Path Integration Changes as a Cognitive Marker for Vascular Cognitive Impairment?—A Pilot Study

Path integration spatial navigation processes are emerging as promising cognitive markers for prodromal and clinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, such path integration changes have been less explored in Vascular Cognitive Impairment (VCI), despite neurovascular change being a major contributing factor to dementia and potentially AD. In particular, the sensitivity and specificity of path integration impairments in VCI compared to AD is unclear. In the current pilot study, we explore path integration performance in early-stage AD and VCI patient groups and hypothesize that: (i) medial parietal mediated egocentric processes will be more affected in VCI; and (ii) medial temporal mediated allocentric processes will be more affected in AD. This cross-sectional study included early-stage VCI patients (n = 9), AD patients (n = 10) and healthy age-matched controls (n = 20). All participants underwent extensive neuropsychological testing, as well as spatial navigation testing. The spatial navigation tests included the virtual reality “Supermarket” task assessing egocentric (body-based) and allocentric (map-based) navigation as well as the “Clock Orientation” test assessing egocentric and path integration processes. Results showed that egocentric integration processes are only impaired in VCI, potentially distinguishing it from AD. However, in contrast to our prediction, allocentric integration was not more impaired in AD compared to VCI. These preliminary findings suggest limited specificity of allocentric integration deficits between VCI and AD. By contrast, egocentric path integration deficits emerge as more specific to VCI, potentially allowing for more specific diagnostic and treatment outcome measures for vascular impairment in dementia

Structural Equation Modelling: Guidelines for Determining Model Fit

The following paper presents current thinking and research on fit indices for structural equation modelling. The paper presents a selection of fit indices that are widely regarded as the most informative indices available to researchers. As well as outlining each of these indices, guidelines are presented on their use. The paper also provides reporting strategies of these indices and concludes with a discussion on the future of fit indices

Exploring new connections between the physical and digital for future heritage interpretations

New forms of connections between information and the physical world create opportunities for novel activities around heritage. This paper analyses a technological progression from linking data and content to locations, towards data captured by and linked to everyday objects. The former is exemplified by a study which explored community-based inquiry activities at a historical cemetery site. To explore the latter, we are developing a series of scenarios and visualisations to analyse peoples’ interpretations of contextual footprints – current and historical data gathered through the Internet of Things

Geospatial Analysis of Environmental Risk Factors for Missing Dementia Patients

BACKGROUND: Dementia-related missing incidents are highly prevalent but still poorly understood. This is particularly true for environmental/geospatial risk factors, which might contribute to these missing incidents. OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to conduct a retrospective, observational analysis on a large sample of missing dementia patient case records provided by the police (n = 210), covering dates from January 2014 to December 2017. In particular, we wanted to explore 1) whether there were any hotspot regions of missing incidents and 2) the relationship between outdoor landmark density and missing incidents. METHODS: Global spatial autocorrelation (Moran's I) was used to identify the potential hotspot regions for missing incidents. Meanwhile, spatial buffer and regression modelling were used to determine the relationship between outdoor landmark density and missing incidents. RESULTS: Our demographics measures replicated and extended previous studies of dementia-related missing incidents. Meanwhile, no hotspot regions for missing incidents were identified, while higher outdoor landmark density led to increased missing incidents. CONCLUSION: Our results highlight that missing incidents do not occur in isolated hotspots of regions but instead are endemic in patients regardless of location. Higher outdoor landmark density emerges as a significant geospatial factor for missing incidents in dementia, which crucially informs future safeguarding/intervention studies

Indoor Air Quality Analysis in Oakridge Oregon

Single page posterClimate change and intense fire seasons in Oregon have worsened air quality, posing health risks to residents. Low cost PM2.5 sensors monitor indoor air quality in Oakridge, Oregon. Many homes received interventions to improve indoor air quality. This study evaluates these interventions' effectiveness and examines the relationship between outdoor and indoor air quality before and after the interventions. We used statistical methods to analyze the data and present preliminary results of this air quality analysis.This research is supported by the Ecosystem Workforce Program at the University of Oregon through a grant from the Lane Regional Protection Agency as part of the Environmental Protection Agency 2021 Targeted Airshed Program (TAG2), under intergovernmental agreement number LRAPA 22-05-01 TAG2

ERRAKINA: PASTORAL FIRE USE AND LANDSCAPE MEMORY IN THE BASQUE REGION OF THE FRENCH WESTERN PYRENEES

People in the French Western Pyrenees have used fire for millennia in order to shape and manage landscapes. This history has left cultural and ecological legacies that both reflect and ensure the relative persistence of landscape patterns and processes. In this paper I draw on ethnographic research, ethnohistorical evidence, and Bayesian spatial analyses of historical fire use locations and land use maps to shed some light on human-firelandscape dynamics in the Pyrenees for the years 1830 to 2011. I show how cultural and ecological legacies reflect a self-organized fire management regime that emerges from fire use driven by the production goals of individual households. I frame the self-organizing dynamic inherent in Pyrenean pastoral fire use as ''landscape memory.'' This conclusion has implications for the future direction of fire-related conservation policy for the Pyrenees and for analogous systems characterized by self-organized land management regimes. Key words: fire use, fire management, historical ecology, landscape memory, French Western Pyrenees Dans les Pyrénées occidentales françaises, le feu est utilisé depuis des millénaires pour la gestion des paysages. Cette histoire a laissé un héritage culturel et écologique qui se reflète dans les paysages actuels et qui garantit leur persistance relative. Dans cet article, je m'appuie sur des recherches ethnographiques et ethnohistoriques, sur des analyses spatiales bayésiennes du feu pastoral ainsi que sur des cartes d'usages des sols pour éclairer les relations entre anthropisation, feu et paysage dans les Pyrénées entre 1830 et 2011. Je démontre comment cet héritage culturel et écologique reflète un régime de feu auto-géré. Ce régime se caractérise par une utilisation du feu motivée par les objectifs de production des fermes. Je montre comment cette auto-gestion inhérente à la pratique du feu pastoral a contribué à la formation d'une « mémoire du paysage » dans les Pyrénées. Cette conclusion a des implications pour l'orientation future des politiques de conservation associées au feu dans les Pyrénées, ainsi que pour d'autres systèmes également caractérisés par des régimes auto-gérés

Self-inquiry: Comparing Plato and Patanjali

At its most effective my research hopes to re-affirm the central value and importance of self-inquiry. That is, I hope to echo the familiar call of the wise to know thyself. Of the many mouths and temple walls that have lent authority to this precept there is perhaps no mouth more important than one’s own. To know thyself is the task and responsibility of the individual. In order to arrive at the point where I can re-affirm its value I explore the nature of self-inquiry with the help of Plato, Patanjali and a comparison between them. I propose two general senses in which we might understand self-inquiry and seek to bring out the core problems faced by each. We find an account of these two senses and the relationship between them in both Plato and Patanjali, so too, though less obviously, in the comparison between them. The comparison provides the opportunity for reflecting on the ground that it moves from and depends on, the common ground we assume between the two compared philosophers/ies. I contend that this ground is ultimately the comparer, one’s self. The consequence is that the comparative project and the project of self-inquiry both meet and are mutually beneficial. The three together; Plato, Patanjali, and the comparison between them help us account for nature of self-inquiry in helping us to better understand the relationship between the two senses in which we can come to understand and think about it. In the first sense, self-inquiry is cast as the examination of one’s life. In the second sense, we are invited to consider the possibility of an unmediated knowing of the examiner, an unmediated self-knowing. With a better understanding of what self-inquiry is I stand to conclude by re-affirming its value.Thesis (MPhil) -- Faculty of Humanities, Philosophy, 202

Memory precision of object-location binding is unimpaired in <i>APOE</i> ε4-carriers with spatial navigation deficits.

Funder: Wellcome TrustResearch suggests that tests of memory fidelity, feature binding and spatial navigation are promising for early detection of subtle behavioural changes related to Alzheimer's disease. In the absence of longitudinal data, one way of testing the early detection potential of cognitive tasks is through the comparison of individuals at different genetic risk for Alzheimer's dementia. Most studies have done so using samples aged 70 years or older. Here, we tested whether memory fidelity of long-term object-location binding may be a sensitive marker even among cognitively healthy individuals in their mid-60s by comparing participants at low and higher risk based on presence of the ε4-allele of the apolipoprotein gene (n = 26 ε3ε3, n = 20 ε3ε4 carriers). We used a continuous report paradigm in a visual memory task that required participants to recreate the spatial position of objects in a scene. We employed mixture modelling to estimate the two distinct memory processes that underpin the trial-by-trial variation in localization errors: retrieval success which indexes the proportion of trials where participants recalled any information about an object's position and the precision with which participants retrieved this information. Prior work has shown that these memory paradigms that separate retrieval success from precision are capable of detecting subtle differences in mnemonic fidelity even when retrieval success could not. Nonetheless, Bayesian analyses found good evidence that ε3ε4 carriers did not remember fewer object locations [F(1, 42) = 0.450, P = 0.506, BF01 = 3.02], nor was their precision for the spatial position of objects reduced compared to ε3ε3 carriers [F(1, 42) = 0.12, P = 0.726, BF01 = 3.19]. Because the participants in the sample presented here were a subset of a study on apolipoprotein ε4-carrier status and spatial navigation in the Sea Hero Quest game [Coughlan et al., 2019. PNAS, 116(9)], we obtained these data to contrast genetic effects on the two tasks within the same sample (n = 33). Despite the smaller sample size, wayfinding deficits among ε3ε4 carriers could be replicated [F(1, 33) = 5.60, P = 0.024, BF10 = 3.44]. Object-location memory metrics and spatial navigation scores were not correlated (all r P > 0.1, 0 10 < 3). These findings show spared object-location binding in the presence of a detrimental apolipoprotein ε4 effect on spatial navigation. This suggests that the sensitivity of memory fidelity and binding tasks may not extend to individuals with one ε4-allele in their early to mid-60s. The results provide further support to prior proposals that spatial navigation may be a sensitive marker for the earliest cognitive changes in Alzheimer's disease, even before episodic memory

Oregon Department of Forestry's Landscape Resiliency Program : assessing the project selection process for the 2021-2023 biennium

35 pagesThe Oregon Department of Forestry’s (ODF) Landscape Resiliency Program (LRP) is a grant program to support cross-boundary restoration of landscape resiliency and fuels reduction within Oregon. In fall 2021, ODF requested the Ecosystem Workforce Program (EWP) at the University of Oregon (UO) devise and carry out a plan for monitoring investments and outcomes of the LRP. LRP monitoring focuses on three stages– Project Selection, Implementation, and Outcomes. The purpose of this working paper is to report the results of the Project Selection monitoring phase. This report presents 1) stakeholders’ experiences with the LRP program development, application process, and project selection, 2) characterization of grantee organizations, and 3) characterization of project geographies.Funding for this study was provided by the Oregon Department of Forestry to the University of Oregon’s Ecosystem Workforce Program (Agreement number M0177, Task order #5)