Sequential Aspects Research Articles

A conversation analytic study of patterns of overlapping talk in conversations between individuals with dementia and their frequent communication partners.

Difficulty participating in conversation is commonly experienced by individuals with dementia, secondary to cognitive and language deficits. Frequent communication partners (FCPs), however, report being largely unaware of how to support their conversation partners with dementia during conversation. In particular, taking a turn appropriately may be difficult for either partner due to trouble predicting a partner's behaviour and, hence, difficulty with timing conversational turns appropriately, potentially resulting in overlapping talk. To investigate the patterns of overlapping talk in the interaction between individuals with dementia and their FCPs. Three participants with moderate-severe dementia participated in conversation with an FCP. Ten minutes of 'casual' and 'task-oriented' conversation were audio- and video-recorded. Patterns of overlapping talk were investigated using conversation analytic methods. Overlapping talk was a consistent feature of all three dyadic interactions during both social and task-oriented talk. All participants exhibited competitive and non-competitive forms of overlapping talk. The data reveal that FCPs commonly yielded their own turns when overlapped by a partner in order to create opportunities for their partners with dementia to communicate. Participants with dementia demonstrated some retained pragmatic abilities, both using continuers and yielding the floor to their partner when competitively overlapped in order to encourage a speaker to continue. These findings contribute to the understanding of the impact of dementia on the maintenance of sensitivity to the sequential aspects of everyday talk. From a clinical perspective, these findings can inform the training of FCPs about retained abilities and evidence-based support strategies, equipping them with knowledge and skills to structure and maintain fluent conversation.

Investigation of the shortcomings of the consort 2010 statement for the reporting of group sequential randomised controlled trials

Methods We undertook a systematic review by searching Ovid MEDLINE (01/01/2001 to 23/09/2014), supplemented with RCTs from an audit study. We included parallel group, confirmatory, group sequential RCTs that were prospectively designed using a Frequentist approach. Eligible RCTs were examined for reporting compliance against the CONSORT 2010 checklist. Proposed modifications were added to capture group sequential aspects such as use statistical bias correction due to early stopping.

The expression of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway in gastric cancer and its role in gastric cancer prognosis.

ObjectiveTo analyze the correlation between sequential aspects of the phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K)/AKT/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway by immunohistochemistry in the primary lesion of gastric cancer, clinicopathologic factors, and survival in Chinese patients to explore the role of sequential analysis of multiple targets in prognoses.MethodsImmunohistochemistry was performed to examine the expression of PI3K, phosphorylated-AKT (p-AKT), and phosphorylated-mTOR (p-mTOR) in 59 primary lesion samples ranging from Stages I to IV after gastrectomy. The correlation between sequential expression of multiple targets, and clinicopathologic factors and survival was analyzed.ResultsThe positive expression rates of PI3K, p-AKT, and p-mTOR were 49%, 58%, and 56%, respectively. There were eleven cases with three biomarkers positive (19%), 22 cases with two biomarkers positive (37%), and 19 cases with only one biomarker positive (32%). Seven cases (12%) were all negative. Multi-factorial Cox regression analysis showed that neural invasion, vascular invasion, size of the tumor, lymph nodes affected, metastasis, carbohydrate antigen 19-9 level, and PI3K/p-AKT/p-mTOR simultaneous expression were independent prognostic parameters. The risk of death for the cases with two biomarkers positive was 0.367 times that for the cases with three biomarkers positive (P=0.166). The risk of death for the cases with only one biomarker positive was 0.105 times that for the cases with three biomarkers positive (P=0.058). The risk of death for the cases with three biomarkers negative was 0.017 times that for the cases with three biomarkers positive (P=0.022).ConclusionOur study generated the hypothesis that patients with gastric cancer with simultaneous expression of PI3K/p-AKT/p-mTOR had worse outcome. But we need more rigorous validation in a larger data set.

Abstract T P5: Sequential and Post-procedure ASPECTS Predict Clinical Outcome in Mechanical Thrombectomy of Acute Anterior Circulation Ischemic Stroke

Purpose: Final ASPECTS has been shown to predict patient outcomes after endovascular therapy in stroke. The goal of this study was to compare sequential ASPECTS imaging pre-treatment and post-treatment in predicting outcome. Methods: The PICS Study is a prospective registry of clinical and imaging data in proximal artery occlusion patients treated with the Penumbra System. In multivariate analysis, variables assessed for relationship to 90 day mRS included age, gender, time to reperfusion, occlusion location, ASPECTS, and NIHSS. ASPECTS scores were assessed by a central core laboratory, blinded except for stroke side. Results: In this study, 141 patients with mean age 67.9 ± 15.6 and median admission NIHSS score 16.0 (IQR 12.0-21.0) met study criteria. Univariate predictors of 90 day mRS included age, baseline NIHSS, 7 day/discharge NIHSS as well as post-treatment ASPECTS. After adjusting for age and baseline NIHSS, post procedure ASPECTS showed a stronger relationship with good outcome (p<0.0001) than pre-treatment ASPECTS (p=0.0520). Change in ASPECTS was also a significant predictor of 90 day mRS (p=0.0046) in the multivariate analysis. Conclusion: Sequential and post procedure ASPECTS are better predictors of clinical outcome following endovascular therapy than pre-ASPECTS. Final infarct volume quantified using ASPECTS serves as a surrogate biomarker for long-term functional outcome.

Other-initiated repair across languages: towards a typology of conversational structures

AbstractThis special issue reports on a cross-linguistic study of other-initiated repair, a domain at the crossroads of language, mind, and social life. Other-initiated repair is part of a system of practices that people use to deal with problems of speaking, hearing and understanding. The contributions in this special issue describe the linguistic resources and interactional practices associated with other-initiated repair in ten different languages. Here we provide an overview of the research methods and the conceptual framework. The empirical base for the project consists of corpora of naturally occurring conversations, collected in fieldsites around the world. Methodologically, we combine qualitative analysis with a comparative-typological perspective, and we formulate principles for the cross-linguistic comparison of conversational structures. A key move, of broad relevance to pragmatic typology, is the recognition that formats for repair initiation form paradigm-like systems that are ultimately language-specific, and that comparison is best done at the level of the constitutive properties of these formats. These properties can be functional (concerning aspects of linguistic formatting) as well as sequential (concerning aspects of the interactional environment). We show how functional and sequential aspects of conversational structure can capture patterns of commonality and diversity in conversational structures within and across languages.

Support for distinct subcomponents of spatial working memory: A double dissociation between spatial–simultaneous and spatial–sequential performance in unilateral neglect

Over the last decade, many studies have demonstrated that visuospatial working memory (VSWM) can be divided into separate subsystems dedicated to the retention of visual patterns and their serial order. Impaired VSWM has been suggested to exacerbate left visual neglect in right-brain-damaged individuals. The aim of this study was to investigate the segregation between spatial–sequential and spatial–simultaneous working memory in individuals with neglect. We demonstrated that patterns of results on these VSWM tasks can be dissociated. Spatial–simultaneous and sequential aspects of VSWM can be selectively impaired in unilateral neglect. Our results support the hypothesis of multiple VSWM subsystems, which should be taken into account to better understand neglect-related deficits.

Analyzing engagement in a web-based intervention platform through visualizing log-data.

BackgroundEngagement has emerged as a significant cross-cutting concern within the development of Web-based interventions. There have been calls to institute a more rigorous approach to the design of Web-based interventions, to increase both the quantity and quality of engagement. One approach would be to use log-data to better understand the process of engagement and patterns of use. However, an important challenge lies in organizing log-data for productive analysis.ObjectiveOur aim was to conduct an initial exploration of the use of visualizations of log-data to enhance understanding of engagement with Web-based interventions.MethodsWe applied exploratory sequential data analysis to highlight sequential aspects of the log data, such as time or module number, to provide insights into engagement. After applying a number of processing steps, a range of visualizations were generated from the log-data. We then examined the usefulness of these visualizations for understanding the engagement of individual users and the engagement of cohorts of users. The visualizations created are illustrated with two datasets drawn from studies using the SilverCloud Platform: (1) a small, detailed dataset with interviews (n=19) and (2) a large dataset (n=326) with 44,838 logged events.ResultsWe present four exploratory visualizations of user engagement with a Web-based intervention, including Navigation Graph, Stripe Graph, Start–Finish Graph, and Next Action Heat Map. The first represents individual usage and the last three, specific aspects of cohort usage. We provide examples of each with a discussion of salient features.ConclusionsLog-data analysis through data visualization is an alternative way of exploring user engagement with Web-based interventions, which can yield different insights than more commonly used summative measures. We describe how understanding the process of engagement through visualizations can support the development and evaluation of Web-based interventions. Specifically, we show how visualizations can (1) allow inspection of content or feature usage in a temporal relationship to the overall program at different levels of granularity, (2) detect different patterns of use to consider personalization in the design process, (3) detect usability issues, (4) enable exploratory analysis to support the design of statistical queries to summarize the data, (5) provide new opportunities for real-time evaluation, and (6) examine assumptions about interactivity that underlie many summative measures in this field.

Robust order representation is required for backward recall in the Corsi blocks task.

The storage and processing of spatial information is done by spatial working memory. To measure spatial working memory, the Corsi blocks task, which separates the memory into two types, forward and backward, is often used. Although it had been thought that backward recall requires more of the executive function than forward recall, some studies have shown otherwise. Here, we focused on the spatial and sequential aspects of the Corsi blocks task to investigate cognitive processes by dissociating forward and backward recall. We used a dual task method (serial articulatory suppression or spatial tapping as the secondary task) and analyzed two kinds of errors (position error and order error) to investigate cognitive performance during the forward and backward recall. We ran two experiments: in experiment 1, we employed the standard Corsi blocks task, and in experiment 2, we employed the modified Corsi blocks task in order to prevent verbal strategies. We found that spatial tapping affected both forward and backward recall, while serial articulatory suppression increased the number of order errors in the backward condition. These results indicate that stronger order representation is required for backward recall in the Corsi blocks task.

On the place of turn and sequence in grammar

This study elaborates the concept of a positionally sensitive grammar with respect to the sequentiality of turns and the turn constructional units in conversation. The linguistic object of the analysis is clausal constructions in Swedish that are initiated by the finite predicate verb: Polar questions, receipt questions (news receipts), conditional protases and pro-drop declaratives. These constructions share potentially the same syntactic surface pattern but are constrained by different sequential conditions of use. The study proposes an integrated interactional linguistic analysis which takes into account both syntactic and sequential aspects of turn construction. A grammatical attribute-value matrix, based on the framework of construction grammar (CxG), is introduced. The analysis shows that regularities of sequential organization may provide robust distinctive constructional features while a pure syntactic analysis remains less distinctive. The decisive constructional features are systematically captured by a notation designed for sequential and syntactic organization.

Empathy displays as interactional achievements—Multimodal and sequential aspects

In this conversation analytic/interactional linguistic study, I aim to show which kinds of resources can be used by participants to display empathy in response to affect-laden tellings of personal experiences in German everyday interaction. ‘Empathy’ refers to the display of understanding of the other person's emotional situation. It will be shown that a whole range of resources such as facial expressions, response cries+assessments, expressions with mental verbs, formulations, and second stories can be used, and that these resources are deployed at specific sequential positions, and in a specific order from kinetic and ‘fleeting’ to verbal and ‘substantial’, in the course of the telling of a personal experience.

Demand and Supply Chain Planning in Grocery Retail: An Operations Planning Framework

Matching consumer demand with supply is the core task of retailers and a key lever for increasing efficiency. Consumers demand high product availability and low prices, whereas retailers increase product variety and expand their field of logistical activities. These developments increase the complexity of the organization and the management of retail businesses.We provide a comprehensive operations planning framework for grocery retailing as we identify, describe and structure the coherent demand and supply chain planning problems. It integrates retail specifics and hierarchical and sequential decision aspects. We illustrate decision support systems for planning modules and exemplify the intertwined issues with horizontally and vertically integrated planning problems.Full paper is published in International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management:

Demand and supply chain planning in grocery retail: an operations planning framework

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a holistic operations planning framework for grocery retailing. The authors aim to identify, describe and structure coherent demand and supply chain (SC) planning problems in a comprehensive architecture.Design/methodology/approachThe authors reviewed key literature on retail SC management and sales planning. This built a foundation for the development of an integrated operations planning framework. The findings were evaluated through discussions with retailers and communications with retail planners, including personal interviews with 28 leading European grocery retailers and with people in related positions from the consumer goods industry and consultancies.FindingsThe core of this paper is the development of a coherent demand and SC planning matrix. It demonstrates planning interdependencies and defines a framework for retail operations. The grocery planning framework integrates retail specifics, as well as hierarchical and sequential aspects of decision making. That is why this planning architecture also forms the foundation for research and development of advanced decision support systems.Practical implicationsPlanning tasks are identified in interrelated planning modules permitting coordinated and decentralised decision making, which is necessary for operational and complexity reasons. The planning framework assists retail planners in understanding their decision problem from a comprehensive perspective. Better coordination of different modules and further development of retail‐tailored analytical models will improve planning quality.Originality/valueThis is the first paper that structures retail demand and SC planning questions coherently in one framework, matching demand and supply from a long‐ to short‐term perspective and from supplier to customer.

Analysis of N-Glycosylation Sites in HIV glycoprotein 160

AbstractHIV infection is a condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus. The condition gradually destroys the immune system, which makes it harder for the body to fight infections. HIV presents a complex knot for scientists to unravel. An envelope protein of the human HIV that is encoded by the env gene contains numerous glycosylation sites. It serves as a precursor for both the GP120 and the GP41. Here statistical investigation was done to study the sequential aspects of amino acids around the N-glycosylated protein from HIV virus. Sequences containing N-glycosylated asparagine were selected from the uniprot database of N-glycosylated proteins. The frequency of occurrence of amino acid residues around the glycosylated asparagine showed that there are increased numbers of isoleucine and threonine residues around the N-glycosylation sites in comparison with the nonglycosylated asparagine residues. Preferential occurrence of amino acid residues around the glycosylation site shows that T has the maximum preference around the N-glycosylation site. T at 3 and/or -3 positions strongly favors glycosylation irrespective of other glycosylation sites. The data presented in the present work clearly indicate that there is a pronounced positional preference for the hydrophobic and neutral amino acids at various positions around the N-glycosylation site. In the future it will be of much interest to investigate further the possible structural and conformational implications of some of these suggested positional preferences of the various amino acids around the site of glycosylation. This is a potentially important study, and such analyses will surely contribute an important part of our knowledge base in the future on HIV research. These results will be of interest to molecular biologists and protein engineers to identify N-glycosylation sites important in molecular recognition processes in HIV virus.

Analysis of N-Glycosylation Sites in HIV glycoprotein 160

HIV infection is a condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus. The condition gradually destroys the immune system, which makes it harder for the body to fight infections. HIV presents a complex knot for scientists to unravel. An envelope protein of the human HIV that is encoded by the env gene contains numerous glycosylation sites. It serves as a precursor for both the GP120 and the GP41. Here statistical investigation was done to study the sequential aspects of amino acids around the N-glycosylated protein from HIV virus. Sequences containing N-glycosylated asparagine were selected from the uniprot database of N-glycosylated proteins. The frequency of occurrence of amino acid residues around the glycosylated asparagine showed that there are increased numbers of isoleucine and threonine residues around the N-glycosylation sites in comparison with the nonglycosylated asparagine residues. Preferential occurrence of amino acid residues around the glycosylation site shows that T has the maximum preference around the N-glycosylation site. T at 3 and/or -3 positions strongly favors glycosylation irrespective of other glycosylation sites. The data presented in the present work clearly indicate that there is a pronounced positional preference for the hydrophobic and neutral amino acids at various positions around the N-glycosylation site. In the future it will be of much interest to investigate further the possible structural and conformational implications of some of these suggested positional preferences of the various amino acids around the site of glycosylation. This is a potentially important study, and such analyses will surely contribute an important part of our knowledge base in the future on HIV research. These results will be of interest to molecular biologists and protein engineers to identify N-glycosylation sites important in molecular recognition processes in HIV virus.

A compositionality machine realized by a hierarchic architecture of synfire chains.

The composition of complex behavior is thought to rely on the concurrent and sequential activation of simpler action components, or primitives. Systems of synfire chains have previously been proposed to account for either the simultaneous or the sequential aspects of compositionality; however, the compatibility of the two aspects has so far not been addressed. Moreover, the simultaneous activation of primitives has up until now only been investigated in the context of reactive computations, i.e., the perception of stimuli. In this study we demonstrate how a hierarchical organization of synfire chains is capable of generating both aspects of compositionality for proactive computations such as the generation of complex and ongoing action. To this end, we develop a network model consisting of two layers of synfire chains. Using simple drawing strokes as a visualization of abstract primitives, we map the feed-forward activity of the upper level synfire chains to motion in two-dimensional space. Our model is capable of producing drawing strokes that are combinations of primitive strokes by binding together the corresponding chains. Moreover, when the lower layer of the network is constructed in a closed-loop fashion, drawing strokes are generated sequentially. The generated pattern can be random or deterministic, depending on the connection pattern between the lower level chains. We propose quantitative measures for simultaneity and sequentiality, revealing a wide parameter range in which both aspects are fulfilled. Finally, we investigate the spiking activity of our model to propose candidate signatures of synfire chain computation in measurements of neural activity during action execution.

A sequential examination of offenders' verbal strategies during stranger rapes: the influence of location

This paper examines the verbal strategies used by offenders during rape, examining the sequential, temporal and interactional aspects of sexual assaults. Forty-five statements taken from victims of rape were analysed in order to examine the interactive impact of the verbal strategies of offenders. There were three main aims: (i) to illustrate the impact these strategies have on victims' behaviours during assaults; (ii) to discuss how these verbal strategies vary across assaults; and (iii) to examine the precursors of and impact of victim resistance during the offence. Further, following recent examinations of the influence of location on the nature of rape and sexual assaults, assaults were compared between three locations: the victim's bedroom, elsewhere in the victim's home, and outside the victim's home. In each location, both compound (elaborate and repeated assaults) and direct assaults were examined. Findings across these styles and locations are discussed in order to understand the nature and use of offenders' verbal strategies during rape across locations, and the role of these utterances within offender–victim interactions.

Between Sequence and Seriality: Landscape Photography and its Historiography in Anonyme Skulpturen

Though Bernd and Hilla Becher worked with photography from the 1950s, it was not until the publication of Anonyme Skulpturen: Eine Typologie technischer Bauten in 1970 that their work was introduced to a broad audience. Known for their documentation of Western European industrial architecture, this paper considers the difference in how the Bechers' photographic documents have been presented in exhibitions, and how they are presented in Anonyme Skulpturen. while their exhibited works are typological grids of industrial architecture, the book presents these typologies as sequences. The difference prompts these questions: what kind of historical data does documentary photography produce? Is its purpose progression or preservation, sequence or seriality? While the Bechers have admitted that their photographs are a way to preserve disappearing industrial architecture, the sequential aspects of Anonyme Skulpturen suggest more progressive meanings. Such a reading is antithetical to considerations of the Bechers that see their photographs as aesthetic statements that archive industrial forms while ignoring the social conditions of industry. Considering the structural components of Anonyme Skulpturen, this paper concludes that the book is a witness to the social conditions of industry, and presents a narrative of progress in post-war Western Europe centralized around the theme of deindustrialization.

What can saliency models predict about eye movements? Spatial and sequential aspects of fixations during encoding and recognition

Saliency map models account for a small but significant amount of the variance in where people fixate, but evaluating these models with natural stimuli has led to mixed results. In the present study, the eye movements of participants were recorded while they viewed color photographs of natural scenes in preparation for a memory test (encoding) and when recognizing them later. These eye movements were then compared to the predictions of a well defined saliency map model (L. Itti & C. Koch, 2000), in terms of both individual fixation locations and fixation sequences (scanpaths). The saliency model is a significantly better predictor of fixation location than random models that take into account bias toward central fixations, and this is the case at both encoding and recognition. However, similarity between scanpaths made at multiple viewings of the same stimulus suggests that repetitive scanpaths also contribute to where people look. Top-down recapitulation of scanpaths is a key prediction of scanpath theory (D. Noton & L. Stark, 1971), but it might also be explained by bottom-up guidance. The present data suggest that saliency cannot account for scanpaths and that incorporating these sequences could improve model predictions.

Some Sequential Aspects of Yes/No Questions in English Conversation

Some Sequential Aspects of Yes/No Questions in English Conversation

Sequence Alignment as a Method for Human Activity Analysis in Space and Time

This article introduces the method of sequence alignment as a tool for analyzing the sequential aspects within the temporal and spatial dimensions of human activities. Sequence alignment was first developed during the 1980s and employed by biochemists to analyze DNA sequences. Toward the end of the 1990s it was adapted for use in the social sciences. However, unlike other social sciences practitioners, geographers have not, until now, exploited this method. In contrast to traditional quantitative methods, sequence alignment, as its name suggests, is directly concerned with the order (sequence) of events, and is therefore well suited for the pursuit of time-geographic research. To demonstrate the merits of sequence alignment for geographic research, a database composed of forty space-time sequences of visitors who had visited the Old City of Akko (Israel) was used. The sequences were obtained by means of GPS devices, which were distributed among the visitors tracked and which they operated for the duration of their visit to the city. The sequences thereby obtained were aligned using ClustalG, a sequence alignment computer program. The result of this analysis was the identification of three temporal-spatial time geographies of the visitors that were sampled in this study.