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Selective attention prioritizes information that is relevant to behavioral goals. Previous studies have shown that attended visual information is processed and represented more efficiently, but distracting visual information is not fully suppressed, and may also continue to be represented in the brain. In natural vision, to-be-attended and to-be-ignored objects may be present simultaneously in the scene. Understanding precisely how each is represented in the visual system, and how these neural representations evolve over time, remains a key goal in cognitive neuroscience. In this study, we recorded EEG while participants performed a cued object-based attention task that involved attending to target objects and ignoring simultaneously presented and spatially overlapping distractor objects. We performed support vector machine classification on the stimulus-evoked EEG data to separately track the temporal dynamics of target and distractor representations. We found that (1) both target and distractor objects were decodable during the early phase of object processing (∼100 msec to ∼200 msec after target onset), and (2) the representations of both objects were sustained over time, remaining decodable above chance until ∼1000-msec latency. However, (3) the distractor object information faded significantly beginning after about 300-msec latency. These findings provide information about the fate of attended and ignored visual information in complex scene perception.

Attentional selection mechanisms in visual cortex involve changes in oscillatory activity in the EEG alpha band (8-12 Hz), with decreased alpha indicating focal cortical enhancement and increased alpha indicating suppression. This has been observed for spatial selective attention and attention to stimulus features such as color versus motion. We investigated whether attention to objects involves similar alpha-mediated changes in focal cortical excitability. In experiment 1, 20 volunteers (8 males; 12 females) were cued (80% predictive) on a trial-by-trial basis to different objects (faces, scenes, or tools). Support vector machine decoding of alpha power patterns revealed that late (>500 ms latency) in the cue-to-target foreperiod, only EEG alpha differed with the to-be-attended object category. In experiment 2, to eliminate the possibility that decoding of the physical features of cues led to our results, 25 participants (9 males; 16 females) performed a similar task where cues were nonpredictive of the object category. Alpha decoding was now only significant in the early (

Early descriptions of attention in the psychological literature highlighted its interdependence with conscious awareness. As the study of attention developed, consciousness and attention began to be considered separable phenomena, experimentally and theoretically. In recent years, an energetic debate has developed concerning the extent to which the two phenomena are related. One school of thought considers the two to be doubly dissociable, whereas the other considers them to be necessarily linked. In this review, we highlight experimental findings from the last 5 years that contribute to the leading consensus view: attention is necessary, but not sufficient, for conscious perception. We review studies that show attention operating in conjunction with unconscious information, and other evidence linking attention necessarily to conscious perception. By drawing upon evidence that attention comprises many cognitive and neural processes, we argue that by studying how different forms of attention are related to conscious perception, it is possible to gain new insights about the neural states or processes that are necessary for conscious perception to occur.

Bruneau’s work repeatedly focused on the Roma minority, worldwide, one of the most dehumanized ethnic groups. In a preregistered design, we replicated one of his previous studies (Bruneau et al., 2020) in a different national context (i.e., Germany) in testing the hypotheses that pre-service teachers make biased educational-track recommendations discriminating against Romani students and that infrahumanization drives this behaviour. In line with Bruneau et al.’s work, pre-service teachers judged placing self-identified Romani students into lower educational tracks as more appropriate than self-identified Turkish-origin and German students, despite equal academic performance. Although participants infrahumanized Romani students at greater levels compared to non-Romani students, in contrast to the Bruneau et al.’s study, educational-track recommendations were positively associated with affective prejudice but not with infrahumanization. These findings extend Bruneau’s insights on dehumanization, prejudice, and discrimination against people of Romani background, highlighting the role of the social context in which these associations are studied.

Accurate and reliable quantification of brain metabolites measured in vivo using 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is a topic of continued interest. Aside from differences in the basic approach to quantification, the quantification of metabolite data acquired at different sites and on different platforms poses an additional methodological challenge. In this study, spectrally edited γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) MRS data were analyzed and GABA levels were quantified relative to an internal tissue water reference. Data from 284 volunteers scanned across 25 research sites were collected using GABA+ (GABA + co-edited macromolecules (MM)) and MM-suppressed GABA editing. The unsuppressed water signal from the volume of interest was acquired for concentration referencing. Whole-brain T1-weighted structural images were acquired and segmented to determine gray matter, white matter and cerebrospinal fluid voxel tissue fractions. Water-referenced GABA measurements were fully corrected for tissue-dependent signal relaxation and water visibility effects. The cohort-wide coefficient of variation was 17% for the GABA + data and 29% for the MM-suppressed GABA data. The mean within-site coefficient of variation was 10% for the GABA + data and 19% for the MM-suppressed GABA data. Vendor differences contributed 53% to the total variance in the GABA + data, while the remaining variance was attributed to site- (11%) and participant-level (36%) effects. For the MM-suppressed data, 54% of the variance was attributed to site differences, while the remaining 46% was attributed to participant differences. Results from an exploratory analysis suggested that the vendor differences were related to the unsuppressed water signal acquisition. Discounting the observed vendor-specific effects, water-referenced GABA measurements exhibit similar levels of variance to creatine-referenced GABA measurements. It is concluded that quantification using internal tissue water referencing is a viable and reliable method for the quantification of in vivo GABA levels. ispartof: NEUROIMAGE vol:191 pages:537-548 ispartof: location:United States status: published

Background The hardware and software differences between MR vendors and individual sites influence the quantification of MR spectroscopy data. An analysis of a large data set may help to better understand sources of the total variance in quantified metabolite levels. Purpose To compare multisite quantitative brain MR spectroscopy data acquired in healthy participants at 26 sites by using the vendor-supplied single-voxel point-resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) sequence. Materials and Methods An MR spectroscopy protocol to acquire short-echo-time PRESS data from the midparietal region of the brain was disseminated to 26 research sites operating 3.0-T MR scanners from three different vendors. In this prospective study, healthy participants were scanned between July 2016 and December 2017. Data were analyzed by using software with simulated basis sets customized for each vendor implementation. The proportion of total variance attributed to vendor-, site-, and participant-related effects was estimated by using a linear mixed-effects model. P values were derived through parametric bootstrapping of the linear mixed-effects models (denoted Pboot). Results In total, 296 participants (mean age, 26 years ± 4.6; 155 women and 141 men) were scanned. Good-quality data were recorded from all sites, as evidenced by a consistent linewidth of N-acetylaspartate (range, 4.4-5.0 Hz), signal-to-noise ratio (range, 174-289), and low Cramér-Rao lower bounds (≤5%) for all of the major metabolites. Among the major metabolites, no vendor effects were found for levels of myo-inositol (Pboot > .90), N-acetylaspartate and N-acetylaspartylglutamate (Pboot = .13), or glutamate and glutamine (Pboot = .11). Among the smaller resonances, no vendor effects were found for ascorbate (Pboot = .08), aspartate (Pboot > .90), glutathione (Pboot > .90), or lactate (Pboot = .28). Conclusion Multisite multivendor single-voxel MR spectroscopy studies performed at 3.0 T can yield results that are coherent across vendors, provided that vendor differences in pulse sequence implementation are accounted for in data analysis. However, the site-related effects on variability were more profound and suggest the need for further standardization of spectroscopic protocols. © RSNA, 2020 Online supplemental material is available for this article. ispartof: RADIOLOGY vol:295 issue:1 pages:171-180 ispartof: location:United States status: published

Along with inequality in wealth, politics is increasingly divided between a very small percentage who can afford access and the vast majority who are effectively marginalized. In 2014, billionaire Tom Perkins essentially proposed eliminating that last trace of fairness by arguing that one ought to be able to purchase as many votes as he or she could afford. Ostensibly, one million dollars would buy one million votes. Given the current state of inequality, we concur that “one person, one vote” is no longer sensible. However, following from the political philosophy of Pierre Proudhon, we take the position that “property is theft.” Accordingly, the possession of wealth, far from being a source of increased rights, is exactly what disqualifies an individual from supernumerary votes. Instead, drawing upon Proudhon’s views, and those of other nineteenth-century anarchists, we argue that the poorest in society, those who have the least property and have therefore committed the least theft, ought to have a surplus of votes. Using anarchism as a framework for critique within the parameters of existing politics, we will argue that as wealth declines, individuals ought to be bestowed with additional votes as compensation.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that there were 29 million falls and 7 million injuries in 2014 in the United States. Falls, decreased balance, and mobility disability are common in older adults and often result in loss of independence. Finding interventions to address these issues is important, as this age group is growing exponentially. Prior studies indicate balance and mobility can be improved by the balance-based torso-weighting (BBTW) assessment implemented through wear of a balance orthotic (BO). This study sought to determine the impact of wearing a BO on balance, mobility, and fall risk over time. METHODS This quasiexperimental, 1-group pre-/posttest study investigated the effect of 4 months of daily wear (4 hours per day) of a BO on mobility, balance, and falls efficacy in 30 older adults living in a retirement community with limited mobility defined by a Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) score range between 4 and 9 out of a maximum of 12 points. Pre- and posttreatment tests included the Timed Up and Go (TUG), Functional Gait Assessment (FGA), Falls Efficacy Scale (FES), and SPPB. Participants received the BBTW assessment, consisting of individualized assessment of 3-dimensional balance loss, and treatment with a strategically weighted and fitted BO to control balance loss. The BO was worn twice a day for 2 hours (4 hours per day) for 4 months. Participants continued regular activity and no other interventions were provided. All posttests were conducted after 4 months and at least 8 hours after removal of the BO. Subitems from the SPPB (gait speed [GS], 5-time sit-to-stand [FTSST], and tandem stance time [TST]) were analyzed as separate outcome measures. Data were analyzed with paired t tests with a Bonferroni correction (SPPB, GS, FGA, and FES) when statistical assumptions were met. Data that did not meet the statistical assumptions of the paired t test (FTSST, TST, and TUG) were analyzed with Wilcoxon signed rank tests with a Bonferroni correction. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Twenty-four participants, average age 87 (5.7) years, completed the study. Paired t tests indicated that mean group scores on the SPPB, GS, and FGA significantly improved from pre- to posttests. The SPPB improved by 1.3 points (P = .001). GS improved by 0.09 m/s (P = .004) and both mean values improved beyond fall risk cutoffs. The FGA also improved by 2.6 points (P = .001). There were no significant changes in FES scores (P = .110). Wilcoxon signed rank tests indicated median group scores of the FTSST significantly improved from pre- to posttests by 7.4 seconds (P = .002) and median TUG times improved by 3.5 seconds (P = .004). There were no changes in TST (P = .117). CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that wearing a BO for 4 hours per day for 4 months results in improvements in functional assessments related to fall risk (SPPB, GS, FGA, TUG, and FTSST) in a group of older adult participants with limited mobility.

In July of 2016, a gunman opened fire on an otherwise peaceful protest in Dallas, Texas, targeting uniformed police officers. The suspect was eventually killed, not by police gunfire, but by a bomb-wielding robot. In orthodox Marxism, automation has represented both a threat to the employment and livelihood of the worker, and the potential to free human beings from drudgery. What does it mean now that lethal robots are in the arsenal of what the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser called “the Repressive State Apparatus”? We argue, drawing on the respective ideas of Althusser and Erich Fromm, that a dialectical resistance to this development may require humanized robots, robots imparted with the best aspects of humanity, those aspects we ourselves seem unable to embrace sufficiently.

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is the only biomedical imaging method that can noninvasively detect endogenous signals from the neurotransmitter γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the human brain. Its increasing popularity has been aided by improvements in scanner hardware and acquisition methodology, as well as by broader access to pulse sequences that can selectively detect GABA, in particular J-difference spectral editing sequences. Nevertheless, implementations of GABA-edited MRS remain diverse across research sites, making comparisons between studies challenging. This large-scale multi-vendor, multi-site study seeks to better understand the factors that impact measurement outcomes of GABA-edited MRS. An international consortium of 24 research sites was formed. Data from 272 healthy adults were acquired on scanners from the three major MRI vendors and analyzed using the Gannet processing pipeline. MRS data were acquired in the medial parietal lobe with standard GABA+ and macromolecule- (MM-) suppressed GABA editing. The coefficient of variation across the entire cohort was 12% for GABA+ measurements and 28% for MM-suppressed GABA measurements. A multilevel analysis revealed that most of the variance (72%) in the GABA+ data was accounted for by differences between participants within-site, while site-level differences accounted for comparatively more variance (20%) than vendor-level differences (8%). For MM-suppressed GABA data, the variance was distributed equally between site- (50%) and participant-level (50%) differences. The findings show that GABA+ measurements exhibit strong agreement when implemented with a standard protocol. There is, however, increased variability for MM-suppressed GABA measurements that is attributed in part to differences in site-to-site data acquisition. This study's protocol establishes a framework for future methodological standardization of GABA-edited MRS, while the results provide valuable benchmarks for the MRS community. This work was supported by NIH grants R01 EB016089, R01 EB023963 and P41 EB015909. Data collection was supported by the Shandong Provincial Key Research and Development Plan of China (2016ZDJS07A16) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China for Young Scholars (no. 81601479). IDW thanks Mrs. J. Bigley of the University of Sheffield MRI Unit for her assistance with data acquisition. JJP was supported by NIAAA grant K23 AA020842. MPS was supported by NIH grant F32 EY025121. NAJP receives salary support from NIH grant K99 MH107719. The authors acknowledge implementation contributions from a number of employees of Siemens Medical Solutions, including Dr. Keith Heberlein and Dr. Sinyeob Ahn, to the Siemens WIP sequences, which are shared with several research sites under sequencespecific agreements.

This volume provides an introductory guide to interpretive approaches in political theory. There is a wide, and perhaps bewildering, assortment of interpretive approaches available to students of political theory today. The aim of this volume is to help readers navigate their way through this dense and diverse field by providing an overview of the backgrounds and practices that inform these approaches to interpretation. Mastering any of the approaches surveyed in this volume can be a daunting task. So much has already been written on Straussianism, the Cambridge School, and feminism that the novice may have no idea where to begin. Moreover, the texts detailing approaches like deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and genealogy are often so prohibitively dense as to discourage new readers from making the attempt at all. The aim of this volume is thus to provide an introduction that renders these approaches more accessible. Although the book is intended primarily for graduate students and advanced undergraduates who want to know about the backgrounds, methods, and objectives associated with different interpretive approaches, seasoned practitioners of particular approaches will also find the discussions of other, perhaps less familiar, approaches useful as a foundation for further inquiry. Interpretation is an essential activity of political theory. Political theory is arich, complex, and contested interdisciplinary field of study that takes diverse forms and pursues a variety of interrelated activities including historical narrative, textual exegesis, normative theorizing, applied ethics, empirical analysis, and political commentary.1 For all the differences in form, style, and objective among these and other endeavors, however, the interpretation of texts is an indispensable activity in political theory. Although interpretation is arguably an unavoidable (ifsometimes unacknowledged) aspect of all scholarship-if not of any and every engagement with the world2-political theorists face the special challenge of interpreting texts that come as close as anything to defining the core of this increasingly pluralistic and unabashedly undisciplined field of study. Even if the analysis of written texts is not their primary concern, the requirements of professional training, teaching, and scholarship make it necessary for political theorists to interpret written texts. But what distinguishes-and sometimes divides-different political theorists are the different methods, techniques, and procedures they use to render texts intelligible and to explain their meaning. The interpretive approaches explored in this volume exemplify this diversity.Some of these schools of thought, such as Straussianism, the Cambridge School, Marxism, feminism, genealogy, and deconstruction, have attracted sizeable followings. Others, such as Lacanian psychoanalysis, negative dialectics, and Greimassian semiotics, are perhaps lesser-known approaches that have (so far) worked largely around the margins of political theory. Others may be familiar (by name and reputation if nothing else) to most political theorists as distinct modes of analyzing norms, practices, and institutions, but not exclusively as ways of reading texts. Some of these approaches were specifically designed for the reading of canonical texts in the history of political thought, while others are adapted from approaches first developed or used primarily for the analysis of discourses, institutions, social systems, and other phenomena in more empirical forms of scholarship. Some were developed by self-identified political theorists working within the larger field of political science, while others were formulated by scholars and thinkers in psychiatry, philosophy, linguistics, and other disciplines. Regardless of its provenance, though, each offers a distinct perspective on the meaning and significance of texts that makes it worthy of study. The diversity of approaches used in political theory today stands in markedcontrast to the situation that existed when political theory first emerged as a distinct sub-field of political science. The approaches that dominated political theory until the 1960s generally treated it as a single continuous tradition centered on a fairly limited set of fundamental questions and topics. During the latter part of the nineteenth century and throughout the first half of the twentieth century, political theory was chiefly conceived as the history of political thought in the “West.” With the emergence of political theory as a distinct sub-field within political science-which had itself become established at the start of the twentieth century as a distinct discipline with its own professional associations, journals, subject-matter, and standards of scholarship-the study of political thought was often defined in terms of the evolutionary development of a continuous tradition that stretched from the ancient Greeks into the present. Scholarship focused on those thinkers who were either deemed to be 1) “great” according to some timeless standard, 2) representative of political thought in their own eras, or 3) influential in the subsequent development of political thought or practice. Studies often took the form of narrative and critical commentary on the so-called Great Booksof Western political thought composed by a select group of luminaries, including Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Other thinkers also made notable appearances in studies during this period, but a canon centered around the aforementioned thinkers had taken shape. Although there were always exceptions, the field was dominated by studieswhich assumed that works by thinkers from very different time periods and social and cultural contexts were preoccupied with many of the same basic political concerns. There were always studies on individual thinkers and surveys of the political thought of particular periods (e.g., the Middle Ages),3 but the works that probably did the most to define the field of political theory at this time were much broader in scope. Some of the most influential studies in the last century took the form of sweeping surveys of the history of political thought presented in chronological order.4

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) provides a powerful tool to measure gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the principle inhibitory neurotransmitter in the human brain. We asked whether individual differences in MRS estimates of GABA are uniform across the cortex or vary between regions. In two sessions, resting GABA concentrations in the lateral prefrontal, sensorimotor, dorsal premotor, and occipital cortices were measured in twenty-eight healthy individuals. GABA estimates within each region were stable across weeks, with low coefficients of variation. Despite this stability, the GABA estimates were not correlated between regions. In contrast, the percentage of brain tissue per volume, a control measure, was correlated between the three anterior regions. These results provide an interesting dissociation between an anatomical measure of individual differences and a neurochemical measure. The different patterns of anatomy and GABA concentrations have implications for understanding regional variation in the molecular topography of the brain in health and disease.

How can we understand the application of state power through child pornography prosecutions of legally classified children? In his landmark work, On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche argued that, among its many uses, punishment was essentially a means to sharpening the memory so that the various laws and obligations of an individual owed to society could be fulfilled. However, at issue in the prosecutions of child-autopornography is not any lasciviousness or sexuality itself. Rather, as the judges in the A.H. case explicitly stated, the illegal aspect was ‘memorializing’ what were otherwise legal acts. In this paper, I argue that prosecutions of child-autopornography represent an inversion of Nietzsche’s ‘mnemotechnics’, the brutal science of inflicting memory. Instead, in these cases, where state power forces the production of a victimizer where none previously existed, punishment is used in the interest of creating ‘amnemotechnics’, the brutal science of inflicting amnesia.

The aim of this article is to address the recently renewed debate pertaining to esotericism, secret messages encoded within writings from antiquity, especially in the writings of Plato. The question of esotericism has assumed a prominent role within debates concerning the history of political thought. Ever since Leo Strauss offered his suspicion that there were secrets ‘buried in the writings of the rhetoricians of antiquity’, the idea that philosophers deliberately concealed their true beliefs in a way that few could detect has been fiercely debated. More recently, the research of J.B. Kennedy has made international headlines for discovering a musical pattern embedded within Platonic writings, a pattern that Kennedy insists is evidence of Plato’s Pythagorean allegiance. The theses proffered by Strauss and Kennedy are empty doctrines of esotericism, or empty esotericisms. These doctrines insinuate the presence of secret or coded writing within Platonic dialogues but reveal no actual secret. These theses of esotericism falsely represent Plato as hyper-cryptic.Without actually providing substantive content, these notions of esotericism compel the reader to merely negate the exoteric writings of Plato, which actually render his already heterodox writings as commonplace and orthodox.

How can we understand the confrontation with fear in works of political philosophy? Plato wrote ironically, but also took profound risks in his writing, labeling contemporaneous statesmen as squabbling fools. Hobbes deftly skirted the line past which one was declared an atheist or a heretic. Both thinkers knew fear and, at least at certain times, confronted it openly. Leo Strauss, however, gives us a different story, arguing that the political philosopher will encrypt his or her true thinking under an exoteric facade. What is the consequence of Strauss' confrontation with fear? In this essay I argue that Strauss reveals the existence of secrets without revealing the content of those secrets. He creates rules of secrecy for philosophic writing, and then, by revealing them, Strauss bothers those rules. This is, for Lacan, the essence of perversion.

In composing this piece we hope to detail some of our strategies and pedagogical experiences teaching Marx and Marxism in Miami, Florida. Although Miami is certainly a special case regarding the intensity and character of ideological fervor against Leftist political and social theory, we believe the lessons adapted to this specific environment can be generalized for instructors regardless of geography. Teaching Marx in the United States often poses unique challenges. In Miami, those obstacles feel frequently amplified.

The question of how rare earth supplies affect security greatly hinges on how the meaning of security is perceived. In a very straightforward way, the scarcity of rare earths is often represented by government, industry, and media as a threat to security inasmuch as many examples of contemporary production rely upon these materials. Technologically advanced consumer goods, as well as military equipment, integrate rare earths, many of which have no known substitute at present. Consequently, threats to the supply chain of rare earth elements are also apparently threats to those technologically advanced consumer goods and the military that defends them. But threats to the supply of advanced consumer goods, and the military that defends them, may not actually be the worst of all possible fears. Rather, a continued supply of rare earths may perpetuate a far more fundamental and pervasive source of insecurity — late capitalism.