Which lower-limb joints compensate for destabilising energy during walking in humans

Maintaining stability during perturbed locomotion requires coordinated responses across multiple levels of organization (e.g., legs, joints, muscle-tendon units). However, current approaches to investigating such responses lack a "common currency" that is both shared across scales and can be directly related to perturbation demands. We used mechanical energetics to investigate the demands imposed on a leg by a transient increase in unilateral treadmill belt speed targeted to either early or late stance. We collected full body kinematics and kinetics from 7 healthy participants during 222 total perturbations. From across-subject means, we found early stance perturbations elicited no change in net work exchanged between the perturbed leg and the treadmill but net positive work at the overall leg level, and late stance perturbations elicited positive work at the leg/treadmill interface but no change in net work at the overall leg level. Across all perturbations, changes in ankle and knee work from steady state best reflected changes in overall leg work on the perturbed and contralateral sides, respectively. Broadening this paradigm to include joint level (vs. leg level) perturbations and including muscle-tendon unit mechanical energetics may reveal neuromechanical responses used in destabilizing environments which could inform design of balance-assisting devices and interventions.

OCA INDEX AS INDICATOR OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC'S PREPAREDNESS TO JOIN THE EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION

The optimum currency area (OCA) theory evaluates the currency area as optimum at a time when the participating countries are not at risk of macroeconomic instability due to the existence of a common currency. The OCA index is a tool used to comprehensively assess the costs and benefits of a candidate for joining a monetary union. It is constructed as a bilateral index assessing the appropriateness of introducing the single currency in two countries. The article presents the OCA index quantified for the Czech Republic in relation to Germany, which is considered to be the core of the European Monetary Union. Since the OCA index needs to be interpreted in a temporal or spatial comparison, the calculation of the OCA index was also performed for other countries of the Visegrad Group (V4) and furthermore for Austria and Portugal, using data from the period of 2007–2019. The results of the OCA index show a high degree of variability in the Czech Republic in the observed period. While in the first half of the period under review, the Czech Republic achieved the best results within the assessed economies and the Czech Republic's level of preparedness for the common currency with Germany was higher than in the case of Austria, it fell sharply after 2012. The reason can be seen, among other things, in the higher growth rate of the Czech economy than in the euro area. Although the OCA index is an indicator assessing the preparedness of an economy to join a monetary union, it cannot be the only indicator. Other important criteria include, for example, labour mobility, price and wage flexibility, fiscal integration and more. Although the Czech Republic is approaching the euro area average in all key indicators, the gap from it remains significant for most indicators and thus continues to be a factor against the adoption of the euro in the coming years.

Financial Integration in the Context of the European Union

As the world continues to see various facets of financial integration, the topic has sparked a great deal of discussions among policymakers and economists. The article analyzes benefits and risks of financial integration in the context of the European Union, which has facilitated global financial integration immensely by creating common currency among European Monetary Union countries and harmonizing regulations across the region. Upon examining main pros and cons of financial integration in detail, I conclude that financial integration can be beneficial in the longrun if corrective and preventive measures are enforced to curtail risks and threats it poses.

L’ESEGESI CORANICA, IL SUFISMO SCIITA E LA METAFISICA DI IBN ʿARABĪ: CONSIDERAZIONI SULLA STORIA INTELLETTUALE DEL SUFISMO SCIITA NEL XIX SECOLO

Riassunto: Ibn ʿArabī ebbe una influenza profonda e duratura sulla tarda filosfia del mondo dell’Islam, in particolare nelle sue regioni orientali. La sua influenza fu talmente pervasiva che temi, vocabolario e concetti di origine ‘akbariana’ divennero comuni e prevalenti nella letteratura religiosa per moderna e moderna. Questo articolo tocca alcune di queste idee e concetti, in particolare l’approccio di Ibn ʿArabī alla nozione di ‘unità’ così come rialaborato nel lavoro di un importante, ancorché poco studiato sino ad oggi, maestro sufi sciita, Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh Gunābādī (m. 1909). Questo studio del lavoro di Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh dimostra come il maestro iraniano negozi la sua lealtà ideale nei confronti dello Shaykh al-Akbar, mantenendo al contampo una cristallina consapevolezza della delicatezza dei temi trattati prendendo le necessarie distanze dalla lettera della teoria, ove ciò fosse necessario, eppure nello stesso tempo corroborando la propria adesione intellettuale e spirituale al cuore della metafisica del maestro andaluso. Abstract: Ibn ʿArabī had a profound influence on later Islamic philosophy and mysticism, in particular in the Muslim East. His influence was pervasive to the point that Akbarian themes, vocabulary and main ideas are common currency in early modern and modern Iranian religious literature. This article covers the issue of some of these themes and ideas, namely Ibn ʿArabī’s understanding of ‘unity’ (waḥda), as exposed in the work of a prominent, albeit understudied, Shiʿi Sufi Master, Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh Gunābādī (d. 1909). This survey of Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh’s work shows how the Iranian master negotiates his allegiance to the Shaykh al-Akbar while maintaining a sharp awareness of the sensitivity of his main ideas, distancing himself from the letter of the theory when needed, while at the same time reinforcing his theoretical adherence to the core of the Andalusian master’s metaphysics.

7. Michel Foucault and governmentality

‘Michel Foucault and governmentality’ talks about Michel Foucault, who is often associated with the poststructuralist and postmodernist ideas of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-François Lyotard. Lyotard’s famous La condition postmoderne in 1979 gave common currency to the term postmodern. Texts that contributed to mental climates in diverse ways are being adapted to the passage of time and alteration of circumstance. Derrida’s 'arche-writing' is an innovative approach to the study of texts. Derrida claimed that the author’s intentions are constrained by language and logic that relied upon the expression of ideas, as the text could go beyond the limits imagined by the author.

Czech election result will depend on undecided voters

Significance A series of scandals surrounding Prime Minister Andrej Babis, including the newly released Pandora Papers, threaten to undermine ANO’s popularity. A challenge may come from the centre-right SPOLU coalition, campaigning on a strong anti-Babis programme. The key question is which way undecided voters will finally lean. Impacts The Communists, who are currently teetering on the 5% electoral threshold, could eventually disappear from high-level politics. If ANO retains power, the government's European policy will focus on defending Babis’s interests before the EU. Either of the two opposition blocs would pursue a more constructive European policy if they won. Introduction of the euro is unlikely in the foreseeable future, as supporters of the common currency are significantly in the minority.

Pain is so close to pleasure: the same dopamine neurons can mediate approach and avoidance in Drosophila

In mammals, dopamine is considered a central neuromodulator involved in all kinds of rewarding experiences ('common currency' hypothesis). In insects, the role of dopaminergic neurons in aversive stimuli was discovered before dopaminergic neurons were found to also be involved in processing appetitive stimuli. Here, we screened about 50 transgenic Drosophila lines, representing different subpopulations of dopaminergic neurons for their ability to sustain approach or avoidance behavior, when activated optogenetically in four different operant self-stimulation paradigms. None of the lines sustain consistent behavioral valence in all experiments. Individual lines sustain approach in one experiment and avoidance in another. One line mediated strong avoidance early in the experiment and weak approach in later stages. The evidence presented here appears to contradict a 'common currency' dopamine function in flies. Instead, different dopaminergic neurons convey valence in a context-dependent and flexible manner, reflecting the genetic heterogeneity of the dopaminergic neuronal population.

Electoral responses to the increased contestation over European integration. The European Elections of 2019 and beyond

This special issue focuses on the consequences of the heightened conflict between member states and increased politicization of European affairs for electoral politics in the European Union. In this introduction we begin by outlining three important developments that fuelled the politicization: (a) the common currency; (b) the increased pushback on the EU’s open border policies; and (c) the inability of the EU to prevent democratic backsliding in some countries. We then discuss their consequences for EU elections, particularly campaigns, public opinion on Europe and voter behaviour, which are investigated against the backdrop of the 2019 European Parliament elections in the individual articles in this special issue. This introduction provides a contextual framework for these contributions and reflects upon some of its main findings.

Perceiving and remembering speech depend on multifractal nonlinearity in movements producing and exploring speech

Speech perception and memory for speech require active engagement. Gestural theories have emphasized mainly the effect of speaker's movements on speech perception. They fail to address the effects of listener movement, focusing on communication as a boundary condition constraining movement among interlocutors. The present work attempts to break new ground by using multifractal geometry of physical movement as a common currency for supporting both sides of the speaker–listener dyads. Participants self-paced their listening to a narrative, after which they completed a test of memory querying their narrative comprehension and their ability to recognize words from the story. The multifractal evidence of nonlinear interactions across timescales predicted the fluency of speech perception. Self-pacing movements that enabled listeners to control the presentation of speech sounds constituted a rich exploratory process. The multifractal nonlinearity of this exploration supported several aspects of memory for the perceived spoken language. These findings extend the role of multifractal geometry in the speaker's movements to the narrative case of speech perception. In addition to posing novel basic research questions, these findings make a compelling case for calibrating multifractal structure in text-to-speech synthesizers for better perception and memory of speech.