Spartan Daily, October 7, 2003

Volume 121, Issue 28https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9894/thumbnail.jp

Defending the Role of Unconscious Intentions: A Response to Wegner

Cognitive science has recently supported and popularized the idea that perhaps free will is but an illusion. With his theory of apparent mental causation, Daniel M. Wegner in particular proposes that our beliefs about intention and the control we exert over our actions are actually based upon other factors and usually occur retroactively. Since many of our actions are determined and preformed outside of awareness, the cause of said actions could then be difficult to locate. Part of Wegner’s argument lies in his assumption of brain activity and corresponding behavior as conscious and “controlled” or outside of awareness and unintended. Reducing human qualities such as creativity and rational thinking to mere neurological firings seems too far a stretch for even the cognitive scientist. While the cause of one’s action is not a homunculus, it may be more than just the pathways within the brain. To assume such only looks at the human being on a micro level and ignores not only the individual, but also the species. Implementation intentions and cognitive-behavioral therapy are empirical examples of willing conscious thought to eventually overtake an unconscious, unintended reaction. In this paper, I examine different theories of consciousness that Wegner fails to acknowledge in his own theory, therefore leaving his own theory unclear and desperate of clarification. After giving evidence of the interaction between conscious and unconscious states, I propose that consciousness and control are two different categorizations in how we define processes. This could allow us to retain our sense of free will in spite of current research as we can still be considered the guiding force in our actions, even if done so unconsciously

Metaphors, Myths and the Stories We Tell: How to Empower a Flourishing AI Enabled Human in the Future of Work by Enabling Whole Brain Thinking

Through the use of storytelling, literature review, interviews, workshops, and explorations using scenario planning, how to empower an AI enabled human being to flourish in the future of work by enabling Whole Brain Thinking is studied. The purpose of this report is to provide a roadmap for human success using the future of work as a focus. This report reaches five conclusions: 1. Training creativity is the key to building the capability to imagine new metaphors and myths in order to tell new stories to restore Ontological Safety. 2. Whole Braining Thinking is enabled by creativity. As people are able to ignite both left and right brain thinking to see other possibilities, training Whole Brain Thinking helps people to create new metaphors and stories about their future by shifting their mindset to imagine a future that is not dystopian. 3. As the nature of work changes and AI takes over more left brain tasks, Whole Brain Thinking as a skill set will place us in a position to be able to find meaningful employment alongside AI by creating new types of integrated careers, like Explainers. 4. Statisticians use AI for making predictions. If as predicted, Quantum Computing can enhance this capability by examining trends and predicting what is probably, then there is a place for people to use Whole Brain Thinking to expand predictions into the realm of the plausible and the possible outcomes. 5. Being AI Enabled requires comprehension of how AI works by breaking AI into its system components. Being Whole Brain Thinkers allow us to symphonically explain the ‘why’ and how things are linked

Interpreter-Assisted Investigative Interviews: Needs, Challenges and Quality

This thesis researches the yet to be fully explored dynamic of interpretation services needs and interpretation service optimisation (i.e., interview and interpretation quality assurance). The research began with an exploratory analysis of factors affecting interpreter-assisted investigative interviews and then took a subtle experimental swipe at factors affecting intelligibility and informativeness of translation. Recognition of the importance of the context in which interpretation currently takes place led to the addition of a wider range of approaches. This informed a broad review of relevant literature. The empirical work is presented as follows. First, is a Study Space Analysis (SSA) of policy-relevant research, which provides a base for determining the adequacy and depth of the existing body of knowledge. The results show that interpretation service needs and planning appear mildly or infrequently researched, and there exists little or no studies investigating police diversity effects on interpretation service needs. Also, studies investigating cognitive load, language and gender effects on interpreting accuracy are sparse. Finally, this study shows that the literature focuses on interpretation as a service for offenders rather than for victims and witnesses. The implications of this for social harmony are discussed. The second study concerns the optics of a police service that does not resemble the population policed. In a convenience sample of 104 ethnic minority individuals, the descriptive and thematic analysis indicates that police diversity tends to improve trust and impact the need for interpretation service. These findings bring to the fore the benign potency of language education. The third study explores the opinions of 66 International Law Enforcement Agency (ILEA) investigators and 40 interpreters on factors affecting investigative interviews involving the assistance of interpreters. Using descriptive and thematic analysis, it was shown that investigators plan only occasionally with interpreters. The seldom planning practise is found to occur because of investigator’s role perception of interpreters and individualistic culture of investigators. Additionally, interpreter presence is observed to impact rapport building, and the effect of interruption is manageable with the right skills and experience combination. The fourth study uses a complex design to determine factors relevant to the intelligibility and informativeness of translations of witness accounts of a sample of audio depictions of non-violent offences. The study employed 240 aggregated ratings from 4 volunteer assessors of 60 textual interpretation of 15mins, 10mins and 5mins witness accounts using Tiselius (2009) 6-points Intelligibility and informativeness scale. Log-linear analysis revealed a surprising lack of consensus of assessments of intelligibility and informativeness across assessors, but judgements of informativeness relative to intelligibility within individual assessors appear coherent and consistent. Length of audio was not associated with intelligibility or informativeness. A small exploratory follow up to the study investigated what seemed to make translations unintelligible. The next study mapped the opinions of a sample of 51 expert interpreters with a range of experience about the perception of their work and its challenges. This shows consistency with existing literature and studies investigated in the thesis except for opinions on the role of police diversity which is found to increase trust and interpretation service needs

Raising awareness of frontotemporal dementia among Nigerian immigrant communities in the UK through storytelling : an autoethnography thesis using an art-based research approach

Even though medical research on dementia is wide and has long roots internationally, the awareness of the condition varies among different populations. People in ethnic minority communities, for example, may view dementia issues through a traditional or cultural lens. In these communities, diagnosis is more likely to occur at an advanced stage of the disease, and there is a low take-up of mainstream dementia services. This study explores new ways of raising awareness of dementia in such groups, in this case, among Nigerian immigrants in the UK. This group is understudied, even though they represent the largest number of people of African origin in the UK. The research questions set for the research are: (1) How can the awareness of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) be raised using an art-based approach? (2) What autoethnographic process preceded the development of the play ‘My Name is Beatrice’? My research approach is art-based, and the tool I used for my data interpretation is ethnodrama, which is a written transformation and adaptation of research data into a dramatic play script. I aim to present an aesthetically sound, intellectually rich, and emotionally evocative play that can capture my audience’s attention and leave them with enduring memories. The analysis focused on both the process that preceded the writing of a play about someone with dementia in a Nigerian immigrant community and the play itself. The data comprised two sets: my previous works and desktop research. These were analysed for their contribution to the process preceding the playwriting. The art-based part of this thesis included the play ‘My Name is Beatrice’ and its critical commentary. This research explores and discusses the efficacy of using drama as an educational tool to raise awareness of a disease. Art has an instantaneous effect on an audience because it can capture their attention and leave enduring memories. In addition, my research shows evidence of the complex needs of people living with dementia in Black Minority Ethnic (BME) communities that can be highlighted through art-based research and methods in a meaningful way. This art-based research has shown how ethnodrama can facilitate engagement and action from the researcher, participant, and audience. The aim is that this research would enlighten BME communities about FTD, the importance of early diagnosis and holistic approaches to care. The research will be a microcosm for further work that will enable educators and healthcare workers to share similar information within larger BME communities in the United Kingdom, other developed countries, and Africa. It will also enable educators and medical practitioners to understand the needs of BME communities and other similar groups worldwide

Encountering Pain

What is persistent pain? How do we communicate pain, not only in words but in visual images and gesture? How do we respond to the pain of another, and can we do it better? Can explaining how pain works help us handle it? This unique compilation of voices addresses these and bigger questions. Defined as having lasted over three months, persistent pain changes the brain and nervous system so pain no longer warns of danger: it seems to be a fault in the system. It is a major cause of disability globally, but it remains difficult to communicate, a problem both to those with pain and those who try to help. Language struggles to bridge the gap, and it raises ethical challenges in its management unlike those of other common conditions. Encountering Pain shares leading research into the potential value of visual images and non-verbal forms of communication as means of improving clinician–patient interaction. It is divided into four sections: hearing, seeing, speaking, and a final series of contributions on the future for persistent pain. The chapters are accompanied by vivid photographs co-created with those who live with pain. The volume integrates the voices of leading scientists, academics and contemporary artists with poetry and poignant personal testimonies to provide a manual for understanding the meanings of pain, for healthcare professionals, pain patients, students, academics and artists. The voices and experiences of those living with pain are central, providing tools for discussion and future research, shifting register between creative, academic and personal contributions from diverse cultures and weaving them together to offer new understanding, knowledge and hope. Praise for Encountering Pain 'This book is the result of a collaborative, multi-disciplinary investigation into the experience of pain and how it might be understood and ameliorated. Deborah Padfield's photographs, made in collaboration with pain sufferers, reveal how an otherwise debilitating, highly subjective and individualising experience might become a topic for intersubjective communication. Through her innovative and experimental photography we learn that the photographic image can potentially play a role in the medical field by addressing 'what is felt' by the patient alongside the usual indexical medical documentation of 'what is there'. In so doing photography may provide a means of sharing perceptual experience and stimulating doctor-patient discussion around the emotional interplay of body and mind. – Gina Glover, a photographic artist working in the fields of health, genetics and science.www.ginaglover.com ‘This is a majestic volume. Visually striking, intellectually challenging, and experientially transformative, this book promises to change how everyone encounters pain.’ – Dr Rob Boddice, Freie Universität Berlin 'From a remarkable variety of disciplinary and cultural perspectives – from medicine and therapy to the creative arts and philosophy – this inspirational and eye-opening collection succeeds in articulating the mysterious and overwhelmingly complex sensory experience that is pain. Pain, the encounters in this volume suggest, defies definition; it is subjective and unpredictable; it can be phantom or real. Through its radical and engaging use of testimonies, Encountering Pain never shies away from metaphor and the unfounded fear, that the allegorising of pain will dilute its reality. Examined through a multitude of verbal and non-verbal paradigms, contributors discuss the physicality of pain and its political, administrative and medical regulation; the body’s trauma and expressiveness; how pain is transmuted into art. The communication of something that resists being expressed straightforwardly in verbal form metamorphoses, as you read this extraordinarily rich and innovative volume, into a metaphor for life itself, for who we are, how we become social beings by developing empathy and respect for the pain of others, for how we develop and then question through these interactions our sense of identity.' – Professor Stella Bruzzi, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, UCL ‘Deborah Padfield's book, Perceptions of Pain (2003), introduced a ground-breaking strategy through which photography became an effective tool to interpret pain – an aspect of human experience that can, so often, appear inexplicable. The powerful images in this book are further evidence of the collaborative strength of photography and its special ability to give voice to those who are excluded.’ – Dewi Lewis, Publisher 'A work that brings photographic, figurative and poetic images of chronic pain to the clinic and demonstrates how visual, communicative frameworks can re-voice experiences and diagnoses of pain. This major, deeply reflective collection of papers represents a turning-point in defining the multifaceted importance of painscapes in clinical, therapeutic, and humanistic advocacy work. It firmly situates the arts and humanities, alongside the sciences, in responding to the pressing need for new strategies to alleviate chronic pain.' - Prof Brian Hurwitz, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and the Arts, King's College London 'Pain and its ever-increasing numbers of sufferers inhabit a kind of night world isolated from the “normal” day world. 'A bandage hides the place where each is living', W.H. Auden once wrote, while we, the healthy, 'stand elsewhere’. Encountering Pain is an attempt to narrow this rift by making sure sufferers are heard, seen, and able to speak again – so that they might be better understood. Padfield and Zakrzewska have assembled an impressive team of patients, healthcare providers, artists and academicians, all determined to make pain more visible and communicable. The authors compellingly demonstrate that language -- whether in the form of words, gestures or images – is a necessary first step towards alleviating pain. That it can often be as powerful as medicine. '- Dr David Biro, Associate Clinical Professor of Dermatology at SUNY Health Science Center @ Brooklyn and author of The Language of Pain: Finding Words, Compassion, and Relief

Encountering Pain: Hearing, seeing, speaking

What is persistent pain? How do we communicate pain, not only in words but in visual images and gesture? How do we respond to the pain of another, and can we do it better? Can explaining how pain works help us handle it? This unique compilation of voices addresses these and bigger questions. Defined as having lasted over three months, persistent pain changes the brain and nervous system so pain no longer warns of danger: it seems to be a fault in the system. It is a major cause of disability globally, but it remains difficult to communicate, a problem both to those with pain and those who try to help. Language struggles to bridge the gap, and it raises ethical challenges in its management unlike those of other common conditions. Encountering Pain shares leading research into the potential value of visual images and non-verbal forms of communication as means of improving clinician–patient interaction. It is divided into four sections: hearing, seeing, speaking, and a final series of contributions on the future for persistent pain. The chapters are accompanied by vivid photographs co-created with those who live with pain. The volume integrates the voices of leading scientists, academics and contemporary artists with poetry and poignant personal testimonies to provide a manual for understanding the meanings of pain, for healthcare professionals, pain patients, students, academics and artists. The voices and experiences of those living with pain are central, providing tools for discussion and future research, shifting register between creative, academic and personal contributions from diverse cultures and weaving them together to offer new understanding, knowledge and hope

Mathematical models for glioma growh and migration inside the brain

284 p.Los gliomas forman el subtipo más prevalente, agresivo e invasivo de tumores cerebrales primarios,caracterizados por una rápida proliferación celular y una elevada capacidad de infiltración. A pesar de los avances de la investigación clínica, estos tumores suelen ser resistentes al tratamiento; la supervivencia media oscila entre 9 y 12 meses, siendo la recurrencia la principal causa de mortalidad.La migración y la invasión de los gliomas en el cerebro son fenómenos complejos y aún se desconocen varios de los mecanismos subyacentes que guían la progresión de estos tumores.En esta tesis, proponemos varios modelos matemáticos para estudiar diversos aspectos de la progresión del glioma en relación con las escalas microscópicas y macroscópicas que caracterizan este proceso. Considerar el carácter intrínsico multiescala de la evolución del glioma permite definir modelos basados en sistemas dinámicos, ecuaciones cinéticas y EDP macroscópicas con diferentes roles dependiendo de los fenómenos a estudiar. Uno de los objetivos principales de esta tesis es integrar datos biológicos y clínicos con los modelos matemáticos. Los datos experimentales utilizados se han obtenido de imágenes por resonancia magnética, de imágenes con tensor de difusión del cerebro humano y de análisis de inmunofluorescencia in vivo de distribuciones de varias proteínas en Drosophila, un modelo fiable para el estudio de la dinámica del glioblastoma.Analizamos las características de anisotropía del tejido nervioso, utilizando los datos del tensor de difusión, y la influencia de la estructura de las fibras en la dinámica de las células tumorales.Mostramos cómo la red de fibras guía la migración celular a lo largo de rutas preferenciales,reproduciendo los patrones ramificados y heterogéneos típicos de la evolución del glioma; asimismo,demostramos cómo los tratamientos multimodales pueden reducir este comportamiento.Estudiamos la interdependencia entre la acidez del microambiente y la vascularización en el proceso de angiogénesis tumoral. Para ello, construimos un modelo capaz de reproducir la influencia de estos mecanismos en el desarrollo de la heterogeneidad intratumoral y de características típicas de la progresión del glioma relacionadas con la hipoxia (e.g. la necrosis). Este estudio permite formular una clasificación de los tumores basada en el nivel de necrosis, así como la investigación de terapias multimodales que incluyan efectos antiangiogénicos.Investigamos la influencia de las protrusiones celulares desde una perspectiva no local.Analizamos su rol en el fenómeno de la guía por contacto y en la manifestación de efectos colaborativos o competitivos entre dos estímulos que determinan cambios de dirección de la velocidad celular.Utilizando el análisis experimental de las distribuciones de varias proteínas, evaluamos la relación de las protrusiones celulares con las integrinas y las proteasas como principales mecanismos de progresión del glioblastoma. Mostramos cómo las interacciones bioquímicas y biomecánicas de estos agentes dan como resultado el desarrollo de frentes de propagación tumoral, que pueden presentar una evolución dinámica y heterogénea en relación a los cambios ambientales.bcam:basque center for applied mathematics; La Caixa Foundatio

Mathematical models for glioma growth and migration inside the brain

Gliomas are the most prevalent, aggressive, and invasive subtype of primary brain tumors, characterized by rapid cell proliferation and great infiltration capacity. De- spite the advances of clinical research, these tumors are often resistant to treatment, the median survival ranges between 9 and 12 months, and recurrence is the main cause of mortality. Glioma migration and invasion into the brain tissue is a complex phenomenon and little is still known about the underlying mechanisms that lead to tumor progression. In this thesis, we propose several mathematical models studying various aspects of glioma progression in relation to the microscopic and macroscopic scales charac- terizing this process. Exploiting the inherently multiscale nature of glioma evolution allows to define models based on dynamical systems, kinetic equations, and macro- scopic PDEs with different roles depending on the considered phenomena. The in- tegration of biological and clinical data with the mathematical models is one of the key objectives of this thesis. The experimental data at hand are obtained from mag- netic resonance and diffusion tensor images of the human brain and from in-vivo im- munofluorescence analysis of protein distributions in Drosophila, a reliable model for the study of glioblastoma dynamics. We analyze the anisotropic characteristics of the brain tissue, using the diffusion tensor data, and the influence of the fiber structures on tumor cell dynamics. We show how the fiber network directs cell migration along preferential paths, reproducing the branched and heterogeneous patterns typical of glioma evolution, and how multi- modal treatments can reduce this behavior. We study the interdependency of microenvironmental acidity and vasculature in tumor angiogenesis, defining a model capable of reproducing their influence on the emergence of phenotypic heterogeneity and hypoxia-related features (like necrosis) typical of glioma progression. This study enables the testing of a necrosis-based tumor grading and the investigation of multi-modal therapies with anti-angiogenic effects. We investigated the role of cell protrusions from a non-local perspective. We ex- plore their influence on the contact guidance phenomenon and on the emergence of collaborative or competitive effects between two cues driving cell velocity changes. Using the experimental analysis of protein distributions, we evaluate cell protru- sion relationship with integrins and proteases as leading mechanisms of glioblastoma progression. We show how the biochemical and biomechanical interactions of these agents result in the emergence of tumor propagation fronts, which can feature a dy- namical and heterogenous evolution in relation to environmental changes.European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 713673. ”la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434), with fellowship code LCF/BQ/IN17/11620056