Rhythm makes the world go round:an MEG-TMS study on the role of right TPJ theta oscillations in embodied perspective taking

While some aspects of social processing are shared between humans and other species, some aspects are not. The former seems to apply to merely tracking another's visual perspective in the world (i.e., what a conspecific can or cannot perceive), while the latter applies to perspective taking in form of mentally “embodying” another's viewpoint. Our previous behavioural research had indicated that only perspective taking, but not tracking, relies on simulating a body schema rotation into another's viewpoint. In the current study we employed Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and revealed that this mechanism of mental body schema rotation is primarily linked to theta oscillations in a wider brain network of body-schema, somatosensory and motor-related areas, with the right posterior temporo-parietal junction (pTPJ) at its core. The latter was reflected by a convergence of theta oscillatory power in right pTPJ obtained by overlapping the separately localised effects of rotation demands (angular disparity effect), cognitive embodiment (posture congruence effect), and basic body schema involvement (posture relevance effect) during perspective taking in contrast to perspective tracking. In a subsequent experiment we interfered with right pTPJ processing using dual pulse Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (dpTMS) and observed a significant reduction of embodied processing. We conclude that right TPJ is the crucial network hub for transforming the embodied self into another's viewpoint, body and/or mind, thus, substantiating how conflicting representations between self and other may be resolved and potentially highlighting the embodied origins of high-level social cognition in general.

Using discrete event simulation to investigate road delivery policies to UK retailers

Retail customers provide a number of significant challenges to the efficiency and effectiveness of distribution systems. These challengers include shorter delivery windows, fluctuating volumes and a wider product mix. This paper demonstrates the use of discrete-event simulation to investigate policy issues regarding the incorporation of retail customers in a road delivery network from the spoke terminal of a hub and spoke distribution system. In particular a comparison of a mixed (retail and non-retail) delivery policy with a dedicated retail delivery run is made.

Sensing information modelling for smart city

Sensing technology is a key enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT) and could produce huge volume data to contribute the Big Data paradigm. Modelling of sensing information is an important and challenging topic, which influences essentially the quality of smart city systems. In this paper, the author discusses the relevant technologies and information modelling in the context of smart city and especially reports the investigation of how to model sensing and location information in order to support smart city development.

The Europe of Elites. A Study into the Europeanness of Europe's Political and Economic Elites

Contents: 1 Introduction: European integration as an elite project, Heinrich Best, György Lengyel, and Luca Verzichelli; 2 Europe à la carte? European citizenship and its dimensions from the perspective of national elites, Maurizio Cotta and Federico Russo; 3 Ready to run Europe? Perspectives of a supranational career among EU national elites, Nikolas Hubé and Luca Verzichelli; 4 National elites’ preferences on the Europeanization of policy making, José Real-Dato, Borbála Göncz, and György Lengyel; 5 The other side of European identity: elite perceptions of threats to a cohesive Europe, Irmina Matonyté and Vaidas Morkevicius; 6 Elites’ views on European institutions: national experiences sifted through ideological orientations, Daniel Gaxie and Nicolas Hubé; 7 Patterns of regional diversity in political elites’ attitudes, Mladen Lazic, Miguel Jerez-Mir, Vladimir Vuletic, and Rafael Vázquez-García; 8 The elites–masses gap in European integration, Wolfgang C. Müller, Marcelo Jenny, and Alejandro Ecker; 9 Party elites and the domestic discourse on the EU, Nicolo Conti; 10 Elite foundations of European integration: a causal analysis, Heinrich Best; 11 Elites of Europe and the Europe of elites: a conclusion, Heinrich Best; 12 Appendix. Surveying elites: information on the study design and field report of the IntUne elite survey, György Lengyel and Stefan Jahr.

Customer relationship management: A content analysis of issues and best practices

This dissertation is a study of customer relationship management theory and practice. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a business strategy whereby companies build strong relationships with existing and prospective customers with the goal of increasing organizational profitability. It is also a learning process involving managing change in processes, people, and technology. CRM implementation and its ramifications are also not completely understood as evidenced by the high number of failures in CRM implementation in organizations and the resulting disappointments. ^ The goal of this dissertation is to study emerging issues and trends in CRM, including the effect of computer software and the accompanying new management processes on organizations, and the dynamics of the alignment of marketing, sales and services, and all other functions responsible for delivering customers a satisfying experience. ^ In order to understand CRM better a content analysis of more than a hundred articles and documents from academic and industry sources was undertaken using a new methodological twist to the traditional method. An Internet domain name (http://crm.fiu.edu) was created for the purpose of this research by uploading an initial one hundred plus abstracts of articles and documents onto it to form a knowledge database. Once the database was formed a search engine was developed to enable the search of abstracts using relevant CRM keywords to reveal emergent dominant CRM topics. The ultimate aim of this website is to serve as an information hub for CRM research, as well as a search engine where interested parties can enter CRM-relevant keywords or phrases to access abstracts, as well as submit abstracts to enrich the knowledge hub. ^ Research questions were investigated and answered by content analyzing the interpretation and discussion of dominant CRM topics and then amalgamating the findings. This was supported by comparisons within and across individual, paired, and sets-of-three occurrences of CRM keywords in the article abstracts. ^ Results show that there is a lack of holistic thinking and discussion of CRM in both academics and industry which is required to understand how the people, process, and technology in CRM impact each other to affect successful implementation. Industry has to get their heads around CRM and holistically understand how these important dimensions affect each other. Only then will organizational learning occur, and overtime result in superior processes leading to strong profitable customer relationships and a hard to imitate competitive advantage. ^

Mapping Transnational Crime in El Salvador: New Trends and Lessons from Colombia

Since El Salvador’s civil war formally ended in 1992 the small Central American nation has undergone profound social changes and significant reforms. However, few changes have been as important or as devastating as the nation’s emergence as a central hub in the transnational criminal “pipeline” or series of recombinant, overlapping chains of routes and actors that illicit organizations use to traffic in drugs, money weapons, human being, endangered animals and other products. The erasing of the once-clear ideological lines that drove the civil war and the ability of erstwhile enemies to join forces in criminal enterprises in the post-war period is an enduring and dangerous characteristic of El Salvador’s transnational criminal evolution. Trained, elite cadres from both sides, with few legitimate job opportunities, found their skills were marketable in the growing criminal structures. The groups moved from kidnapping and extortion to providing protection services to transnational criminal organizations to becoming integral parts of the organizations themselves. The demand for specialized military and transportation services in El Salvador have exploded as the Mexican DTOs consolidate their hold on the cocaine market and their relationships with the transportista networks, which is still in flux. The value of their services has risen dramatically also because of the fact that multiple Mexican DTOs, at war with each other in Mexico and seeking to physically control the geographic space of the lucrative pipeline routes in from Guatemala to Panama, are eager to increase their military capabilities and intelligence gathering capacities. The emergence of multiple non-state armed groups, often with significant ties to the formal political structure (state) through webs of judicial, legislative and administrative corruption, has some striking parallels to Colombia in the 1980s, where multiple types of violence ultimately challenged the sovereignty of state and left a lasting legacy of embedded corruption within the nation’s political structure. Organized crime in El Salvador is now transnational in nature and more integrated into stronger, more versatile global networks such as the Mexican DTOs. It is a hybrid of both local crime – with gangs vying for control off specific geographic space so they can extract payment for the safe passage of illicit products – and transnational groups that need to use that space to successfully move their products. These symbiotic relationships are both complex and generally transient in nature but growing more consolidated and dangerous.

Network construction and graph theoretical analysis of functional language networks in pediatric epilepsy

This dissertation introduces a new approach for assessing the effects of pediatric epilepsy on the language connectome. Two novel data-driven network construction approaches are presented. These methods rely on connecting different brain regions using either extent or intensity of language related activations as identified by independent component analysis of fMRI data. An auditory description decision task (ADDT) paradigm was used to activate the language network for 29 patients and 30 controls recruited from three major pediatric hospitals. Empirical evaluations illustrated that pediatric epilepsy can cause, or is associated with, a network efficiency reduction. Patients showed a propensity to inefficiently employ the whole brain network to perform the ADDT language task; on the contrary, controls seemed to efficiently use smaller segregated network components to achieve the same task. To explain the causes of the decreased efficiency, graph theoretical analysis was carried out. The analysis revealed no substantial global network feature differences between the patient and control groups. It also showed that for both subject groups the language network exhibited small-world characteristics; however, the patient's extent of activation network showed a tendency towards more random networks. It was also shown that the intensity of activation network displayed ipsilateral hub reorganization on the local level. The left hemispheric hubs displayed greater centrality values for patients, whereas the right hemispheric hubs displayed greater centrality values for controls. This hub hemispheric disparity was not correlated with a right atypical language laterality found in six patients. Finally it was shown that a multi-level unsupervised clustering scheme based on self-organizing maps, a type of artificial neural network, and k-means was able to fairly and blindly separate the subjects into their respective patient or control groups. The clustering was initiated using the local nodal centrality measurements only. Compared to the extent of activation network, the intensity of activation network clustering demonstrated better precision. This outcome supports the assertion that the local centrality differences presented by the intensity of activation network can be associated with focal epilepsy.^

Ruote per arredi da ufficio dal design innovativo

Studio e progettazione di una nuova ruota per arredi da ufficio dal design innovativo. La ruota si differenzia per essere una tipologia Hub-less (senza mozzo), dotata di un carter che la protegge da polveri e corpi esterni e un sistema di riduzione dell'attrito che aiuta l'utente a muoversi in completa libertà.

Designing Emotional Support Messages Tailored to Stressors

This work was funded by the RCUK Digital Economy award to the dot.rural Digital Economy Hub, University of Aberdeen; award reference: EP/G066051/1. The dataset used by this paper can be acquired by emailing the first author. We thank Matt Dennis, Kirsten A. Smith and Michael Gibson for their contributions to the research.

Great Expectations or Small Country Living? Enabling Small Rural Creative Businesses with ICT

Peer reviewed

The Quality of Society and Life Satisfaction in China

Peer reviewed

Information technology and social cohesion : a tale of two villages

Acknowledgements: This research was carried out through a grant from the EPSRC: Communities and Cultures Network+ EP/K003585 and forms part of the dot.rural Rural Digital Economy Research Hub EP/G066051

Great Expectations or Small Country Living? Enabling Small Rural Creative Businesses with ICT

Peer reviewed

The Quality of Society and Life Satisfaction in China

Peer reviewed