Packaging: major factor in the marketing of food

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston Universit

The changing face of Parkinson's disease-associated psychosis: a cross-sectional study based on the new NINDS-NIMH criteria.

International audienceNew criteria for Parkinson's disease-associated psychosis (PDAP) were recently proposed by a NINDS-NIMH working group. We assessed 116 consecutive unselected outpatients with PD for the existence of psychotic symptoms during the previous month, using a structured questionnaire covering the whole spectrum of PDAP symptoms. Hallucinations occurred in 42% of the patients (visual: 16%; nonvisual: 35%), delusions in 4%, and minor symptoms in 45% (sense of presence, visual illusions, or passage hallucinations). The prevalence of PDAP was 43% when the usual definition was used (hallucinations and/or delusions) and 60% when the NINDS-NIHM criteria were used. Correlations between PDAP and patient characteristics varied with the definition of PDAP. These findings suggest that the epidemiology of PDAP should be re-evaluated with the new criteria. Minor symptoms and nonvisual hallucinations are an important part of the PDAP spectrum, which has commonly been restricted to visual hallucinations and delusions

Reseña de: La indianización. Cautivos, renegados, "hommes libres" y misioneros en los confines americanos (S. XVI-XIX), de Salvador Bernabéu, Christophe Giudicelli y Gilles Havard (coords.). Madrid, Doce Calles, 2012. 401 p. ISBN: 9788497441384

El libro La indianización. Cautivos, renegados, “hommes libres” y misioneros en los confines americanos (S. XVI-XIX) es una cuidada publicación en español y francés en la que contribuyen, además de sus coordinadores, una docena de investigadores de diversas universidades y centros de investigación europeos y americanos. El germen de esta obra colectiva fue el coloquio internacional organizado por Giudicelli, Bernabéu y Havard en la Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos (EEHA) de Sevilla en s..

Fête civilisée et fête policée dans les espaces urbains aux frontières méridionales du Chaco : cadres de dialogue culturel au XVIIIe siècle Civilized festivals and tamed festivities in the urban areas of the southern Chaco frontiers: spaces of cultural di

RESUMEN: Este artículo parte del análisis de las prácticas festivas civiles en el espacio urbano de la frontera austral del Chaco en el siglo XVIII para identificar las formas de participación nativa en las mismas, así como sus límites. El modo de entender la festividad en el ámbito hispano como un regocijo respetuoso con el orden social, urbano y político, chocaba con la percepción generalizada de que las festividades indígenas no eran más que borracheras desordenadas que era necesario eliminar o bien domesticar. A pesar de todo, estos espacios de intercambio cultural fueron escenario de apropiaciones y reinterpretaciones nativas de las prácticas festivas por las que se generaron nuevos significados que serán analizados.ABSTRACT: This article offers an analysis of civil festivals in the urban areas of the Chaco frontier in the 18th century and identifies the forms of native participation, as well as their limitations. In the Hispanic spheres, festivals were conceived as moments of collective joy with a profound respect of the social, urban and political orders. This model differed deeply from the widespread idea that indigenous festivities were mere expressions of collective drunkenness contrary to any social or moral order, and thus should be either eradicated or domesticated. This article will show that the Chaco southern frontiers were areas of intense cross-cultural exchanges where native appropriations and reinterpretations of Hispanic festive practices produced new meanings.Esta investigación es parte del proyecto postdoctoral “Contested frontiers in the upper Paraguay River in the 18th century: Portuguese, Spaniards and Chaco indigenous peoples” SFRH/BPD/121613/2016 financiado por la Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Asimismo, estos resultados se integran dentro del proyecto HAR2015-64014-C3-1-R (Culturas urbanas en la España Moderna) financiado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Gobierno de España y fondos europeos del programa FEDER

Waging war against the Devil in overseas worlds: 18th century mission frontiers in El Chaco and Paraná

Resumen: El análisis de las complejidades de las misiones del Chaco y el Paraná en el siglo XVIII permite reconstruir el alcance y límites de la acción misional así como de las circunstancias en que se concretó. También se analizan las limitaciones y adversidades que afrontaba aún a fines del periodo colonial español. Desde esta perspectiva se define la frontera misional en plural, mostrándose en variados ámbitos, desde los entornos urbanos hasta los confines del Chaco, permitiendo comprobar que encerraba tanto elementos de exclusión y conformación de bordes y límites, como espacios caracterizados por una porosidad social, interétnica y cultural. La misión, a pesar del proyecto de apostólico de aculturación religiosa que encerraba, se concretó como un espacio socialmente participado, utilizado, transformado e históricamente cambiante, que ejemplifica la hibridación o mestizaje cultural en entornos y contextos de frontera.Abstract: The analysis of the missionary experience in the 18th century Chaco and Paraná regions allows this reconstruction of the complexities of the Catholic project. Our study considers the limitations and adversities faced by the missionary enterprise in the end of the Spanish colonial period; this perspective contributes to the definition of the missionary frontier in plural terms that emerged in multiple contexts, ranging from urban areas to the upper Paraná. By considering this point, this article proves that the missionary frontier comprehended both exclusionary and limitative borders, and social, ethnical and cultural porosity. Catholic mission, in spite of the apostolic religious acculturation Project that enclosed, really was a changing and historically transformed social environment adapted to every social and cultural context, that exemplify cultural hybridization in frontier environments and contexts.Esta investigación ha sido realizada dentro del marco del proyecto de investigación ‘Policia’ e identidades urbanas en la España Moderna (HAR2009-13508-C02-01), financiado por el Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Dirección General de Universidades (IP: Tomás A. Mantecón Movellán) y coordinado con el proyecto Cultura e identidades urbanas en la España Moderna (HAR2009-13508-C02-02) (IP: Ofelia Rey Castelao)

Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Communication via Pointing

Communicative pointing is a human specific gesture which allows sharing information about a visual item with another person. It sets up a three-way relationship between a subject who points, an addressee and an object. Yet psychophysical and neuroimaging studies have focused on non-communicative pointing, which implies a two-way relationship between a subject and an object without the involvement of an addressee, and makes such gesture comparable to touching or grasping. Thus, experimental data on the communicating function of pointing remain scarce. Here, we examine whether the communicative value of pointing modifies both its behavioral and neural correlates by comparing pointing with or without communication. We found that when healthy participants pointed repeatedly at the same object, the communicative interaction with an addressee induced a spatial reshaping of both the pointing trajectories and the endpoint variability. Our finding supports the hypothesis that a change in reference frame occurs when pointing conveys a communicative intention. In addition, measurement of regional cerebral blood flow using H2O15 PET-scan showed that pointing when communicating with an addressee activated the right posterior superior temporal sulcus and the right medial prefrontal cortex, in contrast to pointing without communication. Such a right hemisphere network suggests that the communicative value of pointing is related to processes involved in taking another person's perspective. This study brings to light the need for future studies on communicative pointing and its neural correlates by unraveling the three-way relationship between subject, object and an addressee

Viewing another person's body as a target object: a behavioural and PET study of pointing.: Pointing at a person's body

International audienceHumans usually point at objects to communicate with other persons, although they generally avoid pointing at the other's body. Moreover, patients with heterotopagnosia after left parietal damage cannot point at another person's body parts, although they can point at objects and at their own body parts and although they can grasp the others' body parts. Strikingly, their performance gradually improves for figurative human body targets. Altogether, this suggests that the body of another real person holds a specific status in communicative pointing. Here, we test in healthy individuals whether performance for communicative pointing is influenced by the communicative capacity of the target. In Experiment 1, pointing at another real person's body parts was compared to pointing at objects, and in Experiment 2, the person was replaced by a manikin. While reaction times for pointing at objects were shorter compared to pointing at other person's body parts, they were similar for objects and manikin body parts. By adapting Experiment 1 to PET-scan imaging (Experiment 3), we showed that, compared to pointing at objects, the brain network for pointing at other person's body parts involves the left posterior intraparietal sulcus, lesion of which could cause heterotopagnosia. Taken together, our results indicate that the specificity of pointing at another person's body goes beyond the visuo-spatial features of the human body and might rather rely on its communicative capacity

How to Capitalize on the Retest Effect in Future Trials on Huntington's Disease.

The retest effect-improvement of performance on second exposure to a task-may impede the detection of cognitive decline in clinical trials for neurodegenerative diseases. We assessed the impact of the retest effect in Huntington's disease trials, and investigated its possible neutralization. We enrolled 54 patients in the Multicentric Intracerebral Grafting in Huntington's Disease (MIG-HD) trial and 39 in the placebo arm of the Riluzole trial in Huntington's Disease (RIL-HD). All were assessed with the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) plus additional cognitive tasks at baseline (A1), shortly after baseline (A2) and one year later (A3). We used paired t-tests to analyze the retest effect between A1 and A2. For each task of the MIG-HD study, we used a stepwise algorithm to design models predictive of patient performance at A3, which we applied to the RIL-HD trial for external validation. We observed a retest effect in most cognitive tasks. A decline in performance at one year was detected in 3 of the 15 cognitive tasks with A1 as the baseline, and 9 of the 15 cognitive tasks with A2 as the baseline. We also included the retest effect in performance modeling and showed that it facilitated performance prediction one year later for 14 of the 15 cognitive tasks. The retest effect may mask cognitive decline in patients with neurodegenerative diseases. The dual baseline can improve clinical trial design, and better prediction should homogenize patient groups, resulting in smaller numbers of participants being required