“Do you see the story?” Consciousness, Cognition and Cricis of Narration in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Janus Head ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-136
Author(s):  
Avishek Parui ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Phenomenal Quality ◽  
Existential Crisis ◽  
Heart Of Darkness ◽  
Shared Language ◽  
Literary Narrative

The aim of this article is to examine the ways Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness dramatizes an existential crisis that is psychologically as well as politically underpinned. It explores how the novel is reflective of the ideological complexities of its day while also corresponding to current ideas in cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind which examine the entanglements of embodied feelings, subjective sentience and the ability to narrativize experientiality in shared language. In investigating how the crisis of narration in Heart of Darkness is reflective of the psychological and existential alienation experienced by the protagonist in the novel, the article draws on debates on the role of the literary narrative as a vehicle to communicate the phenomenal quality of consciousness.

scholarly journals Effective metrics for multi-robot motion-planning

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (13-14) ◽  
pp. 1741-1759 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aviel Atias ◽  
Kiril Solovey ◽  
Oren Salzman ◽  
Dan Halperin
Keyword(s):  
Motion Planning ◽  
Success Rate ◽  
Shape Matching ◽  
Equivalence Classes ◽  
Robot Motion ◽  
Robot Motion Planning ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Multi Robot

We study the effectiveness of metrics for multi-robot motion-planning (MRMP) when using rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT)-style sampling-based planners. These metrics play the crucial role of determining the nearest neighbors of configurations and in that they regulate the connectivity of the underlying roadmaps produced by the planners and other properties such as the quality of solution paths. After screening over a dozen different metrics we focus on the five most promising ones: two more traditional metrics, and three novel ones, which we propose here, adapted from the domain of shape-matching. In addition to the novel multi-robot metrics, a central contribution of this work are tools to analyze and predict the effectiveness of metrics in the MRMP context. We identify a suite of possible substructures in the configuration space, for which it is fairly easy: (i) to define a so-called natural distance that allows us to predict the performance of a metric, which is done by comparing the distribution of its values for sampled pairs of configurations to the distribution induced by the natural distance; and (ii) to define equivalence classes of configurations and test how well a metric covers the different classes. We provide experiments that attest to the ability of our tools to predict the effectiveness of metrics: those metrics that qualify in the analysis yield higher success rate of the planner with fewer vertices in the roadmap. We also show how combining several metrics together may lead to better results (success rate and size of roadmap) than using a single metric.

scholarly journals Native English speakers learning Arabic: The influence of novel orthographic information on second language phonological acquisition

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
CATHERINE E. SHOWALTER ◽  
RACHEL HAYES-HARB
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Talker Variability

ABSTRACTRecent research has indicated that learners exposed to second language words’ orthographic forms of words can often use this information to make inferences about the words’ phonological forms. Here we asked, do learners benefit even when the orthography is unfamiliar? We taught native English speakers minimal nonword pairs differentiated by the Arabic velar–uvular contrast (e.g., [kubu], [qubu]) and manipulated the quality of orthographic input. We found that participants were consistently unable to associate the novel phonemes with novel words. Results are discussed in terms of (a) the role of orthographic input in second language word form learning, (b) the influence of orthographic familiarity in moderating the role of orthographic input, and (c) the issue of talker variability in word learning.

Beckett and the Cognitive Method

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Bernini
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Scientific Debate ◽  
Modeling Technology ◽  
Dialogic Interaction ◽  
The Mind

How can literature enhance, parallel or reassess the scientific study of the mind? Or is literature instead limited to the ancillary role of representing cognitive processes? Beckett and the Cognitive Method argues that Beckett’s narrative work, rather than just expressing or rendering cognition and mental states, inaugurates an exploratory use of narrative as an introspective modeling technology (defined as “introspection by simulation”). Through a detailed analysis of Beckett’s entire corpus and published volumes of letters, the book argues that Beckett pioneered a new method of writing to construct (in a mode analogous to scientific inquiry) “models” for the exploration of core laws, processes, and dynamics in the human mind. Marco Bernini integrates models, problems, and interpretive frameworks from contemporary narrative theory, cognitive sciences, phenomenology, and philosophy of mind to make a case for Beckett’s modeling practice of a vast array of processes including: the (narrative) illusion of a sense of self, the hallucinatory quality of inner speech, the dialogic interaction with memories and felt presences, the synesthetic nature of inner experience and mental imagery, the developmental cooperation of language and locomotion, the role of moods and emotions as cognitive drives, the layered complexity of the mind, and the emergent quality of consciousness. Beckett and the Cognitive Method also reflects on how Beckett’s “fictional cognitive models” are transformed into reading, auditory, or spectatorial experiences generating through narrative devices insights on which the sciences can only discursively or descriptively report. As such, the study advocates for their relevance to the contemporary scientific debate toward an interdisciplinary co-modeling of cognition.

scholarly journals Iconicity (of Reading). Lolita

Semiotika ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 24-65
Author(s):  
Irina Melnikova
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
Vladimir Nabokov ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
Specific Object ◽  
Iconic Sign ◽  
Literary Narrative ◽  
Permanent Property

The paper focuses on the issue of iconicity of (printed) literary narrative and proposes the idea of iconic reading (or iconicity of reading). It discusses Peircean notion of iconic sign, examines its use within the field of iconicity studies in language and literature (Olga Fischer, Christina Ljungberg, Winfried Nöth, etc.), and considers the differences of paradigms in iconicity research: (1) iconicity as a permanent property of a sign; imitation pattern – form mimes meaning; (2) iconicity as a variable quality of a sign, actualized by the speaker; imitation pattern – form miming form; (3) iconicity as the ground of human thought and a function of a sign, actualized by the reader / reading. Consideration of the differences within the field of iconicity research helps to reveal the underestimated textual aspects that actualize iconic dimension of literary narrative, and inspires to examine their role in the analysis of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, precisely, its “Foreword” (both original English and Russian versions). The analysis of the fictional “Foreword”, which establishes the pattern of iconization of the novel as a whole, and inevitably includes the references to its “main” part, shows how the novel iconizes writing. Withal, the analysis demonstrates how this iconization configures the particular model of reading, which becomes the representamen of the specific cognitive icon. The mental representamen of this icon “stands for” the specific object – the text as the tangible media product, marked by the structural and discursive traits of its own. Respectively, such (cognitive) icon represents the pattern of mimetic relationship between form and meaning, introduced by Lars Elleström (2010), – meaning mimes form, worthy of further consideration.

scholarly journals A Novel Fluorescent Probe for Detecting Hydrogen Sulfide in Osteoblasts During Lipopolysaccharide-Mediated Inflammation Under Periodontitis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoya Lu ◽  
Hanchuang Zhu ◽  
Yi Chen ◽  
Yue Wu ◽  
Dongsheng Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hydrogen Sulfide ◽  
Fluorescence Probe ◽  
Inflammatory Diseases ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Chronic Inflammatory Diseases ◽  
Potential Marker ◽  
Precise Role

Abstract Periodontitis, one of the most common chronic inflammatory diseases, affects the quality of life. Osteogenesis makes an important role of the disease. There is a connection between hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and periodontitis, but according to the study has been published, the precise role of H2S in inflammation remains in doubt. The main reason of the lack of research is that H2S is an endogenous gasotransmitter, difficult to discern through testing. So, we synthesis a novel fluorescence probe which can detective H2S in vitro. By using the novel H2S fluorescence probe, we found that H2S changes in osteoblasts mainly by cystathionine-γ-lyase, and H2S increases under LPS stimulation. H2S could be a potential marker for diagnosis of inflammatory diseases of bone, and might help deeper studies of the changes of H2S level and promote the progression on the researches about pathogenesis of periodontitis.

scholarly journals THE CONCEPT ‘TEA’ IN THE NOVELS ‘THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD’ AND ‘CRIME AND PUNISHMENT’ BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-88
Author(s):  
Ivan V. Burdin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Internal Clock ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Absolute Value ◽  
Fyodor Dostoevsky ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
The Dead

The article deals with the concept ‘tea’ in two works by Fyodor Dostoevsky – the novels The House of the Dead (1860–1861) and Crime and Punishment (1865–1866).In these works, the concept ‘tea’ includes both traditional representations – ‘tea as an element of everyday life’, ‘tea as part of a meal’, ‘tea as an attribute of friendship and communication’ – and new ones created by Dostoevsky, such as ‘tea for thought’, ‘tea as medicine and a source of strength’, ‘tea as a source of spiritual balance’). An important representation for the psychological line of the works is ‘tea as a chronometer’ – when the heroes check their internal clock with the tea time, as well as with the temperature of tea as it is becoming cold. The paper gives particular attention to the representation ‘tea as a marker of wealth’. In the novel The House of the Dead it is presented through the scenes where guests are being entertained to tea and through descriptions of the quality of the drink, in the novel Crime and Punishment – through the representation ‘tea as luxury’.The paper establishes the role of the concept ‘tea’ in conveying the main author's idea in the works by Dostoevsky. Along with other concepts presented in the text, such as wine, tobacco, food, cards etc., tea in The House of the Dead is intended to show readers the contrast between freedom and prison, contributes to the translation of the idea of freedom as absolute value. Meant to depict a special state of life – on the border of the light and darkness, life and death, wealth and poverty, the representations of the concept ‘tea’ in Crime and Punishment greatly contribute to the depiction of Raskolnikov's mental state, fit into the semantics of St. Petersburg of Dostoevsky.

Board level “Picture-Understanding-Action”: a new way of looking at quality

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Martin ◽  
Maureen A. Flynn ◽  
Zuneera Khurshid ◽  
John J. Fitzsimons ◽  
Gemma Moore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Improvement ◽  
Board Members ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Statistical Process ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Outcome Indicators ◽  
Board Level ◽  
First Time

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to present a quality improvement approach titled “Picture-Understanding-Action” used in Ireland to enhance the role of healthcare boards in the oversight of healthcare quality and its improvement.Design/methodology/approachThe novel and practical “Picture-Understanding-Action” approach was implemented using the Model for Improvement to iteratively introduce changes across three quality improvement projects. This approach outlines the concepts and activities used at each step to support planning and implementation of processes that allow a board to effectively achieve its role in overseeing and improving quality. This approach matured over three quality improvement projects.FindingsThe “Picture” included quantitative and qualitative aspects. The quantitative “Picture” consisted of a quality dashboard/profile of board selected outcome indicators representative of the health system using statistical process control (SPC) charts to focus discussion on real signals of change. The qualitative picture was based on the experience of people who use and work in health services which “people-ised” the numbers. Probing this “Picture” with collective grounding, curiosity and expert training/facilitation developed a shared “Understanding”. This led to “Action(s)” from board members to improve the “Picture” and “Understanding” (feedback action), to ask better questions and make better decisions and recommendations to the executive (feed-forward action). The Model for Improvement, Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles and a co-design approach in design and implementation were key to success.Originality/valueTo the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time a board has undertaken a quality improvement (QI) project to enhance its own processes. It addresses a gap in research by outlining actions that boards can take to improve their oversight of quality of care.

scholarly journals A novel fluorescent probe for detecting hydrogen sulfide in osteoblasts during lipopolysaccharide-mediated inflammation under periodontitis

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoya Lu ◽  
Hanchuang Zhu ◽  
Yi Chen ◽  
Yue Wu ◽  
Dongsheng Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hydrogen Sulfide ◽  
Fluorescence Probe ◽  
Inflammatory Diseases ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Chronic Inflammatory Diseases ◽  
Potential Marker ◽  
Precise Role

AbstractPeriodontitis, one of the most common chronic inflammatory diseases, affects the quality of life. Osteogenesis plays an important role in the disease. There is a connection between hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and periodontitis, but according to the study has been published, the precise role of H2S in inflammation remains in doubt. The main reason for the lack of research is that H2S is an endogenous gasotransmitter, difficult to discern through testing. So, we synthesized a novel fluorescence probe which can detect H2S in vitro. By using the novel H2S fluorescence probe, we found that H2S changes in osteoblasts mainly by cystathionine-γ-lyase, and H2S increases under LPS stimulation. H2S could be a potential marker for diagnosis of inflammatory diseases of bone, and might help deepen studies of the changes of H2S level and promote the progression on the researches about pathogenesis of periodontitis.

Cognitive Health Counseling 40+

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Eschen ◽  
Franzisca Zehnder ◽  
Mike Martin
Keyword(s):  
Outcome Variable ◽  
Pilot Phase ◽  
Subjective Memory ◽  
Cognitive Health ◽  
Health Counseling ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Main Outcome Variable ◽  
Further Development

This article introduces Cognitive Health Counseling 40+ (CH.CO40+), an individualized intervention that is conceptually based on the orchestration model of quality-of-life management ( Martin & Kliegel, 2010 ) and aims at improving satisfaction with cognitive health in adults aged 40 years and older. We describe the theoretically deduced characteristics of CH.CO40+, its target group, its multifactorial nature, its individualization, the application of subjective and objective measures, the role of participants as agents of change, and the rationale for choosing participants’ satisfaction with their cognitive health as main outcome variable. A pilot phase with 15 middle-aged and six older adults suggests that CH.CO40+ attracts, and may be particularly suitable for, subjective memory complainers. Implications of the pilot data for the further development of the intervention are discussed.

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