Faculty Scholarship Celebration 2023

Objective:

Objective of this study was to investigate whether specific motor and cognitive tests performed in clinic can predict behind-the-wheel driving behavior (DB) in Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Conclusions:

Motor and cognitive phenotypes derived from daily clinical practice can help predict behind-the-wheel DB in PD, allowing guidance on which patients should undergo formal assessments and who may need to stop driving.

Right temporal variant of frontotemporal dementia (rtv-FTD) represents an uncommon and recently described frontotemporal dementia (FTD) entity presenting with symptoms in many ways comparable to those of the frontal or behavioral variant of FTD (bv-FTD). The aims of this study were to explore the timing of cognitive and behavioral symptoms of rtv-FTD, and to compare the distinct cognitive deficits including prosopagnosia and behavioral symptoms of rtv-FTD patients with those observed in bv-FTD patients. We reviewed the records of 105 patients clinically diagnosed with FTD. A total of 7 patients (5 men/2 women) with FTD and marked right temporal atrophy in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were detected. Clinical features were compared with those observed in a group of 22 age-matched patients (16 men/6 women) with FTD and predominant frontal lobe atrophy. The main presenting symptoms of rtv-FTD were prosopagnosia, apathy, and episodic memory impairment. In contrast, social awkwardness and compulsive behaviors were dominant in later stages of the disease together with disinhibition and loss of insight with a marked personality change. Although the cognitive and behavioral profiles of patients with right temporal or frontal lobes atrophy present substantial similarities, each subtype has a number of distinct characteristics. It appears that prosopagnosia, obsessive behaviors, and psychotic symptoms are more prominent in rtv-FTD patients.

The objective of the present work was to compare the levels of executive, emotional, and initiation apathy in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), mild Alzheimer’s disease dementia (ADD), and cognitively intact healthy controls (HCs). Fifty-two patients with mild ADD, 40 individuals with MCI, and 37 cognitively intact individuals were included in the current study. The participants were consecutive visitors to the Outpatient Memory Clinic of “Nestor” Alzheimer’s Center. The symptoms of apathy were measured with the dimensional apathy scale. Analyses showed that ADD patients had significantly higher degrees of executive, emotional, initiation, and overall apathy compared with both the MCI group and the HCs. Additionally, a significant difference was observed in the dimension of executive apathy between individuals with MCI and the HCs. In conclusion, the dimension of executive apathy was the most sensitive measure regarding the differentiation of individuals with mild ADD or MCI and HCs. Hence, detailed evaluation of executive apathy in older individuals referred to a memory clinic may provide useful information contributing to their diagnostic categorization and to the differentiation between neurocognitive disorders and healthy cognitive ageing.

Background: the apolipoprotein e4 allele (APOE4) constitutes an established genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia (ADD). We aimed to explore the frequency of the APOE isoforms in the Greek population of Southern Greece. Methods: peripheral blood from 175 Greek AD patients, 113 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 75 healthy individuals. DNA isolation was performed with a High Pure PCR Template Kit (Roche), followed by amplification with a real-time qPCR kit (TIB MolBiol) in Roche’s Light Cycler PCR platform. Results: APOE4 allele frequency was 20.57% in the ADD group, 17.69% in the MCI group, and 6.67% in the control group. APOE3/3 homozygosity was the most common genotype, while the frequency of APOE4/4 homozygosity was higher in the AD group (8.60%). APOE4 carrier status was associated with higher odds for ADD and MCI (OR: 4.49, 95% CI: [1.90–10.61] and OR: 3.82, 95% CI: [1.59–9.17], respectively). Conclusion: this study examines the APOE isoforms and is the first to report a higher APOE frequency in MCI compared with healthy controls in southern Greece. Importantly, we report the occurrence of the APOE4 allele, related to ADD, as amongst the lowest globally reported, even within the nation, thus enhancing the theory of ethnicity and latitude contribution.

We assessed non motor characteristics of 12 asymptomatic p.A53T mutation carriers (A53T-AC) compared with 36 healthy controls (HC) enrolled in the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) study. Olfaction score was lower and anxiety was marginally more prevalent in A53T- AC. These findings suggest distinct prodromal features in this group of subjects.

This Palgrave Pivot provides a concise history of the development of sociology in Greece. It provides a compelling narrative of the discipline’s embryonic state, its promising beginnings that aligned with its contact with the then robust French and German accomplishments in sociology. It continues with sociology’s entanglement with modern Greece’s turbulent history during the Civil War and the junta years. It charts Greece's gradual recovery during the mid-1970s, which led to sociology’s institutionalization. Yet such institutional boom was not free of politicization processes, many of which proved residual and resilient, stemming from the dictatorship years, as well as from Greece’s dependency during its process of modernization. This book completes this historical account by reconsidering sociology’s gradual embrace of a multi-paradigmatic orientation, its opportunities in light of the burgeoning Greek EU membership and extroversion. It concludes with charting sociology’s position in the 21st century, facing challenges like the Great Recession and its impact in Greece as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.

JSB Library Discovery record

My aim in this paper is to present and discuss a novel understanding of the nature of epistemic vice. I highlight that epistemic vice such as excessive curiosity, gossip and excessive inquisitiveness do not obstruct the acquisition, transmission and retention of knowledge and are not characterized by a deficiency of epistemic desires or vicious epistemic motivations. However, I argue that such traits ought to be classified as epistemic vices because the agent who possesses them causes epistemic harm to other agents through those traits’ characteristic activities.

To remedy obstructivism’s inability to account for vices that cause epistemic harm in other ways besides blocking effective epistemic inquiry, I propose an amended version of this theory. I argue that epistemic vices are character traits, attitudes, and ways of thinking that obstruct the acquisition, transmission, and retention of knowledge and/or cause other kinds of epistemic harm. In addition, I propose a modified version of motivationalism that cashes out non-obstructing, excess-motivation vices in terms of motivation simply by acknowledging, and incorporating into theory, excessive epistemic drives and the negative epistemic (and non-epistemic) consequences stemming from them.

Given the instrumental value of good collaborations for societal flourishing, educating for good collaborators (viz., agents who have the motivation and ability to collaborate with others) should be one of the fundamental goals of contemporary education. Still, fostering the growth of dispositions needed for successful collaborations is not explicitly considered to be a first-rate pedagogical goal in most contemporary virtue education programs. To remedy this omission, I propose a virtue-based method for developing good collaborators through an education that involves a mixture of three complementary educational techniques: i) collaborative problem-based learning, ii) physical education, and iii) direct teaching. Learning through collaborative problem-based learning educates students on the motivations and abilities needed to be good collaborators in epistemic pursuits, whereas physical education teaches learners how to be good collaborators in non-epistemic endeavors, whilst direct teaching ties everything together by giving learners an explicit understanding of the value of good collaborations.

My main aim in this paper is to examine whether gossip should be categorized as an epistemically valuable character trait. Gossip satisfies the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for an acquired character trait to be classified as an intellectual virtue under the responsibilist understanding of the concept of virtue. The excellent gossiper is (i) motivated to acquire epistemic goods through gossiping, (ii) reliably successful in acquiring epistemic goods through gossiping, (iii) competent at the activity of gossiping and (iv) good at judging when, with whom and what to gossip. Nonetheless, I show that the excellent gossiper inflicts (knower-initiated) epistemic wrong on others. The excellent gossiper comes to intentionally acquire another person’s private information (e.g., their sexual preferences) without their consent. This leaves virtue responsibilists with three options: (a) resist my argument that gossip qualifies as a responsibilist virtue and/or that excellent gossiping inflicts epistemic wrong, (b) bite the bullet and argue that the intellectually virtuous agent sometimes inflicts epistemic wrong on other agents intentionally, (c) develop a no-wrong principle that disqualifies gossip from being categorized as an intellectual virtue.

Our aim in this paper is to argue that empathy is an intellectual virtue. Empathy enables agents to gain insight into other people’s emotions and beliefs. The agent who possesses this trait is: (i) driven to engage in acts of empathy by her epistemic desires; (ii) takes pleasure in doing so; (iii) is competent at the activity characteristic of empathy; and, (iv) has good judgment as to when it is epistemically appropriate to engage in empathy. After establishing that empathy meets all the necessary conditions to be classified as an intellectual virtue, we proceed to discuss Battaly’s argument according to which empathy is a skill rather than a virtue. We contend, contra Battaly, that the agent who possesses the virtue of empathy: (a) sometimes foregoes opportunities to engage in the activity characteristic of empathy because it is the virtuous thing to do, (b) does not make deliberate errors, and (c) her actions are always ultimately aiming at epistemic goods.

Modern slavery is a complex problem which poses grand challenges to society. Despite numerous efforts to eradicate it, modern slavery is still a widespread practice in global supply chains. There is a consensus in the literature that stakeholders need to coordinate their actions for tackling this practice. However, they often lack the tools which would enable them to take a holistic approach incorporating varying stakeholder views and expectations. In this study we adopt a socio-technical perspective to examine complex interactions among root causes of modern slavery. To do so, we develop a system dynamics (SD) model and apply it to the Turkish hazelnut industry where modern slavery and child labor are of particular concern. We develop multiple intervention scenarios inspired by our discussions with stakeholders and test their effects on tackling modern slavery. Our results show that under the right conditions, government audits and fines, child prevention subsidy, and agricultural mechanization are effective mechanisms to reduce the incidence of modern slavery and child labor. Our recommendations provide stakeholders with specific suggestions on how to address this problem and improve labor practices in the hazelnut industry. Overall, our results underline that SD is a useful method for involving different stakeholder perspectives and for taking a holistic approach on complex sustainability problems, such as modern slavery.

Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are among the most concerning consequences of retreating glaciers in mountain ranges worldwide. GLOFs have attracted significant attention amongst scientists and practitioners in the past 2 decades, with particular interest in the physical drivers and mechanisms of GLOF hazard and in socioeconomic and other human-related developments that affect vulnerabilities to GLOF events. This increased research focus on GLOFs is reflected in the gradually increasing number of papers published annually. This study offers an overview of recent GLOF research by analysing 594 peer-reviewed GLOF studies published between 2017 and 2021 (Web of Science and Scopus databases), reviewing the content and geographical focus as well as other characteristics of GLOF studies. This review is complemented with perspectives from the first GLOF conference (7–9 July 2021, online) where a global GLOF research community of major mountain regions gathered to discuss the current state of the art of integrated GLOF research. Therefore, representatives from 17 countries identified and elaborated trends and challenges and proposed possible ways forward to navigate future GLOF research, in four thematic areas: (i) understanding GLOFs – timing and processes; (ii) modelling GLOFs and GLOF process chains; (iii) GLOF risk management, prevention and warning; and (iv) human dimensions of GLOFs and GLOF attribution to climate change.

This study focuses on the utilization of people analytics by companies operating in Greece. People analytics is the practice of collecting and processing data about people and businesses in order to achieve an organization's goals.

The following main conclusions emerge from a sample of 107 companies:

1. The three most important reasons for using people analytics are making better business decisions, strengthening the management model based on numerical data (data-driven management), and the need for better employee management.
2. The three main difficulties in the use of people analytics concern the complex computational procedures, the management of large volumes of data, and the lack of relevant resources.
3. The greatest use of people analytics is observed in compensation and benefits, performance management, and employee engagement issues, while more limited use is observed in diversity and inclusion issues.
4. The overall picture shows that companies engage in descriptive analyses and use basic HRM tools or information systems.
5. Taking a closer look, companies are classified into 4 maturity levels regarding the use of people analytics. A higher maturity level includes advanced types of analysis, as well as sophisticated tools and information systems. Therefore, core users (24% of companies), emerging users (39%), sophisticated users (23%), and a small percentage of pioneers (13%) were defined.
6. In companies with greater maturity in the use of people analytics, a higher organizational and financial performance is observed, as well as more effective HRM.
7. The support from upper management, the skills of HRM executives in the use of people analytics, and the data-driven culture constitute prerequisites for the adoption of people analytics. But what seems to differentiate the pioneers from the rest of the users is the investment in information technology infrastructure and the complete harmonization of the HRM strategy with the business strategy.

This Palgrave Pivot provides a concise history of the development of sociology in Greece. It provides a compelling narrative of the discipline’s embryonic state, its promising beginnings that aligned with its contact with the then robust French and German accomplishments in sociology. It continues with sociology’s entanglement with modern Greece’s turbulent history during the Civil War and the junta years. It charts Greece's gradual recovery during the mid-1970s, which led to sociology’s institutionalization. Yet such institutional boom was not free of politicization processes, many of which proved residual and resilient, stemming from the dictatorship years, as well as from Greece’s dependency during its process of modernization. This book completes this historical account by reconsidering sociology’s gradual embrace of a multi-paradigmatic orientation, its opportunities in light of the burgeoning Greek EU membership and extroversion. It concludes with charting sociology’s position in the 21st century, facing challenges like the Great Recession and its impact in Greece as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.

JSB Library Discovery record

100 Ideas for Active Learning is a practical handbook to inspire innovative educational experiences. It is for educators and curriculum designers who wish to apply active learning tools and strategies in their own teaching and learning contexts. Effective learning happens through embodied experiences, when students are utilising all their senses - physical, mental, emotional, and social. In this book, practitioners from around the world have come together to author one hundred short chapters, each with an idea designed to help educators encourage their students to take an active learning approach to their studies.

This collection features studies on trauma, literary theory, and psychoanalysis in women’s writing. It examines the ways in which literature helps to heal the wounded self, and it particularly concentrates attention on the way women explain the traumatic experiences of war, violence, or displacement. Covering a global range of women writers, this book focuses on the psychoanalytic role of literature in helping recover the voices buried by intense pain and suffering and to help those voices be heard. Literature brings the unconscious into being and focus, reconfiguring life through narration. These essays look at the relationship between traumatic experience and literary form.

JSB Library Discovery record

This collective fifteen-chapter work covers an important section in the literature of Cultural Heritage and especially in the field of Archaeometry that is, the application of science on the study of the material remains of human presence and creation. Absolute dating techniques and techniques for studying the technology, composition, and provenance of the whole range of materials and artefacts, including ceramics, sediments, glasses, metals, stonework, stones, mortars, organic materials, and pigments, are presented. The authors of the chapters are recognized university faculty members and researchers, with many years of laboratory experience, many publications and participation in numerous research programs dealing with archaeological and cultural materials. Professor N. Zacharias took over the coordination and editing of the publication, writing also part of the chapters, with the contribution of Professor G. Fakorellis, Assistant Professor N. Laskaris, Dr. A. Oikonomou, Dr. N. Nerantzis, Dr. K. Theodorakopoulou, Dr. M. Papageorgiou, Dr. E. Palamara, and Dr. G. Mastrotheodoros.

The present study explores issues of production, distribution and application of Lykion, a renowned and widely used medicine of the ancient world, by synthesizing literary archaeological and scientific evidence. Lykion has astringent and antimicrobial properties and was used to cure various skin and several other diseases. Miniature vessels have been characterized by researchers as carriers of medicinal and/or cosmetic substances; amongst these, a special category distributed in various areas of the Eastern Mediterranean and South Italy bear inscriptions or stamps identifying Lykion as the vessels’ content and sometimes provide the name of the manufacturer as well. A comparative study of their typology with their unlabelled counterparts indicates similarities in terms of their content and use. The unlabelled examples are mostly characterised as vessels of storage and transportation of an alternative non-certified medicine produced by using a local plant variety with similar medicinal properties. In the latter case, the shape of the container could signal both the place of origin and the content. Hitherto analytical investigations that would confirm the validity of this hypothesis had yet to be conducted. The present research attempts, for the first time, to trace evidence regarding the content of 15 published ceramic vessels whose biconical and pear-shaped shapes are mostly associated with this particular medicine. The assemblage under study was excavated in ancient Abdera, a coastal city in Western Thrace, Greece. In order to investigate any absorbed content into the ceramic matrix of these vessels, 42 samples were extracted from their inner unglazed walls. The powder samples were then analysed by the com-plementary Infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopies and consequently compared to spectra acquired from certified Greek plant varieties. Here we have detected remnant which bear similarities with the spectra of the species Rhamnus lycioides.

Between 2007 and 2014, a Greek-American team investigated an impressive array of Early Roman to Early Byzantine buildings and burials on the Koutsongila Ridge at Kenchreai, the eastern port of ancient Corinth. This volume presents the project’s final results, revealing abundant evidence not only for the history of activity in a transitional urban/suburban landscape, but also for the society, economy, and religion of local residents. Important structural and mortuary discoveries abound, including a district of lavish houses with exquisite mosaic pavement and an Early Christian Octagon. The large artifactual assemblage encompasses a variety of objects from pottery and lamps to glass, coins, and jewelry. Bones and teeth from over 200 individuals illustrate differences in health over time, while thousands of bones and shells from a variety of animals attest to diet and subsistence. This study paints a picture of a Corinthian community, small but prosperous and well connected, actively participating in an urban elite culture expressed through decorative art and monumental architecture.

Examining ideas, beliefs and practices of identification in the medieval East Roman world

• Approaches ideology and identity in the Byzantine world from different perspectives, top-down, bottom-up, and outside-in, and from various disciplinary perspectives including historical, literary, art-historical and archaeological
• Explores what makes discourses ideological by giving them a central function in the promotion of power relations and interests on the macro-level of society as well as on the micro-level of certain social groups
• Explores the interrelation between dominant imperial ideology and collective identification
• Scrutinizes various kinds of identification, local-regional, religious, gender, class, ethno-cultural and regnal-political
• Contributors include Leslie Brubaker, Kostis Smyrlis, Alicia Simpson and Dionysios Sthathakopoulos

This collection offers new insights into ideology and identity in the Byzantine world. The range of international contributors explore the content and role of various ideological discourses in shaping the relationship between the imperial centre and the provinces. Crucially, they examine various kinds of collective identifications and visions of community in the broader Byzantine world within and beyond the political boundaries of the empire.

This interdisciplinary collection includes historical, literary, art-historical and archaeological as well as cross-cultural perspectives along with the exploration of ideas and identifications in cultures on the empire’s periphery.

The present study, set in the Greek EFL context, investigates the interrelation among cultural identity (CI), perceptions towards accented English (standard^[1] native or not) and pronunciation teaching practices of Greek EFL teachers. Findings indicate that despite some tolerance that Greek EFL teachers show towards NNE accents^[2], they overall dissociate their CI from standard native English (St/NE) accent and from their norm-bound teaching practices.

^[1]By ‘standard’ we mean: “the language [accent] of educated native speakers, without explicit indication of what it means to be ‘educated’” (Seidlhofer 2011: 71). It is the accent that enjoys prestige, is not related to provinciality and/or lower social status and is encouraged in the classroom (Wells 1982: 34-35). In this study, although different from ‘native’, ‘standard’ is used to refer to accents mainly spoken in the UK and US, lacking localizable sound features (Wells 1982).

^[2]By ‘accent’, we mean “a pattern of pronunciation used by a Native speaker of English] or […] by the community or social grouping to which [s/he] belongs.” (Wells 1982: 1).

This contribution, drawing on the ELF-awareness perspective (Sifakis, 2019), emphasises the need for ELT materials adaptation within the latest ELF and WEs literature and research. Focusing on listening, it showcases adaptations of existing materials in EFL coursebooks used in Italy and Greece and presents data collected through student lesson-evaluations and teacher interviews. The adaptations comprise: a) replacement of prefabricated listening inputs with authentic spoken discourse encountered outside the classroom situation, b) design of follow-up tasks stimulating students’ involvement in authentic interactions, and c) inclusion of reflective questions that can trigger teachers’ and learners’ awareness regarding language use, learning and instructional practices. Findings, indicating that the attempted modifications were successful, provide insights in enhancing our understanding of ELF-awareness integration in ELT.

Discover ways in which teachers interpret and innovate research findings into actual classroom practice to create positive classroom transformations. Given the diversity of the contexts explored in this volume, the chapters are divided into three main sections with lessons taking place at the primary and middle school level, the lower- and upper-secondary school level, and the tertiary and university level. Discover new linguistic landscapes where English has been modified by societal changes and new technologies. Understand the emerging role of English as an international language and the importance of diverse perspectives in English teaching. Learn about research-based practices covering topics such as intercultural awareness, pragmatics, literature study, conceptual metaphors, and utilizing visual aids. Identify ways to prepare students in non-English-dominant contexts to meet their learning objectives.

The collection The Triumph of Achilles, written in 1985 by the Nobel Prize-winning poet, is perhaps the most erotic of her rich production. The poems in the collection are the passionate cries of “the one who has been abandoned.” Whether speaking to a lost lover or a dead father, the loss itself gives rise to the poem. Thus, the Hephaestian world of emotion, channeled into stricter forms defined by rhetoric and logic, creates a poetic experience of rupture, a violent confrontation in which the self triumphs while losing. Populated with gods, demigods and Homeric heroes, based on models from classical antiquity and the biblical tradition, this collection marks the poet’s first major attempt to give experience the permanent form of myth without attempting to mythologize her autobiographical experience.

The poem deals with the Lausanne Conference and those who participated in it. The negotiations lasted almost seven months and ended on July 24, 1923 with the signing of the well-known Treaty, which abolished the Treaty of Sèvres. If the poem retains a strong historical interest for us today, this is because Hemingway refers from the very first lines to the Armenian genocide (1915) and then to Venizelos and the fate of the Greek Patriarchate after the Catastrophe. Also, what he says about the protagonists of the Conference is provocative, or even amusing: Ismet Pasha (Inonou) "turns a deaf ear so as not to listen to the complaints of the British," Kemal is "pro-war," Mussolini is a "scoundrel," but also stupid, since "he has his photograph taken holding a book upside down," and Venizelos is "cunning." The poem’s title, with the question mark in the second part of the sentence, foretells what will follow, how this "peace" looked like in the eyes of a young correspondent and rising writer. However, it is noteworthy that Hemingway, evidently influenced by Ezra Pound, chose to make his testimony poetically.

Three Poems and Four Letters is a collector’s edition of poems and letters by Lord Byron published by Diatton Publications in eighty copies. The poems and letters have been translated to Greek by Dr. Haris Vlavianos. The edition includes three engravings by Giannis Psychopaidis signed by the artist.

This book is a series of hilariously tragic "dialogues" between spouses, lovers, friends, or even strangers, that highlight the most basic feature of human relationships: the inability to communicate effectively. An inability that makes our lives a constant "comedy of misunderstandings." Plato's cave turns into an arena, from which no one wants to escape. The party will last till the end: until the protagonists stop trying to grasp the meaning of things—and the reader, smiling like an accomplice, closes the book.