Cross-linguistic Asymmetries in Language Production and Code-switching Patterns in Bilingual Aphasia

This study investigates the underlying causes of cross-linguistic asymmetries in noun and verb production in a Hindi-English bilingual with severe Broca’s aphasia (RZ), focusing on the influence of task demands, morphological richness, and code-switching. We compared RZ’s performance on narrative and single word production tasks (noun naming, verb naming, repetition) with that of a non-brain-damaged bilingual control (BC) as well as analysed the frequency and type of code-switching to explore how these patterns reflect aphasic impairments in typologically distinct languages. RZ exhibited features of agrammatism in both languages, with more pronounced deficits in English. A clear grammatical class asymmetry emerged: RZ produced more verbs than nouns in Hindi, likely supported by Hindi’s rich morphological system, while English showed the opposite pattern, reflecting its limited morphological complexity. Task effects were evident, narratives elicited more verbs in Hindi, while naming tasks showed comparable noun-verb production. In English, consistent noun–verb asymmetries across tasks indicated persistent verb retrieval difficulties. Code-switching analysis revealed that RZ engaged in frequent but rigid switching, limited to English noun insertions within a Hindi matrix. This structured pattern, including the use of bilingual compound verbs, suggests a compensatory strategy to overcome a lexico-semantic deficit in Hindi and morphosyntactic challenges in English. These findings underscore the importance of language typology and task demands in shaping aphasic symptomatology in bilinguals

Understanding the high-order network plasticity mechanisms of ultrasound neuromodulation

Transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) is an emerging non-invasive neuromodulation technique, offering a potential alternative to pharmacological treatments for psychiatric and neurological disorders. While functional analysis has been instrumental in characterizing the TUS effects, understanding its indirect influence across the network remains challenging. Here, we developed a whole-brain model to represent functional changes as measured by fMRI, enabling us to investigate how TUS-induced effects propagate throughout the brain with increasing stimulus intensity. We implemented two mechanisms: one based on anatomical distance and another on broadcasting dynamics, to explore plasticity-driven changes in specific brain regions. Finally, we highlighted the role of higher-order functional interactions in localizing spatial effects of off-line TUS at two target areas—the right thalamus and inferior frontal cortex—revealing distinct patterns of functional reorganization. This work lays the foundation for mechanistic insights and predictive models of TUS, advancing its potential clinical applications

Byron’s Manfred (1817) and Tragedy in the ‘Mental Theatre’

This journal article presents a new interpretation of Byron’s work by setting out Byron’s approach to tragedy. Byron was a prolific tragedian, completing six tragic plays, but he insisted that his plays were closet dramas, to be experienced in the reader’s ‘Mental Theatre’, and not to be performed. While Byron’s attitude has often been dismissed by critics, this article takes his insistence on the reading of his plays as the starting point for understanding what Byron believed tragic drama should achieve and what it is for. Reading Byron’s preference for reading in the context of contemporary theatrical practices, the article contends that Byron’s preference for tragedy-as-read is rooted in his belief in the power of the imagination, and presents a vision of tragedy as something individual and private. It then provides a new reading of Byron’s play Manfred (1817) which both exemplifies and complicates this idea, and develops his vision of tragedy further. The article therefore offers a fresh way of approaching the genre of closet plays and the work of a key Romantic writer, and provides a new approach to tragedy which contributes to broader critical discussions about how tragedy is experienced and theorised

The healthcare community has a responsibility to highlight the ongoing destruction in Gaza

A month before Mahmoud Abu Nujaila, a doctor who worked with Médecins Sans Frontières at Gaza's Al-Awda hospital, was killed by an Israeli airstrike along with his colleagues, he wrote on a hospital whiteboard: “Whoever stays until the end will tell the story. We did what we could. Remember us.” 1 Doctors working in Gaza have made urgent pleas, saying that they feel abandoned by the world amid renewed Israeli airstrikes.2 More recently, the United Nations reported that several paramedics and rescue workers were killed and buried in a mass grave by Israeli forces in southern Gaza.3 Over 18 months of relentless attacks, thousands have died,4 and the healthcare infrastructure has been almost entirely dismantled.56 Access to vital medical supplies has been systematically restricted, and basic necessities for life—clean water, food, sanitation, and energy—have also been destroyed

Time-space dynamics of income segregation in the city of Milan

Traditional approaches to urban income segregation focus on static residential patterns, often failing to capture the dynamic nature of social mixing at the neighborhood level. We leverage high-resolution location-based data from mobile phones to capture the interplay of three different income groups (high, medium, and low) based on their daily routines. The three income groups define a novel 3D space embedded in the temporal dynamics of urban activities, which we propose as a framework to analyze social mixing. This framework offers a more detailed perspective on social interactions, closely linked to the geographical features of each neighborhood. While nighttime residential patterns show high segregation, the working hours foster inclusion, with the city center showing heightened levels of interaction. As evening sets in, leisure areas emerge as potential facilitators for social interactions, depending on urban features such as public transport and various Points Of Interest. These characteristics significantly modulate the magnitude and type of social stratification involved in social mixing, underscoring the significance of urban design in bridging or widening socio-economic divides

Unveiling the drivers of active participation in social media discourse

The emergence of new public forums in the form of online social media has introduced unprecedented challenges to public discourse, including polarization, misinformation, and the rise of echo chambers. Existing research has extensively examined these topics by focusing on the active actions performed by users, without accounting for the share of individuals who consume content without actively interacting with it. In contrast, this study incorporates passive consumption data to investigate the prevalence of active participation in online discourse. We introduce a metric to quantify the share of active engagement and analyze over 17 million pieces of content linked to a polarized Twitter debate to understand its relationship with several features of online environments, such as echo chambers, coordinated behavior, political bias, and source reliability. Our findings reveal a significant proportion of users who consume content without active interactions, underscoring the importance of considering also passive consumption proxies in the analysis of online debates. Furthermore, we found that increased active participation is primarily correlated with the presence of multimedia content and unreliable news sources, rather than with the ideological stance of the content producer, suggesting that active engagement is independent of echo chambers. Our work highlights the significance of passive consumption proxies for quantifying active engagement, which influences platform feed algorithms and, consequently, the development of online discussions. Moreover, it highlights the factors that may encourage active participation, which can be utilized to design more effective communication campaigns

Investor Action on Health: A Review

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. Using a system-level approach, we review the different mechanisms through which investors can contribute to improved population health outcomes. Specifically, we highlight how these investor action mechanisms – including corporate engagement, environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings, board oversight, and policy engagement – have been used by institutional investors (i.e., asset owners, asset managers) to advance 15 priority health issues, ranging from food safety and alcohol harm to air pollution and worker health. 2. We categorize the 15 priority health issues according to their maturity from the perspective of the investment community. Investors are motivated to use the full spectrum of mechanisms to address mature issues (e.g., human rights, tobacco smoking) and these are actively incorporated into investment decisions and stewardship activities, as there is general consensus about the financial materiality of these issues. Progressing issues (e.g., nutrition, access to medicines) are growing in significance within the investment community and involve a diverse yet underused array of mechanisms. Emerging issues (e.g., digital well-being, access to quality housing) have only recently begun to attract some attention from investors who are beginning to recognize potential financial risks associated with these issues. 3. We propose that investors need to recognize the maturity of the issue when deciding which mechanisms to use. By matching the right mechanism to the maturity of the issue, investors are more likely to further advance the relevance of the issue in the broader investment community. Drawing on lessons from other ESG issues, including climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion, we develop a framework that can be applied to investor action on health-related issues. Using this framework allows investors to understand which actions are most likely to be relevant for each issue given its stage of maturity. 4. The complexities associated with population health and the financial system provide challenges and opportunities for investors. We detail five different challenges relating to investor action on health: 1. Issue scope: The meaningful differences between different types of health-related issues means that investor action needs to be designed to fit with the characteristics of each issue. 2. Defining impact: The goals associated with investor action on health will ideally be measurable and attributable to investors’ efforts. 3. Impact time lags: Many of the desired impacts of investor action on health will take time to be implemented so investors will need to identify realistic timeframes and key milestones for different types of outcomes and impacts. 4. Demonstrating financial materiality: Existing financial materiality assessment frameworks place varying emphasis on health-related issues so motivated investors may need to play an educational role to raise the profile of less mature issues. 5. Considering system-level effects: Although the investment system is complex, investors can identify key leverage points in the system to unlock wider support for their efforts. Despite the barriers posed by these challenges, we highlight that investors have opportunities to carefully design their actions to increase their effectiveness when seeking to positively contribute to population health

The 3D model of ethical AI practice

In recent years, there have been growing calls to operationalize artificial intelligence (AI) ethics - to move from theory to practice, or (as one group of authors has put it) ‘from what to how’ (Morley et al. Sci Eng Ethics 26(4):2141–2168, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-019-00165-5). In this paper, we propose a novel account of what ethical AI practice might look like, which we call the 3D model, named for its recognition, within the overall AI design cycle, of the three stages of design, development, and deployment. This model aims to embed ethics throughout this cycle, offering questions that should be addressed at each stage. We articulate the benefits of this approach to ethical AI practice: that it is pro-ethical and value-aware, amenable to implementation, it embeds ethics at every stage of the development process, it embeds a culture and language of ethics in organizations and provides clear decision points. Our model is not a panacea, of course, and we accordingly provide an indication of the context in which the implementation of our model might be most effective in ensuring ethical AI practice

"Why is the Right Obsessed with Epic Poetry?"

An article on three promninent members of the American right-wing political sphere - Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, and Peter Thiel - exploring their various allusions to epic literature and arguing that these are the bearers of an ambitious new political vision for the United States