Unfolding Sequence Research Articles

"Oh my Dave, your face says it all!": Exploring the Multimodal Practices of Tasting in Live Streaming

Research on the activity of tasting, examined through the lens of conversation analysis, reveals that in face-to-face contexts, tasting is an interactive and sequential process that combines individual sensory experience with a public, witnessable, accountable, and intersubjective dimension. This perspective can be extended to the realm of live-streamed tasting, where streamers demonstrate and communicate the taste of food products to online audiences in real time. By adopting multimodal conversation analysis to scrutinize the unfolding sequence moment by moment, my study aims to demonstrate 1) Three practices to achieve the configuration of "tasting heads," wherein the current taster's face is displayed on-screen. 2) Patterns of gaze withdrawal from the screen and subsequent gaze back to the screen during the tasting process. 3) The performative and animated facial expressions. 4) The structure of responses from both streamers and viewers after the tasting.

Event Integration and Temporal Differentiation: How Hierarchical Knowledge Emerges in Hippocampal Subfields through Learning.

Everyday life is composed of events organized by changes in contexts, with each event containing an unfolding sequence of occurrences. A major challenge facing our memory systems is how to integrate sequential occurrences within events while also maintaining their details and avoiding over-integration across different contexts. We asked if and how distinct hippocampal subfields come to hierarchically and, in parallel, represent both event context and subevent occurrences with learning. Female and male human participants viewed sequential events defined as sequences of objects superimposed on shared color frames while undergoing high-resolution fMRI. Importantly, these events were repeated to induce learning. Event segmentation, as indexed by increased reaction times at event boundaries, was observed in all repetitions. Temporal memory decisions were quicker for items from the same event compared to across different events, indicating that events shaped memory. With learning, hippocampal CA3 multivoxel activation patterns clustered to reflect the event context, with more clustering correlated with behavioral facilitation during event transitions. In contrast, in the dentate gyrus (DG), temporally proximal items that belonged to the same event became associated with more differentiated neural patterns. A computational model explained these results by dynamic inhibition in the DG. Additional similarity measures support the notion that CA3 clustered representations reflect shared voxel populations, while DG's distinct item representations reflect different voxel populations. These findings suggest an interplay between temporal differentiation in the DG and attractor dynamics in CA3. They advance our understanding of how knowledge is structured through integration and separation across time and context.

Situation report (SITREP) visualization for effective management of disaster incidents in Sri Lanka

During and after any disaster, a situation report (SITREP) is prepared, based on the Daily Incident Updates (DIU), as an initial decision support information base. It is observed that the decision support system and best practices are not optimized through the available formal reporting on disaster incidents. The rapidly evolving situation, misunderstood terms, inaccurate data and delivery delays of DIU are challenges to the daily SITREP. Multiple stakeholders stipulated with different tasks should be properly understood for the SITREP to initiate relevant response tasks. To fill this research gap, this paper identifies the weaknesses of the current practice and discusses the upgrading of the incident-reporting process using a freely available software tool, enabling further visualization, and producing a comprehensive timely output to share among the stakeholders. In this case, “Power-BI” (a data visualization software) is used as a 360-degree view of useful metrics—in a single place, with real-time updates while being available on all devices for operational decision-making. When a dataset is transformed into several analytical reports and dashboards, it can be easily shared with the target users and action groups. This article analyzed two sources of data, namely the Disaster Management Center (DMC) and the National Disaster Relief Service Center (NDRSC) of Sri Lanka. Senior managers of disaster emergencies were interviewed and explored social media to develop a scheme of best practices for disaster reporting, starting from just before the occurrence, and following the unfolding sequence of the disasters. Using a variety of remotely acquired imageries, rapid mapping, grading, and delineating impacts of natural disasters, were made available to concerned users.

Evolutionary Behavioral Economics: Veblenian Institutionalist Insights from Recent Evidence

Analyzing the material means of life and the adaption of the human agent in an unfolding sequence of cumulative causation is the central ingredient of an evolutionary approach to economics identified by Thorstein Veblen. This article argues evolutionary behavioral economics, as a complement to mainstream behavioral economics, will provide not only a deeper conceptual integration of psychological insights of human cognition and behavior into economic analysis, but also greater generality by incorporating the antecedence and consequence of human agents. Three Veblenian preconceptions are examined in relation to relevant evidence from cognitive and behavioral sciences and evolutionary psychology. One, individual activity is ongoing according to habit in deliberate reasoning, intuitive thought, and unconscious propensities, and is altered by doubt in the efficacy of habits. Two, the conflicting propensities of self- and other-regarding behavior underlie competitive and cooperative behavior, respectively. Three, the human consists of several innate learning mechanisms by which instituted modes of thought and behavior are transmitted across generations and such modes evolve in result of individual doubt-driven alteration in activity.

Talking about the experiences of racism: A study of reporting racism in broadcast interviews.

This study examines how experiences of racism are talked about during broadcast interviews. Inspired by discursive-psychological and conversation-analytic investigations on experience in interactions, this study approaches experience as a 'loose term' and as a participant's issue in the unfolding sequence of talks. The analysis documents a range of interactional moments wherein experiences are invoked and negotiated over the course of reporting racism in the interviews. The findings align with the existing discursive-psychological and conversation-analytic research on experiences, and provide further evidence on how speakers jointly orient to and manage the issues of who knows and owns an experience, and has the premier authority to claim an experience, in relation to reporting racism. The analysis unveils the intricacy of inquiring and talking about a victim's experience of racism. People's (use of) common sense understanding of the detrimental nature of racism is met and complicated by an orientation to our unlevelled access to an experience of racism, which is a category-based societal problem.

Hydrophobic interaction of four bile salts with hemoglobin induces unfolding of protein and evades protein degeneration induced by urea

The interaction mechanism between natural bile salts (NaDC, NaTDC, NaC, and NaTC) and HB in vitro is presented using multi-spectrum methods (UV–vis, CD, DLS, and Fluorescence Spectroscopy), surface tension, bacteriostatic test, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics. The conformational change of HB was examined and mediated by different bile salt at pH 7.4 and at 298.2 K, which was significantly related to the interacting intensity. The bile salts were inserted into the hydrophobic cavity of HB. Hydrophobic interactions between the bile salt and HB induced protein unfolding, and the interacting intensity and extent of unfolding sequence were as follows, NaTDC > NaDC > NaTC > NaC. Bile salts' presence restricted hydrogen bonding between HB and urea, and thus prevented HB degeneration towards urea to a certain extent. Furthermore, a direct correlation was determined between the structure of the bile salt and the antibacterial effect. –OH groups in the steroidal skeleton and –CONH(CH2)2SO3Na were unfavorable for the antibacterial effect, hence, NaDC had the best antibacterial effect, followed by NaTDC.

Episodic memory formation in unrestricted viewing

The brain systems of episodic memory and oculomotor control are tightly linked, suggesting a crucial role of eye movements in memory. But little is known about the neural mechanisms of memory formation across eye movements in unrestricted viewing behavior. Here, we leverage simultaneous eye tracking and EEG recording to examine episodic memory formation in free viewing. Participants memorized multi-element events while their EEG and eye movements were concurrently recorded. Each event comprised elements from three categories (face, object, place), with two exemplars from each category, in different locations on the screen. A subsequent associative memory test assessed participants’ memory for the between-category associations that specified each event. We used a deconvolution approach to overcome the problem of overlapping EEG responses to sequential saccades in free viewing. Brain activity was time-locked to the fixation onsets, and we examined EEG power in the theta and alpha frequency bands, the putative oscillatory correlates of episodic encoding mechanisms. Three modulations of fixation-related EEG predicted high subsequent memory performance: (1) theta increase at fixations after between-category gaze transitions, (2) theta and alpha increase at fixations after within-element gaze transitions, (3) alpha decrease at fixations after between-exemplar gaze transitions. Thus, event encoding with unrestricted viewing behavior was characterized by three neural mechanisms, manifested in fixation-locked theta and alpha EEG activity that rapidly turned on and off during the unfolding eye movement sequences. These three distinct neural mechanisms may be the essential building blocks that subserve the buildup of coherent episodic memories during unrestricted viewing behavior.

The rise of idiôtês: Micro-politics of death and community reproduction in Bronze Age Hungary

• Applying ritual economy approach to assess funerals as active and political arena. • Middle-range theory to recover material signatures of micro-political discourse. • Bridging micro-politics at funerals and broad historical transformations. • Micro-politics of death providing a new agent-centered historical narrative. The Hungarian Bronze Age witnessed rapid sociopolitical transformation during the 16th century BCE as large communities scattered across the landscape, most long inhabited tell-settlements were reorganized, and centuries-old cemeteries were abandoned. Historical change on this scale is often perceived as a single, momentous episode elusive in the process, but visceral and consequential in its effect. This study develops a multiscalar approach to recover unfolding sequences of actions that led to such fundamental transformation of Bronze Age society. Examining material assemblages of five cemeteries in central Hungary, I explore the ways broadening economic activities, and increasing importance and control of bronze led to changing interpersonal relations and finally to disarticulation of communities. The study integrates a series of theoretical concepts to develop a middle-range theory of mortuary practice. This approach can recover material signatures of micro-political discourse during singular funerary occasions illuminating processes behind the transformation of Bronze Age society.

Emotion in Organizations: Theory and Research.

The workplace elicits a wide range of emotions and, likewise, emotions change our experience of the workplace. This article reviews the scientific field of emotion in organizations, drawing from classic theories and cutting-edge advances to integrate a disparate body of research. The review is organized around the definition of emotion as an unfolding sequence of processes: We interpret the world around us for its subjective meaning, which results in emotional experience. Emotional experience, in turn, has consequences for behaviors, attitudes, and cognition. Emotional experience also elicits expressive cues that can be recognized by others. Each process in the emotion sequence can be regulated. Processes can also iterate until emotion is shared throughout workgroups and even entire organizations. A distinct body of organizationally relevant research exists for each process, and emotional intelligence refers to effectiveness across all. Differences across culture and gender, future research directions, and practical implications are discussed.

Musical and linguistic syntactic processing in agrammatic aphasia: An ERP study.

Language and music rely on complex sequences organized according to syntactic principles that are implicitly understood by enculturated listeners. Across both domains, syntactic processing involves predicting and integrating incoming elements into higher-order structures. According to the Shared Syntactic Integration Resource Hypothesis (SSIRH; Patel, 2003), musical and linguistic syntactic processing rely on shared resources for integrating incoming elements (e.g., chords, words) into unfolding sequences. One prediction of the SSIRH is that people with agrammatic aphasia (whose deficits are due to syntactic integration problems) should present with deficits in processing musical syntax. We report the first neural study to test this prediction: event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured in response to musical and linguistic syntactic violations in a group of people with agrammatic aphasia (n=7) compared to a group of healthy controls (n=14) using an acceptability judgement task. The groups were matched with respect to age, education, and extent of musical training. Violations were based on morpho-syntactic relations in sentences and harmonic relations in chord sequences. Both groups presented with a significant P600 response to syntactic violations across both domains. The aphasic participants presented with a reduced-amplitude posterior P600 compared to the healthy adults in response to linguistic, but not musical, violations. Participants with aphasia did however present with larger frontal positivities in response to violations in both domains. Intriguingly, extent of musical training was associated with larger posterior P600 responses to syntactic violations of language and music in both groups. Overall, these findings are not consistent with the predictions of the SSIRH, and instead suggest that linguistic, but not musical, syntactic processing may be selectively impaired in stroke-induced agrammatic aphasia. However, the findings also suggest a relationship between musical training and linguistic syntactic processing, which may have clinical implications for people with aphasia, and motivates more research on the relationship between these two domains.

Depictive Hand Gestures as Candidate Understandings

ABSTRACT This article uses multimodal CA to analyze depictive hand gestures that are used to check understanding of the co-participant’s preceding action. Drawing on data from cooking and farming interactions, the analysis scrutinizes how depictive gestures come to be treated as other-initiations of repair. The analysis shows that relevant factors in this are: (a) the gesture’s design, i.e., its form and movement in relation to the material ecology of the interaction, including relevant objects; (b) the gesture’s position and timing in the unfolding sequence; (c) the embodied participation framework, including the body positions and gaze patterns of all participants; and (d) the participants’ shared knowledge and understanding of the broader activity context, including their familiarity with the ingredients and dishes in-the-making. The analysis contributes to research on gestural depiction in human meaning making and to the study of embodiment in repair organization. The data are in Finnish with English translations.

Cotranscriptional folding of RNA pseudoknots with different rates

We investigate and compare the refolding and cotranscriptional folding process of RNA pseudoknot including PK5 pseudoknot, human telomerase RNA (hTR) pseudoknot and its mutants by using helix-based transition rate model and master equation. It is found that in the refolding process, the final states for PKWT and two mutants PK179AG/110CU and PK△U177 are all pseudoknots. However, the final state of mutant PKDC is a stable long helix. Furthermore, the cotranscriptional folding intermediates are quite different from refolding ones. The intermediate found in refolding process for PKWT is also shown during cotranscription. For PK179AG/110CU, the two intermediates in refolding are not found in cotranscriptional folding. For PK△U177, only one of the intermediates found in refolding is not observed in cotranscription. For PKDC, the unfolding sequence in the refolding process directly transits to native helix. Two intermediates are found during cotranscription. The populations of intermediates and native structure also depend on the cotranscriptional folding rate. All these findings can offer useful insights into cotranscription folding of hTR pseudoknot with different rates.

Folding pattern design and deformation behavior of origami based conical structures

In recent times, origami-inspired deployable structures have received significant interest from the research community as a major area of research in the fields of science and technology. This paper deals with the geometry and the deformation behavior of deployable cones based on the four-fold line origami concept. First, a novel geometric design algorithm is presented to develop axially foldable conical structures based on generalized Miura-ori pattern, which is then utilized to investigate the influence of four design parameters on folding geometry. The foldability of thus obtained origami patterns is verified with the help of physical models. The geometric incompatibilities during the deployment are highlighted using a simple experiment, showing the unfolding sequence of a paper model. The deformations due to incompatibilities are analyzed by adopting the concept of pin-jointed truss modeling of the origami structures. A mathematical model of the deployment problem is formulated to capture the deployment deformations of the structure, on the basis of which an algorithm for deformation analyses is developed. One example is considered to characterize the deformation behavior of the conical origami structures as the design parameters of the folding pattern are varied. The analytical findings demonstrate that the fold line strains of the origami cone are very sensitive to the changes in three design parameters, number of origami units (m), fold angle (α0), and angle θ2; except the length ratio (lr0). The variation in design parameters may induce bi-stability in the deployment path of the conical structure. The findings of the analytical investigation are verified numerically, demonstrating that the strain responses obtained from the numerical analyses are completely consistent with the analytical results.

Enacting ‘Being with You’

AbstractThe German second person personal pronounduis commonly described as a deictic “shifter” or a T-address term, which is incorporated as an argument of a predicate. Exploring the ways in which participants use pronouns in everyday interaction, however, shows that these are not the only uses ofdu. In this paper, we examine vocative uses ofduin German everyday interaction. Drawing on methods of Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics, we will show that speakers use vocativedufor the management of being ‘with’ the other in terms of alignment as well as affiliation. Whatdulocally accomplishes, however, is sensitive to its positioning within the temporal unfolding of turns and sequences as well as to the sequential environments in which it is used. Our findings demonstrate the context-sensitivity ofduand underscore the importance of linguistic resources for the interactional establishment and maintenance of social togetherness and sociability.

The Predictive Skills of Elastic Coulomb Rate-and-State Aftershock Forecasts during the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, Earthquake Sequence

ABSTRACTOperational earthquake forecasting protocols commonly use statistical models for their recognized ease of implementation and robustness in describing the short-term spatiotemporal patterns of triggered seismicity. However, recent advances on physics-based aftershock forecasting reveal comparable performance to the standard statistical counterparts with significantly improved predictive skills when fault and stress-field heterogeneities are considered. Here, we perform a pseudoprospective forecasting experiment during the first month of the 2019 Ridgecrest (California) earthquake sequence. We develop seven Coulomb rate-and-state models that couple static stress-change estimates with continuum mechanics expressed by the rate-and-state friction laws. Our model parameterization supports a gradually increasing complexity; we start from a preliminary model implementation with simplified slip distributions and spatially homogeneous receiver faults to reach an enhanced one featuring optimized fault constitutive parameters, finite-fault slip models, secondary triggering effects, and spatially heterogenous planes informed by pre-existing ruptures. The data-rich environment of southern California allows us to test whether incorporating data collected in near-real time during an unfolding earthquake sequence boosts our predictive power. We assess the absolute and relative performance of the forecasts by means of statistical tests used within the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability and compare their skills against a standard benchmark epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model for the short (24 hr after the two Ridgecrest mainshocks) and intermediate terms (one month). Stress-based forecasts expect heightened rates along the whole near-fault region and increased expected seismicity rates in central Garlock fault. Our comparative model evaluation not only supports that faulting heterogeneities coupled with secondary triggering effects are the most critical success components behind physics-based forecasts, but also underlines the importance of model updates incorporating near-real-time available aftershock data reaching better performance than standard ETAS. We explore the physical basis behind our results by investigating the localized shut down of pre-existing normal faults in the Ridgecrest near-source area.

Aftershock deficiency of induced earthquake sequences during rapid mitigation efforts in Oklahoma

Induced seismicity provides a rare opportunity to study earthquake triggering and underlying stress perturbations. Triggering can be a direct result of induced stress changes or indirect due to elastic stress transfer from preceding events leading to aftershocks. Both of these processes are observable in areas with larger magnitude induced events, such as Oklahoma. We study aftershock sequences of M2.5 to M5.8 earthquakes and examine the impact of targeted injection rate reductions. In comparing aftershock productivity between California and Oklahoma, we find similar exponential scaling statistics between mainshock magnitude and average number of aftershocks. For events with M≥4.5 Oklahoma exhibits several mainshocks with total number of aftershocks significantly below the average scaling behavior. The sequences with deficient aftershock numbers also experienced rapid, strong mitigation and reduced injection rates, whereas two events with M4.8 and M5.0 with weak mitigation exhibit normal aftershock productivity. The timing of when aftershock activity is reduced correlates with drops in injection rates with a lag time of several days. Large mainshocks with significantly reduced aftershocks may explain decreasing seismicity rates while seismic moment release was still increasing in Oklahoma in 2016. We investigate the expected poroelastic stress perturbations due to injection rate changes within a layered axisymmetric model and find that stresses are lowered by 10s to 100s kPa within the injection-affected zone. For earthquakes induced by poroelastic stress-increase at several kilometers from wells, the rapid shut-in of wells may lead to elastic stress reductions sufficiently high to arrest unfolding aftershock sequences within days after mitigation starts.

Numerical analysis of the buckling and recuperation dynamics of flexible filament using an immersed boundary framework

The dynamics of flexible filaments in viscous shear flow is of interest to biologists and engineers in a wide variety of applications involving folding and unfolding sequence of long-chain biomolecules like DNA, non-motile sperm and microalgae. It is also helpful in understanding the deformation of natural and synthetic fibers which can be applied in areas such as biotechnology. In the present work, deformation and migration behavior of non-motile unicellular phytoplankton diatoms subjected to viscous shear flow are considered. These unicellular diatoms develop into colonies which are made up of linked chains. The complex fluid-structure interaction is solved by developing a two-dimensional numerical model with an immersed boundary framework. The simulation consists of suspending an elastic filament mimicking a diatom chain in a shear flow at low Reynolds number. The governing continuity and Navier–Stokes equations are solved on a Cartesian grid arranged in a staggered manner. A forcing term is added to the momentum equation that incorporates the presence of flexible filament in the fluid domain. The discretization of the governing equation is based on a finite volume method, and a SIMPLE algorithm is used to compute pressure and velocity. A computer code is developed to perform numerical simulations, and the model is first verified with the deformation study of a tethered flexible filament in uniform fluid flow. Next, the shape deformations for flexible filament placed freely in shear flow are compared with the studies of previous researchers. Further, the present results are validated with Jeffery's equation for particles immersed in shear flow along with classification plot for filament orbit regimes. All of these comparisons provide a reasonable validity for the developed model. The effect of bending rigidity and shear rate on the deformation and migration characteristics is ascertained with the help of parametric studies. A non-dimensional parameter called Viscous Flow Forcing value (VFF) is calculated to quantify the parametric results. An optimum Viscous Flow Forcing value is determined which indicates the transition of filaments exhibiting either a recuperative (regaining original shape past deformation) or non-recuperative (permanently deformed) behavior. The developed model is successful in capturing fluid motion, diatom buckling, shape recurrences and recuperation dynamics of diatom chains subjected to shear flow. Further, the developed computational model can successfully illustrate filament-fluid interaction for a wide variety of similar problems.

How Fast Is Too Fast in Force-Probe Molecular Dynamics Simulations?

While molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are routinely used to interpret atomic force microscopy (AFM) experiments of protein unfolding, computational cost in MD simulations still mostly imposes a large difference in loading rates and time scales in this comparison. Loading rate dependencies of unfolding forces and mechanisms have been studied in depth in experiments, simulations, and theory. One potential additional implication of the larger MD pulling velocity that remains to be assessed is that regions of the proteins that are close to the point of force application will be under force earlier or under more force than more shielded regions, resulting in a bias of the protein unfolding sequence which is likely marginal at the slower AFM velocities. We here, for the first time, quantify the parameters of this bias using a model system of four tandem spectrin repeats (SRs) linked with long, flexible poly-glycine linkers. We subject the system to seven different pulling velocities ranging from 0.01 to 10 m/s and find that for the fastest velocities, down to 1 m/s, the outer domains preferentially unfold; in fact, at 10 m/s, this happened in 100 cases out of 100. On the basis of these data, and also through analyzing the amount of partial unfolding in the beginning of the simulations, we show that the bias is equivalent to an effective signal propagation of 5-100 m/s, which is about 2 orders of magnitude slower than the expected speed of sound. Our results can help in identifying and removing this bias from future simulations.

Long-Ranged Protein-Glycan Interactions Stabilize Von Willebrand Factor A2 Domain from Mechanical Unfolding

von Willebrand Factor (vWF) is a large multimeric protein that binds to platelets and collagen in blood clotting. vWF A2 domain hosts a proteolytic site for ADAMTS13 (A Disintegrin and Metalloprotease with a ThromboSpondin type 1 motif, member 13) to regulate the size of vWF multimers. This regulation process is highly sensitive to force conditions and protein-glycan interactions as the process occurs in flowing blood. There are two sites on A2 domain (N1515 and N1574) bearing various N-linked glycan structures. In this study, we used molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to study the force-induced unfolding of A2 domain with or without a single N-linked glycan type on each site. The sequential pullout of β-strands was used to represent a characteristic unfolding sequence of A2. This unfolding sequence varied due to protein-glycan interactions. The force-extension and total energy-extension profiles also show differences in magnitude but similar characteristic shapes between the systems with or without glycans. Systems with N-linked glycans encountered higher energy barriers for full unfolding and even for unfolding up to the point of ADAMTS13 cleavage site exposure. Interestingly, there is not much difference observed for A2 domain structure itself with or without glycans from standard MD simulations, suggesting roles of N-glycans in A2 unfolding through long-ranged protein-glycan interactions.

Structure-Based Model of RNA Pseudoknot Captures Magnesium-Dependent Folding Thermodynamics.

We develop a simple, coarse-grained approach for simulating the folding of the Beet Western Yellow Virus (BWYV) pseudoknot toward the goal of creating a transferable model that can be used to study other small RNA molecules. This approach combines a structure-based model (SBM) of RNA with an electrostatic scheme that has previously been shown to correctly reproduce ionic condensation in the native basin. Mg2+ ions are represented explicitly, directly incorporating ion-ion correlations into the system, and K+ is represented implicitly, through the mean-field generalized Manning counterion condensation theory. Combining the electrostatic scheme with a SBM enables the electrostatic scheme to be tested beyond the native basin. We calibrate the SBM to reproduce experimental BWYV unfolding data by eliminating overstabilizing backbone interactions from the molecular contact map and by strengthening base pairing and stacking contacts relative to other native contacts, consistent with the experimental observation that relative helical stabilities are central determinants of the RNA unfolding sequence. We find that this approach quantitatively captures the Mg2+ dependence of the folding temperature and generates intermediate states that better approximate those revealed by experiment. Finally, we examine how our model captures Mg2+ condensation about the BWYV pseudoknot and a U-tail variant, for which the nine 3' end nucleotides are replaced with uracils, and find our results to be consistent with experimental condensation measurements. This approach can be easily transferred to other RNA molecules by eliminating and strengthening the same classes of contacts in the SBM and including generalized Manning counterion condensation.