might pave the way for more targeted pharmaceutical interventions and refined rehabilitation strategies. This thesis conveys an optimistic message: considering the relatively well-preserved motor learning abilities, these aspects could be addressed in the development of rehabilitation programs and pharmacological treatments in order to improve everyday cognitive and motor functioning in patients with schizophrenia
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
The search for novel treatments for major depressive disorder
No full textAbstract: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a severe recurrent psychiatric disorder that affects over 300 million people globally and is a recurrent psychiatric condition. Treatment for MDD involves mainly pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy but is often inadequate, with a significant portion of patients not achieving complete remission. Residual symptoms such as fatigue and cognitive dysfunction frequently persist. After a first episode, up to 85% of patients experience recurrence. This thesis examines new strategies to address these unmet needs in treating MDD. Different research projects focusing on various aspects of the pathophysiology and treatment of MDD will be presented. Chapters 2 and 3 present a study on the effects of inflammatory stress (i.e., a typhoid vaccine), psychosocial stress (i.e., Trier Social Stress Test), and their combination on mood, biomarkers, and cognition in women with recurrent depression in (partial) remission and healthy controls. The study found that inflammatory stress without psychosocial stress worsened mood in patients but not in controls. Only in patients was the inflammatory stressor also associated with changes in cognitive function, including an increase in negative emotional bias. Chapter 4 examines the pro-cognitive effects of nicotine in healthy young and elderly volunteers, finding nicotine had no effects in young volunteers and no or worsening effects in elderly volunteers. However, a secondary analysis revealed that the effects were dependent on baseline function, with people with lower baseline function having more positive effects of nicotine. Chapters 5 and 6 focus on existing treatments for specific depression subtypes. Chapter 5 presents a case where ketamine anaesthesia successfully treated depression resistant to electroconvulsive therapy, suggesting that ketamine can be a potential augmentation strategy. Chapter 6 discusses bupropion's efficacy in seasonal affective disorder. The evidence is most robust for preventive use in the winter months. MDD is a complex disorder, and there is a need for further research into its pathophysiology and treatment. Investigations into anti-inflammatory drugs, cytokine inhibitors, and minocycline for MDD treatment show promise but require more research. The potential for targeting the cholinergic system for treating cognitive dysfunction in depression remains unexplored. Esketamine is approved for treatment-resistant depression, and in patients resistant to ECT, the combination with ketamine anaesthesia can be considered based on the case report. Bupropion is effective in preventing seasonal affective disorder and can be used for this purpose in routine clinical practice
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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