Changing cognitive chimera states in human brain networks with age: Variations in cognitive integration and segregation

The human brain is a complex dynamical system, and how cognition emerges from spatiotemporal patterns of regional brain activity remains an open question. As different regions dynamically interact to perform cognitive tasks, variable patterns of partial synchrony can be observed, forming chimera states. We propose that the spatial patterning of these states plays a fundamental role in the cognitive organization of the brain and present a cognitively informed, chimera-based framework to explore how large-scale brain architecture affects brain dynamics and function. Using personalized brain network models, we systematically study how regional brain stimulation produces different patterns of synchronization across predefined cognitive systems. We analyze these emergent patterns within our framework to understand the impact of subject-specific and region-specific structural variability on brain dynamics. Our results suggest a classification of cognitive systems into four groups with differing levels of subject and regional variability that reflect their different functional roles.

A few studies on response blocking as well as response interruption and redirection (RIRD) as a treatment for automatically maintained problem behavior have examined different levels of treatment integrity. Results from these studies have shown continued suppression of responding under low levels of integrity for some participants after they were exposed to blocking at full integrity. The current study compared the treatment effects of RIRD at two levels of integrity (100 and 33%). The 33% condition was not preceded by exposure to full integrity. Four children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder between the ages of 8 and 16 participated. The effects of treatment integrity on vocal stereotypy were assessed using an ABAB‐variant design in which B consisted of an alternating‐treatments comparison of different levels of integrity. Results varied across participants, and although both conditions decreased stereotypy, 100% integrity produced lower levels of stereotypy quicker than 33%. The current study expands upon current literature by suggesting that lower levels of integrity (33%) may still suppress vocal stereotypy.

A "chimera state" is a dynamical pattern that occurs in a network of coupled identical oscillators when the symmetry of the oscillator population is broken into synchronous and asynchronous parts. We report the experimental observation of chimera and cluster states in a network of four globally coupled chaotic opto-electronic oscillators. This is the minimal network that can support chimera states, and our study provides new insight into the fundamental mechanisms underlying their formation. We use a unified approach to determine the stability of all the observed partially synchronous patterns, highlighting the close relationship between chimera and cluster states as belonging to the broader phenomenon of partial synchronization. Our approach is general in terms of network size and connectivity. We also find that chimera states often appear in regions of multistability between global, cluster, and desynchronized states.

In today’s competitive and fast-moving business environment, the viability of organizations depends on integrating with other supply chain members so their complementary skills and compatible goals help them survive and prosper. Therefore, firms link their internal process to external suppliers and customers, with different levels of integration, to reduce cost and improve responsiveness and service level. The aim of this chapter is to study integration as a main component of supply chain management discipline in achieving competitive advantage and performance improvements. The authors begin with reviewing sourcing decisions that stress firms’ benefits in establishing long-term relationships with higher level of integration. Different types and levels of integration are defined, and a basic integrated supply chain model is studied to help in understanding the meaning and aspects of this term. Finally, the partnership development process including partner selection, contracting, and maintenance, along with various aspects of each phase, is reviewed.

BackgroundIn order to organize person-centered health services for a growing number of people with multiple complex health and social care needs, a shift from fragmented to integrated health services delivery has to take place. For the organization of governance in integrated health services, it is important to better understand the underlying factors that drive collaboration, decision-making and behavior between individuals and organizations. Therefore, this article focuses on these underlying normative aspects of integrated health services. This study investigates the values that underpin integrated health services delivery as a concept, by examining the extent to which an initial literature based set of underlying values underpins integrated care and the relevance of these values on the different levels of integration.MethodsAn international Delphi study with 33 experts from 13 different countries was carried out to examine the initial set of underlying values of integrated health services. In addition, the relevance of the values was assessed on the different levels of integration: personal level, professional level, management level and system level.ResultsThe study resulted in a refined set of 18 values of integrated health services developed in three Delphi study rounds. In addition, the results provided insight into the relevance of these values on the personal level (e.g. ‘trustful’), professional level (e.g. ‘collaborative’), management level (e.g. ‘efficient’) and system level (e.g. ‘comprehensive’) of integration. Some of the values score consistent across the different levels of integration while other values score inconsistent across these levels.ConclusionsThe Delphi study resulted in an international normative basis for integrated health services delivery as a concept. The values can be used as ingredients for a values framework and provide a better understanding of the normative aspects of integrated health services delivery. Future research could focus on associated behaviors in practice, the relationship between normative integration and governance, and differences between the value priorities of stakeholder groups.

In this paper, a techno-economic and environmental assessment is performed to compare the stand-alone process and biorefinery ways to produce biodiesel, ethanol and butanol as potential cases for bioenergy production using fresh fruit bunches as raw material. Different levels of integration are considered (e.g., mass and energy integration, non-conventional technologies) along with the analysis of the process scale to determine the economic profitability and environmental impacts of the proposed cases. The results demonstrated that the biodiesel production based on the biorefinery concept has a positive effect on the profitability of the stand-alone process at different scales. The economic results were compared with data reported in the literature. Furthermore, the life cycle analysis of the proposed cases suggested that the deployment of the biorefinery concept at different levels of integration in the oil palm supply chain reduced the environmental impact of the biodiesel production, which was selected as the hotspot of the evaluated cases.

This article will provide a unifying perspective on perception and cognition via the route of linguistic representations of emotion. Linguistic representations of emotions provide a fertile ground for explorations into the nature and form of integration of perception and cognition because emotion has facets of both perceptual and cognitive processes. In particular, this article shows that certain types of linguistic representations of emotion allow for the integration of perception and cognition through a series of steps and operations in cognitive systems, whereas certain other linguistic representations of emotion are not so representationally structured as to permit the unity of perception and cognition. It turns out that the types of linguistic representations of emotion that readily permit the desired unity of perception and cognition are exactly those that are linguistically encoded emotive representations of everyday objects, events, and things around us. It is these ordinary objects, events and things that provide the scaffolding for task-dependent or goal-oriented activities of cognitive systems including autonomous systems. In this way, cognitive systems can be saliently tuned to the outer world by being motivated and also subtly governed by emotion-driven representations. This helps not only tie together perceptual and cognitive processes via the interface between language and emotive representations, but also reveal the limits of emotive representations in amalgamating perceptual and cognitive processes in cognitive systems.

We study the emergence of chimera states in a multilayer neuronal network, where one layer is composed of coupled and the other layer of uncoupled neurons. Through the multilayer structure, the layer with coupled neurons acts as the medium by means of which neurons in the uncoupled layer share information in spite of the absence of physical connections among them. Neurons in the coupled layer are connected with electrical synapses, while across the two layers, neurons are connected through chemical synapses. In both layers, the dynamics of each neuron is described by the Hindmarsh-Rose square wave bursting dynamics. We show that the presence of two different types of connecting synapses within and between the two layers, together with the multilayer network structure, plays a key role in the emergence of between-layer synchronous chimera states and patterns of synchronous clusters. In particular, we find that these chimera states can emerge in the coupled layer regardless of the range of electrical synapses. Even in all-to-all and nearest-neighbor coupling within the coupled layer, we observe qualitatively identical between-layer chimera states. Moreover, we show that the role of information transmission delay between the two layers must not be neglected, and we obtain precise parameter bounds at which chimera states can be observed. The expansion of the chimera region and annihilation of cluster and fully coherent states in the parameter plane for increasing values of inter-layer chemical synaptic time delay are illustrated using effective range measurements. These results are discussed in the light of neuronal evolution, where the coexistence of coherent and incoherent dynamics during the developmental stage is particularly likely.

Long-range memory effects in a magnetized Hindmarsh-Rose neural network

Carbon dioxide and hydrogen ions may act on the utilization of oxygen at different levels of integration. The lowest level of integration is represented by the chemical reactions. From the papers presented earlier it seems likely that many metabolic reactions depend on pH, e.g. all reactions where NAD is involved. A somewhat higher level of integration, though closely related to the level of chemical reactions, is represented by carbon dioxide effects on the oxygen dissociation curve. A still higher level of integration with respect to the effects of carbon dioxide are reactions of organs and organ systems as, for instance, the stimulatory effect of carbon dioxide on the respiration or on the cerebral blood flow. Such reactions affect profoundly the supply of oxygen to the different organs. As a consequence of the aforementioned effects of carbon dioxide, the utilization of oxygen and the oxygen consumption of the whole organism could well be altered by carbon dioxide. In this paper, examples for the effects of carbon dioxide at different levels of integration will be discussed. Furthermore, I shall attempt to reduce these effects to a common denominator by defining a quantitative index of oxygen utilization.

The effects of nonlocal and reflecting connectivities have been previously investigated in coupled Leaky Integrate-and-Fire (LIF) elements, which assimilate the exchange of electrical signals between neurons. In this work, we investigate the effect of diagonal coupling inspired by findings in brain neuron connectivity. Multi-chimera states are reported both for the simple diagonal and combined nonlocal–diagonal connectivities, and we determine the range of optimal parameter regions where chimera states appear. Overall, the measures of coherence indicate that as the coupling range increases (below all-to-all coupling) the emergence of chimera states is favored and the mean phase velocity deviations between coherent and incoherent regions become more prominent. A number of novel synchronization phenomena are induced as a result of the combined connectivity. We record that for coupling strengths σ 1. In the intermediate regime, σ ~ 1, the oscillators have common mean phase velocity (i.e., are frequency-locked) but different phases (i.e., they are phase-asynchronous). Solitary states are recorded for small values of the coupling strength, which grow into chimera states as the coupling strength increases. We determine parameter values where the combined effects of nonlocal and diagonal coupling generate chimera states with two different levels of synchronous domains mediated by asynchronous regions.

Research on the interactions between risk, integration, and performance in supply chains (SCs) is increasingly attracting attention of researchers in recent years. Although risk usually has negative effects on performance, limited evidence has been provided to show whether companies differently exposed to operational risk (i.e., high, moderate, or low exposure) also have different levels of integration and operational performance. Therefore, this study aims to identify and characterize different profiles of operational risk (i.e., supply, manufacturing, and demand risks) between manufacturing companies along with considering contextual factors such as company size and industry type. Data are collected from the fourth round of the High Performance Manufacturing Project and subsequently analyzed by cluster analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Three different clusters have been identified: Two clusters are moderately and highly impacted by operational risk, respectively, while the other cluster is almost not impacted by manufacturing risk but highly impacted by supply risk and demand risk. The results also indicate that companies with different profiles of operational risk have different levels of integration and operational performance. An important contribution of the current study is the development of a hypothesized framework of interactions between operational risk, integration, and operational performance to provide opportunities for further research.

Introduction: This study examines the resilience of the Quindío agroindustrial cluster in the face of economic shocks, analyzing how integration and collaboration between firms, influence its adaptive capacity. Objective: To evaluate the impact of business networks on the resilience of the cluster, considering different levels of integration and their effect on the absorption of economic shocks and the diffusion of ideas. Methodology: A qualitative approach was used, complemented with business network simulations to model low and high integration scenarios. Results: Higher integration among cluster firms significantly strengthens their resilience to market shocks and facilitates access to knowledge and innovation. In addition, the importance of strengthening inter-firm linkages and R&D activities to enhance the competitiveness of the sector is highlighted. Conclusions: It was found that, at different levels of integration, networks influence the cluster's capacity to absorb shocks and disseminate innovations, determining aspects to guarantee sustainability and competitiveness in the long term. This provides empirical evidence on clusters and highlights the need to strengthen business networks, in addition to offering guidelines for the design and formulation of territorial planning policies and instruments.

The subject of the article reveals the problems of realization of the educational potential for such a didactic tool as construction. The applied aspects for solving problems of mental, aesthetic, ecological and labor education of primary school students in the process of design activity are determined. It is proved that design activity is the universal tool to implement the most effective integrated learning in primary school. The topicality of the problem under research is determined by social trends that characterize the current stage of the education system development: the use of various technologies designed to make the learning process more productive and at the same time the declining quality of education, fall in the general level of education quality as well as in the theoretical and practical training of schoolchildren and students, inconsistency of the existing level of knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies acquired during the training experience of the real needs of production, labor market and public demands. The experience of integrated learning in the activities of primary schools in Poland at the beginning of the XXI century is analyzed. The ways of application for designing activity at different levels of integration – practical, methodical, organizational are defined. The educational opportunities of design activity in classes in various disciplines are revealed. The basic methods for realization tasks of mental, aesthetic, labor education of pupils of elementary school during employment by design activity are described.

Optofluidic microscopes use fluids’ properties as an additional degree of freedom for optical detection and microfluidics to perform simple and low-cost object manipulation. In particular, several devices have been optimized for fluorescencebased imaging. These are usually based on the adaptation of established microscopy tools to the microfluidic system with different levels of integration. However, these systems can rarely resolve sub-micron details, posing a limit to the structures that can be studied. An exception is represented by systems developed for particle detection, which are capable to quantify protein expression and analyze small molecules even at nanoscale resolution. However, in this case high resolution requires a low emitter density and it cannot be used to visualize densely packed structures such as membranes and organelles. Hence, we have developed a system for sub-diffraction-limited optofluidic scanning microscopy (OSM) that uses the optofluidics paradigm to extract the inherent super-resolution information of a confocal system. OSM uses the optofluidic flow scanning scheme and a multifocal illumination pattern to obtain resolution doubling with minimal system complexity. In addition, it does not require any mechanical part for the scanning, so that it can be readily adapted to different levels of integration from commercial microscopes to on-chip configurations. This makes our system the most viable configuration for super-resolution optofluidics, being both suitable for continuous flow scanning and compatible with on-chip configurations through the adoption of integrated optics.