Non-physical approaches to counteract age-related functional deterioration: Applications for rehabilitation and neural mechanisms

Normal and pathological ageing are associated with several motor impairments that reduce quality of life and represent a general challenge for public healthcare systems. Consequently, over the past decades, many scientists and physiotherapists dedicated their research to the development and improvement of safe and costless methods to counteract the progressive decline of motor functions with age. The urgency of finding new and easy to implement methods is even more paramount in case of acute pathologies (e.g. stroke or hip surgery). The frailty of older population makes it difficult or even impossible to use traditional physical therapy at an early stage after the occurrence of a pathology. To that purpose, non-physical approaches such as cognitive training (e.g. memory, attention training) and mental techniques (e.g. motor imagery) have grown in popularity for the elderly. Such methods, involving individual and/or group exercises, have shown particular effects on increasing or maintaining cognitive functions, as well as physical performances. Improving the motor function (especially in older age) requires an improvement of motor execution, i.e. the pathway from the brain motor areas to the muscle but also higher cognitive control. The present work reviews different non-physical interventions that can be used as a complementary approach by asymptomatic or frail older adults, and the effects thereof on functional performance. The use of cognitive training or motor imagery protocols is recommended when physical practice is limited or not possible. Finally, insights into the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms are proposed.     

Managing streaming video: A new role for technical services

BMCC Library is using streaming video technology to extend the electronic reserves service to include audio and videos. We have found that a streaming video project can be managed by non-technical staff with results that empower staff and impress students and faculty with their ease of use. The role of technical services in the library has evolved considerably, a process driven in part by technology. Consistent with this trend, our technical services department was asked to manage an electronic reserves program a few years back. Adding streaming video to its portfolio will invigorate a vital service department in the library. This article will illustrate the process we undertook from start to finish, demonstrating the major concern of streaming media is copyright consideration, not technology.     

The logic of appropriability: From Schumpeter to Arrow to Teece

This note expounds the abstract fundamentals of the appropriability problem, re-assessing insights from three classic contributions—those of Schumpeter, Arrow and Teece. Whereas the first two contributions were explicitly concerned with the implications of appropriability for society at large, Teece's main concern was with practical questions of business strategy and economic organization. This note argues that, his practical concerns notwithstanding, Teece contributed, en passant but fundamentally, to the clarification of basic questions that previous authors had addressed less comprehensively and less satisfactorily. Specifically, his analysis of the innovator's access to complementary assets, undertaken from a contracting perspective, can be seen as filling a significant gap in the previous theoretical discussion of appropriability.     

In search of useful theory of innovation

This essay presents an overview of the prevailing theoretical literature on innovation, probes the adequacy of existing theory to guide policy regarding innovation, and sketches some directions for more fruitful theorizing. The focus is on the vast interindustry differences in rates of productivity growth, and other manifestations of differential rates of technological progress across industries. It is argued that the most important policy issues involve finding ways to make the currently lagging sectors more progressive, if in fact that can be done. Theory, to be useful, therefore must organize knowledge and guide research regarding what lies behind the uneven performance of the different economic sectors. In fact prevailing theory cannot do this, for two basic reasons. One is that theory is fragmented, and knowledge and research fall into a number of disjoint intellectual traditions. The second is that the strongest of the research traditions that bear on the differential innovation puzzle, research by economists organized around trying to ‘fit’ production functions and explain how production functions ‘shift’, neglects two central aspects of the problem; that innovation involves uncertainty in an essential way, and that the institutional structure supporting innovation varies greatly from sector to sector. The bulk of the paper is concerned with sketching a theoretical structure that appears to bridge a number of presently separate subfields of study of innovation, and which treats uncertainty and institutional diversity centrally.     

A Necessary Myth: Cable Street revisited

This paper is a continuation by other means of the theme of autobiographical memory explored in an earlier paper (Changing English, 3:1, March 1996). It tells the story of the author's participation in a demonstration (now known as Cable Street) which prevented the British Union of Fascists from marching through the Jewish East End. The oral story was told over 60 years and eventually achieved canonical form. It was retold in a lecture room with interspersed comment and analysis, which show that the story is ‘a myth embedded in real experience, both growing from it and helping to shape its perception’ (Samuel & Thompson, The Myths We Live By, Routledge, 1990).