Knowledge-based strategic planning: harnessing (in)tangible assets of city-regions

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways of best managing city-regions’ valuable tangible and intangible assets while pursuing a knowledge-based urban development that is sustainable and competitive. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a theoretical framework to conceptualise a new strategic planning mechanism, knowledge-based strategic planning, which has been emerged as a planning mechanism for the knowledge-based urban development of post-industrial city-regions. Originality/value – The paper develops a planning framework entitled 6K1C for knowledge-based strategic planning to be used in the analysis of city-regions’ tangible and intangible assets. Practical implications – The paper discusses the importance of asset mapping of cityregions, and explores the ways of successfully managing city-regions’ tangible/intangible assets to achieve an urban development that is sustainable and knowledge-based. Keywords – Knowledge-based urban development, Knowledge-based strategic planning, Tangible assets, Intangible assets, City-regions. Paper type – Academic Research Pape

The Role of Consciousness in Memory

Conscious events interact with memory systems in learning, rehearsal and retrieval (Ebbinghaus 1885/1964; Tulving 1985). Here we present hypotheses that arise from the IDA computional model (Franklin, Kelemen and McCauley 1998; Franklin 2001b) of global workspace theory (Baars 1988, 2002). Our primary tool for this exploration is a flexible cognitive cycle employed by the IDA computational model and hypothesized to be a basic element of human cognitive processing. Since cognitive cycles are hypothesized to occur five to ten times a second and include interaction between conscious contents and several of the memory systems, they provide the means for an exceptionally fine-grained analysis of various cognitive tasks. We apply this tool to the small effect size of subliminal learning compared to supraliminal learning, to process dissociation, to implicit learning, to recognition vs. recall, and to the availability heuristic in recall. The IDA model elucidates the role of consciousness in the updating of perceptual memory, transient episodic memory, and procedural memory. In most cases, memory is hypothesized to interact with conscious events for its normal functioning. The methodology of the paper is unusual in that the hypotheses and explanations presented are derived from an empirically based, but broad and qualitative computational model of human cognition

Overt orienting of spatial attention and corticospinal excitability during action observation are unrelated

Observing moving body parts can automatically activate topographically corresponding motor representations in the primary motor cortex (M1), the so-called direct matching. Novel neurophysiological findings from social contexts are nonetheless proving that this process is not automatic as previously thought. The motor system can flexibly shift from imitative to incongruent motor preparation, when requested by a social gesture. In the present study we aim to bring an increase in the literature by assessing whether and how diverting overt spatial attention might affect motor preparation in contexts requiring interactive responses from the onlooker. Experiment 1 shows that overt attention-although anchored to an observed biological movement-can be captured by a target object as soon as a social request for it becomes evident. Experiment 2 reveals that the appearance of a short-lasting red dot in the contralateral space can divert attention from the target, but not from the biological movement. Nevertheless, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over M1 combined with electromyography (EMG) recordings (Experiment 3) indicates that attentional interference reduces corticospinal excitability related to the observed movement, but not motor preparation for a complementary action on the target. This work provides evidence that social motor preparation is impermeable to attentional interference and that a double dissociation is present between overt orienting of spatial attention and neurophysiological markers of action observation

Health is wealth: an empirical note across the US states

An attempt is made to establish the relation between risk-health factors (encapsulated in terms of obesity) and regional convergence, with special reference to the US states. The econometric results indicate that obesity does have an impact on regional growth and convergence. A preliminary examination of these findings shows harmful effects on the process of catching-up between ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ regions. Nevertheless, considerably more research is required before this relation can be discussed with confidence.Health risk factors; obesity; regional convergence; US states

Multisensory Congruency as a Mechanism for Attentional Control over Perceptual Selection

The neural mechanisms underlying attentional selection of competing neural signals for awareness remains an unresolved issue. We studied attentional selection, using perceptually ambiguous stimuli in a novel multisensory paradigm that combined competing auditory and competing visual stimuli. We demonstrate that the ability to select, and attentively hold, one of the competing alternatives in either sensory modality is greatly enhanced when there is a matching cross-modal stimulus. Intriguingly, this multimodal enhancement of attentional selection seems to require a conscious act of attention, as passively experiencing the multisensory stimuli did not enhance control over the stimulus. We also demonstrate that congruent auditory or tactile information, and combined auditory–tactile information, aids attentional control over competing visual stimuli and visa versa. Our data suggest a functional role for recently found neurons that combine voluntarily initiated attentional functions across sensory modalities. We argue that these units provide a mechanism for structuring multisensory inputs that are then used to selectively modulate early (unimodal) cortical processing, boosting the gain of task-relevant features for willful control over perceptual awareness

Eye movements in time : auditory influences on oculomotor timing

The dominant models of eye movement timing consider only visual factors as modulators of when gaze orients (e.g. EZ-Reader, SWIFT, CRISP, LATEST). Yet realworld perception is multimodal, and temporal information from audition can both aid the predictive orienting of gaze (to relevant audiovisual onsets in time), and inform visual orientation decisions known to modulate saccade timing, e.g. where to orient. The aim of this thesis was to further the current understanding of eye movement timing to incorporate auditory information; specifically investigating the implicit and explicit capacity for musical beats to influence (and entrain) eye movements, and to quantify the capacity and limitations of direct control when volitionally matching eye movements to auditory onsets. To achieve this, a highly-simplified gaze-contingent visual search paradigm was refined that minimised visual and task factors in order to measure auditory influence. The findings of this thesis present evidence that self-paced eye movements are impervious to implicit auditory influences. The explicit control of eye movements, as small corrections in time to align with similarly timed music, was very limited. In contrast, when visual transitions were externally timed, audiovisual correspondence systematically delayed fixation durations. The thesis also measured the extent of direct control that can be exerted on eye movements, including the role of auditory feedback, as well as modulating visual complexity to further increase inhibition and temporal precision. These studies show a predictive relationship between the level of direct volitional control that an individual can affect and how synchronised they are. Additionally, these studies quantify a large subpopulation of quick eye movements that are impervious to direct control. These findings are discussed as provocation for revised oculomotor models, future work that considers the temporal relationship between shifts of attention and gaze, and implications for wider psychological research that employs timed eye movement measures

Elektroentsefalograafiline vaade emotsionaalse tähelepanu mehhanismidele

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsioone.Miks ilus inimene rahvasummas silma jääb? Või ka kauguses kostuv pidurikrigin liiklusmürast üle kostab? Tartu Ülikoolis valminud doktoritöö kohaselt võib põhjuseks olla emotsionaalse informatsiooni kiirendatud töötlus. Aju on varustatud tähelepanumehhanismidega, mis valivad meeleorganite vahendatud infotulvast välja kõige olulisema teabe. Näiteks tahtlik tähelepanu aitab keskenduda käesolevale ning tahtmatu tähelepanu märgata ootamatusi. Neile sekundeerib ka kolmas süsteem, mis tõstab esile emotsionaalse tähendusega infot. Just afektiivne tähelepanu viib fookuse potentsiaalsetele hüvedele nagu kaunis kaaslane ja ohtudele nagu liiklusõnnetus. Seni on aga lahendamata küsimus, mis täpselt toimub ajus siis, kui erinevad tähelepanusüsteemid omavahel konkureerivad. Näiteks kui veebiuudise lugeja silm haarab ühtaegu nii pooleliolevat teksti kui mahlakat kõmupealkirja külgribal. Mõnikord jääb võitjaks emotsionaalne tähelepanu ning kõmulugu saab oodatud kliki. Teinekord suudab aga tahtlik tähelepanu ebaolulise ahvatluse kõrvale tõrjuda ja loo lugemine võib jätkuda. Oma doktoritöös uuris Andero Uusberg lähemalt võimalust, et tähelepanulises võistluses toimub esimese sekundikolmandiku jooksul liidritevahetus. Emotsionaalne tähelepanu reageerib stardis kiiremini, kuid umbes 350 ms järel on tahtlik süsteem seisu viigistanud ning aju fookust juhitakse edaspidi koostöös. Mitmed selle mõttemudeli ennustused leidsid kinnitust emotsionaalse sisuga fotode vaatamise ajal mõõdetud aju elektrilise aktiivsuse analüüsimisel. Üldisemalt aitab tähelepanusüsteemide erinev stardikiirus seletada, miks tegelikkuses ohutud stiimulid nagu kauge pidurikrigin kipuvad siiski tähelepanu haarama – kulub hetk, ette kui konteksti arvestav tahtlik tähelepanu jõuab korrigeerida primitiivsema emotsionaalse süsteemi esialgset valikut. Doktoritööst leiab ka vihjeid igapäevaseks emotsioonide reguleerimiseks. Ebameeldiva raviprotseduuri või muu ärevust tekitava olukorraga toimetulemiseks soovitatakse vahel mõelda millestki muust. Uusbergi uurimistöö näitas aga, et selline strateegia on suurema tõenäosusega edukas siis, kui mõte juhitakse millelegi piisavalt keerukale. Näiteks kui katseisikutel paluti võimalikult detailirohkelt kujutleda jalutamist kodulinnas, vähenes samal ajal esitletud emotsionaalsete piltide sisusse süvemine ning neile reageerimise intensiivsus. Kui ülesandeks oli aga keskenduda emotsionaalsete piltide neutraalsetele omadustele, vähenes afektiivne tähelepanu vaid mõnevõrra.Why does a beautiful face stand out from a crowd? Or even a distant braking screech captures attention? A recent doctoral thesis suggests the reason may be faster processing of emotional information. The brain is equipped with various attention mechanisms for sorting out important information from potentially overwhelming sensory input. While top-down attention enables us to concentrate and bottom-up attention to remain vigilant for unexpected aspects of the environment, there is also a third system sensitive to emotional information. This affective attention is responsible for spotting opportunities such as a valuable mate or threats such as a traffic accident. Scientists do not fully comprehend however, how does competition between attention systems is resolved in the brain. As an example, consider a reader of an online news story whose eyes also capture a juicy headline at a sidebar. Sometimes affective attention succeeds in breaking the concentration on the story in favour of the emotional distraction. At other times however, top-down attention prevails and reading continues uninterrupted. In his thesis, Andero Uusberg investigated the idea that the competition between attentional systems changes across time. More specifically, affective attention may be faster off the mark while after about a third of a second however, top-down attention catches up and the subsequent focus is determined in co-operation. This framework explained several aspects of electrical brain activity measured while participants viewed emotionally evocative photographs. More broadly, different onsets can explain why safe stimuli such as a distant braking screech still captivates us – it takes a moment for the more context-aware top-down attention system to correct the early reaction of the more primitive affective attention. The thesis also has implications for everyday emotion regulation. To cope with unpleasant events such as medical procedures, people are sometimes advised to distract themselves by thinking of something else. In this regard, the present findings imply that this strategy requires the distractive mental activity to be reasonably difficult. For instance, when participants were asked to imagine their neighbourhoods with high level of detail, they indeed paid less attention to unpleasant photographs as well as experienced less intense emotional reactions. When they merely thought of nonaffective features of affective images however, emotional attention was attenuated only modestly

The Dynamics of Political Participation: An Analysis of the Dynamic Interaction between Individuals and their Political Micro-Environment

While political choices are rarely isolated or simultaneous, the vast majority of empirical models in political science assume they are. This dissertation examines the dynamic interactions over time between individuals and their micro-environment, in which a single factor both influences, and is influenced by, the act of voting. These dynamic interactions occur in a surprisingly broad swathe of the current literature on American voting behavior, as implicit but unexamined elements of four major research traditions. When these interactions are present, they establish feedback cycles that pose both theoretical and statistical challenges if not analyzed appropriately. Researchers ignoring these cycles tend to underestimate long term influences on voting behavior, make unrealistic assumptions about changes in voting behavior over time, and produce biased results under certain conditions. I propose a methodology that can successfully identify and model these interactions: employing simulation models to represent dynamic interactions in an intuitive format, and using optimization techniques to conduct parameter estimation and hypothesis testing against empirical data. To guide the development of these simulation models, I outline a theoretical framework of the major pathways by which dynamic interactions can influence voting behavior. I then present two applications of this methodology, to study the dynamic impacts on voting of political mobilization, and of social conformity over time. In both cases, the models receive strong statistical support, in benchmark tests against existing econometric models and against empirical data on voting behavior. Both mobilization and social conformity have unstudied indirect impacts that can lead to an additional 1.7% to 4% increase in voter turnout beyond existing models. Targeted use of peer pressure can lead to even more significant increases in turnout - up to a 30% increase among otherwise indecisive voters. In the long term, targeted mobilization can create cadres of repeatedly-mobilized activists, which raises questions about whether political campaigns effectively use their mobilization funds to build their parties in the long term. These two simulation models also provide a foundation for a host of new research questions, ranging from the impact of high-intensity get-out-the-vote drives on future mobilization efforts, to the effects of an aging population on turnout behavior over time

Implicit social learning in relation to autistic-like traits.

We investigated if variation in autistic traits in the typically-developed population (using the Autism-spectrum Quotient, AQ) influenced implicit learning of social information. In the learning phase, participants repeatedly observed two identities whose gaze and expression conveyed either a pro- or antisocial disposition. These identities were then employed in a gaze-cueing paradigm. Participants made speeded responses to a peripheral target that was spatially pre-cued by a non-predictive gaze direction. The low AQ group (n = 50) showed a smaller gaze-cueing effect for the antisocial than for the prosocial identity. The high AQ group (n = 48) showed equivalent gaze-cueing for both identities. Others' intentions/dispositions can be learned implicitly and affect subsequent responses to their behavior. This ability is impaired with increasing levels of autistic traits