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.

Book review: Laurel Kamada, Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls: Being Half in Japan. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2010

Arguably, the catalyst for the best research studies using social analysis of discourse is personal ‘lived’ experience. This is certainly the case for Kamada, who, as a white American woman with a Japanese spouse, had to deal first hand with the racialization of her son. Like many other mixed-ethnic parents, she experienced the shock and disap-pointment of finding her child being racialized as ‘Chinese’ in America through peer group taunts, and constituted as gaijin (a foreigner) in his own homeland of Japan. As a member of an e-list of the (Japan) Bilingualism Special Interest Group (BSIG), Kamada learnt that other parents from the English-speaking foreign community in Japan had similar disturbing stories to tell of their mixed-ethnic children who, upon entering the Japanese school system, were mocked, bullied and marginalized by their peers. She men-tions a pervasive Japanese proverb which warns of diversity or difference getting squashed: ‘The nail that sticks up gets hammered down’. This imperative to conform to Japanese behavioural and discursive norms prompted Kamada’s quest to investigate the impact of ‘otherization’ on the identities of children of mixed parentage. In this fascinat-ing book, she shows that this pressure to conform is balanced by a corresponding cele-bration of ‘hybrid’ or mixed identities. The children in her study are also able to negotiate their identities positively as they come to terms with contradictory discursive notions of ‘Japaneseness’, ‘whiteness’ and ‘halfness/doubleness’.The discursive construction of identity has become a central concern amongst researchers across a wide range of academic disciplines within the humanities and the social sciences, and most existing work either concentrates on a specific identity cate-gory, such as gender, sexuality or national identity, or else offers a broader discussion of how identity is theorized. Kamada’s book is refreshing because it crosses the usual boundaries and offers divergent insights on identity in a number of ways. First, using the term ‘ethno-gendering’, she examines the ways in which six mixed-ethnic girls living in Japan accomplish and manage the relationship between their gender and ethnic ‘differ-ences’ from age 12 to 15. She analyses in close detail how their actions or displays within certain situated interactions might come into conflict with how they are seen or constituted by others. Second, Kamada’s study builds on contemporary writing on the benefits of hybridity where identities are fluid, flexible and indeterminate, and which contest the usual monolithic distinctions of gender, ethnicity, class, etc. Here, Kamada carves out an original space for her findings. While scholars have often investigated changing identities and language practices of young people who have been geographi-cally displaced and are newcomers to the local language, Kamada’s participants were all born and brought up in Japan, were fluent in Japanese and were relatively proficient in English. Third, the author refuses to conceptualize or theorize identity from a single given viewpoint in preference to others, but in postmodernist spirit draws upon multiple perspectives and frameworks of discourse analysis in order to create different forms of knowledge and understandings of her subject. Drawing on this ‘multi-perspectival’ approach, Kamada examines grammatical, lexical, rhetorical and interactional features from six extensive conversations, to show how her participants position their diverse identities in relation to their friends, to the researcher and to the outside world. Kamada’s study is driven by three clear aims. The first is to find out ‘whether there are any tensions and dilemmas in the ways adolescent girls of Japanese and “white” mixed parentage in Japan identify themselves in terms of ethnicity’. In Chapter 4, she shows how the girls indeed felt that they stood out as different and consequently experienced isolation, marginalization and bullying at school – although they were able to make better sense of this as they grew older, repositioning the bullies as pitiable. The second aim is to ask how, if at all, her participants celebrate their ethnicity, and furthermore, what kind of symbolic, linguistic and social capital they were able to claim for themselves on the basis of their hybrid identities. In Chapter 5, Kamada shows how the girls over time were able to constitute themselves as insiders while constituting ‘the Japanese’ as outsiders, and their network of mixed-ethnic friends was a key means to achieve this. In Chapter 6, the author develops this potential celebration of the girls’ mixed ethnicity by investigating the privileges they perceived it afforded them – for example, having the advantage of pos-sessing English proficiency and intercultural ‘savvy’ in a globalized world. Kamada’s third aim is to ask how her participants positioned themselves and performed their hybrid identities on the basis of their constituted appearance: that is, how the girls saw them-selves based on how they looked to others. In Chapter 7, the author shows that, while there are competing discourses at work, the girls are able to take up empowering positions within a discourse of ‘foreigner attractiveness’ or ‘a white-Western female beauty’ discourse, which provides them with a certain cachet among their Japanese peers. Throughout the book, Kamada adopts a highly self-reflexive perspective of her own position as author. For example, she interrogates the fact that she may have changed the lived reality of her six participants during the course of her research study. As the six girls, who were ‘best friends’, lived in different parts of the Morita region of Japan, she had to be proactive in organizing six separate ‘get-togethers’ through the course of her three-year study. She acknowledges that she did not collect ‘naturally occurring data’ but rather co-constructed opportunities for the girls to meet and talk on a regular basis. At these meetings, she encouraged the girls to discuss matters of identity, prompted by open-ended interview questions, by stimulus materials such as photos, articles and pic-tures, and by individual tasks such as drawing self-portraits. By giving her participants a platform in this way, Kamada not only elicited some very rich spoken data but also ‘helped in some way to shape the attitudes and self-images of the girls positively, in ways that might not have developed had these get-togethers not occurred’ (p. 221). While the data she gathers are indeed rich, it may well be asked whether there is a mismatch between the girls’ frank and engaging accounts of personal experience, and the social constructionist academic register in which these are later re-articulated. When Kamada writes, ‘Rina related how within the more narrow range of discourses that she had to draw on in her past, she was disempowered and marginalized’ (p. 118), we know that Rina’s actual words were very different. Would she really recognize, understand and agree with the reported speech of the researcher? This small omission of self-reflexivity apart – an omission which is true of most lin-guistic ethnography conducted today – Kamada has written a unique, engaging and thought-provoking book which offers a model to future discourse analysts investigating hybrid identities. The idea that speakers can draw upon competing discourses or reper-toires to constitute their identities in contrasting, creative and positive ways provides linguistic researchers with a clear orientation by which to analyse the contradictions of identity construction as they occur across time in different discursive contexts

À suivre... de Sophie Calle : construction autobiographique d'une artiste singulière

Pour respecter les droits d’auteur, la version électronique de ce mémoire a été dépouillée de certains documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal. To respect the reproduction rights and copyrights, the electronic version of this thesis was stripped of images and audiovisuals. The integral version has been left with Documents Management and Archives Service at the University of Montreal.

Analyse comparative de systèmes de construction industrialisés et leur applicabilité à une habitation multifamiliale verticale pour la classe moyenne à Recife (Brésil)

Depuis le début du XXe siècle, les architectes et ingénieurs anticipaient et idéalisaient l'industrialisation des bâtiments afin que les pièces des édifices puissent être conçues dans une usine de montage pour procéder ensuite à leur assemblage sur les chantiers. À l'heure actuelle, grâce à des chercheurs dédiés, cette industrialisation s’est concrétisée et de nombreux systèmes de construction industrialisés existent dans le monde entier, adaptés à des environnements particuliers. Dans ce contexte, cette étude a pour but d'analyser comparativement plusieurs systèmes à l’aide de certains critères d’évaluation, et de sélectionner, deux systèmes préfabriqués les mieux adaptés aux habitations multifamiliales verticales destinées à une population de classe moyenne aisée de la ville de Recife, au Brésil. La méthodologie s’inspire de l'approche systémique, utilisée par White (1970) et Richard (2002), les deux se caractérisant par une démarche évaluative. Ainsi avons-nous choisi comme étant les plus appropriés, parce que répondant bien au cadre général de Recife, le système préusiné en panneaux DESCON ainsi que celui de poutres et colonnes, commercialisé par les entreprises T&A et PDI, les deux en béton.

Life design counseling: A study on client's operations for meaning construction

This study evaluated the adequacy of the micro-theory of client operations to explain meaning construction during Life Design Counseling. Four adolescents were interviewed about their second counseling session. Their recollections were stimulated through the replay of counseling videotapes. The resulting transcribed interviews were qualitatively analyzed. Results confirmed a sequence of client operations evolving from the symbolic representation of experience and reflexive self-examination towards making new realizations and revisioning self. Moreover, clients reported negative and positive session moments evidencing that clients' attention and activity during the session was not restricted to meaning construction operations. Practical implications for life design counseling are derived from the results and discussed.

Person, community, Tian: the emergence of order and harmony in Chinese philosophy

This thesis clarifies how the concept of tian functions in Chinese thought, and what tianren heyi (the continuity between tian and humans) means in the Chinese context. With a new interpretation about tianren heyi, I provide a new contribution for understanding these Chinese concepts for an English speaking audience. Tian is not a fixed concept like the idea of heaven, rather, it can be the principle for one’s immanent world. The meaning of the term changes depending on the context it is being used in, and can also be neutral when necessary. Continuity means that there is a resonance and reciprocity in the way these aspects of cosmology emerge together. Humans and tian are not being unified or connected—there is simply continuity between them. What happens is that a productive relationship between them produces depth, harmony, and enhanced significance. Through the interaction between humanity and tian, the human world gains order, and from the perspective of tian, gains harmony. This different understanding the continuity between humanity and tian leads to a new understanding of timing or the appropriateness in li. In the process of practice and self cultivation, it is seen that li is also an idea that is not fixed to one single interpretation as it is connected with timing and appropriateness. The Classical Chinese concept of “Person” (ren 人), as the concrete context of li, is the centre of this practice. Because of the unfixed natures of tian and li, one needs to be flexible in order to cater to their demands. This embodies the freedom of the subject in Chinese thought. As the outcome of li, the social and political structure is shaped in this process, the examples being the models of “great union” and “small tranquillity” (Chapter 3) in Chinese tradition.

Self-assembly of gold nanocrystals into discrete coupled plasmonic structures

Development of methodologies for the controlled chemical assembly of nanoparticles into plasmonic molecules of predictable spatial geometry is vital in order to harness novel properties arising from the combination of the individual components constituting the resulting superstructures. This paper presents a route for fabrication of gold plasmonic structures of controlled stoichiometry obtained by the use of a di-rhenium thio-isocyanide complex as linker molecule for gold nanocrystals. Correlated scanning electron microscopy (SEM)—dark-field spectroscopy was used to characterize obtained discrete monomer, dimer and trimer plasmonic molecules. Polarization-dependent scattering spectra of dimer structures showed highly polarized scattering response, due to their highly asymmetric D∞h geometry. In contrast, some trimer structures displayed symmetric geometry (D3h), which showed small polarization dependent response. Theoretical calculations were used to further understand and attribute the origin of plasmonic bands arising during linker-induced formation of plasmonic molecules. Theoretical data matched well with experimentally calculated data. These results confirm that obtained gold superstructures possess properties which are a combination of the properties arising from single components and can, therefore, be classified as plasmonic molecules

Risk of repeated self-harm and associated factors in children, adolescents and young adults

Background: Repeated self-harm represents the single strongest risk factor for suicide. To date no study with full national coverage has examined the pattern of hospital repeated presentations due to self-harm among young people. Methods: Data on consecutive self-harm presentations were obtained from the National Self-Harm Registry Ireland. Socio-demographic and behavioural characteristics of individuals aged 10–29 years who presented with self-harm to emergency departments in Ireland (2007–2014) were analysed. Risk of long-term repetition was assessed using survival analysis and time differences between the order of presentations using generalised estimating equation analysis. Results: The total sample comprised 28,700 individuals involving 42,642 presentations. Intentional drug overdose was the most prevalent method (57.9%). Repetition of self-harm occurred in 19.2% of individuals during the first year following a first presentation, of whom the majority (62.7%) engaged in one repeated act. Overall, the risk of repeated self-harm was similar between males and females. However, in the 20–24-year-old age group males were at higher risk than females. Those who used self-cutting were at higher risk for repetition than those who used intentional drug overdose, particularly among females. Age was associated with repetition only among females, in particular adolescents (15–19 years old) were at higher risk than young emerging adults (20–24 years old). Repeated self-harm risk increased significantly with the number of previous self-harm episodes. Time differences between first self-harm presentations were detected. Time between second and third presentation increased compared to time between first and second presentation among low frequency repeaters (patients with 3 presentations only within 1 year following a first presentation). The same time period decreased among high frequency repeaters (patients with at least 4 to more than 30 presentations). Conclusion: Young people with the highest risk for repeated self-harm were 15–19-year-old females and 20–24-year-old males. Self-cutting was the method associated with the highest risk of self-harm repetition. Time between first self-harm presentations represents an indicator of subsequent repetition. To prevent risk of repeated self-harm in young people, all individuals presenting at emergency departments due to self-harm should be provided with a risk assessment including psychosocial characteristics, history of self-harm and time between first presentations.

The role of information literacy competence and higher order thinking skills to develop academic writing in science and engineering students

This article discusses a study organized to develop academic writing skills in undergraduate students pursuing engineering courses. The target group consisted of 30 students pursuing a Bachelor of Technology in their third year. The classroom observations regarding teaching writing revealed that writing proficiency for most of the students was at a very low level. Followed by this, an intervention program was organized in one college, where the researcher taught academic writing to the students. Units comprising tasks that focused on raising awareness of the academic texts and involving the students in the cognitive processes of writing were designed. The study focused on raising student awareness regarding the nature and characteristics of academic texts in order to develop academic writing skills. The study also emphasized that involving the students in the cognitive processes of writing (e.g., defining the rhetorical problem, identifying the rhetorical situation, determining the audience, setting goals for writing, planning for the text by generating, and organizing ideas) is necessary. The study further suggests that discussions between students and teachers regarding the construction of a text and the way language works in various text types facilitates better writing.

Reaction Mechanisms Booster (Self-assessment resources)

This is a set of resources aimed at promoting the development of the skills required to successfully identify and generate organic mechanisms in order to demonstrate a good understanding of the underlying chemical principles. Students complete a task independently, and then mark their own work as they watch talking mark scheme videos where an expert explains how to get to the correct answers. Our research has shown that engagement with these resources is perceived to be highly beneficial by students, and leads to an increase in their confidence to tackle mechanistic problems. If you are a non-UK (or non-A-level) teacher, the terms AS and A2 may be meaningless to you, but the resources should still be useful for anyone studying organic reaction mechanisms. The worksheets are available in Word format, and you should feel free to edit these to meet the needs of your students and the course you are teaching. You can download the files individually by selecting them on the left and clicking download. Please watch the short briefing video on You Tube and read the teachers' notes carefully. Contact me on d.read@soton.ac.uk if you have and questions or comments. Additionally, I would like to thank Henry Pearson for suggesting the format of the alternative self-assessment proformas which you may choose to use with your students.

Foundational, First-Order, and Second-Order Classification Theory

Both basic and applied research on the construction, implementation, maintenance, and evaluation of classification schemes is called classification theory. If we employ Ritzer’s metatheoretical method of analysis on the over one-hundred year-old body of literature, we can see categories of theory emerge. This paper looks at one particular part of knowledge organization work, namely classification theory, and asks 1) what are the contours of this intellectual space, and, 2) what have we produced in the theoretical reflection on con- structing, implementing, and evaluating classification schemes? The preliminary findings from this work are that classification theory can be separated into three kinds: foundational classification theory, first-order classification theory, and second-order classification theory, each with its own concerns and objects of study.

Life Design Counseling: A study on client's operations for meaning construction

This study evaluates the adequacy of the micro-theory of client operations to explain meaning construction in Life Design Counseling. Four adolescents were interviewed on their second counseling session. Their recollections were stimulated through the replay of counseling videotapes and the resulting transcribed interviews were qualitatively analyzed. Results confirmed a sequence of client operations evolving from the symbolic representation of experience and reflexive self-examination towards making new realizations and revisioning self. Moreover, clients reported negative and positive session moments evidencing that clients’ attention and activity during the session was not restricted to meaning construction operations. Practical implications for life design counseling are derived from the results and discussed.

Era uma vez...As sete casas da infortuna: relação actor - marioneta : Relatório de estágio

O presente relatório tem como objectivo analisar a realidade de uma Companhia de Marionetas em Portugal, Teatro e Marionetas de Mandrágora, incidindo sobre a relação entre o actor, marioneta e meio envolvente (site specific) no contexto de uma prática teatral concreta, a produção do espectáculo Era uma vez ...As Sete Casas da Infortuna, no Castelo de Santa Maria da Feira. Os resultados apurados acompanham os moldes em que se procurou passar de um actor convencional para a especialização de um micromundo teatral onde a aprendizagem foi, fulcral desde o processo de construção até, à manipulação em cena num universo de trabalho particularmente árduo e específico. A minha trajectória no seio da companhia começou pela familiarização e aprendizagem informal da prática das marionetas através da observação directa dos espectáculos e de diferentes projectos da companhia. A formação feita no local de estágio (atelier da Companhia) foi outra das modalidades de formação que acompanhou o meu trajecto ao longo do estágio através da minha colaboração em projectos como Teatro nas Instituições, sempre sob a égide da divisão de tarefas e de alguma autoaprendizagem com a devida supervisão e orientação de artistas especialistas, como o Director Criativo, enVide neFelibata. O laboratório de aprendizagem prosseguiu pela mão da marionetista Clara Ribeiro que orientou a minha formação no sentido de absorver princípios teórico-práticos como o Foco, o Movimento e o Olhar para uma melhor consciencialização do universo do teatro de marionetas e formas animadas. Ainda nessa aprendizagem, a figura de alguns artistas especialistas foi fulcral, nomeadamente a da cenógrafa Marta Fernandes da Silva, que revelou ser de extrema importância ao longo do estágio pois permitiu uma verdadeira intersecção entre as componentes teórica e prática. Dessa forma pude acompanhar todo o processo de criação do Era uma vez ...As Sete Casas da Infortuna, e colaborar na construção das marionetas que iria manipular como actor - marionetista. Relativamente à questão da componente da interpretação no estágio, esta foi assumida pela encenadora - marionetista, Filipa Alexandre que, com a sua orientação, permitiu um enfoque do grupo de trabalho num processo de criação colectiva. Assim, a nível pessoal, fui movido por uma necessidade premente de descodificar o papel do actor na sua relação com a marioneta e o meio envolvente (site specific). ABSTRACT: This study aims to examine the reality of a Puppet Company in Portugal, the Puppet Theater of Mandrágora, focusing on the relationship between actor, puppet and environment (site specific) in the context of an actual theatrical practice, Once upon a time ...Seven houses of infortune, in the Castle of Santa Maria da Feira. The results obtained follow the way in which one seeks to move from one "conventional" actor to the specialization of a micro theater where learning was central from the building process to manipulation on the scene in a universe of work particularly hard and specific. My initial course within the company began with the familiarization and informal learning of the practice of puppetry through direct observation of performances and various projects of the company. The training done at the company (workshop of the Company) was one of the training arrangements that accompanied my way along the training through assistance on projects such as Teatro nas Instituições, always under the auspices of the division of tasks and due self-teaching with appropriate supervision and guidance of expert artists, such as the Creative Director, enVide neFelibata. The learning laboratory continued by the hand of the puppeteer Clara Ribeiro who supervised my training in order to absorb theoretical and practical principles as the Focus, the Movement and the Look for better awareness of the world of puppetry and animated forms. Also at this level, the figure of some specialist artists were central, such as the scenographer Marta Fernandes da Silva, who proved to be extremely important during this training, allowing a true intersection between the theoretical and the practical components. I could experience the surroundings of the creation notebook of Era uma vez ...As Sete Casas da Infortuna, and collaborate in the preparation of puppets that would handle as an actor - puppeteer. As to the question of the interpretation component on training, this was in charge of stage director - puppeteer, and the Artistic Director, Filipa Alexandre, whose instructions allowed a focus of the working group in a process of collective creation. Accordingly, to a personal level, I was urged to decode the role of the actor in relation to the puppet and the environment (site specific).

Mechanical properties of adobe blocks used in building construction in Huambo Province - Angola

Despite significant advances in building technologies with the use of conventional construction materials (as concrete and steel), which significantly have driven the construction industry, earth construction have demonstrated its importance and relevance, as well as it has matched in an efficient and eco-friendly manner the social housing concerns. The diversity of earth construction techniques allowed this material to adapt to different climatic, cultural and social contexts until the present time. However, in Angola, the construction with earth is still associated with population fringes of weak economic resources, for which, given the impossibility of being able to acquire modern construction materials (steel, cement, brick, among others), they resort to the use of available natural materials. Furthermore, the lack of scientific and technical knowledge justifies the negative appreciation of traditional building techniques, and the derogatory way how are considered the earth constructions in Angolan territory. Given the country's current development status, and taking into account the environmental requirements and the real socio-economic sustainability of Angola, it is considered that one of the viable and adequate options, could be the recovering and upgrading of the ancestral techniques of earth construction. The purpose of this research is to develop the technical and scientific knowledge in order to improve and optimize these construction solutions, responding to the real problems of housing quality as well as to the current social, economic and environmental sustainability requirements. In this paper, a description of the physical and mechanical characteristics of the adobes typically used in the construction of traditional houses in some localities of Huambo, province in Angola, is carried out. The methodology was based on mechanical in-situ testing in adobe blocks manufactured with traditional procedures: i) tensile strength evaluated with the bending test and compressive strength test on earth blocks specimens; and, ii) durability and erodibility test by Geelong method adopting the New Zealand standard (NZS) procedures (4297: 1998; 4297: 1998 and 4297: 1999). The results allow the characterization of the materials used in the construction of raw earth in the Huambo region, contributing to the development of knowledge of these sustainable and traditional housing constructive solutions with a strong presence in Angola [1, 2]. This study is part of a larger project in the area of Earth Construction [3], which aims to produce knowledge which can stimulate the use of environmental friendly construction materials and contribute to develop constructive solutions with improved performance, durability, comfort, safety and sustainability.

Desarrollo social y educación superior

Recibido 12 de abril de 2011 • Aceptado 26 de agosto de 2011 • Corregido 21 de octubre de 2011      El presente ensayo tiene por objetivo reflexionar sobre el quehacer de la universidad pública costarricense y su responsabilidad en la formación para el desarrollo social. Lo anterior, entendido como uno de los múltiples retos que enfrenta la educación superior, de cara a las demandas que la función del conocimiento posee en el presente, y a la relación de estas con el desarrollo autónomo del conocimiento. Su planteamiento, defiende algunos asuntos débilmente abordados en estudios previos, y que se constituyen en elementos esenciales para una formación significativa, funcional y de impacto social, como son: a) La ética en la organización, b) La autoeducación de la universidad, c) La incidencia de las políticas curriculares en las prácticas promovidas, d) La transformación de la cultura docente para contribuir a mejorar la práctica, y e) La construcción del conocimiento para fundamentar criterios, tomar decisiones, solucionar problemas y construir proyectos de vida.