1,818 research outputs found
Keeping your eye on the rail: gaze behaviour of horse riders approaching a jump
The gaze behaviour of riders during their approach to a jump was investigated using a mobile eye tracking device (ASL Mobile Eye). The timing, frequency and duration of fixations on the jump and the percentage of time when their point of gaze (POG) was located elsewhere were assessed. Fixations were identified when the POG remained on the jump for 100 ms or longer. The jumping skill of experienced but non-elite riders (n=10) was assessed by means of a questionnaire. Their gaze behaviour was recorded as they completed a course of three identical jumps five times. The speed and timing of the approach was calculated. Gaze behaviour throughout the overall approach and during the last five strides before take-off was assessed following frame-by-frame analyses. Differences in relation to both round and jump number were found. Significantly longer was spent fixated on the jump during round 2, both during the overall approach and during the last five strides (p , 0.05). Jump 1 was fixated on significantly earlier and more frequently than jump 2 or 3 (p , 0.05). Significantly more errors were made with jump 3 than with jump 1 (p=0.01) but there was no difference in errors made between rounds
Global dimensions for the recognition of prototypical urban roads in large-scale vector topographic maps
CISRG discussion paper ; 1
THE IMPACT OF MEXICOâS LAND REFORM ON PERIURBAN HOUSING PRODUCTION: Neoliberal or Neocorporatist?
Changes to Mexico's Constitution in the 1990s marked the end of agrarian reform and the Revolutionary land regime which had allowed beneficiaries to work but not to sell their land. New legislation allowed individual parcels of ejido land to be converted into private property. Many observers link this âprivatizationâ with a transformation of the periurban landscape resulting from private developersâ construction of mass âsocial housingâ developments: a classic example of neoliberal urbanism. We examine evidence for the Mexico City Metropolitan Area, finding that, although some developments do occupy former ejido land, developers mostly prefer private property, including former haciendas. Private sector interests are wary of the ejido for reasons that stem from its place in the corporatist political system that characterized twentiethâcentury Mexico, and the patchwork of privatized individual parcels clashes with developersâ land acquisition strategies. Ejidatarios often prefer to retain control over their land, selling plots piecemeal. Our findings demonstrate the continuing significance of urban informalityâon a scale that exceeds the development of ejido land for formal housingâand the intertwining of formal and informal. We interpret these interrelated processes of housing production as legacies of corporatism, underlining the significance of political influences on Latin American neoliberalism
Training flexibility in fixed expressions in non-fluent aphasia: A case series report
Background:
Many speakers with non-fluent aphasia (NFA) are able to produce some well-formed word combinations such as âI like itâ or âI don't knowâ, although they may not use variations such as âHe likes itâ or âI don't know that personâ. This suggests that these utterances represent fixed forms.
Aims:
This case series investigation explored the impact of a novel intervention aimed at enhancing the connected speech of individuals with NFA. The intervention, motivated by usage-based principles, involved filling open slots in semi-fixed sentence frames.
Methods & Procedures:
Five participants with NFA completed a 6-week intervention programme. The intervention trained participants to insert a range of different lexical items into the open slots of high-frequency phrases such as âI like itâ to enable more productive sentences (e.g., âthey like flowersâ). The outcomes and acceptability were examined: The primary outcome measure focused on changes in connected narrative, and the availability of trained constructions (e.g., âI like itâ) was explored through a story completion test. Two baseline measures of behaviour were taken prior to intervention, and outcomes assessed immediately after intervention and at a 6-week maintenance assessment.
Outcome & Results:
A pre-/post-treatment comparison of connected speech measures showed evidence of enhanced connected speech for two of the five participants (P2 and P5). An analysis of story completion test scores revealed positive change for two participants (P1 and P2). Findings were mixed with regard to baseline stability of outcome measures and post-intervention stability of language changes. The intervention was acceptable to all participants.
Conclusion & Implications:
While this pilot study yielded promising findings with regard to the intervention's acceptability and increased connected speech for some participants, the findings were mixed across the sample of five participants. This research helps inform hypotheses and selection criteria for future studies
Using multi-word utterances more creatively in non-fluent aphasia: Findings from a case series investigation
Dynamics of a map with power-law tail
We analyze a one-dimensional piecewise continuous discrete model proposed
originally in studies on population ecology. The map is composed of a linear
part and a power-law decreasing piece, and has three parameters. The system
presents both regular and chaotic behavior. We study numerically and, in part,
analytically different bifurcation structures. Particularly interesting is the
description of the abrupt transition order-to-chaos mediated by an attractor
made of an infinite number of limit cycles with only a finite number of
different periods. It is shown that the power-law piece in the map is at the
origin of this type of bifurcation. The system exhibits interior crises and
crisis-induced intermittency.Comment: 28 pages, 17 figure
Agrammatic but numerate
A central question in cognitive neuroscience concerns the extent to
which language enables other higher cognitive functions. In the
case of mathematics, the resources of the language faculty, both
lexical and syntactic, have been claimed to be important for exact
calculation, and some functional brain imaging studies have shown
that calculation is associated with activation of a network of
left-hemisphere language regions, such as the angular gyrus and
the banks of the intraparietal sulcus. We investigate the integrity
of mathematical calculations in three men with large left-hemisphere
perisylvian lesions. Despite severe grammatical impairment
and some difficulty in processing phonological and orthographic
number words, all basic computational procedures were intact
across patients. All three patients solved mathematical problems
involving recursiveness and structure-dependent operations (for
example, in generating solutions to bracket equations). To our
knowledge, these results demonstrate for the first time the remarkable
independence of mathematical calculations from language
grammar in the mature cognitive system
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