The concept of voluntary motor control(VMC) frequently appears in the neuroscientific literature, specifically in the context of cortically-mediated, intentional motor actions. For cognitive scientists, this concept of VMC raises a number of interesting questions:(i) Are there dedicated, modular-like structures within the motor system associated with VMC? Or (ii) is it the case that VMC is distributed over multiple cortical as well as subcortical structures?(iii) Is there any one place within the so-calledhierarchy of motor control where (...) voluntary movements could be said to originate? And (iv) in the current neurological literature how is the adjective voluntary in VMC being used? These questions are here considered in the context of how higher- and lower-levels of motor control, plan, initiate, coordinate, sequence, and modulate goal-directed motor outputs in response to changing internal and external inputs. Particularly relevant are the conceptual implications of current neurological modeling of VMC concerning causal agency. (shrink)

Many previous treatments of voluntary behavior have viewed intentions as causes of behavior. This has resulted in several dilemmas, including a dilemma concerning the origin of intentions. The present article circumvents traditional dilemmas by treating intentions as constraints that restrict degrees of freedom for behavior. Constraints self-organize as temporary dynamic structures that span the mind-body divide. This treatment of intentions and voluntary behavior yields a theory of intentionality that is consistent with existing findings and supported by current research.

Voluntariness of consent to research has not been sufficiently explored through empirical research. The aims of this study were to develop a more comprehensive approach to assessing voluntariness and to generate preliminary data on the extent and correlates of limitations on voluntariness. We developed a questionnaire to evaluate subjects’ reported motivations and constraints on voluntariness. 88 subjects in five different areas of clinical research—substance abuse, cancer, HIV, interventional cardiology, and depression—were assessed. Subjects reported a variety of motivations for participation. Offers (...) of financial incentives were common but not influential, pressures from others were rare, and no threats were reported. However, certain financial incentives and—paradoxically—altruistic motivations led some subjects to feel more constrained. Consistent with previous studies, no one pattern of motivation was common to all research subjects. There was little evidence of constrained voluntariness, but some suggestion of areas of concern. Voluntariness appears to be susceptible to systematic empirical investigation. (shrink)

Pressured Into Crime: An Overview of General Strain Theory by Robert Agnew provides an overview of general strain theory, one of the leading explanations of crime and delinquency, developed by author Robert Agnew. Written to be student-friendly, Pressured Into Crime features numerous real-world examples, insightful and colorful quotes from former and active criminals, clear summaries of major points, and challenging review and discussion questions at the end of each chapter.This book provides the following:* It compares and contrasts GST to other (...) leading theories of crime, including biopsychological, control, social learning, routine activities, and social disorganization theories.* It describes the evidence on GST, including the most current research on the types of strains most likely to cause crime, why these strains cause crime, and the factors that influence the effects of strains on crime.* It employs GST to explain patterns of offending over the life course as well as age, gender, class, and race/ethnic differences in offending.* It uses GST to explain community and societal differences in crime rates.* It draws on GST to make recommendations for reducing crime.* It revises and extends GST to take into account the latest research findings.Pressured Into Crime allows students to explore this major theory in depth--reviewing the research on the theory, comparing it to other theories, and applying the theory to key issues in the study of crime. (shrink)

Previous research has suggested that bodily signals from internal organs are associated with diverse cortical and subcortical processes involved in sensory-motor functions, beyond homeostatic reflexes. For instance, a recent study demonstrated that the preparation and execution of voluntary actions, as well as its underlying neural activity, are coupled with the breathing cycle. In the current study, we investigated whether such breathing-action coupling is limited to voluntary motor action or whether it is also present for mental actions (...) not involving any overt bodily movement. To answer this question, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), and respiratory signals while participants were conducting a voluntary action paradigm including self-initiated motor execution (ME), motor imagery (MI), and visual imagery (VI) tasks. We observed that the voluntary initiation of ME, MI, and VI are similarly coupled with the respiration phase. In addition, EEG analysis revealed the existence of readiness potential (RP) waveforms in all three tasks (i.e., ME, MI, VI), as well as a coupling between the RP amplitude and the respiratory phase. Our findings show that the voluntary initiation of both imagined and overt action is coupled with respiration, and further suggest that the breathing system is involved in preparatory processes of voluntary action by contributing to the temporal decision of when to initiate the action plan, regardless of whether this culminates in overt movements. -/- . (shrink)

To encourage corporations to contribute positively to the environment in which they operate, voluntary self-regulatory codes (SRC) have been enacted and refined over the past 15 years. Two of the most prominent are the United Nations Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative. In this paper, we explore the impact of different stakeholders' pressures on the selection of strategic choices to join SRCs. Our results show that corporations react differently to different sets of stakeholder pressures and that the SRC (...) selection depends on the type and intensiveness of the stakeholder pressures as well as the resources at hand to respond to those pressures. Our contribution offers a more specific and finely variegated analysis of firmstakeholder interactions. (shrink)

This paper aims to investigate the extent of anti-corruption reporting by ASEAN companies and examine whether coercive factors influence the level of disclosure. The authors adopt indicators from the Global Reporting Initiative version 4.0 to measure the extent of anti-corruption disclosures in 117 companies’ reports. Informed by a coercive isomorphism tenet drawn from the institutional theory, the authors propose that several institutional factors influence the extent of their voluntary disclosures. The findings reveal that a large degree of variability difference (...) between the average levels of anti-corruption disclosure in Thailand and the Philippines. The dependence on government tenders and foreign ownership are associated with the level of disclosure. Surprisingly, the United Nation Global Compact membership is not a significant determinant of anti-corruption reporting. This signifies that the membership in the international initiative does not correspond to individual company’s commitment to disclose anti-corruption information. In spite of significant efforts undertaken by global organizations to combat corruption, the level of anti-corruption disclosure is significantly different among the four countries under study. The disclosure of sensitive information such as the confirmed incidences of corruption cases requires careful consideration by the top management as it is subjected to legal implications and reputational risks. Thus, impression management can complement the coercive pressure in explaining the level of anti-corruption reporting. This study is among the first studies which explores the association between coercive factors and the level of anti-corruption disclosure in ASEAN region. (shrink)

Objective: Basic temporal dysfunctions have been described in patients with schizophrenia, which may impact their ability to connect and synchronize with the outer world. The present study was conducted with the aim to distinguish between interval timing and synchronization difficulties and more generally the spatial-temporal organization disturbances for voluntary actions. A new sensorimotor synchronization task was developed to test these abilities. Method: Twenty-four chronic schizophrenia patients matched with 27 controls performed a spatial-tapping task in which finger taps were to (...) be produced in synchrony with a regular metronome to six visual targets presented around a virtual circle on a tactile screen. Isochronous (time intervals of 500 ms) and non-isochronous auditory sequences (alternated time intervals of 300/600 ms) were presented. The capacity to produce time intervals accurately versus the ability to synchronize own actions (tap) with external events (tone) were measured. Results: Patients with schizophrenia were able to produce the tapping patterns of both isochronous and non-isochronous auditory sequences as accurately as controls producing inter-response intervals close to the expected interval of 500 and 900 ms, respectively. However, the synchronization performances revealed significantly more positive asynchrony means (but similar variances) in the patient group than in the control group for both types of auditory sequences. Conclusion: The patterns of results suggest that patients with schizophrenia are able to perceive and produce both simple and complex sequences of time intervals but are impaired in the ability to synchronize their actions with external events. These findings suggest a specific deficit in predictive timing, which may be at the core of early symptoms previously described in schizophrenia. (shrink)

Is the idea of the voluntary important? Those who think so tend to regard it as an idea that can be metaphysically deepened through a theory about voluntary action, while those who think it a superficial idea that cannot coherently be deepened tend to neglect it as unimportant. Parting company with both camps, I argue that the idea of the voluntary is at once important and superficial—it is an essentially superficial notion that performs important functions, but can (...) only perform them if we refrain from deepening it. After elaborating the contrast between superficial and deepened ideas of the voluntary, I identify the important functions that the superficial idea performs in relation to demands for fairness and freedom. I then suggest that theories trying to deepen the idea exemplify a problematic moralization of psychology—they warp psychological ideas to ensure that moral demands can be met. I offer a three-tier model of the problematic dynamics this creates, and show why the pressure to deepen the idea should be resisted. On this basis, I take stock of what an idea of the voluntary worth having should look like, and what residual tensions with moral ideas this leaves us with. (shrink)

This ground-breaking book brings together researchers from a wide range of disciplines to discuss the control and coordination of processes involved in perceptually guided actions. The research area of motor control has become an increasingly multidisciplinary undertaking. Understanding the acquisition and performance of voluntary movements in biological and artificial systems requires the integration of knowledge from a variety of disciplines from neurophysiology to biomechanics.

Voluntary acts are preceded by electrophysiological (RPs). With spontaneous acts involving no preplanning, the main negative RP shift begins at about200 ms. Control experiments, in which a skin stimulus was timed (S), helped evaluate each subject's error in reporting the clock times for awareness of any perceived event.

Treatment pressures are communicative strategies that mental health professionals use to influence the decision-making of mental health service users and improve their adherence to recommended treatment. Szmukler and Appelbaum describe a spectrum of treatment pressures, which encompasses persuasion, interpersonal leverage, offers and threats, arguing that only a particular type of threat amounts to informal coercion. We contend that this account of informal coercion is insufficiently sensitive to context and fails to recognize the fundamental power imbalance in mental healthcare. Based on (...) a set of counterexamples, we argue that what makes a proposal coercive is not whether service users will actually be made worse off if they reject the proposal, but rather whether they have the justified belief that this is the case. Whether this belief is justified depends on the presence of certain contextual factors, such as strong dependency on professionals and the salient possibility of formal coercion. (shrink)

A theory is presented to explain how accurate, single-joint movements are controlled. The theory applies to movements across different distances, with different inertial loads, toward targets of different widths over a wide range of experimentally manipulated velocities. The theory is based on three propositions. (1) Movements are planned according to “strategies” of which there are at least two: a speed-insensitive (SI) and a speed-sensitive (SS) one. (2) These strategies can be equated with sets of rules for performing diverse movement tasks. (...) The choice between SI and SS depends on whether movement speed and/or movement time (and hence appropriate muscle forces) must be constrained to meet task requirements. (3) The electromyogram can be interpreted as a low-pass filtered version of the controlling signal to the motoneuron pools. This controlling signal can be modelled as a rectangular excitation pulse in which modulation occurs in either pulse amplitude or pulse width. Movements to different distances and with loads are controlled by the SI strategy, which modulates pulse width. Movements in which speed must be explicitly regulated are controlled by the SS strategy, which modulates pulse amplitude. The distinction between the two movement strategies reconciles many apparent conflicts in the motor control literature. (shrink)

Psychologists have traditionally approached phenomenology by describing perceptual states, typically in the context of vision. The control of actions has often been described as 'automatic', and therefore lacking any specific phenomenology worth studying. This article will begin by reviewing some historical attempts to investigate the phenomenology of action. This review leads to the conclusion that, while movement of the body itself need not produce a vivid conscious experience, the neural process of voluntary action as a whole has distinctive phenomenological (...) consequences. The remainder of the article tries to characterise this phenomenology. First, the planning of actions is often conscious, and can produce a characteristic executive mode of awareness. Second, our awareness of action often arises from the process of matching what we intended to do with what actually happened. Failures of this matching process lead to particularly vivid conscious experience, which we call 'error awareness'. These features of action phenomenology can be directly related to established models of motor control. This allows an important connection between phenomenology and neuroscience of action. Third, whereas perceptual phenomenology is normally seen as caused or driven by the sensory stimulus, a much more fluid model is required for phenomenology of action. Several experimental results suggest that phenomenology of action is partly a post hoc reconstruction, while others suggest that our awareness of action represents an integration of several processes at multiple levels of motor processing. Fourth, and finally, studies of the phenomenology of action, unlike those of perception, show a strong linkage between primary awareness and secondary awareness or self-consciousness: awareness of action is specifically and inextricably awareness of my action. We argue that the concepts of agency and of proprioaction are fundamental to this linkage. For these reasons, action represents a much more promising field than perception for attacking the problematic question of the relation between primary and secondary consciousness. Some promising directions for future research are indicated. (shrink)

Psychologists have traditionally approached phenomenology by describing perceptual states, typically in the context of vision. The control of actions has often been described as 'automatic', and therefore lacking any specific phenomenology worth studying. This article will begin by reviewing some historical attempts to investigate the phenomenology of action. This review leads to the conclusion that, while movement of the body itself need not produce a vivid conscious experience, the neural process of voluntary action as a whole has distinctive phenomenological (...) consequences. The remainder of the article tries to characterise this phenomenology. First, the planning of actions is often conscious, and can produce a characteristic executive mode of awareness. Second, our awareness of action often arises from the process of matching what we intended to do with what actually happened. Failures of this matching process lead to particularly vivid conscious experience, which we call 'error awareness'. These features of action phenomenology can be directly related to established models of motor control. This allows an important connection between phenomenology and neuroscience of action. Third, whereas perceptual phenomenology is normally seen as caused or driven by the sensory stimulus, a much more fluid model is required for phenomenology of action. Several experimental results suggest that phenomenology of action is partly a post hoc reconstruction, while others suggest that our awareness of action represents an integration of several processes at multiple levels of motor processing. Fourth, and finally, studies of the phenomenology of action, unlike those of perception, show a strong linkage between primary awareness and secondary awareness or self-consciousness: awareness of action is specifically and inextricably awareness of my action. We argue that the concepts of agency and of proprioaction are fundamental to this linkage. For these reasons, action represents a much more promising field than perception for attacking the problematic question of the relation between primary and secondary consciousness. Some promising directions for future research are indicated. (shrink)

The permissibility of nudging in public policy is often assessed in terms of the conditions of transparency, rationality, and easy resistibility. This debate has produced important resources for any ethical inquiry into nudging, but it has also failed to focus sufficiently on a different yet very important question, namely: when do nudges undermine a patient’s voluntary consent to a medical procedure? In this paper, I take on this further question and, more precisely, I ask to which extent the three (...) conditions of transparency, rationality, and easy resistibility can be applied to the assessment of voluntary consent too. After presenting two examples, designed to put pressure on these three conditions, I show that, suitably modified, the three conditions can remain significant in the assessment of voluntary consent as well. However, the needed modifications are very substantial and result in a rather complicated view. To propose a tidier solution, I argue that nudging undermines voluntary consent if and only if it cannot be ‘interpersonally justified’ to the patient. I use the three modified conditions to motivate the idea of interpersonal justification and also to further specify the principles it involves. My resulting view is especially attractive because it builds on already existing insights from the debate on nudging, updates those insights with an eye to medical consent, and finally unites them in an elegant and simple framework. (shrink)

Motor Imagery reproduces cognitive operations associated with the actual motor preparation and execution. Postural recordings during MI reflect somatic motor commands targeting peripheral effectors involved in balance control. However, how these relate to the actual motor expertise and may vary along with the MI modality remains debated. In the present experiment, two groups of expert and non-expert gymnasts underwent stabilometric assessments while performing physically and mentally a balance skill. We implemented psychometric measures of MI ability, while (...) stabilometric variables were calculated from the center of pressure oscillations. Psychometric evaluations revealed greater MI ability in experts, specifically for the visual modality. Experts exhibited reduced surface COP oscillations in the antero-posterior axis compared to non-experts during the balance skill. Experts further exhibited reduced length of COP displacement in the antero-posterior axis and as a function of the displacement area during visual and kinesthetic MI compared to the control condition. Predictive relationships were found between the stabilometric correlates of visual MI and physical practice of the balance skill, as well as between the stabilometric correlates of kinesthetic MI and the training experience in experts. Present results provide original stabilometric insights into the relationships between MI and expertise level. While data support the incomplete inhibition of postural commands during MI, whether postural responses during MI of various modalities mirror the level of motor expertise remains unclear. (shrink)

Implicit processes almost certainly preceded explicit processes in our evolutionary history, so they are likely to be more resistant to disruption according to the principles of evolutionary biology [Reber, A. S. . The cognitive unconscious: An evolutionary perspective. Consciousness and Cognition, 1, 93–133.]. Previous work . Knowledge, nerves and know-how: The role of explicit versus implicit knowledge in the breakdown of a complex motor skill under pressure. British Journal of Psychology, 83, 343–358.]) has shown that implicitly learned (...) class='Hi'>motor skills remain stable under psychological pressure and concurrent cognitive demands, and recently [Poolton, J. M., Masters, R. S. W., & Maxwell, J. P. . Passing thoughts on the evolutionary stability of implicit motor behaviour: Performance retention under physiological fatigue. Consciousness and Cognition, 16, 456–468.] showed that they also remain stable under conditions of anaerobic fatigue that would have significantly challenged the survival skills of our ancestors. Here we examine the stability of an implicitly learned motor skill under fatigue conditions that primarily tax a different physiological system , but which have equally strong evolutionary connotations. Participants acquired a throwing task by means of an errorless learning method or an errorful method. Motor performance in the errorless condition, but not the errorful condition, remained stable following an exhaustive VO2 max. running test. Our findings replicate and extend the work of Poolton et al., providing further support for Reber’s evolutionary distinction between implicit and explicit processes. (shrink)

IntroductionThe pelvic floor muscles are active during motor tasks that increase intra-abdominal pressure, but little is known about how the PFM respond to dynamic activities, such as gait. The purpose of this study was to characterize and compare PFM activity during walking and jogging in continent adults across the entire gait cycle.Methods17 able-bodied individuals with no history of incontinence participated in this study. We recorded electromyography from the abdominal muscles, gluteus maximus, and PFM while participants performed attempted maximum (...) voluntary contractions of all muscles and completed 60–70 strides in four gait conditions: slow walk ; regular walk ; transition walk ; jog. We quantified activity throughout the whole gait cycle and during periods of bursting for each participant, and analyzed the timing of PFM bursting periods to explore when the PFM were most active in the gait cycle. We also conducted a phase metric analysis on the PFM and GM burst timings. We performed a Spearman's rank-order correlation to examine the effect of speed on %aMVCGC, %aMVCBR, and phase metric score, and used the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test to evaluate the effect of gait modality, matched for speed, on these variables.ResultsThe PFM were active throughout the gait cycle, with bursts typically occurring during single-leg support. The PFM and GM were in phase for 44–69% of the gait cycle, depending on condition. There was a positive correlation between gait speed and both %aMVCGC and %aMVCBR. Phase metric scores were significantly higher during jogging than transition walking, but there was no difference between gait modality on %aMVCGC or %aMVCBR. Where possible we disaggregated data by sex, although were unable to make statistical comparisons due to low sample sizes.ConclusionThe PFM are active during walking and jogging, with greater activity at faster speeds and with bursts in activity around single-leg support. The PFM and GM co-activate during gait, but are not completely in phase with each other. (shrink)

Despite exponential growth in the past decades, most aspects of the assisted reproductive technology industry remain largely unregulated; recently, pressure has been mounting for coordinated study and regulation of this developing industry. On March 28, 2008, lawyers, health care professionals, representatives from sperm banks, consumers of ART services, and other stakeholders in ART industry gathered at DePaul University College of Law for its Health Law Institute’s symposium titled “Tracking Change: The Feasibility of a Voluntary Gamete Donor Registry in (...) the United States.” The implementation of a registry would mark the first effort in the United States to centralize, maintain, and disseminate information about gamete donors by collecting and storing genetic and identifying information about egg and sperm donors. Establishing a registry requires balancing the interests of donor-conceived individuals, their parents, gamete donors, health care professionals, and society as a whole, as well as ensuring the privacy and safety of all involved. (shrink)

In this paper a tentative neurophysiologically framed approach of the Freudian unconscious that would function on the basis of linguistic (phonological) organizing principles, is proposed. A series of arguments, coming from different fields, are taken together. First, clinical reports indicate that in a state of high emotional arousal linguistic fragments are treated in a decontextualized way, and can lead to the isolation of phoneme sequences which, independently of their actual meaning, are able to resort emotional effects. Second, phonological and neurophysiological (...) arguments are given to make the case that language processing – be it producing, receiving or imagining language – is a motor event. A crucial distinction is proposed: while contextualized processing correlates on a neurophysiological level with action understanding, and is psychoanalytically akin to secondary processing, decontextualized language processing has a neurophysiological counterpart in object understanding and is psychoanalytically akin to primary processing. Third, isolated speech fragments are therefore considered as objects which, similarly to non-linguistic objects, undergo emotional conditioning and establish an idiosyncratic linguistically structured emotional memory. Phoneme sequences which in this way come to carry high emotional valences are thought to be more readily subject to threaten the bodily integrity, and therefore more readily inhibited. When this inhibition leads to the prevention of effective realization of the voluntary motor output, this is thought to result in the sustained high levels of neuronal activation which seek for release by attracting substitutes that are phonemically similar to the censored speech fragments though they are cognitively non threatening. As a result, the speech of the subject would be particularly concerned with the verbalizations of these substitutive phoneme sequences. In summary, the Freudian unconscious is conceived as the instantiation of a linguistic action space which would be idiosyncratically organized by particular phonemic “phantoms” operating as attractors for the subject’s (linguistic) actions. (shrink)

This paper discusses the issues surrounding voluntary action control in terms of two models that have emerged in empirical research into how our human conscious capabilities govern and control voluntary motor actions. A characterization of two aspects of consciousness, phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness, enables us to ask whether effect anticipations need be accessible to consciousness, or whether they can also have an effect on conscious control at an unconscious stage. A review of empirical studies points to (...) the fact that willed actions are influenced by effect anticipations both when they are conscious and when they remain inaccessible to the conscious mind. This suggests that the effects of conscious voluntary actions—in line with the ideomotor principle proposed by William James—are anticipated during the generation of responses. I propose that the integration of perceptual and motor codes arises during action planning. The features of anticipated effects appear to be optionally connected with the features of the actions selected to bring about these effects in the world. (shrink)

This paper discusses the issues surrounding voluntary action control in terms of two models that have emerged in empirical research into how our human conscious capabilities govern and control voluntary motor actions. A characterization of two aspects of consciousness, phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness, enables us to ask whether effect anticipations need be accessible to consciousness, or whether they can also have an effect on conscious control at an unconscious stage. A review of empirical studies points to (...) the fact that willed actions are influenced by effect anticipations both when they are conscious and when they remain inaccessible to the conscious mind. This suggests that the effects of conscious voluntary actions—in line with the ideomotor principle proposed by William James—are anticipated during the generation of responses. I propose that the integration of perceptual and motor codes arises during action planning. The features of anticipated effects appear to be optionally connected with the features of the actions selected to bring about these effects in the world. (shrink)

After spinal cord injury (SCI), motoneuron death occurs at and around the level of injury which induces changes in function and organization throughout the nervous system, including cortical changes. Muscle affected by SCI may consist of both innervated (accessible to voluntary drive) and denervated (inaccessible to voluntary drive) muscle fibers. Voluntary activation measured with transcranial magnetic stimulation (VATMS) can quantify voluntary cortical/subcortical drive to muscle but is limited by technical challenges including suboptimal stimulation of target muscle (...) relative to its antagonist. The motor evoked potential (MEP) in the biceps compared to the triceps (i.e., MEP ratio) may be a key parameter in the measurement of biceps VATMS after SCI. We used paired pulse TMS, which can inhibit or facilitate MEPs, to determine whether the MEP ratio affects VATMS in individuals with tetraplegia. Ten individuals with tetraplegia following cervical SCI and ten non-impaired individuals completed single pulse and paired pulse VATMS protocols. Paired pulse stimulation was delivered at 1.5, 10, and 30 ms inter-stimulus intervals (ISI). In both the SCI and non-impaired groups, the main effect of the stimulation pulse (paired pulse compared to single pulse) on VATMS was not significant in the linear mixed-effects models. In both groups for the stimulation parameters we tested, the MEP ratio was not modulated across all effort levels and did not affect VATMS. Linearity of the voluntary moment and superimposed twitch moment relation was lower in SCI participants compared to non-impaired. Poor linearity in the SCI group limits interpretation of VATMS. Future work is needed to address methodological issues that limit clinical application of VATMS. (shrink)

Intimate relationships between emotion and action have long been acknowledged, yet contemporary theories and experimental research within affective and movement neuroscience have not been linked into a coherent framework bridging these two fields. Accumulating psychological and neuroimaging evidence has, however, brought new insights regarding how emotions affect the preparation, execution, and control of voluntary movement. Here we review main approaches and findings on such emotion–action interactions. To assimilate key emotion concepts of action tendencies and motive states with fundamental constructs (...) of the motor system, we underscore the need for integrating an information-processing approach of motor control into affective neuroscience. This should provide a rich foundation to bridge the two fields, allowing further refinement and empirical testing of emotion theories and better understanding of affective influences in movement disorders. (shrink)

Repeatedly performing a submaximal motor task for a prolonged period of time leads to muscle fatigue comprising a central and peripheral component, which demands a gradually increasing effort. However, the brain contribution to the enhancement of effort to cope with progressing fatigue lacks a complete understanding. The intermittent motor tasks closely resemble many activities of daily living, thus remaining physiologically relevant to study fatigue. The scope of this study is therefore to investigate the EEG-based brain activation patterns in (...) healthy subjects performing IMT until self-perceived exhaustion. Fourteen participants repeated elbow flexion contractions at 40% maximum voluntary contraction by following visual cues displayed on an oscilloscope screen until subjective exhaustion. Each contraction lasted ≈5 s with a 2-s rest between trials. The force, EEG, and surface EMG data were simultaneously collected. After preprocessing, we selected a subset of trials at the beginning, middle, and end of the study session representing brain activities germane to mild, moderate, and severe fatigue conditions, respectively, to compare and contrast the changes in the EEG time-frequency characteristics across the conditions. The outcome of channel- and source-level TF analyses reveals that the theta, alpha, and beta power spectral densities vary in proportion to fatigue levels in cortical motor areas. We observed a statistically significant change in the band-specific spectral power in relation to the graded fatigue from both the steady- and post-contraction EEG data. The findings would enhance our understanding on the etiology and physiology of voluntary motor-action-related fatigue and provide pointers to counteract the perception of muscle weakness and lack of motor endurance associated with ADL. The study outcome would help rationalize why certain patients experience exacerbated fatigue while carrying out mundane tasks, evaluate how clinical conditions such as neurological disorders and cancer treatment alter neural mechanisms underlying fatigue in future studies, and develop therapeutic strategies for restoring the patients' ability to participate in ADL by mitigating the central and muscle fatigue. (shrink)

Voluntary management standards for social and environmental performance ideally help to define and improve firms’ related capabilities. These standards, however, have largely failed to improve such performance as intended. Over-emphasis on institutional factors leading to adoption of these standards has neglected the role of firms’ existing capabilities. External pressures can drive firms to adopt standards more than their technical capacity to employ them. This can lead to problems of “fit” between institutional requirements and a firm’s existing capabilities . We (...) describe a conceptual model that considers the impact of an interaction between a firm’s institutional requirements and its existing capabilities on standards failure. We suggest solutions that align institutional requirements to appropriate governance forms as a means to improve standards success. We contribute to theory by describing the role of firms’ internal capabilities to the success of voluntary management standards and the reliability of self-regulation generally. (shrink)

Increasing geographical mobility and international travel augment the ease and speed by which infectious diseases can spread across large distances. It is therefore incumbent upon each state to ensure that immunisation programmes are effective and that herd immunity is achieved. Across Europe, a range of immunisation policies exist: compulsion, the offer of financial incentives to parents or healthcare professionals, social and professional pressure, or simply the dissemination of clear information and advice. Until recently, immunisation against particular communicable diseases was (...) compulsory in Italy. The Italian National Vaccination Plan paved the way for regions to suspend the sanctions associated with compulsory vaccinations for children when certain criteria are met—for example when immunisation coverage is high and when effective monitoring/surveillance systems are in place—and thus marked a milestone in the move from compulsory to voluntary immunisation. The forthcoming NVP for 2008–10 confirms the liberal approach to vaccination in Italy as it entrusts to the regions responsibility for the achievement and maintenance of herd immunity. This paper reviews the arguments for and against compulsory and voluntary immunisation in relation to the Italian NVP and in the context of the diverse immunisation policies that exist across Europe. It concludes with cautious support for the NVP and an associated shift from compulsory to voluntary immunisation in Italy, and draws similarities between issues concerning regional variation in immunisation policy in Italy and national variation in immunisation policy across Europe and beyond. (shrink)

Deciding between different voluntary movements implies a continuous control of the competition between potential actions. Many theories postulate a leading role of prefrontal cortices in this executive function, but strong evidence exists that a motor region like the primary motor cortex is also involved, possibly via inhibitory mechanisms. This was already shown during the pre-movement decision period, but not after movement onset. For this pilot experiment we designed a new task compatible with the dynamics of post-onset control (...) to study the silent period duration, a pause in electromyographic activity after single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation that reflects inhibitory mechanisms. A careful analysis of the SP during the ongoing movement indicates a gradual increase in inhibitory mechanisms with the level of competition, consistent with an increase in mutual inhibition between alternative movement options. However, we also observed a decreased SP duration for high-competition trials associated with change-of-mind inflections in their trajectories. Our results suggest a new post-onset adaptive process that consists in a transient reduction of GABAergic inhibition within M1 for highly conflicting situations. We propose that this reduced inhibition softens the competition between concurrent motor options, thereby favoring response vacillation, an adaptive strategy that proved successful at improving behavioral performance. (shrink)

Based on the institutional theory, this article attempts to examine two consecutive questions regarding the impact of various factors on corporate decision in environmental information disclosure (EID): (1) whether or not to disclose; and (2) the level of disclosure. The relevance of these factors is empirically tested using data collected from publicly listed manufacturing companies from 2006 to 2008 in China. Some interesting findings appear. We find that firms that are state-owned, those that operate in environmentally sensitive industries, those having (...) more industrial peers engaged in EID, and those with better reputation are more likely to disclose environmental information. When it comes to the content of EID, variables that attempt to capture external institutional pressures exhibit either no or weak explanatory power. Only the variable of organizational image and reputation is demonstrated to have a significant impact on both the act and the content of EID. This study provides a snapshot of the dialogues between constituencies in the organizational field and EID development. (shrink)

ObjectiveThe time interval between transcranial magnetic stimulation pulses affects evoked muscle responses when the targeted muscle is resting. This necessitates using sufficiently long inter-pulse intervals. However, there is some evidence that the IPI has no effect on the responses evoked in active muscles. Thus, we tested whether voluntary contraction could remove the effect of the IPI on TMS motor evoked potentials.MethodsIn our study, we delivered sets of 30 TMS pulses with three different IPIs to the left primary (...) class='Hi'>motor cortex. These measurements were performed with the resting and active right hand first dorsal interosseous muscle in healthy participants. MEP amplitudes were recorded through electromyography.ResultsWe found that the IPI had no significant effect on the MEP amplitudes in the active muscle, whereas in the resting muscle, the IPI significantly affected the MEP amplitudes, decreasing the MEP amplitude of the 2 s IPI.ConclusionsThese results show that active muscle contraction removes the effect of the IPI on the MEP amplitude. Therefore, using active muscles in TMS motor mapping enables faster delivery of TMS pulses, reducing measurement time in novel TMS motor mapping studies. (shrink)

The issue of the biological origin of consciousness is linked to that of its function. One source of evidence in this regard is the contrast between the types of information that are and are not included within its compass. Consciousness presents us with a stable arena for our actions—the world—but excludes awareness of the multiple sensory and sensorimotor transformations through which the image of that world is extracted from the confounding influence of self-produced motion of multiple receptor arrays mounted on (...) multijointed and swivelling body parts. Likewise excluded are the complex orchestrations of thousands of muscle movements routinely involved in the pursuit of our goals. This suggests that consciousness arose as a solution to problems in the logistics of decision making in mobile animals with centralized brains, and has correspondingly ancient roots. (shrink)

This study empirically examines the association between certain director characteristics and the extent of voluntary audit committee disclosure in annual reports. Results suggest that Singapore's publicly traded firms are more likely to voluntarily disclose audit committee related information as: the number of board members increases; different individuals occupy the roles of CEO and board chairperson; and the proportion of independent directors serving on the board increases. Findings, however, fail to show any association between the amount of voluntary audit (...) committee disclosure and the percentage of executive directors' ownership. Documented findings are of interest and benefit to various parties including regulators, corporate governance reformists, and corporate management. For instance, findings imply that a positive by-product of implementing major corporate governance reforms currently championed by corporate governance reformists will be an increase in audit committee disclosures. As a result, there will be less pressure on regulators to develop, introduce, and enforce mandatory audit committee disclosures that may be potentially intrusive to a firm's management. (shrink)

This study investigates the distinct and joint effects of corporate social performance, firm size, and visibility on a company’s decision to disclose sustainability-related information through sustainability reports. It seeks to provide more nuanced explanations for why certain companies tend to extensively report on their sustainability performance. First, while prior studies have predominantly focused on environmental reporting, the current analysis considers comprehensive sustainability reports that include both environmental and social issues. Second, the article argues that the effects of two important antecedents (...) of legitimacy pressure—firm size and organizational visibility—should be analyzed separately rather than restricting the analysis on the effects of legitimacy pressure per se. Third, it argues that the hypothesized effects are nonlinear because the marginal costs and benefits of sustainability reporting vary with a company’s CSP level, its size, and its visibility in the public. Finally, although there is a strong link between CSP and sustainability reporting, the strength of this link depends on its size and visibility. The study of 280 companies in environmentally and socially sensitive industries provides considerable support for these hypotheses, including evidence that size and visibility independently affect sustainability reporting and that the shape of the CSP/sustainability reporting link is contingent upon firm size and visibility. (shrink)