Effects of Income Inequality on Economic Growth

Economic growth reflects the change in the overall well-being of a country and the standard of living of its population. It is important to understand what factors affect economic growth. This thesis hypothesizes that income inequality negatively affects growth. A country-level data set of 114 countries for 2000 and 2005 is used to estimate a growth model. The dependent variable, the five year average of economic growth per capita, is regressed on a set of standard factors (human capital, investment, and technology), institutional factors (political stability, corruption, and property rights), income inequality, and demographic factors (gender equality and racial diversity). The model also includes lag of per capita income to capture convergence. Regression results indicate that income inequality hurts economic growth, and that countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa perform poorly compared to East Asia and Pacific. To reduce inequality and promote growth, countries could improve education and make taxes more progressive. Country-specific case study reveals that the Chinese government attempts to solve income inequality between rural and urban populations largely through taxes and subsidies. Argentina, on the other hand, still struggles to reduce its high level of income inequality

Face processing improvements in prosopagnosia: successes and failures over the last 50 years

Clinicians and researchers have widely believed that face processing cannot be improved in prosopagnosia. Though more than a dozen reported studies have attempted to enhance face processing in prosopagnosics over the last 50 years, evidence for effective treatment approaches has only begun to emerge. Here, we review the current literature on spontaneous recovery in acquired prosopagnosia (AP), as well as treatment attempts in acquired and developmental prosopagnosia (DP), differentiating between compensatory and remedial approaches. We find that for AP, rather than remedial methods, strategic compensatory training such as verbalizing distinctive facial features has shown to be the most effective approach (despite limited evidence of generalization). In children with DP, compensatory training has also shown some effectiveness. In adults with DP, two recent larger-scale studies, one using remedial training and another administering oxytocin, have demonstrated group-level improvements and evidence of generalization. These results suggest that DPs, perhaps because of their more intact face processing infrastructure, may benefit more from treatments targeting face processing than APs

Approaching Injury and Violence Prevention through Public Health Policy: A Window of Opportunity to Renew Our Focus

[West J Emerg Med. 2011;12(3):271-272.

Network Changes in the Transition from Initial Learning to Well-Practiced Visual Categorization

Visual categorization is a remarkable ability that allows us to effortlessly identify objects and efficiently respond to our environment. The neural mechanisms of how visual categories become well-established are largely unknown. Studies of initial category learning implicate a network of regions that include inferior temporal cortex (ITC), medial temporal lobe (MTL), basal ganglia (BG), premotor cortex (PMC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC). However, how these regions change with extended learning is poorly characterized. To understand the neural changes in the transition from initially learned to well-practiced categorization, we used functional MRI and compared brain activity and functional connectivity when subjects performed an initially learned categorization task (100 trials of training) and a well-practiced task (4250 trials of training). We demonstrate that a similar network is implicated for initially learned and well-practiced categorization. Additionally, connectivity analyses reveal an increased coordination between ITC, MTL, and PMC when making category judgments during the well-practiced task. These results suggest that category learning involves an increased coordination between a distributed network of regions supporting retrieval and representation of categories

Identity and the Couple Relationship: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Women's Experiences of Caring for a Partner with Dementia

Within an ageing population, the number of people with dementia is rapidly increasing. Dementia is considered a global health issue affecting 44 million people worldwide (Alzheimer’s Research UK, 2015). Due to an increase in the prevalence of dementia, the number of informal caregivers is also rising, with life-partners most commonly taking on this role and facing the transition into a caregiving relationship (Balfour, 2014). Historically, research has predominantly focused upon caregiver stress and burden and the biomedical model of dementia has prevailed (McGovern, 2011). Both of these approaches overlook relational and experiential lived experiences of dementia. This thesis aimed to understand the lived experience of caring for a partner with dementia, focusing on the impact upon the intimate relationship and identity of the person caring. Six women who were caring for their partner with dementia were interviewed and photographs were incorporated into the interview. The transcripts were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and three superordinate themes were developed: ‘Loss and the Emergence of a New Present’; ‘Navigating a New Reality’ and ‘Becoming Devoured for Caring’. The findings revealed the gradual loss and decline of a familiar relationship and partner through which a new partner and relationship emerged. The women were simultaneously experiencing loss whilst attempting to adapt to a new reality, which was challenging to adjust to and resulted in a complex array of feelings. Relationship roles were destabilised resulting in a lack of reciprocity and the familiar intimacy of the past was disrupted with a particular loss of sexual intimacy. In order to cope with their confusing and complex experience the participants tended to engage in a number of strategies, for example blaming their partner for their new behaviour and underplaying their overwhelming emotions. The women experienced a conflict between attempting to maintain aspects of their previous identity and gradually becoming submerged by caring for their partner. Participants tended to feel obliged to take on the caring role and perceived caring their duty as a wife, often resulting in a consumed and isolated position where their own identities disappeared as much as their partners’. A number of important clinical implications have arisen from this research. Firstly, it seems significant for professionals to provide a containing space for caregivers to understand their defences/coping mechanisms, acknowledge their complex emotions and process loss. The aim would be to provide a space where feelings can be explored, perhaps leading caregivers to feel less overwhelmed and more able to adapt to their significant change (Auclair, Epstein, & Mittleman, 2009). The Dementia Grief Model (Blandin & Pepe, 2015) is a theoretical model of dementia grief which is significant for the findings of this research and provides a framework for professionals. It acknowledges dementia related grief as a unique experience and highlights particular therapeutic interventions that are specific to working with dementia grief, for example tolerating difficult feelings and behavioural adaptations (Blandin & Pepe, 2015) that are relevant for the findings of this research. Furthermore, it seems pertinent for services to support couples to adjust to change and maintain a continued sense of relatedness, enabling significant relationships to continue (McGovern, 2015). Supporting couples to co-construct new ways of connecting/relating allows for a redefinition of dementia by nurturing what remains, as well as acknowledging what has been lost (McGovern, 2011). Additionally, it is crucial for professionals to support caregivers to maintain alternative identities outside of the caring role. It does not seem adequate to support partners solely in their role as ‘carer’ but to help them maintain a sense of self-identity in order to prevent the consumption and isolation that was highlighted in this research. Finally, it is vital that Counselling Psychologists challenge the existing dominant discourses that exist within dementia care of decline, despair and burden to promote new understandings. Challenging dominant discourses could have significant impact upon how future dementia care services are implemented and the findings of this research contribute towards the argument for services and professionals to prioritise experiential and relational experiences of caregivers and couples living with dementia

Sustained attention training reduces spatial bias in Parkinson’s disease: a pilot case series

Individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD) commonly demonstrate lateralized spatial biases, which affect daily functioning. Those with PD with initial motor symptoms on the left body side (LPD) have reduced leftward attention, whereas PD with initial motor symptoms on the right side (RPD) may display reduced rightward attention. We investigated whether a sustained attention training program could help reduce these spatial biases. Four non-demented individuals with PD (2 LPD, 2 RPD) performed a visual search task before and after 1 month of computer training. Before training, all participants showed a significant spatial bias and after training, all participants’ spatial bias was eliminated.Published versio

Tonic and Phasic Alertness Training: A Novel Behavioral Therapy to Improve Spatial and Non-Spatial Attention in Patients with Hemispatial Neglect

Hemispatial neglect is a debilitating disorder marked by a constellation of spatial and non-spatial attention deficits. Patients’ alertness deficits have shown to interact with lateralized attention processes and correspondingly, improving tonic/general alertness as well as phasic/moment-to-moment alertness has shown to ameliorate spatial bias. However, improvements are often short-lived and inconsistent across tasks and patients. In an attempt to more effectively activate alertness mechanisms by exercising both tonic and phasic alertness, we employed a novel version of a continuous performance task (tonic and phasic alertness training, TAPAT). Using a between-subjects longitudinal design and employing sensitive outcome measures of spatial and non-spatial attention, we compared the effects of 9 days of TAPAT (36 min/day) in a group of patients with chronic neglect (N = 12) with a control group of chronic neglect patients (N = 12) who simply waited during the same training period. Compared to the control group, the group trained on TAPAT significantly improved on both spatial and non-spatial measures of attention with many patients failing to exhibit a lateralized attention bias at the end of training. TAPAT was effective for patients with a range of behavioral profiles and lesions, suggesting that its effectiveness may rely on distributed or lower-level attention mechanisms that are largely intact in patients with neglect. In a follow-up experiment, to determine if TAPAT is more effective in improving spatial attention than an active treatment that directly trains spatial attention, we trained three chronic neglect patients on both TAPAT and search training. In all three patients, TAPAT training was more effective in improving spatial attention than search training suggesting that, in chronic neglect, training alertness is a more effective treatment approach than directly training spatial attention

Logika, kalba, filosofija

1976 m. gegužės mėnesį Vilniaus universitete vyko simpoziumas „Loginės ir metodologinės kalbos analizės problemos“. Jame dalyvavo mokslininkai iš šalies ir kai kurių užsienio aukštųjų mokyklų ir mokslo įstaigų. Perskaityti pranešimai apie loginių tyrinėjimų istoriją Lietuvoje, mokslo kalbos ir natūraliųjų kalbų santykį, ontologines prielaidas logikoje, galimų pasaulio semantikos problemas, modalinių sąvokų vaidmenį loginėje kalbos analizėje, konceptualinę sistemą ir natūraliosios kalbos semantiką, dialektinio mąstymo loginę analizę, kalbinės komunikacijos ir kalbinio mąstymo ribas, nagrinėti reikšmės, metaforos klausimai, matematinių modelių taikymas pasakų analizei ir kita

Impacts of Store Trust Antecedents on Willingness to Disclose Personal Data in Online Shopping

Personal data disclosure is crucially important to modern business, and specifically – to online stores. It is largely predicted by the willingness to disclose personal data that significantly varies among emerging economies due to impacts of numerous factors. One of the important factors that impacts willingness to disclose personal data in online shopping is trust in an online store. However, the importance of trust in a store partly occurs because it mediates effects of other antecedents. This study conceptualizes three groups of important antecedents: personal, infrastructural and store-related factors. The study tests indirect effects of the most typical factors from each group: general trust (personal factor), legal regulations (infrastructural factor) and presence of an off-line selling channel in addition to the online channel offered by a store (e-store factor) on willingness to disclose personal data online. The findings show that all these factors, mediated by store trust, have significant positive effects on willingness to disclose personal data. The findings contribute to the knowledge of the groups of factors that impact willingness to disclose personal data online and help to set directions for future research.Acknowledgement: this project has received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), Agreement No S-MIP-19-1