Silent reading of direct versus indirect speech activates voice-selective areas in the auditory cortex

In human communication, direct speech (e.g., Mary said: “I'm hungry”) is perceived to be more vivid than indirect speech (e.g., Mary said [that] she was hungry). However, for silent reading, the representational consequences of this distinction are still unclear. Although many of us share the intuition of an “inner voice,” particularly during silent reading of direct speech statements in text, there has been little direct empirical confirmation of this experience so far. Combining fMRI with eye tracking in human volunteers, we show that silent reading of direct versus indirect speech engenders differential brain activation in voice-selective areas of the auditory cortex. This suggests that readers are indeed more likely to engage in perceptual simulations (or spontaneous imagery) of the reported speaker's voice when reading direct speech as opposed to meaning-equivalent indirect speech statements as part of a more vivid representation of the former. Our results may be interpreted in line with embodied cognition and form a starting point for more sophisticated interdisciplinary research on the nature of auditory mental simulation during reading

Weak covering properties and selection principles

No convenient internal characterization of spaces that are productively Lindelof is known. Perhaps the best general result known is Alster's internal characterization, under the Continuum Hypothesis, of productively Lindelof spaces which have a basis of cardinality at most $\aleph_1$. It turns out that topological spaces having Alster's property are also productively weakly Lindelof. The weakly Lindelof spaces form a much larger class of spaces than the Lindelof spaces. In many instances spaces having Alster's property satisfy a seemingly stronger version of Alster's property and consequently are productively X, where X is a covering property stronger than the Lindelof property. This paper examines the question: When is it the case that a space that is productively X is also productively Y, where X and Y are covering properties related to the Lindelof property.Comment: 16 page

Some new directions in infinite-combinatorial topology

We give a light introduction to selection principles in topology, a young subfield of infinite-combinatorial topology. Emphasis is put on the modern approach to the problems it deals with. Recent results are described, and open problems are stated. Some results which do not appear elsewhere are also included, with proofs.Comment: Small update

Enterprise systems for innovation in products and processes : beyond operational efficiency

It has been widely accepted now in industry and academia that Enterprise Systems (ES) can create value for adopting organizations by enabling operational efficiency. However, given the enormous investments they warrant, the potential of such systems to deliver more than improving operations is emerging as a popular area of investigation. This paper reports a research-in-progress that proposes innovation as a means of creating business value with Enterprise Systems. The primary contribution of this paper is a process model that proposes that Enterprise Systems can enable innovation - in products and processes, and supports it with empirical evidence using three case studies. The intention is to test this model further with more case studies and a survey.<br /

The combinatorics of the Baer-Specker group

Denote the integers by Z and the positive integers by N. The groups Z^k (k a natural number) are discrete, and the classification up to isomorphism of their (topological) subgroups is trivial. But already for the countably infinite power Z^N of Z, the situation is different. Here the product topology is nontrivial, and the subgroups of Z^N make a rich source of examples of non-isomorphic topological groups. Z^N is the Baer-Specker group. We study subgroups of the Baer-Specker group which possess group theoretic properties analogous to properties introduced by Menger (1924), Hurewicz (1925), Rothberger (1938), and Scheepers (1996). The studied properties were introduced independently by Ko\v{c}inac and Okunev. We obtain purely combinatorial characterizations of these properties, and combine them with other techniques to solve several questions of Babinkostova, Ko\v{c}inac, and Scheepers.Comment: To appear in IJ

Synthesis of triprenylated toluquinone and toluhydroquinone metabolites from a marine-derived Penicillium fungus

Two triprenylated toluquinone and toluhydroquinone marine fungal metabolites, 5-methyl-2-[(2′E,6′E)-3′,7′,11′-trimethyl-2′,6′,10′-dodecatrienyl]-2,5-cyclohexadiene-1,4-dione and 5-methyl-2-[(2′E,6′E)-3,7,11-trimethyl-2′,6′,10′-dodecatrienyl]-1,4-benzenediol, were synthesized in four and five steps, respectively, from 2-methyl-1,4-benzoquinone. The synthesis extends the applicability of the oxidative ether cleavage of hydroquinone dimethyl ethers with argentic oxide under acidic conditions to include the oxidative demethylation of polyprenylated-1,4-dimethoxy-toluhydroquinones with a quantitative survival of the oxidation- and acid-sensitive polyprenyl side chain. Graphical abstract: Marine fungal metabolites 1 and 2 were synthesized from 2-methyl-1,4-benzoquinone in four and five steps, respectively. [For graphic image see full-text version

FTIR, dissolution and anti-viral activity of nevirapine co-crystals

The study uses Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to identify five Nevirapine (NV) co-crystals, determines the dissolution profile of the co-crystals and the antiviral activity comparative to pure NV. Hot stage microscopy measured the purity and integrity of each co-crystal. FTIR analysis was used to identify the co-crystals to make recommendations regarding the future use of the technique to identify the NV co-crystals. Dissolution studies of the NV co-crystals prepared with maleic acid, salicylic acid and glutaric acid (NVMLE, NVSLI and NVGLT, respectively) were completed using the rotating basket method. Assays were conducted using High Performance Liquid Chromatography and compared to pure NV and the five NV: co-former mixtures. The antiviral activity was tested to determine whether the co-crystals had an improved activity against HIV-1 compared to pure NV. All co-crystals, except NVTTA (a NV co-crystal prepared with rac-tartaric acid), were pure and maintained their integrity for approximately one year. NVGLT, NVMLE and NVTTA, 1:1 molar ratio co-crystals were identified by FTIR. The C=O stretching frequency of the carboxylic acid groups of NV and GLT were observed at 1638.15 cm-1 and 1719.23 cm-1 in the NVGLT co-crystal which corresponded with spectra of NVMLE and NVTTA. In NVMLE the C=O stretching frequency of the C=O of NV and MLE were observed at 1640.58 cm-1 and 1694.10 cm-1 and in NVTTA it was at 1637.25 cm-1 and 1708.50 cm-1, suggesting the presence of both parent molecules in the new phase for NVGLT, NVMLE and NVTTA. Dissolution studies suggested that NVGLT was the only co-crystal that yielded better results than both NV and its physical mixture. The antiviral activity of the NVSC (an NV co-crystal prepared with saccharin) and NVSLI cocrystals in DMSO was significantly different to pure NV, demonstrating an improvement in anti-viral activity

Listening to limericks: a pupillometry investigation of perceivers’ expectancy

What features of a poem make it captivating, and which cognitive mechanisms are sensitive to these features? We addressed these questions experimentally by measuring pupillary responses of 40 participants who listened to a series of Limericks. The Limericks ended with either a semantic, syntactic, rhyme or metric violation. Compared to a control condition without violations, only the rhyme violation condition induced a reliable pupillary response. An anomaly-rating study on the same stimuli showed that all violations were reliably detectable relative to the control condition, but the anomaly induced by rhyme violations was perceived as most severe. Together, our data suggest that rhyme violations in Limericks may induce an emotional response beyond mere anomaly detection

The (Non-)Effect of Unemployment Benefits:Variations in the effect of unemployment on life-satisfaction between EU countries

A negative effect of unemployment on subjective well-being has been demonstrated in many studies casting substantial doubt about assumptions of decisions of individuals to choose unemployment voluntarily as the utility-maximising option. These studies have been extended to take into account national-level context factors which have been shown to moderate the relationship between unemployment and life-satisfaction. So far most studies focussed mainly on economic indicators, although demographic and cultural differences between countries also affect how unemployment is perceived. An important variable that is not included in the majority of proper multilevel studies is the extent of unemployment benefits. Traditional micro-economic approaches argue that more extensive provisions should reduce the cost of unemployment and therefore reduce the motivation to regain employment—reflected in a reduction of the negative impact of unemployment. This study investigates this claim by using European Values Study data from all European Union countries and Norway as well as harmonised macroeconomic statistics from Eurostat. It finds that the effect of unemployment on life-satisfaction is indeed moderated by economic and demographic national-level factors, but not by unemployment benefits. To what extent unemployment reduces life-satisfaction varies greatly between countries, but appears to not be influenced by the extent of state unemployment provisions

To dash or to dawdle: verb-associated speed of motion influences eye movements during spoken sentence comprehension

In describing motion events verbs of manner provide information about the speed of agents or objects in those events. We used eye tracking to investigate how inferences about this verb-associated speed of motion would influence the time course of attention to a visual scene that matched an event described in language. Eye movements were recorded as participants heard spoken sentences with verbs that implied a fast (“dash”) or slow (“dawdle”) movement of an agent towards a goal. These sentences were heard whilst participants concurrently looked at scenes depicting the agent and a path which led to the goal object. Our results indicate a mapping of events onto the visual scene consistent with participants mentally simulating the movement of the agent along the path towards the goal: when the verb implies a slow manner of motion, participants look more often and longer along the path to the goal; when the verb implies a fast manner of motion, participants tend to look earlier at the goal and less on the path. These results reveal that event comprehension in the presence of a visual world involves establishing and dynamically updating the locations of entities in response to linguistic descriptions of events