scholarly journals Scaling laws in spoken language associated with cognitive functions

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masato S. Abe ◽  
Mihoko Otake-Matsuura

AbstractA decline in cognitive functions due to aging has led to critical problems in modern society, and it is imperative to develop a method to predict the decline or related diseases, including dementia. Although it has been expected that language could be a sign of the cognitive decline, it remains less understood, especially in natural conditions. In this study, we recorded the large-scale data of one million words from group conversations among healthy elderly people and analysed the relationship between spoken language and cognitive functions based on scaling laws, namely, Zipf’s law and Heaps’ law. We found that word patterns followed these scaling laws irrespective of cognitive function, but the variations in scaling laws were associated with cognitive functions. Moreover, using generative models, we uncovered the relationship between the variations and cognitive functions. These results indicate that scaling laws in language can be a biomarker for the cognitive decline.

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. e0246884
Author(s):  
Masato S. Abe ◽  
Mihoko Otake-Matsuura

Language is a result of brain function; thus, impairment in cognitive function can result in language disorders. Understanding the aging of brain functions in terms of language processing is crucial for modern aging societies. Previous studies have shown that language characteristics, such as verbal fluency, are associated with cognitive functions. However, the scaling laws in language in elderly people remain poorly understood. In the current study, we recorded large-scale data of one million words from group conversations among healthy elderly people and analyzed the relationship between spoken language and cognitive functions in terms of scaling laws, namely, Zipf’s law and Heaps’ law. We found that word patterns followed these scaling laws irrespective of cognitive function, and that the variations in Heaps’ exponents were associated with cognitive function. Moreover, variations in Heaps’ exponents were associated with the ratio of new words taken from the other participants’ speech. These results indicate that the exponents of scaling laws in language are related to cognitive processes.


Author(s):  
Yan Leng ◽  
Nakash Ali Babwany ◽  
Alex Pentland

AbstractDiversity has tremendous value in modern society. Economic theories suggest that cultural and ethnic diversity may contribute to economic development and prosperity. To date, however, the correspondence between diversity measures and the economic indicators, such as the Consumer Price Index, has not been quantified. This is primarily due to the difficulty in obtaining data on the micro behaviors and macroeconomic indicators. In this paper, we explore the relationship between diversity measures extracted from large-scale and high-resolution mobile phone data, and the CPIs in different sectors in a tourism country. Interestingly, we show that diversity measures associate strongly with the general and sectoral CPIs, using phone records in Andorra. Based on these strong predictive relationships, we construct daily, and spatial maps to monitor CPI measures at a high resolution to complement existing CPI measures from the statistical office. The case study on Andorra used in this study contributes to two growing literature: linking diversity with economic outcomes, and macro-economic monitoring with large-scale data. Future study is required to examine the relationship between the two measures in other countries.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-131
Author(s):  
Indra Budi Jaya

Islam as a religion wants its people to always maintain a balance between religiosity (al din) and worldly problems (al dunya). The relationship between the two describes something that is separate but inseparable (harmony). However, for modern society, this condition often creates contradictions, this condition was seen at the time of the Covid 19 pandemic. The implementation of Large-Scale Social Restrictions by the government in an effort to overcome the spread of the impact of Covid 19 to the community by limiting activities in mosques and allowing activities in the market to continue in fact responded by the community differently. The methodology used is qualitative by using social policy analysis. This paper tries to examine social policies towards the application of large-scale social restrictions on mosques and markets. In this paper, the sociology of law theory is used, namely Law is a social engineering tool which emphasizes that law becomes the commander who must bring change to society. The results obtained in the research are that the community responds to the large-scale social restriction policy differently, where the purpose of the policy is for the community to be expected to make changes by complying with the rules that have been set by the government, the conditions for rejection and various responses are caused by disharmony between implementation of policies with public awareness of the law.Keyword : Policy, large-Scale Restrictions and the sociology of law. AbstrakIslam sebagai agama mengkhendaki umatnya agar senantiasa menjaga keseimbangan antara religiusitas (al din) dan masalah keduniaan (al dunia). Hubungan keduanya menggambarkan sesuatu yang terpisah namun tidak bisa dipisahkan (harmoni). Namun bagi masyarakat modern kondisi tersebut seringkali justru menimbulkan pertentangan, kondisi tersebut nampak pada saat terjadinya pandemi Covid 19. Penerapan Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar oleh pemerintah dalam upaya penanggulangan penyebaran dampak Covid 19 kepada masyarakat dengan membatasi aktivitas di masjid dan membiarkan kegiatan di pasar tetap berjalan nyatanya direspon oleh masyarakat secara berbeda. Metodologi yang digunakan adalah kualitatif dengan menggunakan analisis kebijakan sosial, Tulisan ini mencoba menelaah kebijakan sosial terhadap penerapan pembatasan sosial berskala besar terhadap masjid dan pasar. Dalam penulisan ini dipergunakan teori sosiologi hukum yaitu Law is a tool social engineering yang menegaskan bahwa hukum menjadi panglima yang harus membawa perubahan terhadap masyarakat. Hasil yang diperoleh dalam penelitian adalah Masyarakat merespon kebijakan pembatasan sosial berskala besar tersebut secara berbeda, dimana tujuan kebijakan tersebut adalah untuk masyarakat diharapkan dapat melakukan perubahan dengan mematuhi aturan yang telah di tetapkan oleh pemerintah, kondisi penolakan dan respon beragam tersebut di sebabkan oleh ketidak harmonisannya antara penerapan kebijakan dengan kesadaran masyarakat terhadap hukum.Kata Kunci : Kebijakan,  Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar dan Sosiologi Hukum


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (02) ◽  
pp. 1950001
Author(s):  
Dayong Wang ◽  
Guozhu Jia ◽  
Hengshan Zong ◽  
Wei He

Robustness of infrastructure networks is essential for our modern society. Cascading failures are the cause of most large-scale network outages. We study the cascading failure of networks due to overload, using the betweenness centrality of an edge as the measure of its initial load. Taking into account the congestion effect of a slightly overloading edge, we define two capacities (the basic capacity and the removal capacity) of every edge and give three possible states (the free state, the congestion state, and the removal state) of every edge according to its current load. We propose a new method to dynamically adjust two capacities of the slightly overloading edge and study the dynamical features of cascading propagation induced by removing the edge with the highest load in two artificial networks, two traffic networks, and two power grids. We mainly focus on the relationship between the capacity parameters and two robust metrics. By simulations, we find two interesting and counterintuitive results, i.e. enhancing the basic capacity of every edge may weaken the network robustness, and fixing the basic capacity of every edge, simply improving the removal capacity of every edge sometimes makes the whole network more invulnerable. These findings show that investing more maintenance resources to alleviate flow congestion is not always better to avoid the cascading propagation, which is similar to Braess’s paradox in traffic networks.


Nutrients ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 2804
Author(s):  
Hitoshi Ozawa ◽  
Taiki Miyazawa ◽  
Teruo Miyazawa

Population aging has recently been an important issue as the number of elderly people is growing worldwide every year, and the extension of social security costs is financially costly. The increase in the number of elderly people with cognitive decline is a serious problem related to the aging of populations. Therefore, it is necessary to consider not only physical care but also cognitive patterns in the future care of older adults. Since food contains a variety of bioactive substances, dietary patterns may help improve age-related cognitive decline. However, the relationship between cognitive function and individual food components remains ambiguous as no clear efficacy or mechanism has been confirmed. Against this background, this review summarizes previous reports on the biological process of cognitive decline in the elderly and the relationship between individual compounds in foods and cognitive function, as well as the role of individual components of food in cognitive function, in the following order: lipids, carotenoids, vitamins, phenolic compounds, amino acids, peptides, and proteins. Based on the research presented in this review, a proper diet that preserves cognitive function has the potential to improve age-related cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease. Hopefully, this review will help to trigger the development of new foods and technologies that improve aging and cognitive functions and extend the healthy life span.


VASA ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Hanji Zhang ◽  
Dexin Yin ◽  
Yue Zhao ◽  
Yezhou Li ◽  
Dejiang Yao ◽  
...  

Summary: Our meta-analysis focused on the relationship between homocysteine (Hcy) level and the incidence of aneurysms and looked at the relationship between smoking, hypertension and aneurysms. A systematic literature search of Pubmed, Web of Science, and Embase databases (up to March 31, 2020) resulted in the identification of 19 studies, including 2,629 aneurysm patients and 6,497 healthy participants. Combined analysis of the included studies showed that number of smoking, hypertension and hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) in aneurysm patients was higher than that in the control groups, and the total plasma Hcy level in aneurysm patients was also higher. These findings suggest that smoking, hypertension and HHcy may be risk factors for the development and progression of aneurysms. Although the heterogeneity of meta-analysis was significant, it was found that the heterogeneity might come from the difference between race and disease species through subgroup analysis. Large-scale randomized controlled studies of single species and single disease species are needed in the future to supplement the accuracy of the results.


Author(s):  
E. V. Klimenko ◽  
N. S. Buslova

The article is devoted to the consideration of ways to solve one of the actual problems in theory and methodology of training and upbringing — the problem of developing professional skills of future informatics teacher. As a way to adapt students to the profession, the possibility of their involvement in social designing was chosen. Participation in social projects contributes to the approbation and introduction of new forms and methods in teaching informatics. Expanding the experience of future teachers in carrying out large-scale events contributes to the formation of a socially adapted personality competitive in modern society. The potential of a social project in consolidating the knowledge and skills obtained during the theoretical training at the university is indicated. In the article, theoretical reasoning is accompanied by examples of real social projects and activities aimed at the formation of professional competencies of future informatics teachers.


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-240
Author(s):  
Antje Kahl

Today in Germany, religion and the churches forfeit their sovereignty of interpretation and ritual concerning death and dying. The funeral director is the first point of contact when death occurs. Therefore he or she is able to influence the relationship between the living and the dead. In the course of this development, the dead body, often referred to as dirty and dangerous, is being sanitized by funeral directors. Funeral directors credit the dead body with a certain quality; they claim that facing the dead may lead to religious or spiritual experiences, and therefore they encourage the public viewing of the dead – a practice which was, and still is not very common in Germany. The new connotation of the dead body is an example for the dislimitation of religion in modern society. The religious framing of death-related practises no longer exclusively belongs to traditional religious institutions and actors, but can take place in commercial business companies as well.


Author(s):  
T. V. Galanina ◽  
M. I. Baumgarten ◽  
T. G. Koroleva

Large-scale mining disturbs wide areas of land. The development program for the mining industry, with an expected considerable increase in production output, aggravates the problem with even vaster territories exposed to the adverse anthropogenic impact. Recovery of mining-induced ecosystems in the mineral-extracting regions becomes the top priority objective. There are many restoration mechanisms, and they should be used in integration and be highly technologically intensive as the environmental impact is many-sided. This involves pollution of water, generation of much waste and soil disturbance which is the most typical of open pit mining. Scale disturbance of land, withdrawal of farming land, land pollution and littering are critical problems to the solved in the first place. One of the way outs is highquality reclamation. This article reviews the effective rules and regulations on reclamation. The mechanism is proposed for the legal control of disturbed land reclamation on a regional and federal level. Highly technologically intensive recovery of mining-induced landscape will be backed up by the natural environment restoration strategy proposed in the Disturbed Land Reclamation Concept.


2020 ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Vladimir Batiuk

In this article, the ''Cold War'' is understood as a situation where the relationship between the leading States is determined by ideological confrontation and, at the same time, the presence of nuclear weapons precludes the development of this confrontation into a large-scale armed conflict. Such a situation has developed in the years 1945–1989, during the first Cold War. We see that something similar is repeated in our time-with all the new nuances in the ideological struggle and in the nuclear arms race.


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