No abstract
Abstract. Halliday's conception of Theme as "the starting-point of the message; ... what the clause is going to be about" is examined in application to natural texts, together with the related notion of topic as a narrative category. It is suggested that, while all ideational, interpersonal and textual elements comprising 'multiple Themes' may be regarded as points of departure of the message, only certain types of ideational Theme will tell us what the clause is about. Evidence for this view is sought by reference to participant roles. Theme and topic are seen to be distinct categories which may coincide in one realization, but only when this is a participant. As a consequence, it is proposed that 'topical Theme', if retained at all, be dissociated from identification with the first ideational element of the clause, since this is frequently not a participant. Other ideational Themes, such as circumstantials and attributes, are seen to fulfil specific discourse functions, independently of their syntactic realization.
Four parkinsonian patients who had shown evidence of an impairment of predictive manual control and 4 age-matched normal subjects were tested for the predictive control of eye movements. Subjects tracked a target with their eyes as it moved in either irregular "noise" or regular (predictable) linear ramp or sine waveforms. Eye movements were monitored by electrooculography, and the overall tracking time lag for each condition was determined by cross-correlation. Both normal and parkinsonian subjects showed prediction in eye tracking on the regular waveforms (zero time lag or anticipation of the target track), indicating that (1) the parkinsonian loss of predictive control in manual tasks is not due to defective control of eye movements, and (2) there may be separate predictor mechanisms in the brain for eyes and hands.
Socially assistive robots have the potential to help keep people with dementia cognitively active and entertained. This is important for their wellbeing. We explored staff perceptions of the acceptability of a new humanoid robot, Stevie, in an adult day care center for people with dementia. Stevie was deployed over 2 weeks in the day center to entertain 40 guests with dementia with three activities: (i) musical bingo, (ii) quizzes, and (iii) meet and greet. Nine staff members were asked what went well, whether the robot operated as expected, experiences of any technical issues, and the extent to which it hindered or aided their duties. Staff also rated guest engagement, guest enjoyment, and whether they were able to spend more time with guests. The sessions were successfully delivered. Staff reported that Stevie operated as expected, guest engagement with the robot was high, interactions with the robot were natural and the robot's novelty helped engagement. Use of the robot gave staff more time to attend to guests' needs. Suggested improvements included improvements to the robot's voice and adding a pause function during activities. With greater autonomy and/or extended use of its telepresence functionality, use of Stevie could become cost effective in such settings. Metropolitan University, and Conor McGinn worked for Trinity College Dublin. Angela Downing is Owner and Manager of the Reflections Day Center in Camborne, Cornwall, hosted the study and supervised the care staff and day center guests. Conor McGinn is the co-inventor of the Stevie Robot providing technical support in the set up of the study but was not involved in the operation or data collection for the evaluation. CONFLICT OF INTERESTConor Mc Ginn is a co-inventor of Stevie. However, he was not directly involved with the data collection and analysis of this study.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.