Sustained Processes Research Articles

Going beyond short-term, ‘reduced’ PD: Towards an encompassing typology for children’s participation in infrastructuring processes

Although child participation has been on the Child Computer Interaction (CCI) research agenda for many years, there is a lacuna in research on the roles children can play in long-term, sustained Participatory Design (PD) processes. This article explores the characteristics of an infrastructuring approach to PD that revolves around long-term and on-going socio-technical processes as opposed to the more typical short-term PD projects concerned with delivering a finished design product. Based on empirical data collected in three case studies involving both short-and long-term PD processes with children between 6 and 16 years old, we investigated different roles children can play in long-term, sustained PD. The contribution of this study is a comprehensive typology of children’s roles that goes beyond children’s participation in traditional, ‘staged’ PD. This typology offers the necessary vocabulary and analytical toolbox to account for key notions of infrastructuring, including ‘match-making’, ‘publics’, ‘agonism’, ‘attachments’, ‘shared issues’ and ‘capacity-building’. • Research is needed on children’s roles in long-term, sustained Participatory Design processes. • Children take on different roles in infrastructuring processes. • Children take on roles as match-makers, process designers, players, design partners and mediators. • A typology is presented to make sense of children’s roles in infrastructuring processes. • This typology provides a vocabulary for including infrastructuring concepts in CCI research and design.

Japan and the West: An Architectural Dialogue

Japan and the West: An Architectural Dialogue

Dissecting Motor and Cognitive Component Processes of a Finger-Tapping Task With Hybrid Dopamine Positron Emission Tomography and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Striatal dopamine is involved in facilitation of motor action as well as various cognitive and emotional functions. Positron emission tomography (PET) is the primary imaging method used to investigate dopamine function in humans. Previous PET studies have shown striatal dopamine release during simple finger tapping in both the putamen and the caudate. It is likely that dopamine release in the putamen is related to motor processes while dopamine release in the caudate could signal sustained cognitive component processes of the task, but the poor temporal resolution of PET has hindered firm conclusions. In this study we simultaneously collected [11C]Raclopride PET and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data while participants performed finger tapping, with fMRI being able to isolate activations related to individual tapping events. The results revealed fMRI-PET overlap in the bilateral putamen, which is consistent with a motor component process. Selective PET responses in the caudate, ventral striatum, and right posterior putamen, were also observed but did not overlap with fMRI responses to tapping events, suggesting that these reflect non-motor component processes of finger tapping. Our findings suggest an interplay between motor and non-motor-related dopamine release during simple finger tapping and illustrate the potential of hybrid PET-fMRI in revealing distinct component processes of cognitive functions.

Attention and Default Mode Network Assessments of Meditation Experience during Active Cognition and Rest.

Meditation experience has previously been shown to improve performance on behavioral assessments of attention, but the neural bases of this improvement are unknown. Two prominent, strongly competing networks exist in the human cortex: a dorsal attention network, that is activated during focused attention, and a default mode network, that is suppressed during attentionally demanding tasks. Prior studies suggest that strong anti-correlations between these networks indicate good brain health. In addition, a third network, a ventral attention network, serves as a “circuit-breaker” that transiently disrupts and redirects focused attention to permit salient stimuli to capture attention. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to contrast cortical network activation between experienced focused attention Vipassana meditators and matched controls. Participants performed two attention tasks during scanning: a sustained attention task and an attention-capture task. Meditators demonstrated increased magnitude of differential activation in the dorsal attention vs. default mode network in a sustained attention task, relative to controls. In contrast, there were no evident attention network differences between meditators and controls in an attentional reorienting paradigm. A resting state functional connectivity analysis revealed a greater magnitude of anticorrelation between dorsal attention and default mode networks in the meditators as compared to both our local control group and a n = 168 Human Connectome Project dataset. These results demonstrate, with both task- and rest-based fMRI data, increased stability in sustained attention processes without an associated attentional capture cost in meditators. Task and resting-state results, which revealed stronger anticorrelations between dorsal attention and default mode networks in experienced mediators than in controls, are consistent with a brain health benefit of long-term meditation practice.

Leucine Reconstitutes Phagocytosis-Induced Cell Death in E. coli-Infected Neonatal Monocytes-Effects on Energy Metabolism and mTOR Signaling.

MΦ differentiate from circulating monocytes (Mo). The reduced ability of neonatal Mo to undergo apoptosis after E. coli infection (phagocytosis-induced cell death (PICD)) could contribute to sustained inflammatory processes. The objective of our study was to investigate whether immune metabolism in Mo can be modified to gain access to pro-apoptotic signaling. To this end, we supplemented Mo from neonates and from adults with the branched amino acid leucine. In neonatal Mo, we observed increased energy production via oxidative phosphorylation (Oxphos) after E. coli infection via Seahorse assay. Leucine did not change phagocytic properties. In neonatal Mo, we detected temporal activation of the AKT and mTOR pathways, accompanied with subsequent activation of downstream targets S6 Kinase (S6K) and S6. FACS analyses showed that once mTOR activation was terminated, the level of anti-apoptotic BCL-2 family proteins (BCL-2; BCL-XL) decreased. Release of cytochrome C and cleavage of caspase-3 indicated involvement of the intrinsic apoptotic pathway. Concomitantly, the PICD of neonatal Mo was initiated, as detected by hypodiploid DNA. This process was sensitive to rapamycin and metformin, suggesting a functional link between AKT, mTOR and the control of intrinsic apoptotic signaling. These features were unique to neonatal Mo and could not be observed in adult Mo. Supplementation with leucine therefore could be beneficial to reduce sustained inflammation in septic neonates.

Lost in Time: Temporal Monitoring Elicits Clinical Decrements in Sustained Attention Post-Stroke.

Mental fatigue, 'brain fog', and difficulties maintaining engagement are commonly reported issues in a range of neurological and psychiatric conditions. Traditional sustained attention tasks commonly measure this capacity as the ability to detect target stimuli based on sensory features in the auditory or visual domains. However, with this approach, discrete target stimuli may exogenously capture attention to aid detection, thereby masking deficits in the ability to endogenously sustain attention over time. To address this, we developed the Continuous Temporal Expectancy Task (CTET) where individuals continuously monitor a stream of patterned stimuli alternating at a fixed temporal interval (690ms) and detect an infrequently occurring target stimulus defined by a prolonged temporal duration (1020ms or longer). As such, sensory properties of target and non-target stimuli are perceptually identical and differ only in temporal duration. Using the CTET, we assessed stroke survivors with unilateral right hemisphere damage (N = 14), a cohort in which sustained attention deficits have been extensively reported. Stroke survivors had overall lower target detection accuracy compared with neurologically healthy age-matched older controls (N = 18). Critically, stroke survivors performance was characterised by significantly steeper within-block performance decrements, which occurred within short temporal windows (˜3 ½ min), and were restored by the break periods between blocks. These findings suggest that continuous temporal monitoring taxes sustained attention processes to capture clinical deficits in this capacity over time, and outline a precise measure of the endogenous processes hypothesised to underpin sustained attention deficits following right hemisphere stroke.

Sustained and Transient Processes in Event-based Prospective Memory in Adolescence and Adulthood.

Prospective memory (PM) refers to the cognitive processes associated with remembering to perform an intended action after a delay. Varying the salience of PM cues while keeping the intended response constant, we investigated the extent to which participants relied on strategic monitoring, through sustained, top-down control, or on spontaneous retrieval via transient bottom-up processes. There is mixed evidence regarding developmental improvements in event-based PM performance after the age of 13 years. We compared PM performance and associated sustained and transient neural correlates in 28 typically developing adolescents (12-17 years old) and 19 adults (23-30 years old). Lower PM cue salience associated with slower ongoing task (OT) RTs, reflected by increased μ ex-Gaussian parameter, and sustained increases in frontoparietal activation during OT blocks, both thought to reflect greater proactive control supporting cue monitoring. Behavioral and neural correlates of PM trials were not specifically modulated by cue salience, revealing little difference in reactive control between conditions. The effect of cue salience was similar across age groups, suggesting that adolescents are able to adapt proactive control engagement to PM task demands. Exploratory analyses showed that younger, but not older, adolescents were less accurate and slower in PM trials relative to OT trials than adults and showed greater transient activation in PM trials in an occipito-temporal cluster. These results provide evidence of both mature and still maturing aspects of cognitive processes associated with implementation of an intention after a delay during early adolescence.

Using a multidimensional model of attention to predict low-income preschoolers' early academic skills across time.

The current study examines the organization of attention skills across the preschool year before kindergarten, and tests how distinct attention subcomponents predict early academic skills in a sample of low-income children (n=99). Children completed well-validated attention tasks in fall at 4.5 years old and spring at 5 years old, capturing the abilities to selectively focus, sustain attention, and employ executive control. Exploratory factor analyses at both time points support a 2-factor model differentiating selective and sustained attention from attention processing speed and executive attention, suggesting that attention in low-income preschoolers may have a simpler organization than the 3-factor structure found in adulthood. Multiple regression models find children's ability to selectively focus and sustain attention serves as a robust concurrent and longitudinal predictor of academic skills. These results highlight the role of selective and sustained attention processes in supporting school readiness for economically vulnerable children.

Curating knowledge, creating change:: University Knowledge Center, Kosovo national transition

A collaborative system design initiative at the University for Business and Technology in Kosovo aims to make local knowledge visible and to enhance local knowledge creation, within the university and throughout the country. Since its inception in 2015, design activities aimed to activate systems through modeling the global knowledge landscape, technology enabled systems, and human activity processes. Within the framework of Informed Systems, application of Informed Learning Theory and Information Experience Design (IXD) guided prototyping systems that informed building an institutional repository named the UBT Knowledge Center. The knowledge vision anticipates that sustained curation, organization, discovery, access, and usage processes will accelerate academic engagement, national development, and global visibility, over time and with practice to further theory-to-practice and practice-to-theory.

Snow depths\u2019 impact on soil microbial activities and carbon dioxide fluxes from a temperate wetland in Northeast China

Snow depth may have a complex influence on carbon cycling in winter. Here we set up a field experiment to investigate how different snow depths (0 cm, 60 cm, 90 cm) influenced carbon dioxide (CO2) in a wetland. The mean ± standard error of CO2 emissions under snow addition treatments (60 cm and 90 cm snow depths) were 0.92 ± 0.16 g·cm−2·s−1 and 0.53 ± 0.16 g·cm−2·s−1, respectively, compared with snow removal treatment (0 cm snow depth), 0.11 ± 0.05 g·cm−2·s−1. In general, snow addition increased CO2 fluxes significantly. As snow depths increased, microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and bacterial diversities increased drastically. More important, the community of bacteria differed under different treatments. Firmicutes, which can resist dehydration and extremely low temperatures, was widely distributed in the snow removal treatment, where it sustained soil biochemical processes. Overall, our study indicates that snow cover counteracts the negative effects on soil microbial activities caused by low temperatures and could play a critical role in winter carbon cycling in wetlands.

Emerging Transnational Practices and Capabilities of Syrian Refugees in Turkey

Transnational activities of refugees in the Global North have been long studied, while those of the Global South, which host the majority of displaced people, have not yet received adequate scholarly attention. Drawing from refugee studies, transnationalism and diaspora studies, the article focuses on the emerging transnational practices and capabilities of displaced Syrians in Turkey. Relying on qualitative data drawn from interviews in Şanlıurfa – a border province in south-eastern Turkey that hosts half a million Syrians - the paper demonstrates the variations in the types and intensity of Syrians’ transnational activities and capabilities. It describes the low level of individual engagement of Syrians in terms of communicating with relatives and paying short visits to the hometowns as well as the intentional disassociation of young refugees from homeland politics. At the level of Syrian grassroots organisations, there have been mixed engagement initiatives emerging out of sustained cross-border processes. Syrians with higher economic capital and secured legal status have formed some economic, political, and cultural institutional channels, focusing more on empowerment and solidarity in the receiving country than on plans for advancement in the country of origin. Institutional attempts are not mature enough and can be classified as transnational capabilities, rather than actual activities that allow for applying pressure on the host and home governments. This situation can be attributed to the lack of political and economic security in the receiving country as well as no prospects for the stability in the country of origin. The study also concerns questions about the conceptual debates on the issue of refugee diaspora. Whilst there are clear signs of diaspora formation of the Syrian refugee communities, perhaps it is still premature to term Syrians in Turkey as refugee diaspora.

Policy feedback and pathways: when change leads to endurance and continuity to change

The policy feedback literature was initially concerned with explaining how positive feedback could lead to self-reinforcing policy trajectories. More recently, policy scholars have devoted more attention to negative feedbacks which can result in self-undermining policy trajectories. This article moves beyond these two well-known pathways to policy endurance and change by conceptually outlining two additional pathways to endurance and change. We argue that positive and negative feedback may be observed simultaneously within the same policy trajectory. The existing literature fails to distinguish adequately between policy feedback processes operating at the ideational and instrument levels of policy. We outline a pathway to endurance in which negative feedbacks at the policy instrument level result in instrument change which can be a necessary condition for sustained positive feedback processes at the ideational level of policy. Somewhat counterintuitively, we argue a policy pathway in which positive instrument feedbacks undermine the ideational foundation of policy. With positive instrument feedback overshadowing negative feedbacks, misalignment between policy and the broader context, eventually undermining the policy, is likely to occur at some point. These new insights are important for policy planning with longer time horizons.

Preparation and properties of soil conditioner microspheres based on self-assembled potassium alginate and chitosan

Fulvic acid (FA), as one type of soil conditioner, can enhance drought tolerance, improve nutrient ingestion, stabilize pH values of soil, and reduce fertilizer extracting behaviors. Moreover, it shows a good effect on increasing the permissiveness of plants to various environments, and the stress of salinity and drought is included. Therefore, it can be used as an ideal soil conditioner. In order to extend its effect, it may be loaded into the core-shell polymer microspheres. In this study, FA was added to calcium carbonate (CaCO3) microspheres, potassium alginate (PAL) and chitosan (CS) were assembled outside. Thus, PAL/CS/FA-CaCO3 microspheres were prepared using layer-by-layer self-assembly methods. The surface morphology, encapsulation efficiency and in vitro drug release characteristics were investigated. It was revealed that PAL/CS/FA-CaCO3 microspheres were formed with a particle size distribution between 2 and 6μm due to self-assembly between PAL and CS. Drug release behavior analysis exhibited the sustained release processes were delayed to varying degrees due to different degradation degrees of CaCO3 microspheres at different pH values. Results also illustrated that these microspheres had a high loading capacity for FA, and possessed good biodegradability. Thus, PAL/CS/FA-CaCO3 microspheres exhibited promise for future applications compared with that of traditional soil conditioners.

Simulation, Control and Desire. Urban Commons and Semi-Public Space Resilience in the Age of Augmented Transductive Territorial Production

Considering place-based participation a crucial factor for the development of sustainable and resilient cities in the post-digital turn age, this paper addresses the socio-spatial implications of the recent transformation of relationality networks. To understand the drivers of spatial claims emerged in conditions of digitally augmented spectacle and simulation, it focuses on changes occurring in key nodes of central urban public and semi-public spaces of rapidly developing cities. Firstly, it proposes a theoretical framework for the analysis of problems related to socio-spatial fragmentation, polarisation and segregation of urban commons subject to external control. Secondly, it discusses opportunities and criticalities emerging from a representational paradox depending on the ambivalence in the play of desire found in digitally augmented semi-public spaces. The discussion is structured to shed light on specific socio-spatial relational practices that counteract the dissipation of the “common worlds” caused by sustained processes of urban gentrification and homogenisation. The theoretical framework is developed from a comparative critical urbanism approach inspired by the right to the city and the right to difference, and elaborates on the discourse on sustainable development that informs the United Nations’ New Urban Agenda. The analysis focuses on how digitally augmented geographies reintroduce practices of participation and commoning that reassemble fragmented relational infrastructures and recombine translocal social, cultural and material elements. Empirical studies on the production of advanced simulative and transductive spatialities in places of enhanced consumption found in Auckland, New Zealand, ground the discussion. These provide evidence of the extent to which the agency of the augmented territorialisation forces reconstitutes inclusive and participatory systems of relationality. The concluding notes, speculating on the emancipatory potential found in these social laboratories, are a call for a radical redefinition of the approach to the problem of the urban commons. Such a change would improve the capacity of urbanism disciplines to adequately engage with the digital turn and efficaciously contribute to a maximally different spatial production that enhances and strengthens democracy and pluralism in the public sphere.

Limited Benefit of Sleep Extension on Cognitive Deficits During Total Sleep Deprivation: Illustration With Two Executive Processes.

Introduction: Sleep extension has been associated with better alertness and sustained attention capacities before, during and after sleep loss. However, less is known about such beneficial effect on executive functions (EFs). Our aim was to investigate such effects on two EFs (i.e., inhibition and working memory) for subjects submitted to total sleep deprivation and one-night of recovery.Methods: Fourteen healthy men (26–37 years old) participated in an experimental cross-over design with two conditions: extended sleep (EXT, 9.8 ± 0.1 h of Time In Bed, TIB) and habitual sleep (HAB, 8.2 ± 0.1 h TIB). During these two conditions subjects underwent two consecutive phases: Six nights of either EXT or HAB followed by 3 days in-laboratory: baseline (BASE), TSD (38 h) and after recovery (REC). EFs capacities were assessed through Go-NoGo (inhibition) and 2N-Back (working memory) tasks. Both EFs capacities were measured at different time (BASE/TSD/REC: 09:30, 13:00, 16:00; TSD: 21:00, 00:00, 03:00, 06:30).Results: In both conditions (HAB and EXT), TSD was associated with deficits in inhibition (higher errors and mean reaction time from TSD 09:30 until the end; p < 0.05) and working memory (lower corrects responses from TSD 06:30 or 09:30; p < 0.05). We observed no significant differences between HAB and EXT conditions on EFs capacities during BASE, TSD, and REC periods.Conclusion: Six nights of sleep extension is neither efficient to reduce core EFs deficits related to TSD nor to improve such capacities after a recovery night. These results highlight that sleep extension (six nights of 10 h of TIB) is not effective to limit EFs deficits related to TSD suggesting a disconnection inside cognition between executive and sustained attention processes. Clinical Trials: NCT02352272.

Histories of Conquest, Diversity, and Social Cohesion in Former Colonial Europe

Research has overlooked the influence of countries’ colonizing histories on how present-day diversity shapes forms of social cohesion. Ethnic boundary theories suggest that legacies of colonizing external territories could strengthen the boundaries that separate natives from foreign migrants. Alternatively, colonization could simply give countries greater experience with foreign populations over time, thus diffusing boundaries through sustained integration processes. This article investigates how history shapes diversity’s influence on horizontal and vertical forms of social cohesion: support for welfare to reduce hierarchical class differences and trust of the generalized other. Using 2002 to 2014 European Social Survey and country history data, I find that while diversity often directly reduces both welfare support and trust, histories of conquest moderate this relationship. Specifically, diversity’s negative influence on social cohesion outcomes gradually diminishes with the occupation of foreign territories, in contrast to their colonization. While prior research emphasizes diversity as a straightforward negative force, current findings show that it is shaped by historical episodes of symbolic boundary making.

Anticipating digital futures: ruins, entanglements and the possibilities of shared technology making

ABSTRACTContrary to the corporate production of digital cities, shared technology making explores ways of innovation that are open to all, informed by diverse knowledges, and led by citizens. However, this exploration faces corporate translation of ethical and societal values for capital accumulation and concerns around the right to participate. Building on Tsing’s concept of ‘ruins’, this paper considers the anticipation of digital futures while the neoliberal ruination of shared technology making is in full swing. The paper examines the entanglements in hackathon rationalities and practices and demonstrates that the possibilities of shared technology making emerge from disrupting technocratic visions and repurposing corporate innovation resources and techniques. Drawing on the analysis, the paper argues that these entanglements are crucial to digital futures. They disclose in concrete ways how neoliberal co-optation can be disturbed and transformed. Equally importantly, they urge continuous explorations to assemble diverse practices and values for building momentum towards sustained processes of shaping desirable futures.

Ahead of time: Early sentence slow cortical modulations associated to semantic prediction

According to prediction-based accounts of language comprehension, incoming contextual information is constantly used to guide the pre-activation of the most probable continuations to the unfolding sentences. However, there is still scarce evidence of the build-up of these predictions during sentence comprehension. Using event-related brain potentials, we investigated sustained processes associated to semantic prediction during online sentence comprehension. To address this, participants read sentences with varying levels of contextual constraint one word at a time. A 1000 ms interval preceded the final word, which could be congruent or incongruent. A slow sustained negativity developed gradually over the course of sentences, showing differences across conditions, with increasingly larger amplitudes for high than low levels of constraint. The effect was maximal in the interval preceding the closing word. This interval elicited a left-dominant slow negative potential with a graded amplitude modulation to contextual constraint, replicating previous results in speech comprehension. We argue that these slow potentials index the engagement of cognitive operations associated to semantic prediction. In addition, we replicated the finding of an earlier onset of the N400 effect (incongruent minus congruent) for high relative to low contextual constraint, suggesting facilitated processing for contextually-supported and highly expected words. Altogether, these results are consistent with prediction-based models of language comprehension and they also strengthen the value of investigating slow components as potential indices of mechanisms linked to language prediction.

Gender Biases and Discrimination while Hiring

In the employment market, hiring processes in the organisations are often considered to perpetuate gender equality. The discrimination prevails through implicit and in-group biases. During hiring decisions, marked gender differences in the hiring standards continue to exist for women and men. Counter balancing attempts, such as demonstrating agentic behaviour seem to have been unfavourable in receiving appreciations. Factors like „accumulation of advantage‟, „physical attractiveness‟ and so forth adds to the „threat‟ for the woman candidate. The article proposes that sustained and concrete processes need to be ensured that would defuse gender stereotyping, the latter being an outcome of the human tendency to carve the world into in-group and out-group. Two methods to neutralise gender biases while hiring are recommended in the concluding section.

Las TIC en la educación: análisis en una universidad argentina

Given the changes generated by digital technologies in the ways of building knowledge, the role of educational institutions is fundamental in the reconfiguration of their teaching practices. This article aims to reveal the positions of university profes­sors in the face of digital innovation and compare them with proposals for professional updating. The methodological design enables to conduct an exploratory study on 45 professors from the National University of La Plata (UNLP), Argentina, using an online questionnaire about the uses, practices and perceptions assigned to teaching tech­nologies. In addition, three training proposals implemented by said academy are selected, as an observation unit, and a systematic description of such initiatives is carried out. From the articulation between the demands and teaching positions, and the performance and proposal returns, provisional conclusions are obtained: even though professors maintain a recurrent link with digital tools, these practices diminish in front of mediations that promote more creative capacities. Although processes that critically include digital resources are evident in internal training, there are contradic­tions within the positions expressed by professors and the adherence to trainings. This allows to discuss the challenges that higher education faces when wanting to generate sustained and genuine innovation processes.