Neural masses and fields : modelling the dynamics of brain activity / / topic editors: Dimitris Pinotsis, Peter Robinson, Peter beim Graben and Karl Friston

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910137530503321
• Autore: Dimitris Pinotsis
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Frontiers Media SA, 2015; France : , : Frontiers Media SA, , 2013
• ISBN: 9782889194278
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (237 pages) : illustrations (colour); digital file(s)
• Collana: Frontiers Research Topics
• Soggetti: Calculus; Mathematics; Physical Sciences & Mathematics
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references.
• Sommario/riassunto: Biophysical modelling of brain activity has had a long and illustrious history and has during the last few years profited from technological advances that allow obtaining neuroimaging data at an unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution. It is a very active area of research with applications ranging from the characterization of neurobiological and cognitive processes to constructing artificial brains in silico and building brain-machine interface and neuroprosthetic devices. The relevant community has always benefited from interdisciplinary interactions between different and seemingly distant fields ranging from mathematics and engineering to linguistics and psychology. This Research Topic aims to promote such interactions and we welcome all works related or that can contribute to an understanding of and construction of models for neural activity. The focus will be on biophysical models describing brain activity usually measured by fMRI or electrophysiology. Such models can be divided into two large classes: neural mass and neural field models. The main difference between these two classes is that field models prescribe how a quantity characterizing neural activity (such as average depolarization of a ; neural population) evolves over both space and time as opposed to mass models which characterize the evolution of this quantity over time only and assume that all neurons of a population are located at (approximately) the same point. This Research Topic will focus on both classes of such models and discuss several of their aspects and relative merits focusing on the main ideas of neural field and mass theories that span from synapses to the whole brain, comparisons of their predictions with EEG and MEG spectra of spontaneous brain activity, evoked responses, seizures, and fitting to data to infer brain states and map physiological parameters. We welcome submissions shedding light on the underlying dynamics within the neural tissue that can yield explanations of disorders such as epilepsy and migraine as well as normal functions such as attention, working memory and decision making and encourage papers reporting new theoretical and/or modelling work as well as advances in experimental methods that can benefit modelling endeavours. The aim of this Research Topic is to provide a forum for state-of-the-art research in the field and foster new theoretical advances.

The colors of Zion : blacks, Jews, and Irish from 1845 to 1945 / / George Bornstein

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910965631503321
• Autore: Bornstein George
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Cambridge, Mass., : Harvard University Press, 2011
• ISBN: 9780674262195; 0674262190; 9780674059207; 0674059204
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (271 p.)
• Disciplina: 305.8009
• Soggetti: Racism - History; Racism - United States - History; Ethnic relations - History; Jews - Identity; Black people - Race identity; Irish - Ethnic identity; Race relations in literature; American literature - African American authors - History and criticism; American literature - Jewish authors - History and criticism; Irish literature - History and criticism; United States Ethnic relations History
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Races -- Diasporas and nationalisms -- Melting pots -- Popular and institutional cultures -- The gathering storm: the 1930s and World War II.
• Sommario/riassunto: This comparative study focuses on three groups often seen as antagonistic—Blacks, Jews, and Irish. Resolutely aware of past tensions, Bornstein argues that the pendulum has swung too far in that direction and that it is time to recover the history of lost connections and cooperation among the groups. The chronological range stretches from Frederick Douglass’s tour of Ireland during the Great Famine of the 1840s through the 1940s with the catastrophe of World War II. The study ends with the concept of the Righteous Gentile commemorated at the Israeli Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem--non-Jews who during the Holocaust risked their own lives to rescue Jews from the horror of the Holocaust. Bornstein expands the term here to include all those Irish, Jewish, or African American figures who fought against narrow identification only with their own group and instead championed a wider and more humane vision of a shared humanity that sees hybridity rather than purity and love rather than resentment. The identity politics and culture wars of recent decades often made recognizing those positive qualities problematic. But with the election of a mixed-race president who himself embodies mixture and mutual respect (and who famously described himself as a “mutt”), the shallow and arbitrary nature of narrow identity politics become evident. This study recuperates strong voices from the past of all three groups in order to let them speak for themselves.