Progressive loss of expressive language in a journalist: What news for dementia?

A 77-year-old man with 8 year progressive language deterioration in the face of grossly intact memory was followed. No acute or chronic physiological or psychological event was associated with symptom onset. CT revealed small left basal ganglia infarct. Mild atrophy, no lacunar infarcts, mild diffuse periventricular changes registered on MRI. Gait normal but slow. Speech hesitant and sparse. Affect euthymic; neurobehavioral disturbance absent. MMSE 26/30; clock incorrect, concrete. Neuropsychological testing revealed simple attention intact; complex attention, processing speed impaired. Visuospatial copying and delayed recall of copy average with some perseveration. Apraxia absent. Recall mildly impaired. Mild deficits in planning, organization apparent. Patient severely aphasic, dysarthric without paraphasias. Repetition of automatic speech, recitation moderately impaired; prosody intact. Understanding of written language, nonverbal communication abilities, intact. Frontal release signs developed over last 12 months. Repeated cognitive testing revealed mild deterioration across all domains with significant further decrease in expressive, receptive language. Neurobehavioral changes remain absent to date; he remains interested, engaged and independent in basic ADLs. Speech completely deteriorated; gait and movements appreciably slowed. Although signs of frontal/executive dysfunction present, lack of behavioral abnormalities, psychiatric disturbance, personality change argue against focal or progressive frontal impairment or dementia. Relative intactness of memory and comprehension argue against Alzheimer’s disease. Lack of findings on neuroimaging argue against CVA or tumor. It is possible that the small basal ganglia infarct has resulted in a mild lateral prefrontal syndrome. However, the absence of depression as well as the relatively circumscribed language problem suggests otherwise. The progressive, severe nature of language impairments, with relatively minor impairments in attention and memory, argues for a possible diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia.

Programs as paths: An approach to timing constraint analysis

A program can be decomposed into a set of possible execution paths. These can be described in terms of primitives such as assignments, assumptions and coercions, and composition operators such as sequential composition and nondeterministic choice as well as finitely or infinitely iterated sequential composition. Some of these paths cannot possibly be followed (they are dead or infeasible), and they may or may not terminate. Decomposing programs into paths provides a foundation for analyzing properties of programs. Our motivation is timing constraint analysis of real-time programs, but the same techniques can be applied in other areas such as program testing. In general the set of execution paths for a program is infinite. For timing analysis we would like to decompose a program into a finite set of subpaths that covers all possible execution paths, in the sense that we only have to analyze the subpaths in order to determine suitable timing constraints that cover all execution paths.

Not if but when: Out-group reactions to the timing of disclosure of an individual's same-sex attractions

One factor that research suggests impedes positive contact between outgroup members is the experience of anxiety that can occur when anticipating negative consequences of such interactions. Research examining attitudes and behaviour towards same-sex attracted individuals indicates that this intergroup anxiety is particularly evident when the anticipated interaction involves members of the same gender. The current studies investigate the effect of timing of disclosure of a person’s same-sex attractions in an effort to identify a means of reducing this anxiety. Study 1 uses a hypothetical scenario to gain insight into participants’ stated preferences for early or delayed knowledge of a person’s sexual orientation. Results reveal an association between experiencing close contact with gay individuals of the same gender in real life (but not opposite gender), and a preference for early disclosure. Results from an experimental study concur with these findings. After a face-to-face interaction task with a confederate of the same gender, participants sit further from the confederate for the late disclosure condition when compared with the early disclosure and no disclosure control. Future studies investigating the interaction between timing of disclosure of same-sex attractions and the intimacy of disclosure (casual vs. intimate), are discussed.

Avaliação das Capacidades de Timing e Seletividade dos Gestores de Fundos de Ações em Períodos de Crise: Evidência Empírica para o Mercado Português

Os fundos de investimento mobiliários são uma boa alternativa para os aforradores diversificarem as suas poupanças, em particular que investem em ações. Esta classe de fundos visa proporcionar ao investidor o acesso a uma aplicação com uma elevada expectativa de rendibilidade a longo prazo. Dentro da oferta deste tipo de fundos domiciliados em Portugal, a questão fundamental é saber quais os mais apropriados para investir. Com este trabalho, pretende-se contribuir para o conhecimento da qualidade da gestão desta classe de ativos e, assim, fornecer mais elementos aos investidores para uma melhor tomada de decisão. Deste modo, esta investigação avalia as capacidades de timing e seletividade dos gestores de fundos de ações domiciliados em Portugal, em períodos de crise e não-crise, bem como os seus estilos de investimento. O estudo incide sobre o período de janeiro de 2000 a dezembro de 2014 e inclui todos os fundos, sobreviventes e não sobreviventes, que estiveram em atividade durante um período mínimo de 24 meses. Os resultados sugerem uma reduzida capacidade de timing e a inexistência de capacidades de seletividade por parte dos gestores. De um modo geral, as capacidades de seletividade são melhores nos períodos de não-crise do que nos períodos de crise, enquanto as capacidades de timing são, na maior parte dos casos, idênticas em diferentes estados do mercado. Em relação aos estilos de investimento, verifica-se uma maior predominância de ações com pequenas capitalizações nas carteiras, com maior incidência nos períodos de crise. Verifica-se, também, uma preferência dos gestores dos fundos que investem em Portugal e na Europa por ações de rendimento e uma preferência dos restantes gestores por ações de crescimento, sendo estas tendências mais vincadas em alturas de crise.

The spacing and timing of [a chic] critique

This rejoinder reflects an important step, for me, in a preoccupation with methodology that has provided me with many hours of enjoyable reading, not to mention anxiety. For me the ‘reality’ of the incommensurable nature of paradigms and acceptance of the legitimacy of a range of conceptual and philosophical traditions came late. As a constructionist I find myself on the ‘anything goes’ end of methodology choice. This paper and my main paper ought not to be read as a critique of ‘middle range’ theory, but as a critique of an important and necessary aspect of the way we all seek to inscribe facts and structure our writing. What follows is a reflection of the influence Bruno Latour’s writings have had on my ways of seeing and perhaps an unhealthy emphasis on the small things that combine to produce convincing arguments and ‘facts’.

Interhemispheric differences of spectral power in expressive language:a MEG study with clinical applications

In the last decade we have seen an exponential growth of functional imaging studies investigating multiple aspects of language processing. These studies have sparked an interest in applying some of the paradigms to various clinically relevant questions, such as the identification of the cortical regions mediating language function in surgical candidates for refractory epilepsy. Here we present data from a group of adult control participants in order to investigate the potential of using frequency specific spectral power changes in MEG activation patterns to establish lateralisation of language function using expressive language tasks. In addition, we report on a paediatric patient whose language function was assessed before and after a left hemisphere amygdalo-hippocampectomy. Our verb generation task produced left hemisphere decreases in beta-band power accompanied by right hemisphere increases in low beta-band power in the majority of the control group, a previously unreported phenomenon. This pattern of spectral power was also found in the patient's post-surgery data, though not her pre-surgery data. Comparison of pre and post-operative results also provided some evidence of reorganisation in language related cortex both inter- and intra-hemispherically following surgery. The differences were not limited to changes in localisation of language specific cortex but also changes in the spectral and temporal profile of frontal brain regions during verb generation. While further investigation is required to establish concordance with invasive measures, our data suggest that the methods described may serve as a reliable lateralisation marker for clinical assessment. Furthermore, our findings highlight the potential utility of MEG for the investigation of cortical language functioning in both healthy development and pathology.

Actively modelocked dual-wavelength fibre laser with ultra-low inter-pulse-stream timing jitter

We demonstrate a novel dual-wavelength erbium-fiber laser that uses a single nonlinear-optical loop mirror modulator to simultaneously modelock two cavities with chirped fiber Bragg gratings as end mirrors. We show that this configuration produces synchronized soliton pulse trains with an ultra-low RMS inter-pulse-stream timing jitter of 620 fs enabling application to multiwavelength systems at data rates in excess of 130 Gb/s.

Characteristics of UK firms related to timing of adoption of Statement of Standard Accounting Practice No. 20

This study examines whether the timing of adoption of the UK Statement of Standard Accounting Practice No. 20 'Foreign Currency Translation' depended on firms' financial characteristics. Consistent with US studies, we find that early adopters tended to be larger firms, and that variables, such as growth options, profitability, leverage and management payout, have strong predictive power. In general, the decision to adopt the Statement of Standard Accounting Practice No. 20 did not appear to adversely affect the profitability measures or dividend payout. Firms tended to adopt when the adverse economic consequences of the adoption were likely to be minimal. They also appeared to defer the adoption of the standard to influence their financial performance and, hence, to achieve certain corporate financial objectives. © 2006 AFAANZ.

Timing continuous or discontinuous movements across effectors specified by different pacing modalities and intervals

Sensorimotor synchronization is hypothesized to arise through two different processes, associated with continuous or discontinuous rhythmic movements. This study investigated synchronization of continuous and discontinuous movements to different pacing signals (auditory or visual), pacing interval (500, 650, 800, 950 ms) and across effectors (non-dominant vs. non-dominant hand). The results showed that mean and variability of asynchronization errors were consistently smaller for discontinuous movements compared to continuous movements. Furthermore, both movement types were timed more accurately with auditory pacing compared to visual pacing and were more accurate with the dominant hand. Shortening the pacing interval also improved sensorimotor synchronization accuracy in both continuous and discontinuous movements. These results show the dependency of temporal control of movements on the nature of the motor task, the type and rate of extrinsic sensory information as well as the efficiency of the motor actuators for sensory integration.

Interval timing in children:effects of auditory and visual pacing stimuli and relationships with reading and attention variables

Motor timing tasks have been employed in studies of neurodevelopmental disorders such as developmental dyslexia and ADHD, where they provide an index of temporal processing ability. Investigations of these disorders have used different stimulus parameters within the motor timing tasks which are likely to affect performance measures. Here we assessed the effect of auditory and visual pacing stimuli on synchronised motor timing performance and its relationship with cognitive and behavioural predictors that are commonly used in the diagnosis of these highly prevalent developmental disorders. Twenty- one children (mean age 9.6 years) completed a finger tapping task in two stimulus conditions, together with additional psychometric measures. As anticipated, synchronisation to the beat (ISI 329 ms) was less accurate in the visually paced condition. Decomposition of timing variance indicated that this effect resulted from differences in the way that visual and auditory paced tasks are processed by central timekeeping and associated peripheral implementation systems. The ability to utilise an efficient processing strategy on the visual task correlated with both reading and sustained attention skills. Dissociations between these patterns of relationship across task modality suggest that not all timing tasks are equivalent.