Prospective Memory and Regional Functional Connectivity in Subcortical Ischemic Vascular Disease

Objectives: Patients with subcortical ischemic vascular disease (SIVD) often have prominent frontal dysfunction. However, it remains unclear how SIVD affects prospective memory (PM), which strongly relies on the frontoparietal network. The present study aimed to investigate PM performance in patients with early stage SIVD as compared to those with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to older adults with normal cognition, and to explore the neural correlates of PM deficits.Method: Patients with very-mild to mild dementia due to SIVD or AD and normal controls (NC) aged above 60 years were recruited. Seventy-three participants (20 SIVD, 22 AD, and 31 NC) underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), cognitive screening tests, and a computerized PM test. Sixty-five of these participants (19 SIVD, 20 AD, and 26 NC) also received resting-state functional MRI.Results: The group with SIVD had significantly fewer PM hits than the control group on both time-based and non-focal event-based PM tasks. Among patients in the very early stage, only those with SIVD but not AD performed significantly worse than the controls. Correlational analyses showed that non-focal event-based PM in SIVD was positively correlated with regional homogeneity in bilateral superior and middle frontal gyri, while time-based PM was not significantly associated with regional homogeneity in any of the regions of interest within the dorsal frontoparietal regions.Conclusions: The findings of this study highlight the vulnerability of non-focal event-based PM to the disruption of regional functional connectivity in bilateral superior and middle frontal gyri in patients with SIVD.

How to have fun with sticks, bowls, and colored water: insights into multimodal signifier operations through Lacan’s four discourses

In this manuscript, I present a signifier-based, multimodal discourse analysis of a focal event involving four children (ages 4–5) as they interacted with materials and with one another in their preschool classroom. I draw upon Jacques Lacan’s theory of the four discourses, applying the mathemes, or formulas that he developed, in order to map the multimodal signifier operations as they occurred in the moment-to-moment interactions during the event. My purpose was to use the signifier as a conceptual tool for multimodal discourse analysis, which revealed the highly particular discursive agencies that are characteristic aspects of signifier operations. Further, I examined the movement and operations of the signifiers as they were drawn from across modes and combined to create opportunities for the subjects to participate in the discourse. These signifier operations occurred according to discursive agencies of an educational discourse that both reduced and delimited subjectivities, as well as agencies that the focal subjects introduced to challenge and re-signify toward new ways to participate in the discourse.

The Korean hortative construction revisited

This paper revisits the hortative -ca construction in Korean from a usage-based perspective, examining its functions in natural interactional spoken data The examination of the actual occurrence of -ca reveals its various functions: -ca indicates that the performer of the focal-event encoded in the utterance may be 1st person plural subject, i.e., the speaker and other interlocutors; 2nd person, i.e., the addressee(s); 1st person, i.e., the speaker; and 3rd person. Our findings provide direct evidence for the different degrees of prototypicality among these functions, which are reflected in their different frequency counts. Furthermore, this study proposes two novel functions of ca, the accordant imperative (to demand that the addressee agree with the speaker that the addressee perform the focal-event) and the speaker hortative (to ask the addressee to perform an action so that the speaker him-/herself can perform the focal-event).

When an Ironman Triathlon Isn’t Hard Enough: The Beer Mile as a Subworld Ritual

Rituals may organically manifest on the periphery of official sport event programs, yet scholars have primarily focused on understanding the meaning of and experiences of athletes participating in the focal event. This paper explores a subworld ritual that occurs the day after major triathlon events in Australia. Organized by members of a distinct subworld within the broader social world of triathletes, the Beer Mile is a quasi-devious ritual performed by this subworld to mark the completion of a period of regimentation. The ritual embraces fortitude expressed through demonstrations of physicality, ability to handle alcohol, and boisterousness. We demonstrate how this ritual is a form of calculated hedonism that is both congruent and convergent with traditional endurance sport practices and norms.

Evidentiality in Korean Conditional Constructions

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt:This paper explores a seemingly non-canonical phenomenon where Korean firsthand evidential marker –te is employed in counterfactual conditionals (CC, henceforth). The phenomenon is of special interest, since it has been claimed that evidentials are not used in irrealis clauses (Anderson 1986: 274-275). Nevertheless, this paper shows that the firsthand evidential marker does appear in Korean CCs and further, argues that to employ the firsthand envidential marker is a conceptually optimal tactic for the speaker to have cognitive distance towards the focal event in CCs. The main claim is as follows: The marker’s extended function - its function of di stancing and of accommodating presupposed information, not its firsthand evidential marking function, licenses the marker to be utilized in such a way.

Social Movements as Extra-Institutional Entrepreneurs: The Effect of Protests on Stock Price Returns

This paper uses social movement theory to examine one way in which secondary stakeholders outside the corporation may influence organizational processes, even if they are excluded from participating in legitimate channels of organizational change. Using data on activist protests of U.S. corporations during 1962–1990, we examine the effect of protests on abnormal stock price returns, an indicator of investors' reactions to a focal event. Empirical analysis demonstrates that protests are more influential when they target issues dealing with critical stakeholder groups, such as labor or consumers, and when generating greater media coverage. Corporate targets are less vulnerable to protest when the media has given substantial coverage to the firm prior to the protest event. Past media attention provides alternative information to investors that may contradict the messages broadcast by protestors.

The Banamba slave exodus of 1905 and the decline of slavery in the Western Sudan

One of the most important changes to take place during the early colonial period was the transformation from slave labour to free labour. In French West Africa this resulted not from a policy decision by the French administration but from the massive departure of slaves in those societies most reliant on slave labour. The focal event was an exodus from Banamba, a Maraka town which had been a major centre both of the slave trade and of the exploitation of slave labour. During the period before the Banamba exodus, tensions were building up within various slave societies, tensions that reflected themselves in a gradual filtering away of slaves and in occasional slave revolts. The French were generally afraid to deal with these tensions and limited themselves to stopping the slave trade while reinforcing allied élites, most of whom were slave owners. There were three major factors in the exodus:(1) Massive enslavement during the late nineteenth century created large reservoirs of slaves who were homogeneous and remembered a free state.(2) The closing-off of recruitment pushed slave-owners to exploit slave labour more systematically.(3) With the end of warfare and the opening of new opportunities in the cities and in the Senegambian peanut fields, slaves had increasing opportunities to go elsewhere.