Wernicke’s aphasia reflects a combination of acoustic-phonological and semantic control deficits: A case-series comparison of Wernicke’s aphasia, semantic dementia and semantic aphasia

Wernicke’s aphasia (WA) is the classical neurological model of comprehension impairment and, as a result, the posterior temporal lobe is assumed to be critical to semantic cognition. This conclusion is potentially confused by (a) the existence of patient groups with semantic impairment following damage to other brain regions (semantic dementia and semantic aphasia) and (b) an ongoing debate about the underlying causes of comprehension impairment in WA. By directly comparing these three patient groups for the first time, we demonstrate that the comprehension impairment in Wernicke’s aphasia is best accounted for by dual deficits in acoustic-phonological analysis (associated with pSTG) and semantic cognition (associated with pMTG and angular gyrus). The WA group were impaired on both nonverbal and verbal comprehension assessments consistent with a generalised semantic impairment. This semantic deficit was most similar in nature to that of the semantic aphasia group suggestive of a disruption to semantic control processes. In addition, only the WA group showed a strong effect of input modality on comprehension, with accuracy decreasing considerably as acoustic-phonological requirements increased. These results deviate from traditional accounts which emphasise a single impairment and, instead, implicate two deficits underlying the comprehension disorder in WA.

The Clitherow manuscript of 'The Destruction of Hierusalem’

This essay discusses the never before seen early modern manuscript of an amateur play called 'The Destruction of Hierusalem' that the author discovered at the London Metropolitan Archives.

The MaPS project: mapping teacher conceptions of musical development

The chapter starts from the premise that an historically- and institutionally-formed orientation to music education at primary level in European countries privileges a nineteenth century Western European music aesthetic, with its focus on formal characteristics such as melody and rhythm. While there is a move towards a multi-faceted understanding of musical ability, a discrete intelligence and willingness to accept musical styles or 'open-earedness', there remains a paucity of documented evidence of this in research at primary school level. To date there has been no study undertaken which has the potential to provide policy makers and practitioners with insights into the degree of homogeneity or universality in conceptions of musical ability within this educational sector. Against this background, a study was set up to explore the following research questions: 1. What conceptions of musical ability do primary teachers hold a) of themselves and; b) of their pupils? 2. To what extent are these conceptions informed by Western classical practices? A mixed methods approach was used which included survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview. Questionnaires have been sent to all classroom teachers in a random sample of primary schools in the South East of England. This was followed up with a series of semi-structured interviews with a sub-sample of respondents. The main ideas are concerned with the attitudes, beliefs and working theories held by teachers in contemporary primary school settings. By mapping the extent to which a knowledge base for teaching can be resistant to change in schools, we can problematise primary schools as sites for diversity and migration of cultural ideas. Alongside this, we can use the findings from the study undertaken in an English context as a starting point for further investigation into conceptions of music, musical ability and assessment held by practitioners in a variety of primary school contexts elsewhere in Europe; our emphasis here will be on the development of shared understanding in terms of policies and practices in music education. Within this broader framework, our study can have a significant impact internationally, with potential to inform future policy making, curriculum planning and practice.

Analysis of EEG signal to detect motor command generation towards stroke rehabilitation

Our aim is to reconstruct the brain-body loop of stroke patients via an EEG-driven robotic system. After the detection of motor command generation, the robotic arm should assist patient’s movement at the correct moment and in a natural way. In this study we performed EEG measurements from healthy subjects performing discrete spontaneous motion. An EEG analysis based on the temporal correlation of the brain activity was employed to determine the onset of single motion motor command generation.

A feasible study of EEG-driven assistive robotic system for stroke rehabilitation

Stroke is a medical emergency and can cause a neurological damage, affecting the motor and sensory systems. Harnessing brain plasticity should make it possible to reconstruct the closed loop between the brain and the body, i.e., association of the generation of the motor command with the somatic sensory feedback might enhance motor recovery. In order to aid reconstruction of this loop with a robotic device it is necessary to assist the paretic side of the body at the right moment to achieve simultaneity between motor command and feedback signal to somatic sensory area in brain. To this end, we propose an integrated EEG-driven assistive robotic system for stroke rehabilitation. Depending on the level of motor recovery, it is important to provide adequate stimulation for upper limb motion. Thus, we propose an assist arm incorporating a Magnetic Levitation Joint that can generate a compliant motion due to its levitation and mechanical redundancy. This paper reports on a feasibility study carried out to verify the validity of the robot sensing and on EEG measurements conducted with healthy volunteers while performing a spontaneous arm flexion/extension movement. A characteristic feature was found in the temporal evolution of EEG signal in the single motion prior to executed motion which can aid in coordinating timing of the robotic arm assistance onset.

Boots Book-lovers' Library and the novel: The impact of a circulating library market on twentieth-century fiction

In a Report for the Society of Bookmen in 1928, British publishers estimated that between a quarter to two thirds of all the books they published went to four circulating libraries: Boots, Smith’s, Mudie’s, and The Times bookclub. This essay examines the literary impact of one of the largest of these, Boots Book-lovers’ Library (1899-66), which by 1935 had around 400 libraries attached to their high-street pharmacies catering for the tastes of over one million subscribers a year. Compared to the wealth of studies examining the influence of the library market in the Victorian period, the significance of the subscription libraries as key distributors of fiction in the twentieth century is not well known. But private libraries expanded rapidly in the early twentieth century to cater for what Sidney Dark termed a ‘new reading public’, and records in publishers’ archives indicate that authors routinely adapted their unpublished manuscripts in order to meet the perceived demands of this library reader. This article examines the impact of the Boots Book-lovers’ Library market on authors’ practices of writing and revision, and on literary marketing and censorship. It focuses in particular on the author James Hanley (1897-1985), using unpublished correspondence in the Chatto & Windus archive at the University of Reading to demonstrate how the publisher’s sense of the tastes and expectations of the Boots library reader influenced the editorial process.

The design of a semantics-oriented organisational performance measurement system

Current methods and techniques used in designing organisational performance measurement systems do not consider the multiple aspects of business processes or the semantics of data generated during the lifecycle of a product. In this paper, we propose an organisational performance measurement systems design model that is based on the semantics of an organisation, business process and products lifecycle. Organisational performance measurement is examined from academic and practice disciplines. The multi-discipline approach is used as a research tool to explore the weaknesses of current models that are used to design organisational performance measurement systems. This helped in identifying the gaps in research and practice concerning the issues and challenges in designing information systems for measuring the performance of an organisation. The knowledge sources investigated include on-going and completed research project reports; scientific and management literature; and practitioners’ magazines.

Neuromantic : from semi-manual to semi-automatic reconstruction of neuron morphology

The ability to create accurate geometric models of neuronal morphology is important for understanding the role of shape in information processing. Despite a significant amount of research on automating neuron reconstructions from image stacks obtained via microscopy, in practice most data are still collected manually. This paper describes Neuromantic, an open source system for three dimensional digital tracing of neurites. Neuromantic reconstructions are comparable in quality to those of existing commercial and freeware systems while balancing speed and accuracy of manual reconstruction. The combination of semi-automatic tracing, intuitive editing, and ability of visualizing large image stacks on standard computing platforms provides a versatile tool that can help address the reconstructions availability bottleneck. Practical considerations for reducing the computational time and space requirements of the extended algorithm are also discussed.

Enhancement of aged and denatured fingerprints using the cyanoacrylate fuming technique following dusting with amino acid-containing powders

We have carried out experiments to investigate the ageing of latent fingerprints deposited on black PVC over a period of 4-15 weeks. A thumbprint was used in each case and before deposition of the print the donor rubbed their thumb around their nose to add sebaceous deposits. We have studied the effect of heat, light and moisture and we find that moisture is the most significant factor in the degradation of the latent print. We have attempted to enhance these latent prints by dusting with valine powder or powders composed of valine mixed with gold or red fluorescent commercial fingerprint powders. In order to make a direct comparison between “treated” and “untreated” prints, the prints were cut in half with one half being “treated” and one not. Our studies show the best results being obtained when powders of valine and red fluorescent powders are applied prior to cyanoacrylate fuming.

Random Prism: a noise-tolerant alternative to Random Forests

Ensemble learning can be used to increase the overall classification accuracy of a classifier by generating multiple base classifiers and combining their classification results. A frequently used family of base classifiers for ensemble learning are decision trees. However, alternative approaches can potentially be used, such as the Prism family of algorithms that also induces classification rules. Compared with decision trees, Prism algorithms generate modular classification rules that cannot necessarily be represented in the form of a decision tree. Prism algorithms produce a similar classification accuracy compared with decision trees. However, in some cases, for example, if there is noise in the training and test data, Prism algorithms can outperform decision trees by achieving a higher classification accuracy. However, Prism still tends to overfit on noisy data; hence, ensemble learners have been adopted in this work to reduce the overfitting. This paper describes the development of an ensemble learner using a member of the Prism family as the base classifier to reduce the overfitting of Prism algorithms on noisy datasets. The developed ensemble classifier is compared with a stand-alone Prism classifier in terms of classification accuracy and resistance to noise.

Dissociating between object affordances and spatial compatibility effects using early response components

Perception and action are tightly linked: objects may be perceived not only in terms of visual features, but also in terms of possibilities for action. Previous studies showed that when a centrally located object has a salient graspable feature (e.g., a handle), it facilitates motor responses corresponding with the feature's position. However, such so-called affordance effects have been criticized as resulting from spatial compatibility effects, due to the visual asymmetry created by the graspable feature, irrespective of any affordances. In order to dissociate between affordance and spatial compatibility effects, we asked participants to perform a simple reaction-time task to typically graspable and non-graspable objects with similar visual features (e.g., lollipop and stop sign). Responses were measured using either electromyography (EMG) on proximal arm muscles during reaching-like movements, or with finger key-presses. In both EMG and button press measurements, participants responded faster when the object was either presented in the same location as the responding hand, or was affordable, resulting in significant and independent spatial compatibility and affordance effects, but no interaction. Furthermore, while the spatial compatibility effect was present from the earliest stages of movement preparation and throughout the different stages of movement execution, the affordance effect was restricted to the early stages of movement execution. Finally, we tested a small group of unilateral arm amputees using EMG, and found residual spatial compatibility but no affordance, suggesting that spatial compatibility effects do not necessarily rely on individuals’ available affordances. Our results show dissociation between affordance and spatial compatibility effects, and suggest that rather than evoking the specific motor action most suitable for interaction with the viewed object, graspable objects prompt the motor system in a general, body-part independent fashion

The 22-Year Hale Cycle in cosmic ray flux: evidence for direct heliospheric modulation

The ability to predict times of greater galactic cosmic ray (GCR) fluxes is important for reducing the hazards caused by these particles to satellite communications, aviation, or astronauts. The 11-year solar-cycle variation in cosmic rays is highly correlated with the strength of the heliospheric magnetic field. Differences in GCR flux during alternate solar cycles yield a 22-year cycle, known as the Hale Cycle, which is thought to be due to different particle drift patterns when the northern solar pole has predominantly positive (denoted as qA>0 cycle) or negative (qA<0) polarities. This results in the onset of the peak cosmic-ray flux at Earth occurring earlier during qA>0 cycles than for qA<0 cycles, which in turn causes the peak to be more dome-shaped for qA>0 and more sharply peaked for qA<0. In this study, we demonstrate that properties of the large-scale heliospheric magnetic field are different during the declining phase of the qA<0 and qA>0 solar cycles, when the difference in GCR flux is most apparent. This suggests that particle drifts may not be the sole mechanism responsible for the Hale Cycle in GCR flux at Earth. However, we also demonstrate that these polarity-dependent heliospheric differences are evident during the space-age but are much less clear in earlier data: using geomagnetic reconstructions, we show that for the period of 1905 - 1965, alternate polarities do not give as significant a difference during the declining phase of the solar cycle. Thus we suggest that the 22-year cycle in cosmic-ray flux is at least partly the result of direct modulation by the heliospheric magnetic field and that this effect may be primarily limited to the grand solar maximum of the space-age.

Opening up climate research: A linked data approach to publishing data provenance

Traditionally, the formal scientific output in most fields of natural science has been limited to peer- reviewed academic journal publications, with less attention paid to the chain of intermediate data results and their associated metadata, including provenance. In effect, this has constrained the representation and verification of the data provenance to the confines of the related publications. Detailed knowledge of a dataset’s provenance is essential to establish the pedigree of the data for its effective re-use, and to avoid redundant re-enactment of the experiment or computation involved. It is increasingly important for open-access data to determine their authenticity and quality, especially considering the growing volumes of datasets appearing in the public domain. To address these issues, we present an approach that combines the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) – a widely adopted citation technique – with existing, widely adopted climate science data standards to formally publish detailed provenance of a climate research dataset as an associated scientific workflow. This is integrated with linked-data compliant data re-use standards (e.g. OAI-ORE) to enable a seamless link between a publication and the complete trail of lineage of the corresponding dataset, including the dataset itself.