To cover as much as possible the various questions raised by the commentators, I have divided my Response into three major sections. In section R1, I reply to the major comments and remarks dealing with the basic hypothesis upon which the kinematic theory is built (Plamondon 1993b; 1993c; 1995a; 1995b). I focus on linearity, determinism, kinematics, and the biological significance of the model parameters. I conclude this section by showing how, from a practical point of view, the delta-lognormal law (...) can be used to group similar data prior to proceeding with further statistical analysis. In section R2, I address the main comments and remarks dealing with the speed/accuracy tradeoffs. First, I focus on the origin of speed/accuracy tradeoffs and the effect of visual feedback. Then I clarify some terminology problems and mathematical misinterpretations prior to providing new support for the theory using the experiments and data referred to by some commentators. I devote section R3 to a generalization of the kinematic theory and to some potential applications. I first provide new explanations of some classical experiments; then I show how more complex movements can be analyzed using the delta-lognormal law. I focus on perturbed and oscillatory movements as well as on cursive script and signature analysis. I conclude this section and my Response by showing some possible applications to the study of movement learning in children as well as to the study of aging phenomena in movement control. I complete my Response by recalling some technical problems that still need further analysis. Throughout the text, I try to convince the reader that the kinematic theory provides a new window on old and new data in the field. (shrink)

This target article presents a critical survey of the scientific literature dealing with the speed/accuracy trade-offs in rapid-aimed movements. It highlights the numerous mathematical and theoretical interpretations that have been proposed in recent decades. Although the variety of points of view reflects the richness of the field and the high degree of interest that such basic phenomena attract in the understanding of human movements, it calls into question the ability of many models to explain the basic observations consistently reported in (...) the field. This target article summarizes the kinematic theory of rapid human movements, proposed recently by R. Plamondon (1993b; 1993c; 1995a; 1995b), and analyzes its predictions in the context of speed/accuracy trade-offs. Data from human movement literature are reanalyzed and reinterpreted in the context of the new theory. It is shown that the various aspects of speed/accuracy trade-offs can be taken into account by considering the asymptotic behavior of a large number of coupled linear systems, from which a delta-lognormal law can be derived to describe the velocity profile of an end-effector driven by a neuromuscular synergy. This law not only describes velocity profiles almost perfectly, it also predicts the kinematic properties of simple rapid movements and provides a consistent framework for the analysis of different types of speed/accuracy trade-offs using a quadratic (or power) law that emerges from the model. (shrink)

Conceptual congruency effects are biases induced by an irrelevant conceptual dimension of a task (e.g., location in vertical space) on the processing of another, relevant dimension (e.g., judging words’ emotional evaluation). Such effects are a central empirical pillar for recent views about how the mind/brain represents concepts. In the present paper, we show how attentional cueing (both exogenous and endogenous) to each conceptual dimension succeeds in modifying both the manifestation and the symmetry of the effect. The theoretical implications of this (...) finding are discussed. (shrink)

Three periods in the development of Whitehead's thought are generally recognized : ()-: The period of the writing of Universal Algebra, ...

The ethical conduct of research rests largely on researchers, and as such, an understanding of how they perceive and enact their role in research is paramount. However, the literature around ethics and research mostly focuses on researchers’ perception of Research Ethics Boards roles and functions. To fill that gap, we analyzed the perceptions of researchers, REB members, and influential parties about researchers’ role in the ethical conduct of research through discourse analysis. Three discourses emerged: researchers as reflective practitioners, protectors of (...) participants, and technicians. Understanding the commonalities and differences among the discourses may foster a shared and compelling institutional research culture. (shrink)

Background: Clinical tests for detecting central and peripheral shoulder fatigue are limited. The discrimination of these two types of fatigue is necessary to better adapt recovery intervention. The Kinematic Theory of Rapid Human Movements describes the neuromotor impulse response using lognormal functions and has many applications in pathology detection. The ideal motor control is modeled and a change in the neuromuscular system is reflected in parameters extracted according to this theory. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess whether (...) a shoulder neuromuscular fatigue could be detected through parameters describing the theory, if there is the possibility to discriminate central from peripheral fatigue, and which handwriting test gives the most relevant information on fatigue. Methods: Twenty healthy participants performed two sessions of fast stroke handwriting on a tablet, before and after a shoulder fatigue. The fatigue was in internal rotation for one session and in external rotation during the other session. The drawings consisted of simple strokes, triangles, horizontal and vertical oscillations. Parameters of these strokes were extracted according to the Sigma-Lognormal model of the Kinematic Theory. The evolution of each participant was analyzed through a U-Mann-Whitney test for individual comparisons. A Hotelling’s T² test and a U-Mann-Whitney test were also performed on all participants to assess the group evolution after fatigue. Moreover, a correlation among parameters was calculated through Spearman coefficients to assess intrinsic parameters properties of each handwriting test. Results: Central and peripheral parameters were statistically different before and after fatigue with a possibility to discriminate them. Participants had various responses to fatigue. However, when considering the group, parameters related to the motor program execution showed significant increase in the handwriting tests after shoulder fatigue. The test of simple strokes permits to know more specifically where the fatigue comes from, whereas the oscillations tests were the most sensitive to fatigue. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the Sigma-Lognormal model of the Kinematic Theory is an innovative approach for fatigue detection with discrimination between the central and peripheral systems. Overall, there is a possibility to implement the setting for clinics and sports personalized follow-up. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to open a dialogue between research in social sciences concerning collective emotion and historical investigation concerning a religious and political movement of the...

In this proof-of-concept study, we assessed the potential for immersive virtual reality to measure transfer following strategic memory training, and whether efficacy and transfer are increased when training is complemented by practice in an immersive virtual environment. Forty older adults with subjective memory complaints were trained with the method of loci. They were randomized to either a condition where they practiced the strategy in VR or a control condition where they were familiarized with VR using a non-memory task. Training efficacy (...) was measured with word recall, and transfer of the training benefit was measured with a recall task completed in two VR tasks as well as a self-report memory questionnaire. Testing was administered before, midway, and after training. Participants improved their scores on word recall. Regarding transfer measures, participants improved their performance in the two VR recall tasks but not on the self-report memory questionnaire. No significant group effect was observed. Improvement was found when comparing PRE to POST 3 with no further improvement at POST 6. Thus, strategic memory training improved the memory of seniors with memory complaints on word recall and a transfer task relying on a VR scenario that resembles real-life. However, no evidence supporting an increase in transfer effects was found when enriching training with VR memory exercises. (shrink)

It is shown that a locally finite polyadic algebra on an infinite set V of variables is a Boolean-algebra object, endowed with some internal supremum morphism, in the category of locally finite transformation sets on V. Then, this new categorical definition of polyadic algebras is used to simplify the theory of these algebras. Two examples are given: the construction of dilatations and the definition of terms and constants.

Some authors have studied in an ad hoc fashion the inclusive logics, that is the logics which admit or include objects or sets without element. These logics have been recently brought into the limelight because of the use of arbitrary topoi for interpreting languages. (In topoi there are usually many objects without element.)The aim of the paper is to present, for some inclusive logics, an axiomatization as natural and as simple as possible. Because of the intended applications to category theory, (...) the logics studied are many-sorted and intuitionistic. (shrink)

Nombreux sont les romans québécois qui, depuis une quinzaine d’années, construisent la figure du personnage à partir d’éléments empruntés à la vie de Jésus. Les romanciers ne cherchent pas à renouveler une quelconque vision de la vie du Christ, mais ils prennent prétexte de l’intertexte christique pour traiter de questions qui les préoccupent. Dans ce contexte, cet article fait voir plus précisément comment Pierre Samson, dans Le Messie de Belém, et Sylvain Trudel, dans Du mercure sous la langue, développent la (...) question du rapport de l’homme à l’amour. Tandis que le rapport amoureux est fondateur d’un nouvel espoir messianique chez Pierre Samson, il apparaît radicalement voué à l’inexistence chez Sylvain Trudel. There are many Quebec novels that, for 40 some years, have been constructing characters based on elements drawn from the life of Jesus. The novelists are not seeking to renew some ordinary vision of Christ, but use the Christ-like intertext in order to deal with questions that concern them. In this context, this article shows exactly how Pierre Samson, in Le Messie de Belém, and Sylvain Trudel, in Du mercure sous la langue, develop the question of the relation between the human being and love. While the love-relationship founds a new messianic home for Pierre Samson, it appears doomed to nonexistence for Sylvain Trudel. (shrink)

Le sens de l'autre est analogue au sens de l'ouïe ou de la vue. Notre manière d'être ensemble ou de co-exister (notre ethos) et notre manière de sentir ou de com-pâtir (notre aisthèsis) relèvent d'une expérience sensible de l'altérité qui est au fondement de la socialité. Le politique a sans doute perdu ce sens, mais le poïétique, en tant que création d'un monde toujours autre par l'exercice de la mémoire et de l'imagination réunies, ne cesse d'incarner cette sensation d'altérité par (...) laquelle nous éprouvons l'existence même comme coexistence. Les œuvres de Novarina, Volodine, Guyotat, Celan, Daive ou Ollier, comme celles de Rothko, Golub, Poulin, Morelli et Angelopoulos posent toutes cette question de fond de la politéïa vécue comme espace de cohabitation qu'il faut à tout instant imaginer dans des paroles et des images où se réinventent nos manières d'être et de sentir, dans des lieux communs qui ne sont plus des lieux familiers, des Etats ou des cités bien protégés par les frontières d'une identité, mais des espaces inconnus, non encore identifiables, des agora ouvertes à tous vents, où se manifeste l'altérité essentielle à tout avenir et à toute histoire. (shrink)

L'altérité est l'un des phénomènes les plus étudiés et l'un des concepts les plus utilisés au cours des trente dernières années, mais c'est aussi une notion des plus polysémiques et des plus controversées, jusque dans les usages idéologiques qu'on peut en faire aujourd'hui. Ce livre interroge les bases philosophiques, le contexte sociohistorique et la portée éthique et esthétique de ce phénomène ou de cette notion à la lumière de ses différentes valeurs. L'autre est à la fois l'étranger, exclu ou minorisé, (...) pour les études culturelles, l'un des pôles de la construction identitaire pour certaines théories du sujet, l'expression même de la Loi et du Symbolique pour d'autres, la figure emblématique de la responsabilité pour une certaine pensée éthique, le fondement de toute relation intersubjective et de tout dialogisme ou, plus radicalement encore, la manifestation de la nature essentiellement hétérogène de l'existence. Chaque fois, ce qui est en jeu concerne nos manières de vivre-ensemble et nos façons de faire et de créer. Les auteurs réunis dans cet ouvrage analysent les "politiques de l'altérité" que notre histoire impose ou propose comme choix de société et " les poétiques de l'autre" que les différentes pratiques artistiques, ancrées dans la mémoire et l'imaginaire collectifs, déploient comme possible ou comme alternative face à notre situation historique. (shrink)

Here, we report on a quasi-experimental study to explore the applicability and perceived benefits of the CRAFT program, which is based on mindfulness, yoga, positive psychology, and emotional intelligence, to improve higher education student musicians’ health and well-being during the lockdown. A subset of student musicians at a Higher Conservatory of Music in Spain followed the CRAFT program during the academic year 2019/2020, 1 h per week as part of their curriculum. Students enrolled in CRAFT-based elective subjects formed the CRAFT (...) program group, while other students represented the control group. The onset of the national lockdown elicited by the COVID-19 pandemic occurred halfway through the program, which was subsequently delivered in an online format. We administered an online survey to explore the effect that the exposure to the CRAFT program had in terms of how participants dealt with various health and well-being concerns arising from the COVID-19 lockdown. There was a significantly higher proportion of proactive participants in the CRAFT program group, 92%, than in the control group, 58%, in terms of implementing practices to improve their health and well-being during the lockdown. Additionally, significantly more participants acknowledged perceived benefits from their practices in the CRAFT program group, 78%, than in the control group, 52%. Among proactive participants, yoga/meditation was the most implemented in the CRAFT program group, followed by exercise, and other yoga/meditation practices, whereas in the control group, exercise and Alexander technique-based practices were the most applied. In the CRAFT program group, the highest rate of perceived benefits was from yoga/meditation CRAFT-based practices, 51%, followed by exercise, 32%, and other yoga/meditation practices, 27%, whereas in the control group, benefits were reported by 29% of exercising participants and 16% for those having practiced the Alexander technique. A similar pattern was observed when excluding participants with previous yoga/meditation experience. This study revealed how participants can independently apply learned skills from the CRAFT program in response to a naturally occurring life event of unprecedented global impact, suggesting that previous exposure to mindfulness and yoga is likely to have a beneficial effect on how young adults react towards exceptionally stressful conditions. (shrink)

Mental time travel and language enable us to go back and forth in time and to organize and express our personal experiences through time reference. People with Alzheimer’s disease have both mental time travel and time reference impairments, which can greatly impact their daily communication. Currently, little is known about the potential relationship between time conceptualization and time reference difficulties in this disease. A systematic review of the literature was performed to determine if this link had already been investigated. Only (...) three articles integrated both time conceptualization and time reference measures. However, the link between the two was not systematically analyzed and interpreted. This review highlights the lack of research addressing the question of the influence of time conceptualization impairments in Alzheimer’s disease on other cognitive domains, and especially language. (shrink)

Recent studies have shed light on how the COVID-19 pandemic changed our lives, and most of them have documented its detrimental effect on eating habits. Until now, the effects of this global crisis on negative body image and its association with disordered eating behaviors remain largely understudied. This study aimed to investigate changes in frequency of disordered eating behaviors and negative body image among a community sample of women during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we explored the possible relation between body (...) image-related variables and changes in the frequency of disordered eating behaviors in the context of the pandemic. A total of 161 self-identified female participants enrolled in an online-based survey. Descriptive statistics showed that women did not report clinically significant levels of weight and body shape concerns, but participants reported being dissatisfied with their body. One sample Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests revealed a tendency toward an increasing of the frequency of all disordered eating behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Multinomial logistic regressions showed that weight concerns predicted an overall increase in the frequency of restrictive eating behaviors, whereas higher body dissatisfaction was associated with a moderate self-perceived increase in the frequency of emotional eating. These results shed light on a risk pattern of phenomena in a non-clinical sample of women, as they represent the key risk factors for the development of eating disorders. Findings could have implications for designing and implementing prevention programs. (shrink)

Claudian of Alexandria's last datable poem, the Panegyric on the Sixth Consulship of Honorius, was delivered in Rome in 404, presumably on 1 January. This performance occurred in the course of the first visit to Rome by an emperor for nearly a decade and a half. Imperial visits to Rome were notoriously rare in the fourth century and, in a well-known passage of that poem, the goddess Roma herself muses on their rarity: she had only seen an Augustus three times (...) in the last hundred years. This is not quite true, but the only legitimate emperors known to have paid formal visits to Rome in that period were Constantine in 312–13, 315 and 326, Constantius II in 357, and Theodosius I, accompanied by his four-year-old son Honorius, in 389. In this article I shall begin by making an observation about the court's intentions in moving to Rome in late 403, and then deal with two problems bound up with the interpretation of this poem and with the circumstances of imperial visits. The first problem concerns the visit of Honorius during which the poem was first performed. In Claudian's narrative the description of Honorius' triumphal entry leads into a description of his assumption of the consulate, and scholars have sometimes asserted that he made a triumphal entry as consul on 1 January 404. This is clearly wrong: Honorius arrived in Rome weeks or months before. But even when this point is recognized, it is often asserted that the poem blends triumphal and consular imagery, and elements of the triumphal entry are confused with the assumption of the consulship. My argument therefore moves from the chronology of Honorius' visit to elucidating the structure and imagery of Claudian's poem, as well as casting light on the patterns of the late antique imperial aduentus more broadly. The second problem concerns the description of Honorius' previous visit to Rome with his father in the summer of 389. Here it has sometimes been inferred on the basis of Claudian, and of late chronicles, that Honorius was created Caesar by his father on 13 June, the day of the aduentus. I shall show on the basis of a critical examination of the chronicle tradition, as well as a survey of contemporary numismatic, epigraphic and literary evidence, that this belief is unfounded, and that the relevant passages of Claudian require a different interpretation. However, this evidence also makes clear that signals were being sent in 389 about Honorius' imperial future. (shrink)

That Claudian imitates Virgil's Georgics in the De raptu Proserpinae is well known. Most of his allusions are restricted to Golden Age or Underworld imagery, largely from Books 1, 2, and 4. However, one imitation of the third Georgic that appears not to have been noted previously occurs at De raptu Proserpinae 1.82. The context is Claudian's famous description of Pluto enthroned: ipse rudi fultus solio nigraque uerendusmaiestate sedet: squalent inmania foedosceptra situ; sublime caput maestissima nubesasperat et dirae riget inclementia (...) formae;terrorem dolor augebat. I argue that this recalls the following passage in Virgil: optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aeuiprima fugit; subeunt morbi tristisque senectuset labor, et durae rapit inclementia mortis. Inclementia occurs some twenty times in extant classical and late antique Latin verse. Claudian himself uses it three other times. None the less, the construction of Claudian's line makes it clear that the line from the Georgics is being imitated here: the lines are metrically equivalent, and the sound-pattern and identical grammatical structure make the imitation unmistakable. (shrink)

Current scholarly opinion holds that the poet Claudian was a pagan who was able to hide sufficiently his personal views at a largely Christian court. This opinion is not unanimous: Claudian has in the past occasionally been considered a Christian, and recently that view has reappeared in print. That Claudian wrote carm. min. 32, de saluatore, should not be doubted; yet this collection of stock phrases cannot be considered Claudian's credo. As Gnilka has shown, Claudian's treatment of the traditional gods (...) and goddesses displays warmth and fondness beyond the requirements of epic and consequently reveals his true beliefs. The poem is an Easter card for Honorius, displaying not religious convictions, but an instinct for survival at a Christian court. The exegesis of Carmina Minora 50 here proposed suggests that Claudian was familiar enough with Christian ideas to criticise them. Nothing hinders him from repeating them when it proved advantageous. The interpretation of carm. min. 50 depends in some measure on the literary relationship between Claudian and the Christian poet Prudentius. Specifically, it is important to ascertain whether Claudian was aware of the work of his contemporary. Several studies have argued that Prudentius read and used Claudian, but only recently has Cameron suggested Claudian also read and used Prudentius. His arguments and example are convincing and conclusive, revealing at the same time the nature of Claudian's use of his contemporary's words and ideas. Because similar echoes of Prudentius' poetry will appear in the interpretation of carm. min. 50, it will be useful to cite the example here. (shrink)