Developmental trajectories of internally and externally driven temporal prediction

The ability to generate temporal prediction (TP) is fundamental to our survival since it allows us to selectively orient our attention in time in order to prioritize relevant environmental information. Studies on adult participants showed that externally and internally driven mechanisms can be engaged to establish TP, both resulting in better behavioural performance. However, few studies on children have investigated the ability to engage internally and externally driven TP, especially in relation to how these mechanisms change across development. In this study, 111 participants (88 children between six and eleven years of age, and 23 adults) were tested by means of a simple reaction time paradigm, in which temporal cueing and neutral conditions were orthogonally manipulated to induce externally and internally driven TP mechanisms, as well as an interaction between the two. Sequential effects (SEs) relative to both tasks were also investigated. Results showed that all children participating in the study were able to implement both external and internal TP in an independent fashion. However, children younger than eight years were not able to combine both strategies. Furthermore, in the temporal cueing blocks they did not show the typically-observed asymmetric SE pattern. These results suggest that children can flexibly use both external and internal TP mechanisms to optimise their behaviour, although their successful combined use develops only after eight years of age

Chapter Afterword. Notes on Rereading and Re-enacting “China”

In Europe, the historical representation and narration of China and the Orient more in general from an outsider’s point of view has conjured up an exotic and a-historical image of a poetical, mystical and refined civilization. In Walpole’s Britain, for example, “the argument from the Chinese”—namely, the admiration for a prosperous and densely populated kingdom which did not belong to a single faith—was frequently used in religious disputes when claiming a wider or more coherent policy of tolerance or seeking to cut down the prerogatives of the clerical hierarchies. This chapter explores further Western uses of "the argument from the Chinese" in modern times and through different media (Antonioni; Yanne; Martin)

Spatiotemporal Neurodynamics Underlying Internally and Externally Driven Temporal Prediction: A High Spatial Resolution ERP Study

Temporal prediction (TP) is a flexible and dynamic cognitive ability. Depending on the internal or external nature of information exploited to generate TP, distinct cognitive and brain mechanisms are engaged with the same final goal of reducing uncertainty about the future. In this study, we investigated the specific brain mechanisms involved in internally and externally driven TP. To this end, we employed an experimental paradigm purposely designed to elicit and compare externally and internally driven TP and a combined approach based on the application of a distributed source reconstruction modeling on a high spatial resolution electrophysiological data array. Specific spatiotemporal ERP signatures were identified, with significant modulation of contingent negative variation and frontal late sustained positivity in external and internal TP contexts, respectively. These different electrophysiological patterns were supported by the engagement of distinct neural networks, including a left sensorimotor and a prefrontal circuit for externally and internally driven TP, respectively

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, diet and gut microbiota

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a severe liver disease that is increasing in prevalence with the worldwide epidemic of obesity and its related insulin-resistance state. Evidence for the role of the gut microbiota in energy storage and the subsequent development of obesity and some of its related diseases is now well established. More recently, a new role of gut microbiota has emerged in NAFLD. The gut microbiota is involved in gut permeability, low-grade inflammation and immune balance, it modulates dietary choline metabolism, regulates bile acid metabolism and produces endogenous ethanol. All of these factors are molecular mechanisms by which the microbiota can induce NAFLD or its progression toward overt nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Modification of the gut microbiota composition and/or its biochemical capacity by specific dietary or pharmacological interventions may advantageously affect host metabolism. Large-scale intervention trials, investigating the potential benefit of prebiotics and probiotics in improving cardiometabolic health in high-risk populations, are fervently awaited

Introduction: The “Religious Other” through early modern eyes

The focus of Through Your Eyes is the (mostly Western) understanding, representation and self-critical appropriation of the ‘religious other’ between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Mutually constitutive processes of selfing/othering are observed through the lens of creedal Jews, a bhakti Brahmin, a widely translated Morisco historian, a collector of Western and Eastern singularia, Christian missionaries in Asia, critical converts, toleration theorists, and freethinkers, in other words by people dwelling in an ‘in-between’ space which undermines any binary conception of the Self and the Other. The volume had its genesis in exchanges between eight international scholars and the two editors, intellectual historian Giovanni Tarantino and anthropologist Paola von Wyss-Giacosa, who share an interest in comparatism, debates over toleration, and history of emotions

Challenges and Solutions for Musculoskeletal Disorders in Athletes

The etymology of the word “athlete” derives from the ancient Greek ἀθλητής (athletés, from âthlos that is, fight, competition) [...

Riflessioni a partire dall'"impronta ecologica" dell'intelligenza artificiale: cambiamento climatico e intertemporalità dei diritti fondamentali

ItL'IA può certamente aiutare a contrastare il cambiamento climatico, ma può contribuire anche ad amplificarlo. Con un approccio teorico filosofico-giuridico, nel primo paragrafo si rifletterà sull'utilità di possibili limiti etici per l'IA. Nel secondo sull'importanza del principio bioetico di beneficenza. Nel terzo sul fatto che anche l'IA ha una sua "impronta ecologica". Il quarto analizzerà le interconnessioni tra IA, tecnocrazia e cambiamento climatico. Nel quinto, conseguentemente, si sosterrà l'"intertemporalità" dei diritti fondamentali come argine al dilagare della tecnocrazia. Nell'ultimo si ribadirà l'utilità del rispetto dei principi di precauzione e responsabilità.EnAI can certainly help combat climate change, but it can also help amplify it. With a philosophical-juridical theoretical approach, in the first paragraph we will reflect on the usefulness of possible ethical limits for AI. In the second on the importance of the bioethical principle of charity. In the third, on the fact that AI also has its own "ecological footprint". The fourth will analyze the interconnections between AI, technocracy and climate change. In the fifth, consequently, the "intertemporality" of fundamental rights will be supported as a barrier to the spread of technocracy. In the last part, the usefulness of respecting the principles of precaution and responsibility will be reiterated

Su un rapporto armonico tra uomo e natura: una riflessione etico-giuridica

SOMMARIO: 1. Valore intrinseco della natura ed economia umana - 2. Caratteristiche e implicazioni delle teorie antropocentriche - 3. Sull’approccio antropocentrico dell’attuale declinazione giuridica della sostenibilità dell’agire scientifico nei confronti dell’ambiente e della vita, e sui suoi limiti - 4. Il principio dello sviluppo sostenibile - 5. Limitare lo sviluppo non significa impedirlo - 6. Sulla necessità di limiti per l’autonomia tecnocratica.On a harmonious relationship between man and nature: an ethical-juridical reflectionABSTRACT: The break in the harmonious relationship between man and nature has been evident for some decades now. This break is the consequence of the use of science and technology in the interest of only some, an approach that led to an exploitation of nature not respectful of its intrinsic value. Hence the technocracy. In fact, today we are witnessing the domination of the technocratic power, which has as its purpose the utility for those who manage it, in the absence of consideration of the damage that derives from the realization of profit. This latter position marries the anthropocentric conception in the relationship between man and nature and blows both the religious vision of this relationship, which entrusts man with power over nature, but also the duty to guard it, and the natural-evolutionary vision. Hence the need for a limitation of the autonomy of scientific action to effectively protect the ecosystem

Carlo Ginzburg and the Historian’s Craft: Questions and Remarks

Selected paper from the first edition of IinteR-La+b (the International Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences and the Balzan Foundation) held in Rome, at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 12–13 November 2012. Published in Giovanni Tarantino (ed.), “Our words, and theirs:” A conversation with Carlo Ginzburg on the historian’s craft, Cromohs 18 (2013)