Search Results (22)

Striking belief distortions may accompany various disorders of awareness that are predominantly associated with right hemispheric cerebral dysfunction. Distortions may range on a continuum of pathological severity, from the unawareness of paralysis in anosognosia for hemiplegia, to a more startling disturbance in denial of paralysis where belief may starkly conflict with reality. The patients’ beliefs about their limitations typically represent attempts to make sense of limitations or to impart meaning to incongruous facts. These beliefs are often couched in recollections from past memories or previous experience, and are hard to modify even given new information. Various explanations of unawareness have been suggested, including sensory, cognitive, monitoring and feedback operations, feedforward mechanisms, disconnection theories, and hemispheric asymmetry hypotheses, along with psychological denial, to account for the curious lack of awareness in anosognosia and other awareness disorders. This paper addresses these varying explanations of the puzzling beliefs regarding hemiparesis in anosognosia. Furthermore, using the multi-dimensional nature of unawareness in anosognosia as a model, some startling belief distortions in other right-hemisphere associated clinical syndromes are also explored. Other neurobehavioral disturbances, though perhaps less common, reflect marked psychopathological distortions. Startling disorders of belief are notable in somatic illusions, non-recognition or delusional misattribution of limb ownership (asomatognosia, somatoparaphrenia), or delusional identity (Capgras syndrome) and misidentification phenomena. Difficulty in updating beliefs as a source of unawareness in anosognosia and other awareness disorders has been proposed. Processes of belief development are considered to be patterns of thought, memories, and experience, which coalesce in a sense of the bodily and personal self. A common consequence of such disorders seems to be an altered representation of the self, self-parts, or the external world. Astonishing nonveridical beliefs about the body, about space, or about the self, continue to invite exploration and to stimulate fascination. Full article

The Nigeria–Biafra war (1967–1970) has been regarded as the first major civil war in post-colonial Africa, with an attendant and colossal loss of lives, property, and infrastructure. There are many representations of memories of the war in fiction, non-fiction, symbols, memoires, and post-war relics (usually found in museums) but the role of personal naming practices has been largely neglected in the literature and social narratives of the war history. This article, therefore, aims to investigate the performance of personal names as significant memorial sites that convey trajectories of post-traumatic experiences of the war and the desire for healing and reconciliation. The study adopts the theoretical lens of the socio-onomastic analytic framework, which explores the social contexts in which names are given and used. Drawing on ethnographic data sourced mainly from personal histories and semi-structured interviews with 30 participants in Nsukka (Enugu State) and Owerri (Imo State) in southeastern Nigeria, we argue that personal naming practices form essential elements of the war memory, which positively impact self-recovery and meaningful connection with the people. The study concludes that war-related names are based on name-givers’ lived experiences and life-altering situations that greeted the war and are useful in sharing and preserving collective memory of the war. Full article

The Student’s t-distribution provides a thematic connection between the historical and technical elements of this paper. The historical section offers a brief account of the early contributions of Chris Heyde and his collaborations with Madan and Seneta in the development of financial mathematics. The technical section focuses on hypothesis testing, motivated by the observation that, in a setting with pairwise exchangeable dependence for test statistics, the cutoff methods proposed by Sarkar and colleagues in 2016 can be viewed as a first iteration of the classical approach developed by Holm in 1979. These methods had already been refined earlier by Seneta and Chen in their work from 1997 and 2005, which laid the foundation for further improvements. Building on this, a new iteration of the Seneta-Chen method is presented, offering enhancements over the Sarkar approach. Numerical and graphical comparisons are provided, focusing on equal tails testing within the multivariate t-distribution framework. While the tabulated results clearly show improvements with the new procedure, the simulated family-wise error rates across varying correlations reveal only minor practical differences between the iterative methods. This suggests that, under suitable conditions, a single iteration suffices in practice. The paper concludes with personal reflections from the first author, sharing memories of Joe Gani and Chris Heyde, in keeping with the commemorative nature of this issue. Full article

Previous research has shown that people use a benchmark hurricane as part of their preparation and evacuation decision-making process. While hurricanes are a common occurrence along the Gulf Coast, research on personal memories of past storms is lacking. Particularly, how well do people remember the track and geophysical hazards (wind speed, storm surge, and total rainfall) of past storms? The accurate or inaccurate recollection and perception of previous storm details can influence personal responses to future storms, such as the decision to evacuate or take other life-saving actions. Survey responses of residents in Alabama and Mississippi were studied to determine if people were accurately able to recall a notable storm’s name when seeing an image of the storm’s track. Those who were able to identify the storm by its track were also asked if they could remember the storm’s maximum reported rainfall, maximum sustained winds, and storm surge at landfall. Results showed that there were statistically significant differences between the levels of accurate recall for different storms, with Hurricanes Katrina and Michael having the most correct responses. Regardless of the storm, most people struggled to remember geophysical hazards. The results of this study are important as they can inform broadcast meteorologists and emergency managers on forecast elements of the storm to better emphasize in future communication in comparison to the actual values from historical benchmark storms. Full article

The majority of articles in this Special Issue illuminate various aspects of Jack Herring’s contributions to the theory of turbulence, atmospheric sciences, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD), be it through his publications, presentations, collaborations, work with colleagues and students, or personal contacts [...] Full article

Social identity theory has provided a fresh lens that can be used to look at Paul’s letters. Prototypes provide a helpful means to examine social identity and ethics in communities, as suggested by Warren Carter. In 1 Corinthians, Jesus Christ is presented as a prototype, although the Corinthians did not meet him. Collective memory theory has also provided a means to look at recollections of the person of Jesus recorded in the New Testament. While the number of recollections of Jesus that his recipients had is still open to question, this study finds Bauckham’s approach to the memory of Jesus in Paul to be the most sustainable. Studies by Dale Alison and Richard Burridge provide a general picture of ideas in the Synoptic tradition. When the fruits of prototype studies are combined with the collective memory of Jesus, it provides fresh insight into Paul’s commandment to imitate Jesus Christ, which was issued in 1 Cor 11:1. The fruits of these combined methods reveal the influence of the life of Jesus in the commands to look after the weak brother, abstain from idol feasts, and to do everything to God’s glory. Through the recollection of the lifestyle of Jesus, Paul recalibrates the Corinthian behavior so that it agrees with the prototype. Full article

In recent times, global events have starkly illuminated the disturbing absence of ethnic tolerance, thrusting interethnic conflicts into the spotlight and casting shadows over both individual and collective identities. This research focuses on the Holocaust, delving into the annals of history through the lenses of recollection, personal identification, and genetic memory, as portrayed within the pages of the novel Echoes: From the Dead Grandfather to the Deceased. The primary aim is to fathom the gradual erosion of collective historical memory over time and discern its profound significance for future generations. Within this study, an examination of the interplay between the ‘collective unconscious’ and the ‘personal unconscious’ is undertaken. Additionally, the novel’s utilization of symbols and details is scrutinized. The research employs a multifaceted approach, encompassing historical-genetic, interpretative, narrative, and psychoanalytic methodologies. Through the protagonist’s transformative journey, the novel highlights the importance of preserving historical memory and recognizing its lasting impact on individual and collective consciousness. Full article

This article relates personal recollections and starts with the origin of electron microscopy in the sixties of the previous century at the University of Amsterdam. Novel fixation and embedding techniques marked the discovery of the internal bacterial structures not visible by light microscopy. A special status became reserved for the freeze-fracture technique. By freeze-fracturing chemically fixed cells, it proved possible to examine the morphological effects of fixation. From there on, the focus switched from bacterial structure as such to their cell cycle. This invoked bacterial physiology and steady-state growth combined with electron microscopy. Electron-microscopic autoradiography with pulses of [³H] Dap revealed that segregation of replicating DNA cannot proceed according to a model of zonal growth (with envelope-attached DNA). This stimulated us to further investigate the sacculus, the peptidoglycan macromolecule. In particular, we focused on the involvement of penicillin-binding proteins such as PBP2 and PBP3, and their role in division. Adding aztreonam (an inhibitor of PBP3) blocked ongoing divisions but not the initiation of new ones. A PBP3-independent peptidoglycan synthesis (PIPS) appeared to precede a PBP3-dependent step. The possible chemical nature of PIPS is discussed. Full article

This study reviews the relationship between customer perception factors and AI-enabled customer experience in the Ecuadorian banking industry. The study employs a self-designed online questionnaire with five factors for customer perception (convenience in use, personalization, trust, customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction) and two categories for AI-enabled customer experience (AI-hedonic customer experience and AI-recognition customer service). The final valid dataset consisted of 226 questionnaires. The data analysis and the hypotheses tests were conducted using SPSS 26 and structural equation modeling, respectively. The main findings displayed that all five customer perception factors (individual and joint effect) have a positive and significant effect (at least at the 5% level) on AI-enabled customer experience, AI-hedonic customer experience, and AI-recognition customer service in the Ecuadorian banking industry. Study results are aligned with previous findings from other countries, particularly the banking environment in the United Kingdom, Canada, Nigeria, and Vietnam. The AI techniques involved in the financial sector increase the valuation of customer experience due to AI algorithms recollecting, processing, and analyzing customer behavior. This study contributes a complete statistical and econometric model for determinants of AI-enabled customer experience. The main limitations of the study are that, in the analysis of the most demanded AI financial services, not all services and products are included and the inexistence of a customer perception index. For upcoming research, the authors recommend performing a longitudinal study using quantitative data to measure the effect of AI-enabled customer experience on the Ecuadorian banks’ performance. Full article

The development of tungsten biochemistry is sketched from the viewpoint of personal participation. Following its identification as a bio-element, a catalogue of genes, enzymes, and reactions was built up. EPR spectroscopic monitoring of redox states was, and remains, a prominent tool in attempts to understand tungstopterin-based catalysis. A paucity of pre-steady-state data remains a hindrance to overcome to this day. Tungstate transport systems have been characterized and found to be very specific for W over Mo. Additional selectivity is presented by the biosynthetic machinery for tungstopterin enzymes. Metallomics analysis of hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus indicates a comprehensive inventory of tungsten proteins. Full article

In the 1960s, electron microscopy did not provide a clear answer regarding the compact or dispersed organization of the bacterial nucleoid. This was due to the necessary preparation steps of fixation and dehydration (for embedding) and freezing (for freeze-fracturing). Nevertheless, it was possible to measure the lengths of nucleoids in thin sections of slow-growing Escherichia coli cells, showing their gradual increase along with cell elongation. Later, through application of the so-called agar filtration method for electron microscopy, we were able to perform accurate measurements of cell size and shape. The introduction of confocal and fluorescence light microscopy enabled measurements of size and position of the bacterial nucleoid in living cells, inducing the concepts of “nucleoid occlusion” for localizing cell division and of “transertion” for the final step of nucleoid segregation. The question of why the DNA does not spread throughout the cytoplasm was approached by applying polymer-physical concepts of interactions between DNA and proteins. This gave a mechanistic insight in the depletion of proteins from the nucleoid, in accordance with its low refractive index observed by phase-contrast microscopy. Although in most bacterial species, the widely conserved proteins of the ParABS-system play a role in directing the segregation of newly replicated DNA strands, the basis for the separation and opposing movement of the chromosome arms was proposed to lie in preventing intermingling of nascent daughter strands already in the early replication bubble. E. coli, lacking the ParABS system, may be suitable for investigating this basic mechanism of DNA strand separation and segregation. Full article

This article examines Japanese novelist Natsume Sōseki’s (1867–1916) memoir Recollecting and Such (Omoidasu koto nado; 1910). I argue that Sōseki invites the reader to imagine breath through his literary representation of both physiological and metaphysical experience and the rhythm of the narrative’s experimental poetic form. In concert with the theme of this special issue, I show how Recollecting and Such self-reflexively restores and evokes the corporeal experience of sensation beyond just visual perception: the narrative reveals itself as a poetic form of measurement and its first-person narrator a “rhythmanalyst”, someone who listens to the internal rhythms of his own body and then to that of the external world (Henri Lefebvre). The narrator’s awareness of the duration, frequency, and intensity of sensation as well as his regular compositions of metered verse—haiku and kanshi (traditional Chinese poetry as practiced in Japan; Sinitic verse)—are ways that the narrative measures the limits of life, memory, and sensory experience. The oscillation between prose and poetry in the narrative generates an organic rhythm, simulating the long and short breaths of a convalescing body, which invites the reader to breathe together—“to conspire” in the literal sense—with the text as a form of sympathy. Full article

Long-term memory disturbances are amongst the most common and disruptive cognitive symptoms experienced by breast cancer survivors following chemotherapy. To date, most clinical assessments of long-term memory dysfunction in breast cancer survivors have utilized basic verbal and visual memory tasks that do not capture the complexities of everyday event memories. Complex event memories, including episodic memory and autobiographical memory, critically rely on hippocampal processing for encoding and retrieval. Systemic chemotherapy treatments used in breast cancer commonly cause neurotoxicity within the hippocampus, thereby creating a vulnerability to memory impairment. We review structural and functional neuroimaging studies that have identified disruptions in the recollection network and related episodic memory impairments in chemotherapy-treated breast cancer survivors, and argue for the need to better characterize hippocampally mediated memory dysfunction following chemotherapy treatments. Given the importance of autobiographical memory for a person’s sense of identity, ability to plan for the future, and general functioning, under-appreciation of how this type of memory is impacted by cancer treatment can lead to overlooking or minimizing the negative experiences of breast cancer survivors, and neglecting a cognitive domain that may benefit from intervention strategies. Full article