5,627 research outputs found
Retrograde procedural memory is impaired in people with Parkinson’s disease with freezing of gait
BackgroundFreezing of gait (FOG), is associated with impairment of different cognitive functions. Previous studies hypothesized that FOG may be due to a loss of automaticity.Research questionTo explore whether FOG is associated with impairment in cognitive functions, focusing on retrograde procedural memory, the memory responsible for the automatic, implicit stored procedures that have been acquired in earlier life stages.MethodsIn this cross-sectional, case–control study, 288 people with typical Parkinson’s disease (PD) from the Luxembourg Parkinson’s Study were assigned to Freezers (FOG+) and non-Freezers (FOG−) based on the MDS-UPDRS 2.13 (self-reported FOG episodes) and 3.11 (FOG evaluated by clinicians during gait assessment). Both groups were matched on age, sex and disease duration. Global cognition (MoCA), retrograde procedural memory and visuo-constructive abilities (CUPRO), psychomotor speed and mental flexibility (TMT) were assessed. Furthermore, we repeated our analyses by additionally controlling for depression (BDI-I).ResultsBesides lower global cognition (MoCA; p = 0.007) and mental flexibility (TMT-B and Delta-TMT; p < 0.001), FOG+ showed a lower performance in retrograde procedural memory (CUPRO-IS1; p < 0.001) compared to FOG−. After controlling additionally for depression, our main outcome variable CUPRO-IS1 remained significantly lower in FOG+ (p = 0.010).ConclusionOur findings demonstrated that besides lower global cognition and mental flexibility scores, FOG+ showed lower performance in retrograde procedural memory compared to matched FOG-control patients, even when accounting for factors such as age, sex, disease duration or depression.SignificanceIn the context of limited treatment options, especially for non-invasive therapeutic approaches, these insights on procedural memory and FOG may lead to new hypotheses on FOG etiology and consequently the development of new treatment options
Mobile heritage practices. Implications for scholarly research, user experience design, and evaluation methods using mobile apps.
Mobile heritage apps have become one of the most popular means for audience
engagement and curation of museum collections and heritage contexts. This
raises practical and ethical questions for both researchers and practitioners, such
as: what kind of audience engagement can be built using mobile apps? what are
the current approaches? how can audience engagement with these experience
be evaluated? how can those experiences be made more resilient, and in turn
sustainable? In this thesis I explore experience design scholarships together with
personal professional insights to analyse digital heritage practices with a view to
accelerating thinking about and critique of mobile apps in particular. As a result,
the chapters that follow here look at the evolution of digital heritage practices,
examining the cultural, societal, and technological contexts in which mobile
heritage apps are developed by the creative media industry, the academic
institutions, and how these forces are shaping the user experience design
methods. Drawing from studies in digital (critical) heritage, Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI), and design thinking, this thesis provides a critical analysis of
the development and use of mobile practices for the heritage. Furthermore,
through an empirical and embedded approach to research, the thesis also
presents auto-ethnographic case studies in order to show evidence that mobile
experiences conceptualised by more organic design approaches, can result in
more resilient and sustainable heritage practices. By doing so, this thesis
encourages a renewed understanding of the pivotal role of these practices in the
broader sociocultural, political and environmental changes.AHRC REAC
Important Relationships and Realistic Dialogue in Fiction
This thesis began as a decision to explore relationships and how they shape the course of our lives. In looking at relationships, it became apparent that communication, specifically spoken communication, is a critical aspect of any relationship. The artist statement discusses the way communication can impact a relationship as well as the correlation between real conversation and fictional dialogue. The critical paper delves into the traits of realistic dialogue as well as how to distinguish between dialogue that works, and dialogue that will bore or distract readers. The research and application of those two projects meet in the creative manuscript to produce a story that uses realistic dialogue to highlight character relationships
Recalibrating machine learning for social biases: demonstrating a new methodology through a case study classifying gender biases in archival documentation
This thesis proposes a recalibration of Machine Learning for social biases to minimize harms from existing approaches and practices in the field. Prioritizing quality over quantity, accuracy over efficiency, representativeness over convenience, and situated thinking over universal thinking, the thesis demonstrates an alternative approach to creating Machine Learning models. Drawing on GLAM, the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and Design, the thesis focuses on understanding and communicating biases in a specific use case. 11,888 metadata descriptions from the University of Edinburgh Heritage Collections' Archives catalog were manually annotated for gender biases and text classification models were then trained on the resulting dataset of 55,260 annotations. Evaluations of the models' performance demonstrates that annotating gender biases can be automated; however, the subjectivity of bias as a concept complicates the generalizability of any one approach.
The contributions are: (1) an interdisciplinary and participatory Bias-Aware Methodology, (2) a Taxonomy of Gendered and Gender Biased Language, (3) data annotated for gender biased language, (4) gender biased text classification models, and (5) a human-centered approach to model evaluation. The contributions have implications for Machine Learning, demonstrating how bias is inherent to all data and models; more specifically for Natural Language Processing, providing an annotation taxonomy, annotated datasets and classification models for analyzing gender biased language at scale; for the Gallery, Library, Archives, and Museum sector, offering guidance to institutions seeking to reconcile with histories of marginalizing communities through their documentation practices; and for historians, who utilize cultural heritage documentation to study and interpret the past. Through a real-world application of the Bias-Aware Methodology in a case study, the thesis illustrates the need to shift away from removing social biases and towards acknowledging them, creating data and models that surface the uncertainty and multiplicity characteristic of human societies
“What will become of my work?”: Genius, Gender, and Legacy in the Life of Clara Wieck/Schumann
Clara Wieck/Schumann (1819 – 1896) was a musician living in an era increasingly concerned with posterity and canon formation, yet she believed that as a performer, she was destined for posthumous obscurity. On this matter, she clearly misjudged her historical significance. More than 125 years after her death, Wieck/Schumann is still remembered as a child prodigy whose father trained her to become one of the greatest pianists of the day and whose dedication to the highest artistic ideals was matched only by her unconditional devotion to her husband and children. Wieck/Schumann’s artistic accomplishments as an individual—her remarkable success as a virtuosa and her significant compositional output—are frequently juxtaposed with her roles as a mother of eight and the romantic(ized) partner to fellow composer Robert Schumann. The seeming incongruity of her public and private lives has also lent a certain ambiguity and openness in biographical treatments. As such, Wieck/Schumann has been a canvas upon which writers could project contradictory dogmatic images: eternally faithful and adulterous wife, selfless and neglectful mother, humble and glamorous performer, contentedly domestic and artistically stifled.Through close reading of archival material (diaries and correspondence of Wieck/Schumann and her closest associates) and secondary sources (biographies, historical news and entertainment media, and music analyses), this dissertation traces the origins and evolutions of Wieck/Schumann’s legacies through the dual lenses of gender and genius. This project presents a historiographic study of prescriptive ideologies in Wieck/Schumann biographies with attention to shifts in genre conventions and feminist ideas, engages in psychobiographic analysis of her attitudes toward and justification of her own creativity as a function of her personal relationships, investigates how her image was used in Nazi propaganda with consequent backlash, and culminates in critical consideration of the limitations of biography as a tool to analyze her compositions. Taken together, these components demonstrate the (potentially dangerous) cultural power of biography to perpetuate narratives of gender values and genius with direct implications for the musical and cultural reception of creative women like Wieck/Schumann
Displacement and the Humanities: Manifestos from the Ancient to the Present
This is the final version. Available on open access from MDPI via the DOI in this recordThis is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787) (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities/special_issues/Manifestos Ancient Present)This volume brings together the work of practitioners, communities, artists and other researchers from multiple disciplines. Seeking to provoke a discourse around displacement within and beyond the field of Humanities, it positions historical cases and debates, some reaching into the ancient past, within diverse geo-chronological contexts and current world urgencies. In adopting an innovative dialogic structure, between practitioners on the ground - from architects and urban planners to artists - and academics working across subject areas, the volume is a proposition to: remap priorities for current research agendas; open up disciplines, critically analysing their approaches; address the socio-political responsibilities that we have as scholars and practitioners; and provide an alternative site of discourse for contemporary concerns about displacement. Ultimately, this volume aims to provoke future work and collaborations - hence, manifestos - not only in the historical and literary fields, but wider research concerned with human mobility and the challenges confronting people who are out of place of rights, protection and belonging
Machine learning applications in search algorithms for gravitational waves from compact binary mergers
Gravitational waves from compact binary mergers are now routinely observed by Earth-bound detectors. These observations enable exciting new science, as they have opened a new window to the Universe.
However, extracting gravitational-wave signals from the noisy detector data is a challenging problem. The most sensitive search algorithms for compact binary mergers use matched filtering, an algorithm that compares the data with a set of expected template signals. As detectors are upgraded and more sophisticated signal models become available, the number of required templates will increase, which can make some sources computationally prohibitive to search for. The computational cost is of particular concern when low-latency alerts should be issued to maximize the time for electromagnetic follow-up observations. One potential solution to reduce computational requirements that has started to be explored in the last decade is machine learning. However, different proposed deep learning searches target varying parameter spaces and use metrics that are not always comparable to existing literature. Consequently, a clear picture of the capabilities of machine learning searches has been sorely missing.
In this thesis, we closely examine the sensitivity of various deep learning gravitational-wave search algorithms and introduce new methods to detect signals from binary black hole and binary neutron star mergers at previously untested statistical confidence levels. By using the sensitive distance as our core metric, we allow for a direct comparison of our algorithms to state-of-the-art search pipelines. As part of this thesis, we organized a global mock data challenge to create a benchmark for machine learning search algorithms targeting compact binaries. This way, the tools developed in this thesis are made available to the greater community by publishing them as open source software.
Our studies show that, depending on the parameter space, deep learning gravitational-wave search algorithms are already competitive with current production search pipelines. We also find that strategies developed for traditional searches can be effectively adapted to their machine learning counterparts. In regions where matched filtering becomes computationally expensive, available deep learning algorithms are also limited in their capability. We find reduced sensitivity to long duration signals compared to the excellent results for short-duration binary black hole signals
Heterogeneous Federated Learning: State-of-the-art and Research Challenges
Federated learning (FL) has drawn increasing attention owing to its potential
use in large-scale industrial applications. Existing federated learning works
mainly focus on model homogeneous settings. However, practical federated
learning typically faces the heterogeneity of data distributions, model
architectures, network environments, and hardware devices among participant
clients. Heterogeneous Federated Learning (HFL) is much more challenging, and
corresponding solutions are diverse and complex. Therefore, a systematic survey
on this topic about the research challenges and state-of-the-art is essential.
In this survey, we firstly summarize the various research challenges in HFL
from five aspects: statistical heterogeneity, model heterogeneity,
communication heterogeneity, device heterogeneity, and additional challenges.
In addition, recent advances in HFL are reviewed and a new taxonomy of existing
HFL methods is proposed with an in-depth analysis of their pros and cons. We
classify existing methods from three different levels according to the HFL
procedure: data-level, model-level, and server-level. Finally, several critical
and promising future research directions in HFL are discussed, which may
facilitate further developments in this field. A periodically updated
collection on HFL is available at https://github.com/marswhu/HFL_Survey.Comment: 42 pages, 11 figures, and 4 table
Chronic stability of a neuroprosthesis comprising multiple adjacent Utah arrays in monkeys
Objective. Electrical stimulation of visual cortex via a neuroprosthesis induces the perception of dots of light (\u27phosphenes\u27), potentially allowing recognition of simple shapes even after decades of blindness. However, restoration of functional vision requires large numbers of electrodes, and chronic, clinical implantation of intracortical electrodes in the visual cortex has only been achieved using devices of up to 96 channels. We evaluated the efficacy and stability of a 1024-channel neuroprosthesis system in non-human primates (NHPs) over more than 3 years to assess its suitability for long-term vision restoration. Approach. We implanted 16 microelectrode arrays (Utah arrays) consisting of 8 x 8 electrodes with iridium oxide tips in the primary visual cortex (V1) and visual area 4 (V4) of two sighted macaques. We monitored the animals\u27 health and measured electrode impedances and neuronal signal quality by calculating signal-to-noise ratios of visually driven neuronal activity, peak-to-peak voltages of the waveforms of action potentials, and the number of channels with high-amplitude signals. We delivered cortical microstimulation and determined the minimum current that could be perceived, monitoring the number of channels that successfully yielded phosphenes. We also examined the influence of the implant on a visual task after 2-3 years of implantation and determined the integrity of the brain tissue with a histological analysis 3-3.5 years post-implantation. Main results. The monkeys remained healthy throughout the implantation period and the device retained its mechanical integrity and electrical conductivity. However, we observed decreasing signal quality with time, declining numbers of phosphene-evoking electrodes, decreases in electrode impedances, and impaired performance on a visual task at visual field locations corresponding to implanted cortical regions. Current thresholds increased with time in one of the two animals. The histological analysis revealed encapsulation of arrays and cortical degeneration. Scanning electron microscopy on one array revealed degradation of IrOx coating and higher impedances for electrodes with broken tips. Significance. Long-term implantation of a high-channel-count device in NHP visual cortex was accompanied by deformation of cortical tissue and decreased stimulation efficacy and signal quality over time. We conclude that improvements in device biocompatibility and/or refinement of implantation techniques are needed before future clinical use is feasible
Arabista a stát: Výuka arabského a jazyka profesionalizace blízkovýchodní expertízy ve státní sféře
The dissertation focuses on a phenomenon of "state-Arabists", i.e., a group of state employees, both civil servants and members of armed forces, who have been systematically directed towards careers requiring proficiency in the Arabic language. The author observes this specific group in the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel between the end of the Second World War and the so-called Arab Spring. The focus of the analysis is twofold. The first is a comparative history of institutions tasked with the Arabic language instruction established directly by the three countries. The second theme are the instructional programmes conducted by these institutions. The author focuses mainly on the ideological factors in their presentation of the Arabic language, the "Otherness" of the Arabic speaking world, and, in most extreme cases, the sentiment of Arabic as a "language of the enemy". Both lines of inquiry are anchored within the context of "critical junctures", thus reflecting the impact of the general history on such a specific instance of exertion of state power as the instruction of a language. The analytical focus on the concurrence of large-scale events of the 20th and early 21st centuries eventually reveals noticeable differences between the civilian and military institutions. The diplomatic...Disertační práce se zaměřuje na fenomén "státních Arabistů", tedy zaměstnanců státu, civilních i těch v ozbrojených silách, kteří byli systematicky směřováni ke kariérám vyžadujícím vysokou úroveň znalosti arabského jazyka. Autor tuto specifickou skupinu zkoumá ve Spojených státech amerických, Spojeném království a v Izraeli mezi koncem 2. světové války a událostmi tzv. arabského jara. Analýza je vedena ve dvou stěžejních směrech. První je komparativní historie institucí, které se dlouhodobě zaměřovaly na výuku arabského jazyka a byly zřizovány přímo těmito státy. Druhým tématem jsou samotné vzdělávací programy uskutečňované těmito institucemi. Autor se zaměřuje především na ideologické faktory v jejich prezentaci arabského jazyka, "jinakosti" arabsky hovořícího světa a v extrémních případech na sentiment arabštiny coby "jazyka nepřítele". Obě linie jsou volně ukotveny v kontextu tzv. "critical junctures" a referují dopady obecných dějin na tak specifický jev výkonu státní moci, jakým je jazyková výuka. Zaměření analýzy na souběh velkých událostí 20. a počátku 21. století se změnami ve výuce arabštiny nakonec odhaluje značné rozdíly mezi civilními a vojenskými institucemi. Především diplomatické sbory budovaly svou arabistickou expertizu systematicky a dlouhodobě, zatímco ozbrojené síly inklinovaly...Katedra Blízkého východuDepartment of Middle Eastern StudiesFaculty of ArtsFilozofická fakult
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