Digital Death

This paper reflexively unpicks digital ethnographic methods employed during ongoing online fieldwork on ‘digital deaths’. To do so, this research delves into the digital afterlife, exploring the fate of online traces and social media profiles after death, and how social media has changed our relationship with death and grieving. Anthropological studies of online death and grief faced new challenges even before COVID-19 moved research projects online. These include shared vulnerabilities and the ethnographer’s position, online field sites, omnipresent online traces and posthumous personhood, and ethical  algorithms and duty to the dead. By transparently detailing my research methods whilst conducting research with Facebook and Instagram users navigating loss, this article contributes an honest and extensive debate on processes, challenges, ethics, and research collaboration. Guided by visual and media anthropology, I advocate for a set of methods rooted in shared anthropology (Rouch 1995) which fosters ongoing dialogue with participants. Thus, this article offers a new perspective on digital death, rooted in collaborative storytelling and reflexive methodologies, facilitating discussions on a still-contentious subject in certain societies. Leveraging the benefits of digital ethnography’s multi-sited nature, the research widens its geographical reach and comments on the sociocultural impacts of digital death. Keywords: digital afterlife, digital death, digital ethnography, social media, reflexive ethnography, shared anthropology, grief, methodolog

Longitudinal Change in Knee Cartilage Thickness and Function in Subjects with and without MRI-Diagnosed Cartilage Damage

Objective Cartilage damage diagnosed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is highly prevalent in the population. In this article, we explore whether such cartilage damage is associated with greater longitudinal change in 3D cartilage thickness and knee function in subjects without (risk factors of) knee osteoarthritis. Design Eighty-two knees of Osteoarthritis Initiative healthy reference cohort participants had baseline and 4-year follow-up MRI and knee function data. Baseline presence of semiquantitatively assessed MRI-based cartilage damage (MOAKS [MRI Osteoarthritis Knee Score] ≥ grade 1.0) was recorded by an experienced radiologist. Longitudinal femorotibial cartilage thickness change was determined after segmentation, using location-independent methodology. Knee function was evaluated by patient-reported outcomes and functional performance measures. Statistical comparisons included analysis of covariance adjusting for age, sex, and body mass index. Results Forty-five percent of the participants had cartilage damage in at least one femorotibial subregion; the cartilage thickness change score was 15% greater in participants with than in those without damage (1216 ± 434 vs. 1058 ± 277 µm). This difference reached borderline statistical significance with and without adjustment for age, sex, and body mass index (P = 0.05). No significant differences in the change of patient-reported outcomes of knee function (PASE [physical activity score of the elderly] and WOMAC [Western Ontario McMaster Osteoarthritis Index]) or chair stand test results were detected. Of those without femorotibial damage, 58% had cartilage damage in at least one femoropatellar subregion; these had a 9% greater femorotibial cartilage change score than those without femoropatellar or femorotibial damage (difference not statistically significant). Conclusions In the absence of osteoarthritis risk factors, semiquantitatively assessed MRI-based cartilage damage appears to be associated with greater longitudinal location-independent femorotibial cartilage thickness changes, but not with greater functional deteriorations

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Corticostriatal afferents can engage parvalbumin-expressing (PV+) interneurons to rapidly curtail the activity of striatal projection neurons (SPNs), thus shaping striatal output. Schemes of basal ganglia circuit dynamics generally consider striatal PV+ interneurons to be homogenous, despite considerable heterogeneity in both form and function. We demonstrate that the selective co-expression of another calcium-binding protein, secretagogin (Scgn), separates PV+ interneurons in rat and primate striatum into two topographically-, physiologically- and structurally-distinct cell populations. In rats, these two interneuron populations differed in their firing rates, patterns and relationships with cortical oscillations in vivo. Moreover, the axons of identified PV+/Scgn+ interneurons preferentially targeted the somata of SPNs of the so-called ‘direct pathway’, whereas PV+/Scgn- interneurons preferentially targeted ‘indirect pathway’ SPNs. These two populations of interneurons could therefore provide a substrate through which either of the striatal output pathways can be rapidly and selectively inhibited to subsequently mediate the expression of behavioral routines

Is the European Union ready for foreign direct investment from emerging markets?

This chapter asks whether the European Union Member States are ready for inward Foreign Direct Investment from the Emerging Markets. It concludes that European Union Member States have relatively open Foreign Direct Investment regimes in the international context, and yet instances of protectionism have been apparent in the recent period. However, protectionism has occurred both vis-a-vis Foreign Direct Investment from the Global South as well as from within the European Union, particularly in the so-called 'strategic' industries

The Dynamics of Managerial Ideology: Analyzing the Cuban Case

After the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe, management researchers devoted considerable energy to investigate ways to smooth transition to market economies. But one country of the former Soviet bloc, Cuba resisted transition and reaffirmed loyalty to communism. Little is known about management in Cuba on the managerial impacts of the combination of two major environmental forces: the American embargo and the Soviet Union collapse, both of which have challenged the sustainability of the communist regime. This study intends to approach one particular aspect of management in Cuba: the relationship between national ideology and management practice. To analyze these topics, direct qualitative data from focus groups with Cuban managers and management professors was obtained and complemented with documentary analysis. Results suggest that the dynamics of managerial ideology can be understood as the interplay of several processes operating at distinct levels: institutional, professional, organizational and individual. The study provides a nested, multi-level understanding of management and organization as parts of a wider institutional context, which is both a source of constraint and a non-tangible resource to be used by ideological bricoleurs. The interplay between the acceptance of ideology and its use as a practical resource is a potential source of change. As such, the same professional class (managers) may be both a source of continuity and a trigger of change - a finding that is line with institutional theory’s claim that it is necessary to understand both institutionalization and de-institutionalization for understanding organizational change and continuity.N/

Cholinergic Interneurons Are Differentially Distributed in the Human Striatum

BACKGROUND: The striatum (caudate nucleus, CN, and putamen, Put) is a group of subcortical nuclei involved in planning and executing voluntary movements as well as in cognitive processes. Its neuronal composition includes projection neurons, which connect the striatum with other structures, and interneurons, whose main roles are maintaining the striatal organization and the regulation of the projection neurons. The unique electrophysiological and functional properties of the cholinergic interneurons give them a crucial modulating function on the overall striatal response. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPLE FINDINGS: This study was carried out using stereological methods to examine the volume and density (cells/mm(3)) of these interneurons, as visualized by choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) immunoreactivity, in the following territories of the CN and Put of nine normal human brains: 1) precommissural head; 2) postcommissural head; 3) body; 4) gyrus and 5) tail of the CN; 6) precommissural and 7) postcommissural Put. The distribution of ChAT interneurons was analyzed with respect to the topographical, functional and chemical territories of the dorsal striatum. The CN was more densely populated by cholinergic neurons than the Put, and their density increased along the anteroposterior axis of the striatum with the CN body having the highest neuronal density. The associative territory of the dorsal striatum was by far the most densely populated. The striosomes of the CN precommissural head and the postcommissural Put contained the greatest number of ChAT-ir interneurons. The intrastriosomal ChAT-ir neurons were abundant on the periphery of the striosomes throughout the striatum. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: All these data reveal that cholinergic interneurons are differentially distributed in the distinct topographical and functional territories of the human dorsal striatum, as well as in its chemical compartments. This heterogeneity may indicate that the posterior aspects of the CN require a special integration of information by interneurons. Interestingly, these striatal regions have been very much left out in functional studies