Dorsal and Ventral Stream Function in Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder

Dorsal stream cortical networks underpin a cluster of visuomotor, visuospatial, and visual attention functions. Sensitivity to global coherence of motion and static form is considered a signature of visual cortical processing in the dorsal stream (motion) relative to the ventral stream (form). Poorer sensitivity to global motion compared to global static form has been found across a diverse range of neurodevelopmental disorders, suggesting a “dorsal stream vulnerability.” However, previous studies of global coherence sensitivity in Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) have shown conflicting findings. We examined two groups totalling 102 children with DCD (age 5–12 years), using the “Ball in the Grass” psychophysical test to compare sensitivity to global motion and global static form. Motor impairment was measured using the Movement-ABC (M-ABC). Global coherence sensitivity was compared with a typically developing control group (N = 69) in the same age range. Children with DCD showed impaired sensitivity to global motion (p = 0.002), but not global form (p = 0.695), compared to controls. Within the DCD group, motor impairment showed a significant linear relationship with global form sensitivity (p < 0.001). There was also a significant quadratic relationship between motor impairment and global motion sensitivity (p = 0.046), where poorer global motion sensitivity was only apparent with greater motor impairment. We suggest that two distinct visually related components, associated with global form and global motion sensitivity, contribute to DCD differentially over the range of severity of the disorder. Possible neural circuitry underlying these relationships is discussed.

Projection: Architecture of Intimacy

<p>This thesis unravels ties between the individual and architecture. Offering an architectural demonstration of and for the body. The primary goal is to challenge the conventional relationship of architecture as a form of housing for the body, exploring the possibility of the body's dynamism in respect to movement, transformation, and reaction, informing an intimate architecture of the individual and highlighting the importance of a personalised architectural condition. The boundary between the individual and architecture is explored through the idea of intimacy. Intimacy becomes the goal of a relationship that is intrinsic to the body. Through intimacy this provides security and comfort for the individual. The individual is projected upon architecture to create an intimate environment. The research is grounded by three main themes: Firstly 'proximity', the degree to which the interface between the body and architecture can become intrinsically tied. Secondly 'speed', the movement of the body in relation to architecture as a static form. And lastly 'duration', the flexibility and adaptability of possible architectural solutions. Each of these themes is developed in the research chapters and explored from both a written and visual narrative. The 'Chair' is adopted as a familiar object which allows for discussion and development of ideas. The chair becomes a means of developing the argument, and demonstrating these ideas through imagery and text. A train carriage is the apparatus which will be used as a vehicle for the design exploration. A train carriage has been identified as being a transitory zone for the individual, and therefore, employed as the point of departure for further design experiments, tying the three themes of proximity, speed, and duration together. The train carriage acts as a conceit; a way of describing and demonstrating ideas through extended metaphors. The design is revealed through diagrams of components used within the housing of the individual, then further presented with varying scenes exploring the dynamic possibilities of an architectural interpretation. This research informs and demonstrates a design initiative which emphasises the poetic form of individuals and their bodies within the architectural discipline. Bringing to light the importance and possibility of the fluctuations of the body, in constant movement and evolution to the discipline of architecture. Allowing for intimacy of the body to be defined in unison with architecture, a growing spatial relationship with the individual.</p>

Projection: Architecture of Intimacy

<p>This thesis unravels ties between the individual and architecture. Offering an architectural demonstration of and for the body. The primary goal is to challenge the conventional relationship of architecture as a form of housing for the body, exploring the possibility of the body's dynamism in respect to movement, transformation, and reaction, informing an intimate architecture of the individual and highlighting the importance of a personalised architectural condition. The boundary between the individual and architecture is explored through the idea of intimacy. Intimacy becomes the goal of a relationship that is intrinsic to the body. Through intimacy this provides security and comfort for the individual. The individual is projected upon architecture to create an intimate environment. The research is grounded by three main themes: Firstly 'proximity', the degree to which the interface between the body and architecture can become intrinsically tied. Secondly 'speed', the movement of the body in relation to architecture as a static form. And lastly 'duration', the flexibility and adaptability of possible architectural solutions. Each of these themes is developed in the research chapters and explored from both a written and visual narrative. The 'Chair' is adopted as a familiar object which allows for discussion and development of ideas. The chair becomes a means of developing the argument, and demonstrating these ideas through imagery and text. A train carriage is the apparatus which will be used as a vehicle for the design exploration. A train carriage has been identified as being a transitory zone for the individual, and therefore, employed as the point of departure for further design experiments, tying the three themes of proximity, speed, and duration together. The train carriage acts as a conceit; a way of describing and demonstrating ideas through extended metaphors. The design is revealed through diagrams of components used within the housing of the individual, then further presented with varying scenes exploring the dynamic possibilities of an architectural interpretation. This research informs and demonstrates a design initiative which emphasises the poetic form of individuals and their bodies within the architectural discipline. Bringing to light the importance and possibility of the fluctuations of the body, in constant movement and evolution to the discipline of architecture. Allowing for intimacy of the body to be defined in unison with architecture, a growing spatial relationship with the individual.</p>

Transient behavior of imperfect bi-directional functionally graded sandwich plates under moving loads

An investigation of dynamic behaviors of a sandwich plate containing an imperfect two dimensional functionally graded (2D-FG) core surrounded by two faces on a two-parameter elastic foundation and subjected to a moving load is carried out in this paper. The present sandwich solid is composed of a porous 2D-FG core covered by two homogenous layers. It is assumed that the middle layer has micro voids dispersed uniformly and unevenly through the layer thickness. The fundamental equations are governed within the framework of first-order-shear deformation theory by utilizing Hamilton’s principle, von-Karman geometrical nonlinearity and the principal of mixtures. Newmark direct integration procedure is implemented to transform the dynamic equations into a static form and then the kinetic dynamic relaxation numerical technique in conjunction with the finite difference discretization method are employed to solve the nonlinear partial differential governing equations. Finally, the effects of porosity fraction and scattering patterns, boundary constrains, the variation of materials’ grading indexes and elastic foundation constants on the transient performances of the plate are studied in detail.

The Idea of an ‘Icon in Sound’ in the Works of John Tavener

The aim of this article is to present an innovative concept of the ‘icon in sound’ created by the English composer John Tavener. The first part of the article presents the intermedial and intertextual features of Tavener's work, the second shows the genesis of the concept of ‘icon in sound’, to which three factors have contributed: 1) the composer’s interest in religious topics in his pieces, 2) the composer’s conversion to Orthodoxy, 3) collaboration with Mother Tekla, the author of the texts of many Tavener’s works. The last, third part of the article describes issues related to the formal structure and musical symbolism present in Tavener’s musical icons. The composer refers to painted icons by composing works characterised by static form and the expression of spirituality, mysticism and inner peace. These features result from the juxtaposing of melismatic structures, inspired by Byzantine music, with repetitive technique and dynamics often characterised by a low intensity. One characteristic of Tavener’s sound icons is a ‘luminous’ sound, achieved through the use of high registers of voices and instruments, which are combined with contemplative and lyrical expression. An important feature of John Tavener’s musical icons was the introduction of archaic elements, resulting primarily from the inspiration that the composer drew from the musical culture of the Orthodox Church (eg the use of Byzantine scales in Mary of Egypt, the introduction of instruments such as simantron in Mary of Egypt).

KMT Martial Memory

The various war or war-related sites discussed in this chapter—the Zhongshan Hall (中山堂‎), the Armed Forces Museum (國軍歷史文物館‎), Chung-hsing New Village (中興新村‎), Military Dependents Villages (眷村‎), and Kinmen (金門‎)—suggest that blue camp historical memory is very much alive in Taiwan. The case of the Zhongshan Hall shows the difficulty faced by proponents to create a memorial space dedicated to the War of Resistance against Japan. The Armed Forces Museum exemplifies a static form of KMT historical memory that seems like a throwback to Cold War times, whereas the Military Dependents Villages and Kinmen attest to the plasticity of memorial sites and their capacity to take on new meanings in a changing world through state and nongovernmental interventions.

THE TRENDS OF REDUCTION OF THE PHONEMIC STRUCTURE OF THE WORD AS A GENERAL PROBLEM OF SLAVIC TYPOLOGICAL RESEARCH

This research is dedicated to spirantization, elision and substitution of the phoneme /h/ as the specific feature of the South Slavic dialects represented in a South Slavic dialect continuum, but reflected in different ways in literary languages. Throughout the Bulgarian linguistic territory the phoneme [h] is consistently preserved in its etymological place only in the Rupian dialects, more accurately only in the Rhodope (Middle Rupian) and Thracian (South Rupian) dialects. In Serbocroatistics the problem of the status and functioning of the phoneme [h] is challenging. In the Serbian and the Croatian languages the instability of consonant phonemes is not only the feature of the dialectal continuum, but also of the literary speech which only emphasizes the close connection between these forms of the language. The listed characteristics of the phonetic model of a word in South Slavic dialects can be attributed to the number of syntagmatic features that are specific to vocal-type systems according to A. Isachenko's classification. It states that the typological sign has not only a static form (a system of phonemes, their number and ratio), but also a dynamic one (rules for the combination of sounds). Taking into consideration the fact that the instability of /h/ is not a common Slavic feature, I consider it possible to agree with the conclusions of the Slavicists that this phoneme sounded differently in Slavic dialects in the late Slavic period. The instability of the phoneme /h/ in South Slavic dialects and the tendency to it substitutions can be regarded as Slavic Balkanism.

Creating and applying a narrative-semiosis model

In this study, I explore a new model of narrative that contains interactions between three levels of story – narrative story, cognitive story, and social story. With this new model, narrative is no longer a static form but rather a whole signifying process among levels. I term this new model narrative-semiosis. The narrative-semiosis model in this study is closely related to the six elements of Jakobson’s communication model. In my new model, cognitive story exists in the minds of both the addresser and addressee, and social story exists in the context where human beings think and perform in the real world. Cognitive story is inferred from the message that is in a narrative story. In this paper, I describe the semiotic interactions among the three levels of stories, not unidirectional but bidirectional, in my narrative-semiosis model. I also validate my model by applying it to a traditional Korean shaman epic Danggumagi and a painting text, Sun and Moon, describing their semiotic narrative signification.

Kinetic typography - figuration and technology

Kinetic typography - text in motion is an animation method of characters that has a video form instead of some "static" form such as picture, poster or book. The most important element for figuration of kinetic typography is the choice of font. Furthermore, one should think about the letter cut, the size and color of the characters, and the background color on which the animation takes place. It can be created in various ways, most often using software that applies a multitude of effects to the text or letter character, creating dynamic solutions. The effects vary from the simplest such as "fade-in" and "fade-out" (entering and exiting text in and out of the frame). Static characters can expand, narrow, move slowly or rapidly, grow and change in a variety of ways to very complex ones in which the author builds an entire story or promotional video by carefully combining software capabilities. However, each software has its limitations and for this reason the kinetic typography presented in this paper is programmed using codes. In a wide range of available programming languages due to the simple interface that does not require advanced programming concepts and gives exceptional results in the field of kinetic typography, Processing was chosen. The Processing programming language is intended for generating and modifying graphics and is based on the Java programming language. The most important difference between Processing and Java is that Processing offers a simple programming interface that does not require advanced levels of programming such as classes, objects, or animations. It also allows advanced users to use them. Processing uses a variety of typography rendering approaches such as raster and vector solutions and allows typography to be programmed and displayed on the Web independently of the user's Web browser and font database. Processing enables the use of visual elements in animation, including typographic ones, by introducing interaction to the user. The user is no longer a passive observer but actively participates in the performance of the application whose final appearance is not predefined but arises from the actions of each individual user. For the purposes of this paper, individual letters were created in a font-making program. The letters made are of various written classifications and cuts, which with their variety contribute to the attractiveness of the animation. In the creating of motion typography in this paper, the programming language Processing was used. Written program codes that manipulate words, letters, or parts of characters to create interesting visual effects for the viewer that aim to hold the viewer's attention and convey the desired message or emotion. There are no strict rules and patterns when making kinetic typography. In kinetic typography, each author determines his own rules, method of production, and there are no same solutions.

An Examination of the Reliability and Validity of the Comprehensive Assessment of Traits Relevant to Personality Disorder–Static Form (CAT-PD-SF)

The current study examined the reliability and validity of the Comprehensive Assessment of Traits Relevant to Personality Disorder–Static Form (CAT-PD-SF), a dimensional measure of personality psychopathology. Specifically, we used exploratory factor analysis to determine the best higher order structure for the CAT-PD-SF traits. Results suggested a five-factor structure, albeit with marginal model fit. Second, we used correlation analyses to compare the CAT-PD-SF with two additional dimensional measures of personality, the Personality Inventory for DSM-5–Brief Form and the Five-Factor Model Rating Form. The results demonstrated the CAT-PD-SF scale scores were associated with domain and facet scores from these two models in a conceptually expected manner. Finally, we explored the association between the CAT-PD-SF scores and functional impairment and found moderate associations between CAT-PD-SF trait and functional impairment scores (as measured by the Measure of Disordered Personality Functioning Scale). Overall, findings add support to the structure of the CAT-PD model, and the use of the CAT-PD-SF in measuring dimensional personality psychopathology and impairment.