Post-encoding reactivation promotes one-shot learning of episodes in humans

Much work in rodents and in humans has provided evidence that post-encoding reinstatement plays an important role in stabilizing memory beyond initial learning processes. However, it remains unclear whether memory reinstatement is important for the rapid - ‘one-shot’ - learning of an unfolding episode. Here, we asked whether the reinstatement of an episode may occur preferentially post-encoding, when an individual perceives a meaningful event to be concluded. We asked human participants (male and female) to encode sequences of pictures depicting unique episodic-like events. We used representational similarity analysis of scalp electroencephalography recordings during encoding and found evidence for memory reactivation of the just encoded sequence of elements at the offset of the episode. Importantly, memory reinstatement was not observed between successive elements within an episode, indicating memory reactivation was specifically induced once participants perceived the unfolding episode to be completed. We also found that memory reinstatement predicted memory recollection of an encoded episode and that offset memory reinstatement was not present when participants encoded sequences of pictures that were not perceived as meaningful episodes. These results indicate that memory reinstatement at episode offsets is a mechanism selectively engaged to support rapid memory formation of single events.

Keeping Up With the Joneses: Role of CSR Awards in Incentivizing Non-Winners’ CSR

We attempt to provide a novel antecedent of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by focusing on the role of CSR awards. Specifically, we investigate how competitors’ winning CSR awards incentivize non-winning firms’ CSR as a competitive catch-up. Using a difference-in-differences research design, we find that non-winners improve their CSR after their competitors have won CSR awards. Furthermore, based on the awareness-motivation-capability (AMC) framework from the competitive dynamics literature, we find that the media visibility of award winners, the performance gap of non-winners with award winners, and the prior CSR of non-winners strengthen the CSR competitive catch-up behaviors. Findings from this study contribute to the CSR research by highlighting the spillover effect of CSR awards as a meaningful event in incentivizing non-winning firms’ CSR and extending the AMC framework to explain the contingency factors of competitive catch-up in the context of CSR research.

CEO Awards and Financial Misconduct

We propose that CEOs are more likely to engage in financial misconduct after the media names them as being among the best business leaders. We theorize this occurs because winning such an award is a meaningful event that increases the CEO’s self-worth but also increases the CEO’s sense of psychological entitlement, including the freedom to break rules. We test our ideas by examining scenarios where award-winning CEOs feel especially entitled and therefore are most likely to commit misconduct. Using a sample of award-winning CEOs from Chinese publicly listed firms, we find that award-winning CEOs are more likely to commit financial misconduct in the post-award period than in the pre-award period. In addition, the effect of winning a CEO award on financial misconduct is stronger when CEOs are underpaid or from industries in which awards are rare and therefore more special. We also validate aspects of our theory that are difficult to observe. First, we use bivariate probit models with partial observability to confirm that our results hold when accounting for unobserved misconduct. Second, we use survey data that capture the psychological entitlement of a subsample of CEOs to confirm the mediating effect of psychological entitlement on the relationship between winning an award and committing financial misconduct.

René Girard and the Epistemology of Revelation

René Girard never worried about clarifying the epistemological frame- work of his theories. Yet it is a necessary task, if only to answer the questions of method inevitably posed by the mixture of scientificality and religious conviction that characterizes his approach. Girard’s use of the word “revelation” is paradig- matic from this regard. A philosophy of the event can provide an epistemological framework to unify the theological and anthropological meanings of this notion. On a phenomenological level, Divine Revelation is analogous to certain decisively meaningful happenings in our existence, or in history. The irruption of a radically new sense into a reality that does not contain it in any way is not an exclusive prerogative of religious experience. The schema of the meaningful event makes it possible to disclose the logic of the great Girardian narrative, whose key stages are revelations, in the sense of events bringing a new kind of meaning. The scenario of the emergence of culture described by Girard is event-driven, and the same logical schema underlies the Girardian interpretation of the Passion as an unveiling of human violence. In the same way Girard analyses conversion, in both a religious and a “novelistic” sense, as a spiritual event. Finally, his apocalyptic conception of history can be interpreted using this epistemological framework.

Verbal and Non Verbal Signs in the First Episode of Webtoon Orange Marmalade

This study is entitled Verbal and Nonverbal signs in the first episode of webtoon Orange Marmalade. This study mainly focuses on the analysis of signifiers and the signified of the verbal and nonverbal signs and their relationship in creating an event in the first episode of webtoon Orange Marmalade. Semiotic theory by Saussure’s was applied to analyze the first problem about signifying of the verbal and nonverbal signs while McCloud’s theory of relationship in comic was applied to analyze the second problem. Qualitative method was applied in the analysis of this study. The source of data was taken from the first episode of Webtoon entitled Orange Marmalade by using documentation method. The data were presented descriptively in the form of table and diagram. All types of signs found in the first episode of webtoon entitled Orange Marmalade consist of signifier and signified by verbal and nonverbal sign. The analysis reveals that the meaningful event is created by the relationship between verbal and nonverbal signs comprised in each panel within a page of the webtoon. The analysis also shows that both verbal and nonverbal signs support each other in conveying the idea.

Development of the Experiences of Humility Scale

In three studies, we developed the Experiences of Humility Scale (EHS). In Study 1, we used exploratory factor analysis to determine the factor structure and to reduce items in a sample of undergraduates (N = 200). The EHS had four subscales: Other-orientation, Transcendence, Awareness of Selfishness, and Awareness of Egotism. Study 2 involved an experiment with a second sample of college students (N = 106) that provided initial evidence of construct validity. Participants assigned to a Meaning Condition (i.e., writing about a most meaningful event) reported lower levels of awareness of egotism and selfishness than did participants assigned to a Neutral Condition. In Study 3, with a third sample of college students (N = 155), we replicated the factor structure of the EHS using confirmatory factor analysis and evaluated additional evidence of construct validity. As predicted, the EHS subscales predicted constructs associated with spiritual connection and meaning. Likewise, providing evidence of discriminant validity, the EHS subscales were only moderately related to traits of humility, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Study of Wireless Sensor Network Location Algorithm and Data Collection Protocol

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="-ms-layout-grid-mode: line;">It is deduced that the network life time is inversely proportional to the zone area of the collection data that each sink is responsible for. That is to say, when the zone area in the charge of a sink is smaller, the average load of nodes distributed in this area and the energy consumption are smaller, while the network life time is longer. MSGP protocol is proposed, with several round cluster head candidate zones, fixed member zones and public zones being delimited to make approximately uniform clustering. The cluster head is responsible for collecting a meaningful event in the cluster, making data fusion and then forwarding it to sink. Multi-sinks move according to the zone division rules and the rule of free movement. Specific analysis is made from three aspects of data direction, single round data collection of sink, and network life time</span>.</span></span></p>

Oh, Sport! Are You Peace? (About Different Kinds of Sports Media Discourse)

The ways of description and interpretation of such socially meaningful event as the World Football Championship 2014 are considered in this article. The author justifies the importance of choosing a sports topic and in particular football in the modern world, showing that first of all the sports discourse is a journalistic discourse. That is why the ways of the representation and description of sports events are the basic means for creating its concept. The author has chosen one day of the World Football Championship 2014 for theanalysis to show that not the sports events, but the acts of violence accompanying them are becoming the basic subject matter of the description. In relation to this, the author suggests to speak about a special type of sports discourse: a discourse of sports aggression. Its main features are: special lexical stock phrases, inaccuracy in the supply of information, lack of logic in the description of events, and expressiveness of the means used to describe the acts of violence. The author comes to the conclusion that it is difficult to make the precise cognitive diagram of the sport event reading due to the additional information, as the reader’s attention in such messages is focused only on the description of the details, which are connected with the facts of aggression that occurred in the sport action. The modern sports appear as the catalyst of aggressive actions instead of initiating the peace.

‘Is a funeral a right?‘ Exploring indigent funerals from social work perspectives

Research shows that funerals take place in a tension between the desire for a meaningful event and the reality of cost. Every culture has traditions for marking life‘s end and this must include responses to people who die indigent (without resources). This study takes place in the context of current welfare debates and the growing aging population which will require increasing numbers of people to organise and fund funerals. Yet funeral poverty and funeral welfare policy are an under-researched element of the welfare debate. In Aotearoa New Zealand some assistance with costs is available from the Government through Work and Income New Zealand or the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). However, grants are not designed to meet the full cost of a funeral. It is expected that family and/or friends will meet the remaining costs, but there are times when there is no one able or willing to do this. This exploratory study interviewed four professionals (two social workers, one community worker and a funeral director) who had taken responsibility for arranging an indigent funeral, in order to explore their motivations and experiences. Findings from the participants revealed that the level of current government support is inadequate; however, they also suggested that communities may need to take more responsibility for funerals, particularly for vulnerable population groups. Social workers can play a role both by initiat- ing conversations about funerals with clients and advocating for enhanced access to funeral services and grants to prevent the increase of funeral poverty

Characterizing cognitive function during relapse in multiple sclerosis

Objective: To characterize neuropsychological (NP) test performance during multiple sclerosis (MS) relapse and recovery. Methods: Clinical status was assessed with NP testing and Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) in 24 relapsing patients, and 24 individually-matched, stable controls. All presented with cognitive symptoms as indicated by patient, clinician or caregiver perceived decline, but were free of optic neuritis, ataxia and upper extremity weakness that could compromise NP testing. The presence of enhancing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) lesions was considered confirmatory of relapse. Relapsing patients were treated with corticosteroids. NP testing and EDSS were compared to pre-relapse baseline levels, and three-month, post-relapse, follow-up. Results: Analyses revealed significant decline on the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) ( p=0.005) and worsening on EDSS ( p=0.019). Impairment was observed at the point of relapse in cases but not controls. The groups were no longer different at three-month follow-up. The increment of decline on SDMT was 3.5 raw score points, or roughly 6%. Conclusions: This is the first study to assess NP status changes during MS relapse using well established, reliable metrics. The presence of a clinically meaningful event is substantiated by decline in NP testing, observed or reported cognitive change, and in a subset of patients, gadolinium-enhancing MRI lesions.