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Sample records for automatically activate frontoparietal

  1. Exogenous vs. endogenous attention: Shifting the balance of fronto-parietal activity.

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    Meyer, Kristin N; Du, Feng; Parks, Emily; Hopfinger, Joseph B

    2018-03-01

    Despite behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for dissociations between endogenous (voluntary) and exogenous (reflexive) attention, fMRI results have yet to consistently and clearly differentiate neural activation patterns between these two types of attention. This study specifically aimed to determine whether activity in the dorsal fronto-parietal network differed between endogenous and exogenous conditions. Participants performed a visual discrimination task in endogenous and exogenous attention conditions while undergoing fMRI scanning. Analyses revealed robust and bilateral activation throughout the dorsal fronto-parietal network for each condition, in line with many previous results. In order to investigate possible differences in the balance of neural activity within this network with greater sensitivity, a priori regions of interest (ROIs) were selected for analysis, centered on the frontal eye fields (FEF) and intraparietal sulcus (IPS) regions identified in previous studies. The results revealed a significant interaction between region, condition, and hemisphere. Specifically, in the left hemisphere, frontal areas were more active than parietal areas, but only during endogenous attention. Activity in the right hemisphere, in contrast, remained relatively consistent for these regions across conditions. Analysis of this activity over time indicates that this left-hemispheric regional imbalance is present within the FEF early, at 3-6.5 s post-stimulus presentation, whereas a regional imbalance in the exogenous condition is not evident until 6.5-8 s post-stimulus presentation. Overall, our results provide new evidence that although the dorsal fronto-parietal network is indeed associated with both types of attentional orienting, regions of the network are differentially engaged over time and across hemispheres depending on the type of attention. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Longitudinal development of frontoparietal activity during feedback learning: Contributions of age, performance, working memory and cortical thickness

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sabine Peters

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Feedback learning is a crucial skill for cognitive flexibility that continues to develop into adolescence, and is linked to neural activity within a frontoparietal network. Although it is well conceptualized that activity in the frontoparietal network changes during development, there is surprisingly little consensus about the direction of change. Using a longitudinal design (N = 208, 8–27 years, two measurements in two years, we investigated developmental trajectories in frontoparietal activity during feedback learning. Our first aim was to test for linear and nonlinear developmental trajectories in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, superior parietal cortex (SPC, supplementary motor area (SMA and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC. Second, we tested which factors (task performance, working memory, cortical thickness explained additional variance in time-related changes in activity besides age. Developmental patterns for activity in DLPFC and SPC were best characterized by a quadratic age function leveling off/peaking in late adolescence. There was a linear increase in SMA and a linear decrease with age in ACC activity. In addition to age, task performance explained variance in DLPFC and SPC activity, whereas cortical thickness explained variance in SMA activity. Together, these findings provide a novel perspective of linear and nonlinear developmental changes in the frontoparietal network during feedback learning.

  3. Longitudinal development of frontoparietal activity during feedback learning: Contributions of age, performance, working memory and cortical thickness.

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    Peters, Sabine; Van Duijvenvoorde, Anna C K; Koolschijn, P Cédric M P; Crone, Eveline A

    2016-06-01

    Feedback learning is a crucial skill for cognitive flexibility that continues to develop into adolescence, and is linked to neural activity within a frontoparietal network. Although it is well conceptualized that activity in the frontoparietal network changes during development, there is surprisingly little consensus about the direction of change. Using a longitudinal design (N=208, 8-27 years, two measurements in two years), we investigated developmental trajectories in frontoparietal activity during feedback learning. Our first aim was to test for linear and nonlinear developmental trajectories in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), superior parietal cortex (SPC), supplementary motor area (SMA) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Second, we tested which factors (task performance, working memory, cortical thickness) explained additional variance in time-related changes in activity besides age. Developmental patterns for activity in DLPFC and SPC were best characterized by a quadratic age function leveling off/peaking in late adolescence. There was a linear increase in SMA and a linear decrease with age in ACC activity. In addition to age, task performance explained variance in DLPFC and SPC activity, whereas cortical thickness explained variance in SMA activity. Together, these findings provide a novel perspective of linear and nonlinear developmental changes in the frontoparietal network during feedback learning. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  4. Activity in the fronto-parietal network indicates numerical inductive reasoning beyond calculation: An fMRI study combined with a cognitive model.

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    Liang, Peipeng; Jia, Xiuqin; Taatgen, Niels A; Borst, Jelmer P; Li, Kuncheng

    2016-05-19

    Numerical inductive reasoning refers to the process of identifying and extrapolating the rule involved in numeric materials. It is associated with calculation, and shares the common activation of the fronto-parietal regions with calculation, which suggests that numerical inductive reasoning may correspond to a general calculation process. However, compared with calculation, rule identification is critical and unique to reasoning. Previous studies have established the central role of the fronto-parietal network for relational integration during rule identification in numerical inductive reasoning. The current question of interest is whether numerical inductive reasoning exclusively corresponds to calculation or operates beyond calculation, and whether it is possible to distinguish between them based on the activity pattern in the fronto-parietal network. To directly address this issue, three types of problems were created: numerical inductive reasoning, calculation, and perceptual judgment. Our results showed that the fronto-parietal network was more active in numerical inductive reasoning which requires more exchanges between intermediate representations and long-term declarative knowledge during rule identification. These results survived even after controlling for the covariates of response time and error rate. A computational cognitive model was developed using the cognitive architecture ACT-R to account for the behavioral results and brain activity in the fronto-parietal network.

  5. Functional segregation and integration within fronto-parietal networks.

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    Parlatini, Valeria; Radua, Joaquim; Dell'Acqua, Flavio; Leslie, Anoushka; Simmons, Andy; Murphy, Declan G; Catani, Marco; Thiebaut de Schotten, Michel

    2017-02-01

    Experimental data on monkeys and functional studies in humans support the existence of a complex fronto-parietal system activating for cognitive and motor tasks, which may be anatomically supported by the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF). Advanced tractography methods have recently allowed the separation of the three branches of the SLF but are not suitable for their functional investigation. In order to gather comprehensive information about the functional organisation of these fronto-parietal connections, we used an innovative method, which combined tractography of the SLF in the largest dataset so far (129 participants) with 14 meta-analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. We found that frontal and parietal functions can be clustered into a dorsal spatial/motor network associated with the SLF I, and a ventral non-spatial/motor network associated with the SLF III. Further, all the investigated functions activated a middle network mostly associated with the SLF II. Our findings suggest that dorsal and ventral fronto-parietal networks are segregated but also share regions of activation, which may support flexible response properties or conscious processing. In sum, our novel combined approach provided novel findings on the functional organisation of fronto-parietal networks, and may be successfully applied to other brain connections. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. Self-face recognition shares brain regions active during proprioceptive illusion in the right inferior fronto-parietal superior longitudinal fasciculus III network.

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    Morita, Tomoyo; Saito, Daisuke N; Ban, Midori; Shimada, Koji; Okamoto, Yuko; Kosaka, Hirotaka; Okazawa, Hidehiko; Asada, Minoru; Naito, Eiichi

    2017-04-21

    Proprioception is somatic sensation that allows us to sense and recognize position, posture, and their changes in our body parts. It pertains directly to oneself and may contribute to bodily awareness. Likewise, one's face is a symbol of oneself, so that visual self-face recognition directly contributes to the awareness of self as distinct from others. Recently, we showed that right-hemispheric dominant activity in the inferior fronto-parietal cortices, which are connected by the inferior branch of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF III), is associated with proprioceptive illusion (awareness), in concert with sensorimotor activity. Herein, we tested the hypothesis that visual self-face recognition shares brain regions active during proprioceptive illusion in the right inferior fronto-parietal SLF III network. We scanned brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging while twenty-two right-handed healthy adults performed two tasks. One was a proprioceptive illusion task, where blindfolded participants experienced a proprioceptive illusion of right hand movement. The other was a visual self-face recognition task, where the participants judged whether an observed face was their own. We examined whether the self-face recognition and the proprioceptive illusion commonly activated the inferior fronto-parietal cortices connected by the SLF III in a right-hemispheric dominant manner. Despite the difference in sensory modality and in the body parts involved in the two tasks, both tasks activated the right inferior fronto-parietal cortices, which are likely connected by the SLF III, in a right-side dominant manner. Here we discuss possible roles for right inferior fronto-parietal activity in bodily awareness and self-awareness. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  7. Auditory and visual connectivity gradients in frontoparietal cortex.

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    Braga, Rodrigo M; Hellyer, Peter J; Wise, Richard J S; Leech, Robert

    2017-01-01

    A frontoparietal network of brain regions is often implicated in both auditory and visual information processing. Although it is possible that the same set of multimodal regions subserves both modalities, there is increasing evidence that there is a differentiation of sensory function within frontoparietal cortex. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in humans was used to investigate whether different frontoparietal regions showed intrinsic biases in connectivity with visual or auditory modalities. Structural connectivity was assessed with diffusion tractography and functional connectivity was tested using functional MRI. A dorsal-ventral gradient of function was observed, where connectivity with visual cortex dominates dorsal frontal and parietal connections, while connectivity with auditory cortex dominates ventral frontal and parietal regions. A gradient was also observed along the posterior-anterior axis, although in opposite directions in prefrontal and parietal cortices. The results suggest that the location of neural activity within frontoparietal cortex may be influenced by these intrinsic biases toward visual and auditory processing. Thus, the location of activity in frontoparietal cortex may be influenced as much by stimulus modality as the cognitive demands of a task. It was concluded that stimulus modality was spatially encoded throughout frontal and parietal cortices, and was speculated that such an arrangement allows for top-down modulation of modality-specific information to occur within higher-order cortex. This could provide a potentially faster and more efficient pathway by which top-down selection between sensory modalities could occur, by constraining modulations to within frontal and parietal regions, rather than long-range connections to sensory cortices. Hum Brain Mapp 38:255-270, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 The Authors Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  8. Frontoparietal cortex mediates perceptual transitions in bistable perception.

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    Weilnhammer, Veith A; Ludwig, Karin; Hesselmann, Guido; Sterzer, Philipp

    2013-10-02

    During bistable vision, perception oscillates between two mutually exclusive percepts despite constant sensory input. Greater BOLD responses in frontoparietal cortex have been shown to be associated with endogenous perceptual transitions compared with "replay" transitions designed to closely match bistability in both perceptual quality and timing. It has remained controversial, however, whether this enhanced activity reflects causal influences of these regions on processing at the sensory level or, alternatively, an effect of stimulus differences that result in, for example, longer durations of perceptual transitions in bistable perception compared with replay conditions. Using a rotating Lissajous figure in an fMRI experiment on 15 human participants, we controlled for potential confounds of differences in transition duration and confirmed previous findings of greater activity in frontoparietal areas for transitions during bistable perception. In addition, we applied dynamic causal modeling to identify the neural model that best explains the observed BOLD signals in terms of effective connectivity. We found that enhanced activity for perceptual transitions is associated with a modulation of top-down connectivity from frontal to visual cortex, thus arguing for a crucial role of frontoparietal cortex in perceptual transitions during bistable perception.

  9. Distinct Hippocampal versus Frontoparietal Network Contributions to Retrieval and Memory-guided Exploration.

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    Bridge, Donna J; Cohen, Neal J; Voss, Joel L

    2017-08-01

    Memory can profoundly influence new learning, presumably because memory optimizes exploration of to-be-learned material. Although hippocampus and frontoparietal networks have been implicated in memory-guided exploration, their specific and interactive roles have not been identified. We examined eye movements during fMRI scanning to identify neural correlates of the influences of memory retrieval on exploration and learning. After retrieval of one object in a multiobject array, viewing was strategically directed away from the retrieved object toward nonretrieved objects, such that exploration was directed toward to-be-learned content. Retrieved objects later served as optimal reminder cues, indicating that exploration caused memory to become structured around the retrieved content. Hippocampal activity was associated with memory retrieval, whereas frontoparietal activity varied with strategic viewing patterns deployed after retrieval, thus providing spatiotemporal dissociation of memory retrieval from memory-guided learning strategies. Time-lagged fMRI connectivity analyses indicated that hippocampal activity predicted frontoparietal activity to a greater extent for a condition in which retrieval guided exploration occurred than for a passive control condition in which exploration was not influenced by retrieval. This demonstrates network-level interaction effects specific to influences of memory on strategic exploration. These findings show how memory guides behavior during learning and demonstrate distinct yet interactive hippocampal-frontoparietal roles in implementing strategic exploration behaviors that determine the fate of evolving memory representations.

  10. Distinct hippocampal versus frontoparietal-network contributions to retrieval and memory-guided exploration

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    Bridge, Donna J.; Cohen, Neal J.; Voss, Joel L.

    2017-01-01

    Memory can profoundly influence new learning, presumably because memory optimizes exploration of to-be-learned material. Although hippocampus and frontoparietal networks have been implicated in memory-guided exploration, their specific and interactive roles have not been identified. We examined eye movements during fMRI scanning to identify neural correlates of the influences of memory retrieval on exploration and learning. Following retrieval of one object in a multi-object array, viewing was strategically directed away from the retrieved object toward non-retrieved objects, such that exploration was directed towards to-be-learned content. Retrieved objects later served as optimal reminder cues, indicating that exploration caused memory to become structured around the retrieved content. Hippocampal activity was associated with memory retrieval whereas frontoparietal activity varied with strategic viewing patterns deployed following retrieval, thus providing spatiotemporal dissociation of memory retrieval from memory-guided learning strategies. Time-lagged fMRI connectivity analyses indicated that hippocampal activity predicted frontoparietal activity to a greater extent for a condition in which retrieval guided exploration than for a passive control condition in which exploration was not influenced by retrieval. This demonstrates network-level interaction effects specific to influences of memory on strategic exploration. These findings show how memory guides behavior during learning and demonstrate distinct yet interactive hippocampal-frontoparietal roles in implementing strategic exploration behaviors that determine the fate of evolving memory representations. PMID:28471729

  11. Verbal Working Memory Performance Correlates with Regional White Matter Structures in the Frontoparietal Regions

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    Takeuchi, Hikaru; Taki, Yasuyuki; Sassa, Yuko; Hashizume, Hiroshi; Sekiguchi, Atsushi; Fukushima, Ai; Kawashima, Ryuta

    2011-01-01

    Working memory is the limited capacity storage system involved in the maintenance and manipulation of information over short periods of time. Previous imaging studies have suggested that the frontoparietal regions are activated during working memory tasks; a putative association between the structure of the frontoparietal regions and working…

  12. Frontoparietal cognitive control of verbal memory recall in Alzheimer's disease.

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    Dhanjal, Novraj S; Wise, Richard J S

    2014-08-01

    Episodic memory retrieval is reliant upon cognitive control systems, of which 2 have been identified with functional neuroimaging: a cingulo-opercular salience network (SN) and a frontoparietal executive network (EN). In Alzheimer's disease (AD), pathology is distributed throughout higher-order cortices. The hypotheses were that this frontoparietal pathology would impair activity associated with verbal memory recall; and that central cholinesterase inhibition (ChI) would modulate this, improving memory recall. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to study normal participants and 2 patient groups: mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD. Activity within the EN and SN was observed during free recall of previously heard sentences, and related to measures of recall accuracy. In normal subjects, trials with reduced recall were associated with greater activity in both the SN and EN. Better recall was associated with greater activity in medial regions of the default mode network. By comparison, AD patients showed attenuated responses in both the SN and EN compared with either controls or MCI patients, even after recall performance was matched between groups. Following ChI, AD patients showed no modulation of activity within the SN, but increased activity within the EN. There was also enhanced activity within regions associated with episodic and semantic memory during less successful recall, requiring greater cognitive control. The results indicate that in AD, impaired responses of cognitive control networks during verbal memory recall are partly responsible for reduced recall performance. One action of symptom-modifying treatment is partially to reverse the abnormal function of frontoparietal cognitive control and temporal lobe memory networks. © 2014 American Neurological Association.

  13. Frontoparietal Tracts Linked to Lateralized Hand Preference and Manual Specialization.

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    Howells, Henrietta; Thiebaut de Schotten, Michel; Dell'Acqua, Flavio; Beyh, Ahmad; Zappalà, Giuseppe; Leslie, Anoushka; Simmons, Andrew; Murphy, Declan G; Catani, Marco

    2018-04-21

    Humans show a preference for using the right hand over the left for tasks and activities of everyday life. While experimental work in non-human primates has identified the neural systems responsible for reaching and grasping, the neural basis of lateralized motor behavior in humans remains elusive. The advent of diffusion imaging tractography for studying connectional anatomy in the living human brain provides the possibility of understanding the relationship between hemispheric asymmetry, hand preference, and manual specialization. In this study, diffusion tractography was used to demonstrate an interaction between hand preference and the asymmetry of frontoparietal tracts, specifically the dorsal branch of the superior longitudinal fasciculus, responsible for visuospatial integration and motor planning. This is in contrast to the corticospinal tract and the superior cerebellar peduncle, for which asymmetry was not related to hand preference. Asymmetry of the dorsal frontoparietal tract was also highly correlated with the degree of lateralization in tasks requiring visuospatial integration and fine motor control. These results suggest a common anatomical substrate for hand preference and lateralized manual specialization in frontoparietal tracts important for visuomotor processing.

  14. Frontoparietal white matter integrity predicts haptic performance in chronic stroke

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexandra L. Borstad

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Frontoparietal white matter supports information transfer between brain areas involved in complex haptic tasks such as somatosensory discrimination. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the relationship between microstructural integrity of frontoparietal network white matter and haptic performance in persons with chronic stroke and to compare frontoparietal network integrity in participants with stroke and age matched control participants. Nineteen individuals with stroke and 16 controls participated. Haptic performance was quantified using the Hand Active Sensation Test (HASTe, an 18-item match-to-sample test of weight and texture discrimination. Three tesla MRI was used to obtain diffusion-weighted and high-resolution anatomical images of the whole brain. Probabilistic tractography was used to define 10 frontoparietal tracts total; Four intrahemispheric tracts measured bilaterally 1 thalamus to primary somatosensory cortex (T–S1, 2 thalamus to primary motor cortex (T–M1, 3 primary to secondary somatosensory cortex (S1 to SII and 4 primary somatosensory cortex to middle frontal gyrus (S1 to MFG and, 2 interhemispheric tracts; S1–S1 and precuneus interhemispheric. A control tract outside the network, the cuneus interhemispheric tract, was also examined. The diffusion metrics fractional anisotropy (FA, mean diffusivity (MD, axial (AD and radial diffusivity (RD were quantified for each tract. Diminished FA and elevated MD values are associated with poorer white matter integrity in chronic stroke. Nine of 10 tracts quantified in the frontoparietal network had diminished structural integrity poststroke compared to the controls. The precuneus interhemispheric tract was not significantly different between groups. Principle component analysis across all frontoparietal white matter tract MD values indicated a single factor explained 47% and 57% of the variance in tract mean diffusivity in stroke and control groups respectively

  15. Frontoparietal white matter integrity predicts haptic performance in chronic stroke.

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    Borstad, Alexandra L; Choi, Seongjin; Schmalbrock, Petra; Nichols-Larsen, Deborah S

    2016-01-01

    Frontoparietal white matter supports information transfer between brain areas involved in complex haptic tasks such as somatosensory discrimination. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the relationship between microstructural integrity of frontoparietal network white matter and haptic performance in persons with chronic stroke and to compare frontoparietal network integrity in participants with stroke and age matched control participants. Nineteen individuals with stroke and 16 controls participated. Haptic performance was quantified using the Hand Active Sensation Test (HASTe), an 18-item match-to-sample test of weight and texture discrimination. Three tesla MRI was used to obtain diffusion-weighted and high-resolution anatomical images of the whole brain. Probabilistic tractography was used to define 10 frontoparietal tracts total; Four intrahemispheric tracts measured bilaterally 1) thalamus to primary somatosensory cortex (T-S1), 2) thalamus to primary motor cortex (T-M1), 3) primary to secondary somatosensory cortex (S1 to SII) and 4) primary somatosensory cortex to middle frontal gyrus (S1 to MFG) and, 2 interhemispheric tracts; S1-S1 and precuneus interhemispheric. A control tract outside the network, the cuneus interhemispheric tract, was also examined. The diffusion metrics fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial (AD) and radial diffusivity (RD) were quantified for each tract. Diminished FA and elevated MD values are associated with poorer white matter integrity in chronic stroke. Nine of 10 tracts quantified in the frontoparietal network had diminished structural integrity poststroke compared to the controls. The precuneus interhemispheric tract was not significantly different between groups. Principle component analysis across all frontoparietal white matter tract MD values indicated a single factor explained 47% and 57% of the variance in tract mean diffusivity in stroke and control groups respectively. Age

  16. Activity in the fronto-parietal network indicates numerical inductive reasoning beyond calculation : An fMRI study combined with a cognitive model

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    Liang, Peipeng; Jia, Xiuqin; Taatgen, Niels A; Borst, Jelmer P; Li, Kuncheng

    2016-01-01

    Numerical inductive reasoning refers to the process of identifying and extrapolating the rule involved in numeric materials. It is associated with calculation, and shares the common activation of the fronto-parietal regions with calculation, which suggests that numerical inductive reasoning may

  17. The cross-functional role of frontoparietal regions in cognition: internal attention as the overarching mechanism.

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    Lückmann, Helen C; Jacobs, Heidi I L; Sack, Alexander T

    2014-05-01

    Neuroimaging studies have repeatedly reported findings of activation in frontoparietal regions that largely overlap across various cognitive functions. Part of this frontoparietal activation has been interpreted as reflecting attentional mechanisms that can adaptively be directed towards external stimulation as well as internal representations (internal attention), thereby generating the experience of distinct cognitive functions. Nevertheless, findings of material- and task-specific activation in frontal and parietal regions challenge this internal attention hypothesis and have been used to support more modular hypotheses of cognitive function. The aim of this review is twofold: First, it discusses evidence in support of the concept of internal attention and the so-called dorsal attention network (DAN) as its neural source with respect to three cognitive functions (working memory, episodic retrieval, and mental imagery). While DAN activation in all three functions has been separately linked to internal attention, a comprehensive and integrative review has so far been lacking. Second, the review examines findings of material- and process-specific activation within frontoparietal regions, arguing that these results are well compatible with the internal attention account of frontoparietal activation. A new model of cognition is presented, proposing that supposedly different cognitive concepts actually rely on similar attentional network dynamics to maintain, reactivate and newly create internal representations of stimuli in various modalities. Attentional as well as representational mechanisms are assigned to frontal and parietal regions, positing that some regions are implicated in the allocation of attentional resources to perceptual or internal representations, but others are involved in the representational processes themselves. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Fronto-parietal coding of goal-directed actions performed by artificial agents.

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    Kupferberg, Aleksandra; Iacoboni, Marco; Flanagin, Virginia; Huber, Markus; Kasparbauer, Anna; Baumgartner, Thomas; Hasler, Gregor; Schmidt, Florian; Borst, Christoph; Glasauer, Stefan

    2018-03-01

    With advances in technology, artificial agents such as humanoid robots will soon become a part of our daily lives. For safe and intuitive collaboration, it is important to understand the goals behind their motor actions. In humans, this process is mediated by changes in activity in fronto-parietal brain areas. The extent to which these areas are activated when observing artificial agents indicates the naturalness and easiness of interaction. Previous studies indicated that fronto-parietal activity does not depend on whether the agent is human or artificial. However, it is unknown whether this activity is modulated by observing grasping (self-related action) and pointing actions (other-related action) performed by an artificial agent depending on the action goal. Therefore, we designed an experiment in which subjects observed human and artificial agents perform pointing and grasping actions aimed at two different object categories suggesting different goals. We found a signal increase in the bilateral inferior parietal lobule and the premotor cortex when tool versus food items were pointed to or grasped by both agents, probably reflecting the association of hand actions with the functional use of tools. Our results show that goal attribution engages the fronto-parietal network not only for observing a human but also a robotic agent for both self-related and social actions. The debriefing after the experiment has shown that actions of human-like artificial agents can be perceived as being goal-directed. Therefore, humans will be able to interact with service robots intuitively in various domains such as education, healthcare, public service, and entertainment. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  19. Oscillatory Dynamics in the Frontoparietal Attention Network during Sustained Attention in the Ferret

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kristin K. Sellers

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Sustained attention requires the coordination of neural activity across multiple cortical areas in the frontoparietal network, in particular the prefrontal cortex (PFC and posterior parietal cortex (PPC. Previous work has demonstrated that activity in these brain regions is coordinated by neuronal oscillations of the local field potential (LFP. However, the underlying coordination of activity in terms of organization of single unit (SU spiking activity has remained poorly understood, particularly in the freely moving animal. We found that long-range functional connectivity between anatomically connected PFC and PPC was mediated by oscillations in the theta frequency band. SU activity in PFC was phase locked to theta oscillations in PPC, and spiking activity in PFC and PPC was locked to local high-gamma activity. Together, our results support a model in which frequency-specific synchronization mediates functional connectivity between and within PFC and PPC of the frontoparietal attention network in the freely moving animal.

  20. Externally induced frontoparietal synchronization modulates network dynamics and enhances working memory performance.

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    Violante, Ines R; Li, Lucia M; Carmichael, David W; Lorenz, Romy; Leech, Robert; Hampshire, Adam; Rothwell, John C; Sharp, David J

    2017-03-14

    Cognitive functions such as working memory (WM) are emergent properties of large-scale network interactions. Synchronisation of oscillatory activity might contribute to WM by enabling the coordination of long-range processes. However, causal evidence for the way oscillatory activity shapes network dynamics and behavior in humans is limited. Here we applied transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) to exogenously modulate oscillatory activity in a right frontoparietal network that supports WM. Externally induced synchronization improved performance when cognitive demands were high. Simultaneously collected fMRI data reveals tACS effects dependent on the relative phase of the stimulation and the internal cognitive processing state. Specifically, synchronous tACS during the verbal WM task increased parietal activity, which correlated with behavioral performance. Furthermore, functional connectivity results indicate that the relative phase of frontoparietal stimulation influences information flow within the WM network. Overall, our findings demonstrate a link between behavioral performance in a demanding WM task and large-scale brain synchronization.

  1. Reward Motivation Enhances Task Coding in Frontoparietal Cortex.

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    Etzel, Joset A; Cole, Michael W; Zacks, Jeffrey M; Kay, Kendrick N; Braver, Todd S

    2016-04-01

    Reward motivation often enhances task performance, but the neural mechanisms underlying such cognitive enhancement remain unclear. Here, we used a multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) approach to test the hypothesis that motivation-related enhancement of cognitive control results from improved encoding and representation of task set information. Participants underwent two fMRI sessions of cued task switching, the first under baseline conditions, and the second with randomly intermixed reward incentive and no-incentive trials. Information about the upcoming task could be successfully decoded from cue-related activation patterns in a set of frontoparietal regions typically associated with task control. More critically, MVPA classifiers trained on the baseline session had significantly higher decoding accuracy on incentive than non-incentive trials, with decoding improvement mediating reward-related enhancement of behavioral performance. These results strongly support the hypothesis that reward motivation enhances cognitive control, by improving the discriminability of task-relevant information coded and maintained in frontoparietal brain regions. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  2. Observing complex action sequences: The role of the fronto-parietal mirror neuron system.

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    Molnar-Szakacs, Istvan; Kaplan, Jonas; Greenfield, Patricia M; Iacoboni, Marco

    2006-11-15

    A fronto-parietal mirror neuron network in the human brain supports the ability to represent and understand observed actions allowing us to successfully interact with others and our environment. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we wanted to investigate the response of this network in adults during observation of hierarchically organized action sequences of varying complexity that emerge at different developmental stages. We hypothesized that fronto-parietal systems may play a role in coding the hierarchical structure of object-directed actions. The observation of all action sequences recruited a common bilateral network including the fronto-parietal mirror neuron system and occipito-temporal visual motion areas. Activity in mirror neuron areas varied according to the motoric complexity of the observed actions, but not according to the developmental sequence of action structures, possibly due to the fact that our subjects were all adults. These results suggest that the mirror neuron system provides a fairly accurate simulation process of observed actions, mimicking internally the level of motoric complexity. We also discuss the results in terms of the links between mirror neurons, language development and evolution.

  3. Right hemisphere dominance during spatial selective attention and target detection occurs outside the dorsal fronto-parietal network

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    Shulman, Gordon L.; Pope, Daniel L. W.; Astafiev, Serguei V.; McAvoy, Mark P.; Snyder, Abraham Z.; Corbetta, Maurizio

    2010-01-01

    Spatial selective attention is widely considered to be right hemisphere dominant. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, however, have reported bilateral blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) responses in dorsal fronto-parietal regions during anticipatory shifts of attention to a location (Kastner et al., 1999; Corbetta et al., 2000; Hopfinger et al., 2000). Right-lateralized activity has mainly been reported in ventral fronto-parietal regions for shifts of attention to an unattended target stimulus (Arrington et al., 2000; Corbetta et al., 2000). However, clear conclusions cannot be drawn from these studies because hemispheric asymmetries were not assessed using direct voxel-wise comparisons of activity in left and right hemispheres. Here, we used this technique to measure hemispheric asymmetries during shifts of spatial attention evoked by a peripheral cue stimulus and during target detection at the cued location. Stimulus-driven shifts of spatial attention in both visual fields evoked right-hemisphere dominant activity in temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). Target detection at the attended location produced a more widespread right hemisphere dominance in frontal, parietal, and temporal cortex, including the TPJ region asymmetrically activated during shifts of spatial attention. However, hemispheric asymmetries were not observed during either shifts of attention or target detection in the dorsal fronto-parietal regions (anterior precuneus, medial intraparietal sulcus, frontal eye fields) that showed the most robust activations for shifts of attention. Therefore, right hemisphere dominance during stimulus-driven shifts of spatial attention and target detection reflects asymmetries in cortical regions that are largely distinct from the dorsal fronto-parietal network involved in the control of selective attention. PMID:20219998

  4. Future planning: default network activity couples with frontoparietal control network and reward-processing regions during process and outcome simulations.

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    Gerlach, Kathy D; Spreng, R Nathan; Madore, Kevin P; Schacter, Daniel L

    2014-12-01

    We spend much of our daily lives imagining how we can reach future goals and what will happen when we attain them. Despite the prevalence of such goal-directed simulations, neuroimaging studies on planning have mainly focused on executive processes in the frontal lobe. This experiment examined the neural basis of process simulations, during which participants imagined themselves going through steps toward attaining a goal, and outcome simulations, during which participants imagined events they associated with achieving a goal. In the scanner, participants engaged in these simulation tasks and an odd/even control task. We hypothesized that process simulations would recruit default and frontoparietal control network regions, and that outcome simulations, which allow us to anticipate the affective consequences of achieving goals, would recruit default and reward-processing regions. Our analysis of brain activity that covaried with process and outcome simulations confirmed these hypotheses. A functional connectivity analysis with posterior cingulate, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior inferior parietal lobule seeds showed that their activity was correlated during process simulations and associated with a distributed network of default and frontoparietal control network regions. During outcome simulations, medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala seeds covaried together and formed a functional network with default and reward-processing regions. © The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  5. Crossmodal semantic congruence can affect visuo-spatial processing and activity of the fronto-parietal attention networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Serena eMastroberardino

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Previous studies have shown that multisensory stimuli can contribute to attention control. Here we investigate whether irrelevant audio-visual stimuli can affect the processing of subsequent visual targets, in the absence of any direct bottom-up signals generated by low-level sensory changes and any goal-related associations between the multisensory stimuli and the visual targets. Each trial included two pictures (cat/dog, one in each visual hemifield, and a central sound that was semantically congruent with one of the two pictures (i.e. either meow or woof sound. These irrelevant audio-visual stimuli were followed by a visual target that appeared either where the congruent or the incongruent picture had been presented (valid/invalid trials. The visual target was a Gabor patch requiring an orientation discrimination judgment, allowing us to uncouple the visual task from the audio-visual stimuli. Behaviourally we found lower performance for invalid than valid trials, but only when the task demands were high (Gabor target presented together with a Gabor distractor vs. Gabor target alone. The fMRI analyses revealed greater activity for invalid than for valid trials in the dorsal and the ventral fronto-parietal attention networks. The dorsal network was recruited irrespective of task demands, while the ventral network was recruited only when task demands were high and target discrimination required additional top-down control. We propose that crossmodal semantic congruence generates a processing bias associated with the location of congruent picture, and that the presentation of the visual target on the opposite side required updating these processing priorities. We relate the activation of the attention networks to these updating operations. We conclude that the fronto-parietal networks mediate the influence of crossmodal semantic congruence on visuo-spatial processing, even in the absence of any low-level sensory cue and any goal-driven task

  6. Dynamic range of frontoparietal functional modulation is associated with working memory capacity limitations in older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hakun, Jonathan G; Johnson, Nathan F

    2017-11-01

    Older adults tend to over-activate regions throughout frontoparietal cortices and exhibit a reduced range of functional modulation during WM task performance compared to younger adults. While recent evidence suggests that reduced functional modulation is associated with poorer task performance, it remains unclear whether reduced range of modulation is indicative of general WM capacity-limitations. In the current study, we examined whether the range of functional modulation observed over multiple levels of WM task difficulty (N-Back) predicts in-scanner task performance and out-of-scanner psychometric estimates of WM capacity. Within our sample (60-77years of age), age was negatively associated with frontoparietal modulation range. Individuals with greater modulation range exhibited more accurate N-Back performance. In addition, despite a lack of significant relationships between N-Back and complex span task performance, range of frontoparietal modulation during the N-Back significantly predicted domain-general estimates of WM capacity. Consistent with previous cross-sectional findings, older individuals with less modulation range exhibited greater activation at the lowest level of task difficulty but less activation at the highest levels of task difficulty. Our results are largely consistent with existing theories of neurocognitive aging (e.g. CRUNCH) but focus attention on dynamic range of functional modulation asa novel marker of WM capacity-limitations in older adults. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Automatic NAA. Saturation activities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Westphal, G.P.; Grass, F.; Kuhnert, M.

    2008-01-01

    A system for Automatic NAA is based on a list of specific saturation activities determined for one irradiation position at a given neutron flux and a single detector geometry. Originally compiled from measurements of standard reference materials, the list may be extended also by the calculation of saturation activities from k 0 and Q 0 factors, and f and α values of the irradiation position. A systematic improvement of the SRM approach is currently being performed by pseudo-cyclic activation analysis, to reduce counting errors. From these measurements, the list of saturation activities is recalculated in an automatic procedure. (author)

  8. Altered resting-state frontoparietal control network in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Hsiang-Yuan; Tseng, Wen-Yih Isaac; Lai, Meng-Chuan; Matsuo, Kayako; Gau, Susan Shur-Fen

    2015-04-01

    The frontoparietal control network, anatomically and functionally interposed between the dorsal attention network and default mode network, underpins executive control functions. Individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) commonly exhibit deficits in executive functions, which are mainly mediated by the frontoparietal control network. Involvement of the frontoparietal control network based on the anterior prefrontal cortex in neurobiological mechanisms of ADHD has yet to be tested. We used resting-state functional MRI and seed-based correlation analyses to investigate functional connectivity of the frontoparietal control network in a sample of 25 children with ADHD (7-14 years; mean 9.94 ± 1.77 years; 20 males), and 25 age-, sex-, and performance IQ-matched typically developing (TD) children. All participants had limited in-scanner head motion. Spearman's rank correlations were used to test the associations between altered patterns of functional connectivity with clinical symptoms and executive functions, measured by the Conners' Continuous Performance Test and Spatial Span in the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery. Compared with TD children, children with ADHD demonstrated weaker connectivity between the right anterior prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the right ventrolateral PFC, and between the left anterior PFC and the right inferior parietal lobule. Furthermore, this aberrant connectivity of the frontoparietal control network in ADHD was associated with symptoms of impulsivity and opposition-defiance, as well as impaired response inhibition and attentional control. The findings support potential integration of the disconnection model and the executive dysfunction model for ADHD. Atypical frontoparietal control network may play a pivotal role in the pathophysiology of ADHD.

  9. Choosing the rules: distinct and overlapping frontoparietal representations of task rules for perceptual decisions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Jiaxiang; Kriegeskorte, Nikolaus; Carlin, Johan D; Rowe, James B

    2013-07-17

    Behavior is governed by rules that associate stimuli with responses and outcomes. Human and monkey studies have shown that rule-specific information is widely represented in the frontoparietal cortex. However, it is not known how establishing a rule under different contexts affects its neural representation. Here, we use event-related functional MRI (fMRI) and multivoxel pattern classification methods to investigate the human brain's mechanisms of establishing and maintaining rules for multiple perceptual decision tasks. Rules were either chosen by participants or specifically instructed to them, and the fMRI activation patterns representing rule-specific information were compared between these contexts. We show that frontoparietal regions differ in the properties of their rule representations during active maintenance before execution. First, rule-specific information maintained in the dorsolateral and medial frontal cortex depends on the context in which it was established (chosen vs specified). Second, rule representations maintained in the ventrolateral frontal and parietal cortex are independent of the context in which they were established. Furthermore, we found that the rule-specific coding maintained in anticipation of stimuli may change with execution of the rule: representations in context-independent regions remain invariant from maintenance to execution stages, whereas rule representations in context-dependent regions do not generalize to execution stage. The identification of distinct frontoparietal systems with context-independent and context-dependent task rule representations, and the distinction between anticipatory and executive rule representations, provide new insights into the functional architecture of goal-directed behavior.

  10. Time course of the involvement of the right anterior superior temporal gyrus and the right fronto-parietal operculum in emotional prosody perception.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marjolijn Hoekert

    Full Text Available In verbal communication, not only the meaning of the words convey information, but also the tone of voice (prosody conveys crucial information about the emotional state and intentions of others. In various studies right frontal and right temporal regions have been found to play a role in emotional prosody perception. Here, we used triple-pulse repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS to shed light on the precise time course of involvement of the right anterior superior temporal gyrus and the right fronto-parietal operculum. We hypothesized that information would be processed in the right anterior superior temporal gyrus before being processed in the right fronto-parietal operculum. Right-handed healthy subjects performed an emotional prosody task. During listening to each sentence a triplet of TMS pulses was applied to one of the regions at one of six time points (400-1900 ms. Results showed a significant main effect of Time for right anterior superior temporal gyrus and right fronto-parietal operculum. The largest interference was observed half-way through the sentence. This effect was stronger for withdrawal emotions than for the approach emotion. A further experiment with the inclusion of an active control condition, TMS over the EEG site POz (midline parietal-occipital junction, revealed stronger effects at the fronto-parietal operculum and anterior superior temporal gyrus relative to the active control condition. No evidence was found for sequential processing of emotional prosodic information from right anterior superior temporal gyrus to the right fronto-parietal operculum, but the results revealed more parallel processing. Our results suggest that both right fronto-parietal operculum and right anterior superior temporal gyrus are critical for emotional prosody perception at a relatively late time period after sentence onset. This may reflect that emotional cues can still be ambiguous at the beginning of sentences, but become

  11. Time course of the involvement of the right anterior superior temporal gyrus and the right fronto-parietal operculum in emotional prosody perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoekert, Marjolijn; Bais, Leonie; Kahn, René S; Aleman, André

    2008-05-21

    In verbal communication, not only the meaning of the words convey information, but also the tone of voice (prosody) conveys crucial information about the emotional state and intentions of others. In various studies right frontal and right temporal regions have been found to play a role in emotional prosody perception. Here, we used triple-pulse repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to shed light on the precise time course of involvement of the right anterior superior temporal gyrus and the right fronto-parietal operculum. We hypothesized that information would be processed in the right anterior superior temporal gyrus before being processed in the right fronto-parietal operculum. Right-handed healthy subjects performed an emotional prosody task. During listening to each sentence a triplet of TMS pulses was applied to one of the regions at one of six time points (400-1900 ms). Results showed a significant main effect of Time for right anterior superior temporal gyrus and right fronto-parietal operculum. The largest interference was observed half-way through the sentence. This effect was stronger for withdrawal emotions than for the approach emotion. A further experiment with the inclusion of an active control condition, TMS over the EEG site POz (midline parietal-occipital junction), revealed stronger effects at the fronto-parietal operculum and anterior superior temporal gyrus relative to the active control condition. No evidence was found for sequential processing of emotional prosodic information from right anterior superior temporal gyrus to the right fronto-parietal operculum, but the results revealed more parallel processing. Our results suggest that both right fronto-parietal operculum and right anterior superior temporal gyrus are critical for emotional prosody perception at a relatively late time period after sentence onset. This may reflect that emotional cues can still be ambiguous at the beginning of sentences, but become more apparent half

  12. Rotated alphanumeric characters do not automatically activate frontoparietal areas subserving mental rotation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Weiss, Michael M; Wolbers, Thomas; Peller, Martin

    2008-01-01

    Functional neuroimaging studies have identified a set of areas in the intraparietal sulcus and dorsal precentral cortex which show a linear increase in activity with the angle of rotation across a variety of mental rotation tasks. This linear increase in activity with angular disparity suggests t...... modulated by angular disparity during the stimulus categorization task. These results suggest that at least for alphanumerical characters, areas implicated in mental rotation will only be called into action if the task requires a rotational transformation....

  13. Patterns of frontoparietal activation as a marker for unsuccessful visuospatial processing in healthy aging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drag, Lauren L; Light, Sharee N; Langenecker, Scott A; Hazlett, Kathleen E; Wilde, Elisabeth A; Welsh, Robert; Steinberg, Brett A; Bieliauskas, Linas A

    2016-09-01

    Visuospatial abilities are sensitive to age-related decline, although the neural basis for this decline (and its everyday behavioral correlates) is as yet poorly understood. fMRI was employed to examine age-related differences in patterns of functional activation that underlie changes in visuospatial processing. All participants completed a brief neuropsychological battery and also a figure ground task (FGT) assessing visuospatial processing while fMRI was recorded. Participants included 16 healthy older adults (OA; aged 69-82 years) and 16 healthy younger adults (YA; aged 20-35 years). We examined age-related differences in behavioral performance on the FGT in relation to patterns of fMRI activation. OA demonstrated reduced performance on the FGT task and showed increased activation of supramarginal parietal cortex as well as increased activation of frontal and temporal regions compared to their younger counterparts. Performance on the FGT related to increased supramarginal gyrus activity and increased medial prefrontal activity in OAs, but not YAs. Our results are consistent with an anterior-posterior compensation model. Successful FGT performance requires the perception and integration of multiple stimuli and thus it is plausible that healthy aging may be accompanied by changes in visuospatial processing that mimic a subtle form of dorsal simultanagnosia. Overall, decreased visuospatial processing in OA relates to an altered frontoparietal neurobiological signature that may contribute to the general phenomenon of increasingly fragmented execution of behavior associated with normal aging.

  14. Frontoparietal Structural Connectivity in Childhood Predicts Development of Functional Connectivity and Reasoning Ability: A Large-Scale Longitudinal Investigation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wendelken, Carter; Ferrer, Emilio; Ghetti, Simona; Bailey, Stephen K; Cutting, Laurie; Bunge, Silvia A

    2017-08-30

    Prior research points to a positive concurrent relationship between reasoning ability and both frontoparietal structural connectivity (SC) as measured by diffusion tensor imaging (Tamnes et al., 2010) and frontoparietal functional connectivity (FC) as measured by fMRI (Cocchi et al., 2014). Further, recent research demonstrates a link between reasoning ability and FC of two brain regions in particular: rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC) and the inferior parietal lobe (IPL) (Wendelken et al., 2016). Here, we sought to investigate the concurrent and dynamic, lead-lag relationships among frontoparietal SC, FC, and reasoning ability in humans. To this end, we combined three longitudinal developmental datasets with behavioral and neuroimaging data from 523 male and female participants between 6 and 22 years of age. Cross-sectionally, reasoning ability was most strongly related to FC between RLPFC and IPL in adolescents and adults, but to frontoparietal SC in children. Longitudinal analysis revealed that RLPFC-IPL SC, but not FC, was a positive predictor of future changes in reasoning ability. Moreover, we found that RLPFC-IPL SC at one time point positively predicted future changes in RLPFC-IPL FC, whereas, in contrast, FC did not predict future changes in SC. Our results demonstrate the importance of strong white matter connectivity between RLPFC and IPL during middle childhood for the subsequent development of both robust FC and good reasoning ability. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The human capacity for reasoning develops substantially during childhood and has a profound impact on achievement in school and in cognitively challenging careers. Reasoning ability depends on communication between lateral prefrontal and parietal cortices. Therefore, to understand how this capacity develops, we examined the dynamic relationships over time among white matter tracts connecting frontoparietal cortices (i.e., structural connectivity, SC), coordinated frontoparietal activation

  15. Cognitive emotion regulation in children: Reappraisal of emotional faces modulates neural source activity in a frontoparietal network.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wessing, Ida; Rehbein, Maimu A; Romer, Georg; Achtergarde, Sandra; Dobel, Christian; Zwitserlood, Pienie; Fürniss, Tilman; Junghöfer, Markus

    2015-06-01

    Emotion regulation has an important role in child development and psychopathology. Reappraisal as cognitive regulation technique can be used effectively by children. Moreover, an ERP component known to reflect emotional processing called late positive potential (LPP) can be modulated by children using reappraisal and this modulation is also related to children's emotional adjustment. The present study seeks to elucidate the neural generators of such LPP effects. To this end, children aged 8-14 years reappraised emotional faces, while neural activity in an LPP time window was estimated using magnetoencephalography-based source localization. Additionally, neural activity was correlated with two indexes of emotional adjustment and age. Reappraisal reduced activity in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during down-regulation and enhanced activity in the right parietal cortex during up-regulation. Activity in the visual cortex decreased with increasing age, more adaptive emotion regulation and less anxiety. Results demonstrate that reappraisal changed activity within a frontoparietal network in children. Decreasing activity in the visual cortex with increasing age is suggested to reflect neural maturation. A similar decrease with adaptive emotion regulation and less anxiety implies that better emotional adjustment may be associated with an advance in neural maturation. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  16. Verbal working memory performance correlates with regional white matter structures in the frontoparietal regions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Takeuchi, Hikaru; Taki, Yasuyuki; Sassa, Yuko; Hashizume, Hiroshi; Sekiguchi, Atsushi; Fukushima, Ai; Kawashima, Ryuta

    2011-10-01

    Working memory is the limited capacity storage system involved in the maintenance and manipulation of information over short periods of time. Previous imaging studies have suggested that the frontoparietal regions are activated during working memory tasks; a putative association between the structure of the frontoparietal regions and working memory performance has been suggested based on the analysis of individuals with varying pathologies. This study aimed to identify correlations between white matter and individual differences in verbal working memory performance in normal young subjects. We performed voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analyses using T1-weighted structural images as well as voxel-based analyses of fractional anisotropy (FA) using diffusion tensor imaging. Using the letter span task, we measured verbal working memory performance in normal young adult men and women (mean age, 21.7 years, SD=1.44; 42 men and 13 women). We observed positive correlations between working memory performance and regional white matter volume (rWMV) in the frontoparietal regions. In addition, FA was found to be positively correlated with verbal working memory performance in a white matter region adjacent to the right precuneus. These regions are consistently recruited by working memory. Our findings suggest that, among normal young subjects, verbal working memory performance is associated with various regions that are recruited during working memory tasks, and this association is not limited to specific parts of the working memory network. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Optimized gamma synchronization enhances functional binding of fronto-parietal cortices in mathematically gifted adolescents during deductive reasoning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Li eZhang

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available As enhanced fronto-parietal network has been suggested to support reasoning ability of math-gifted adolescents, the main goal of this EEG source analysis is to investigate the temporal binding of the gamma-band (30-60Hz synchronization between frontal and parietal cortices in adolescents with exceptional mathematical ability, including the functional connectivity of gamma neurocognitive network, the temporal dynamics of fronto-parietal network (phase-locking durations and network lability in time domain, and the self-organized criticality of synchronizing oscillation. Compared with the average-ability subjects, the math-gifted adolescents show a highly integrated fronto-parietal network due to distant gamma phase-locking oscillations, which is indicated by lower modularity of the global network topology, more connector bridges between the frontal and parietal cortices and less connector hubs in the sensorimotor cortex. The time-domain analysis finds that, while maintaining more stable phase dynamics of the fronto-parietal coupling, the math-gifted adolescents are characterized by more extensive fronto-parietal connection reconfiguration. The results from sample fitting in the power-law model further find that the phase-locking durations in the math-gifted brain abides by a wider interval of the power-law distribution. This phase-lock distribution mechanism could represent a relatively optimized pattern for the functional binding of frontal-parietal network, which underlies stable fronto-parietal connectivity and increases flexibility of timely network reconfiguration.

  18. Planning Ahead: Object-Directed Sequential Actions Decoded from Human Frontoparietal and Occipitotemporal Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallivan, Jason P.; Johnsrude, Ingrid S.; Randall Flanagan, J.

    2016-01-01

    Object-manipulation tasks (e.g., drinking from a cup) typically involve sequencing together a series of distinct motor acts (e.g., reaching toward, grasping, lifting, and transporting the cup) in order to accomplish some overarching goal (e.g., quenching thirst). Although several studies in humans have investigated the neural mechanisms supporting the planning of visually guided movements directed toward objects (such as reaching or pointing), only a handful have examined how manipulatory sequences of actions—those that occur after an object has been grasped—are planned and represented in the brain. Here, using event-related functional MRI and pattern decoding methods, we investigated the neural basis of real-object manipulation using a delayed-movement task in which participants first prepared and then executed different object-directed action sequences that varied either in their complexity or final spatial goals. Consistent with previous reports of preparatory brain activity in non-human primates, we found that activity patterns in several frontoparietal areas reliably predicted entire action sequences in advance of movement. Notably, we found that similar sequence-related information could also be decoded from pre-movement signals in object- and body-selective occipitotemporal cortex (OTC). These findings suggest that both frontoparietal and occipitotemporal circuits are engaged in transforming object-related information into complex, goal-directed movements. PMID:25576538

  19. Integration and segregation of large-scale brain networks during short-term task automatization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mohr, Holger; Wolfensteller, Uta; Betzel, Richard F; Mišić, Bratislav; Sporns, Olaf; Richiardi, Jonas; Ruge, Hannes

    2016-11-03

    The human brain is organized into large-scale functional networks that can flexibly reconfigure their connectivity patterns, supporting both rapid adaptive control and long-term learning processes. However, it has remained unclear how short-term network dynamics support the rapid transformation of instructions into fluent behaviour. Comparing fMRI data of a learning sample (N=70) with a control sample (N=67), we find that increasingly efficient task processing during short-term practice is associated with a reorganization of large-scale network interactions. Practice-related efficiency gains are facilitated by enhanced coupling between the cingulo-opercular network and the dorsal attention network. Simultaneously, short-term task automatization is accompanied by decreasing activation of the fronto-parietal network, indicating a release of high-level cognitive control, and a segregation of the default mode network from task-related networks. These findings suggest that short-term task automatization is enabled by the brain's ability to rapidly reconfigure its large-scale network organization involving complementary integration and segregation processes.

  20. Fronto-parietal contributions to phonological processes in successful artificial grammar learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dariya Goranskaya

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Sensitivity to regularities plays a crucial role in the acquisition of various linguistic features from spoken language input. Artificial grammar (AG learning paradigms explore pattern recognition abilities in a set of structured sequences (i.e. of syllables or letters. In the present study, we investigated the functional underpinnings of learning phonological regularities in auditorily presented syllable sequences. While previous neuroimaging studies either focused on functional differences between the processing of correct vs. incorrect sequences or between different levels of sequence complexity, here the focus is on the neural foundation of the actual learning success. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI, participants were exposed to a set of syllable sequences with an underlying phonological rule system, known to ensure performance differences between participants. We expected that successful learning and rule application would require phonological segmentation and phoneme comparison. As an outcome of four alternating learning and test fMRI sessions, participants split into successful learners and non-learners. Relative to non-learners, successful learners showed increased task-related activity in a fronto-parietal network of brain areas encompassing the left lateral premotor cortex as well as bilateral superior and inferior parietal cortices during both learning and rule application. These areas were previously associated with phonological segmentation, phoneme comparison and verbal working memory. Based on these activity patterns and the phonological strategies for rule acquisition and application, we argue that successful learning and processing of complex phonological rules in our paradigm is mediated via a fronto-parietal network for phonological processes.

  1. Modulating the Focus of Attention for Spoken Words at Encoding Affects Frontoparietal Activation for Incidental Verbal Memory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thomas A. Christensen

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Attention is crucial for encoding information into memory, and current dual-process models seek to explain the roles of attention in both recollection memory and incidental-perceptual memory processes. The present study combined an incidental memory paradigm with event-related functional MRI to examine the effect of attention at encoding on the subsequent neural activation associated with unintended perceptual memory for spoken words. At encoding, we systematically varied attention levels as listeners heard a list of single English nouns. We then presented these words again in the context of a recognition task and assessed the effect of modulating attention at encoding on the BOLD responses to words that were either attended strongly, weakly, or not heard previously. MRI revealed activity in right-lateralized inferior parietal and prefrontal regions, and positive BOLD signals varied with the relative level of attention present at encoding. Temporal analysis of hemodynamic responses further showed that the time course of BOLD activity was modulated differentially by unintentionally encoded words compared to novel items. Our findings largely support current models of memory consolidation and retrieval, but they also provide fresh evidence for hemispheric differences and functional subdivisions in right frontoparietal attention networks that help shape auditory episodic recall.

  2. Modulating the focus of attention for spoken words at encoding affects frontoparietal activation for incidental verbal memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christensen, Thomas A; Almryde, Kyle R; Fidler, Lesley J; Lockwood, Julie L; Antonucci, Sharon M; Plante, Elena

    2012-01-01

    Attention is crucial for encoding information into memory, and current dual-process models seek to explain the roles of attention in both recollection memory and incidental-perceptual memory processes. The present study combined an incidental memory paradigm with event-related functional MRI to examine the effect of attention at encoding on the subsequent neural activation associated with unintended perceptual memory for spoken words. At encoding, we systematically varied attention levels as listeners heard a list of single English nouns. We then presented these words again in the context of a recognition task and assessed the effect of modulating attention at encoding on the BOLD responses to words that were either attended strongly, weakly, or not heard previously. MRI revealed activity in right-lateralized inferior parietal and prefrontal regions, and positive BOLD signals varied with the relative level of attention present at encoding. Temporal analysis of hemodynamic responses further showed that the time course of BOLD activity was modulated differentially by unintentionally encoded words compared to novel items. Our findings largely support current models of memory consolidation and retrieval, but they also provide fresh evidence for hemispheric differences and functional subdivisions in right frontoparietal attention networks that help shape auditory episodic recall.

  3. Automatic selection of resting-state networks with functional magnetic resonance imaging

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Silvia Francesca eStorti

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI during a resting-state condition can reveal the co-activation of specific brain regions in distributed networks, called resting-state networks, which are selected by independent component analysis (ICA of the fMRI data. One of the major difficulties with component analysis is the automatic selection of the ICA features related to brain activity. In this study we describe a method designed to automatically select networks of potential functional relevance, specifically, those regions known to be involved in motor function, visual processing, executive functioning, auditory processing, memory, and the default-mode network. To do this, image analysis was based on probabilistic ICA as implemented in FSL software. After decomposition, the optimal number of components was selected by applying a novel algorithm which takes into account, for each component, Pearson's median coefficient of skewness of the spatial maps generated by FSL, followed by clustering, segmentation, and spectral analysis. To evaluate the performance of the approach, we investigated the resting-state networks in 25 subjects. For each subject, three resting-state scans were obtained with a Siemens Allegra 3 T scanner (NYU data set. Comparison of the visually and the automatically identified neuronal networks showed that the algorithm had high accuracy (first scan: 95%, second scan: 95%, third scan: 93% and precision (90%, 90%, 84%. The reproducibility of the networks for visual and automatic selection was very close: it was highly consistent in each subject for the default-mode network (≥ 92% and the occipital network, which includes the medial visual cortical areas (≥ 94%, and consistent for the attention network (≥ 80%, the right and/or left lateralized frontoparietal attention networks, and the temporal-motor network (≥ 80%. The automatic selection method may be used to detect neural networks and reduce subjectivity in ICA

  4. A bilateral frontoparietal network underlies visuospatial analogical reasoning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watson, Christine E; Chatterjee, Anjan

    2012-02-01

    Our ability to reason by analogy facilitates problem solving and allows us to communicate ideas efficiently. In this study, we examined the neural correlates of analogical reasoning and, more specifically, the contribution of rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC) to reasoning. This area of the brain has been hypothesized to integrate relational information, as in analogy, or the outcomes of subgoals, as in multi-tasking and complex problem solving. Using fMRI, we compared visuospatial analogical reasoning to a control task that was as complex and difficult as the analogies and required the coordination of subgoals but not the integration of relations. We found that analogical reasoning more strongly activated bilateral RLPFC, suggesting that anterior prefrontal cortex is preferentially recruited by the integration of relational knowledge. Consistent with the need for inhibition during analogy, bilateral, and particularly right, inferior frontal gyri were also more active during analogy. Finally, greater activity in bilateral inferior parietal cortex during the analogy task is consistent with recent evidence for the neural basis of spatial relation knowledge. Together, these findings indicate that a network of frontoparietal areas underlies analogical reasoning; we also suggest that hemispheric differences may emerge depending on the visuospatial or verbal/semantic nature of the analogies. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. Importance of human right inferior frontoparietal network connected by inferior branch of superior longitudinal fasciculus tract in corporeal awareness of kinesthetic illusory movement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amemiya, Kaoru; Naito, Eiichi

    2016-05-01

    It is generally believed that the human right cerebral hemisphere plays a dominant role in corporeal awareness, which is highly associated with conscious experience of the physical self. Prompted by our previous findings, we examined whether the right frontoparietal activations often observed when people experience kinesthetic illusory limb movement are supported by a large-scale brain network connected by a specific branch of the superior longitudinal fasciculus fiber tracts (SLF I, II, and III). We scanned brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while nineteen blindfolded healthy volunteers experienced illusory movement of the right stationary hand elicited by tendon vibration, which was replicated after the scanning. We also scanned brain activity when they executed and imagined right hand movement, and identified the active brain regions during illusion, execution, and imagery in relation to the SLF fiber tracts. We found that illusion predominantly activated the right inferior frontoparietal regions connected by SLF III, which were not substantially recruited during execution and imagery. Among these regions, activities in the right inferior parietal cortices and inferior frontal cortices showed right-side dominance and correlated well with the amount of illusion (kinesthetic illusory awareness) experienced by the participants. The results illustrated the predominant involvement of the right inferior frontoparietal network connected by SLF III when people recognize postural changes of their limb. We assume that the network bears a series of functions, specifically, monitoring the current status of the musculoskeletal system, and building-up and updating our postural model (body schema), which could be a basis for the conscious experience of the physical self. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  6. Maps of space in human frontoparietal cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jerde, Trenton A; Curtis, Clayton E

    2013-12-01

    Prefrontal cortex (PFC) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) are neural substrates for spatial cognition. We here review studies in which we tested the hypothesis that human frontoparietal cortex may function as a priority map. According to priority map theory, objects or locations in the visual world are represented by neural activity that is proportional to their attentional priority. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we first identified topographic maps in PFC and PPC as candidate priority maps of space. We then measured fMRI activity in candidate priority maps during the delay periods of a covert attention task, a spatial working memory task, and a motor planning task to test whether the activity depended on the particular spatial cognition. Our hypothesis was that some, but not all, candidate priority maps in PFC and PPC would be agnostic with regard to what was being prioritized, in that their activity would reflect the location in space across tasks rather than a particular kind of spatial cognition (e.g., covert attention). To test whether patterns of delay period activity were interchangeable during the spatial cognitive tasks, we used multivariate classifiers. We found that decoders trained to predict the locations on one task (e.g., working memory) cross-predicted the locations on the other tasks (e.g., covert attention and motor planning) in superior precentral sulcus (sPCS) and in a region of intraparietal sulcus (IPS2), suggesting that these patterns of maintenance activity may be interchangeable across the tasks. Such properties make sPCS in frontal cortex and IPS2 in parietal cortex viable priority map candidates, and suggest that these areas may be the human homologs of the monkey frontal eye field (FEF) and lateral intraparietal area (LIP). Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  7. Bilateral fronto-parietal integrity in young chronic cigarette smokers: a diffusion tensor imaging study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yanhui Liao

    Full Text Available Cigarette smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in China and other countries. Previous studies have demonstrated gray matter loss in chronic smokers. However, only a few studies assessed the changes of white matter integrity in this group. Based on those previous reports of alterations in white matter integrity in smokers, the aim of this study was to examine the alteration of white matter integrity in a large, well-matched sample of chronic smokers and non-smokers.Using in vivo diffusion tensor imaging (DTI to measure the differences of whole-brain white matter integrity between 44 chronic smoking subjects (mean age, 28.0±5.6 years and 44 healthy age- and sex-matched comparison non-smoking volunteers (mean age, 26.3±5.8 years. DTI was performed on a 3-Tesla Siemens scanner (Allegra; Siemens Medical System. The data revealed that smokers had higher fractional anisotropy (FA than healthy non-smokers in almost symmetrically bilateral fronto-parietal tracts consisting of a major white matter pathway, the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF.We found the almost symmetrically bilateral fronto-parietal whiter matter changes in a relatively large sample of chronic smokers. These findings support the hypothesis that chronic cigarette smoking involves alterations of bilateral fronto-parietal connectivity.

  8. Working Memory Modulation of Frontoparietal Network Connectivity in First-Episode Schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Jesper Duemose; Madsen, Kristoffer Hougaard; Wang, Zheng

    2017-01-01

    Working memory (WM) impairment is regarded as a core aspect of schizophrenia. However, the neural mechanisms behind this cognitive deficit remain unclear. The connectivity of a frontoparietal network is known to be important for subserving WM. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the curr......Working memory (WM) impairment is regarded as a core aspect of schizophrenia. However, the neural mechanisms behind this cognitive deficit remain unclear. The connectivity of a frontoparietal network is known to be important for subserving WM. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging......, the current study investigated whether WM-dependent modulation of effective connectivity in this network is affected in a group of first-episode schizophrenia (FES) patients compared with similarly performing healthy participants during a verbal n-back task. Dynamic causal modeling (DCM) of the coupling...... between regions (left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), left inferior parietal lobe (IPL), and primary visual area) identified in a psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis was performed to characterize effective connectivity during the n-back task. The PPI analysis revealed that the connectivity...

  9. Cortical morphometry in frontoparietal and default mode networks in math-gifted adolescents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Navas-Sánchez, Francisco J; Carmona, Susana; Alemán-Gómez, Yasser; Sánchez-González, Javier; Guzmán-de-Villoria, Juan; Franco, Carolina; Robles, Olalla; Arango, Celso; Desco, Manuel

    2016-05-01

    Math-gifted subjects are characterized by above-age performance in intelligence tests, exceptional creativity, and high task commitment. Neuroimaging studies reveal enhanced functional brain organization and white matter microstructure in the frontoparietal executive network of math-gifted individuals. However, the cortical morphometry of these subjects remains largely unknown. The main goal of this study was to compare the cortical morphometry of math-gifted adolescents with that of an age- and IQ-matched control group. We used surface-based methods to perform a vertex-wise analysis of cortical thickness and surface area. Our results show that math-gifted adolescents present a thinner cortex and a larger surface area in key regions of the frontoparietal and default mode networks, which are involved in executive processing and creative thinking, respectively. The combination of reduced cortical thickness and larger surface area suggests above-age neural maturation of these networks in math-gifted individuals. Hum Brain Mapp 37:1893-1902, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  10. Frontoparietal tDCS Benefits Visual Working Memory in Older Adults With Low Working Memory Capacity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arciniega, Hector; Gözenman, Filiz; Jones, Kevin T; Stephens, Jaclyn A; Berryhill, Marian E

    2018-01-01

    Working memory (WM) permits maintenance of information over brief delays and is an essential executive function. Unfortunately, WM is subject to age-related decline. Some evidence supports the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to improve visual WM. A gap in knowledge is an understanding of the mechanism characterizing these tDCS linked effects. To address this gap, we compared the effects of two tDCS montages designed on visual working memory (VWM) performance. The bifrontal montage was designed to stimulate the heightened bilateral frontal activity observed in aging adults. The unilateral frontoparietal montage was designed to stimulate activation patterns observed in young adults. Participants completed three sessions (bilateral frontal, right frontoparietal, sham) of anodal tDCS (20 min, 2 mA). During stimulation, participants performed a visual long-term memory (LTM) control task and a visual WM task. There was no effect of tDCS on the LTM task. Participants receiving right unilateral tDCS showed a WM benefit. This pattern was most robust in older adults with low WM capacity. To address the concern that the key difference between the two tDCS montages could be tDCS over the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), we included new analyses from a previous study applying tDCS targeting the PPC paired with a recognition VWM task. No significant main effects were found. A subsequent experiment in young adults found no significant effect of either tDCS montage on either task. These data indicate that tDCS montage, age and WM capacity should be considered when designing tDCS protocols. We interpret these findings as suggestive that protocols designed to restore more youthful patterns of brain activity are superior to those that compensate for age-related changes.

  11. Development of an automatic prompt gamma-ray activation analysis system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Osawa, Takahito

    2013-01-01

    An automatic prompt gamma-ray activation analysis system was developed and installed at the Japan Research Reactor No. 3 Modified (JRR-3M). The main control software, referred to as AutoPGA, was developed using LabVIEW 2011 and the hand-made program can control all functions of the analytical system. The core of the new system is an automatic sample exchanger and measurement system with several additional automatic control functions integrated into the system. Up to fourteen samples can be automatically measured by the system. (author)

  12. Masked Priming Effects in Aphasia: Evidence of Altered Automatic Spreading Activation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silkes, JoAnn P.; Rogers, Margaret A.

    2012-01-01

    Purpose: Previous research has suggested that impairments of automatic spreading activation may underlie some aphasic language deficits. The current study further investigated the status of automatic spreading activation in individuals with aphasia as compared with typical adults. Method: Participants were 21 individuals with aphasia (12 fluent, 9…

  13. Automatic sample changer for neutron activation analysis at CDTN, Brazil

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aimore Dutra Neto; Oliveira Pelaes, Ana Clara; Jacimovic, Radojko

    2018-01-01

    An automatic sample changer was recently developed and installed in the Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) Laboratory. The certified reference material BCR-320R, Channel Sediment, was analysed in order to verify the reliability of the results obtained by NAA, k 0 -standardisation method, using this automatic system during the gamma-ray measurement step. The results were compared to those manually obtained. The values pointed out that the automatic sample changer is working properly. This changer will increase the productiveness of the neutron activation technique applied at Nuclear Technology Development Centre, CDTN/CNEN expanding its competitiveness as an analytical technique in relation to other techniques. (author)

  14. Automatically-Activated Attitudes as Mechanisms for Message Effects: The Case of Alcohol Advertisements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goodall, Catherine E; Slater, Michael D

    2010-10-01

    Alcohol advertisements may influence impulsive, risky behaviors indirectly, via automatically-activated attitudes toward alcohol. Results from an experiment in which participants were exposed to either four alcohol advertisements, four control advertisements, or four drunk driving public service advertisements, suggested that alcohol advertisements had more measurable effects on implicit, than on explicit attitude measures. Moreover, there were significant indirect paths from alcohol advertisement exposure through automatically-activated alcohol attitudes on willingness to engage in risky alcohol-related behaviors, notably drinking and driving. A mechanism that may explain how these advertisements activate automatic, non-deliberative alcohol attitudes was investigated. Associative evidence was found supportive of an evaluative conditioning mechanism, in which positive responses to an alcohol advertisement may lead to more positive automatically-activated attitudes toward alcohol itself.

  15. Observational learning of new movement sequences is reflected in fronto-parietal coherence.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jurjen van der Helden

    Full Text Available Mankind is unique in her ability for observational learning, i.e. the transmission of acquired knowledge and behavioral repertoire through observation of others' actions. In the present study we used electrophysiological measures to investigate brain mechanisms of observational learning. Analysis investigated the possible functional coupling between occipital (alpha and motor (mu rhythms operating in the 10 Hz frequency range for translating "seeing" into "doing". Subjects observed movement sequences consisting of six consecutive left or right hand button presses directed at one of two target-buttons for subsequent imitation. Each movement sequence was presented four times, intervened by short pause intervals for sequence rehearsal. During a control task subjects observed the same movement sequences without a requirement for subsequent reproduction. Although both alpha and mu rhythms desynchronized during the imitation task relative to the control task, modulations in alpha and mu power were found to be largely independent from each other over time, arguing against a functional coupling of alpha and mu generators during observational learning. This independence was furthermore reflected in the absence of coherence between occipital and motor electrodes overlaying alpha and mu generators. Instead, coherence analysis revealed a pair of symmetric fronto-parietal networks, one over the left and one over the right hemisphere, reflecting stronger coherence during observation of movements than during pauses. Individual differences in fronto-parietal coherence were furthermore found to predict imitation accuracy. The properties of these networks, i.e. their fronto-parietal distribution, their ipsilateral organization and their sensitivity to the observation of movements, match closely with the known properties of the mirror neuron system (MNS as studied in the macaque brain. These results indicate a functional dissociation between higher order areas for

  16. Working Memory and Decision-Making in a Frontoparietal Circuit Model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murray, John D; Jaramillo, Jorge; Wang, Xiao-Jing

    2017-12-13

    Working memory (WM) and decision-making (DM) are fundamental cognitive functions involving a distributed interacting network of brain areas, with the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) at the core. However, the shared and distinct roles of these areas and the nature of their coordination in cognitive function remain poorly understood. Biophysically based computational models of cortical circuits have provided insights into the mechanisms supporting these functions, yet they have primarily focused on the local microcircuit level, raising questions about the principles for distributed cognitive computation in multiregional networks. To examine these issues, we developed a distributed circuit model of two reciprocally interacting modules representing PPC and PFC circuits. The circuit architecture includes hierarchical differences in local recurrent structure and implements reciprocal long-range projections. This parsimonious model captures a range of behavioral and neuronal features of frontoparietal circuits across multiple WM and DM paradigms. In the context of WM, both areas exhibit persistent activity, but, in response to intervening distractors, PPC transiently encodes distractors while PFC filters distractors and supports WM robustness. With regard to DM, the PPC module generates graded representations of accumulated evidence supporting target selection, while the PFC module generates more categorical responses related to action or choice. These findings suggest computational principles for distributed, hierarchical processing in cortex during cognitive function and provide a framework for extension to multiregional models. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Working memory and decision-making are fundamental "building blocks" of cognition, and deficits in these functions are associated with neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. These cognitive functions engage distributed networks with prefrontal cortex (PFC) and posterior parietal

  17. Structural Variability within Frontoparietal Networks and Individual Differences in Attentional Functions: An Approach Using the Theory of Visual Attention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chechlacz, Magdalena; Gillebert, Celine R; Vangkilde, Signe A; Petersen, Anders; Humphreys, Glyn W

    2015-07-29

    Visuospatial attention allows us to select and act upon a subset of behaviorally relevant visual stimuli while ignoring distraction. Bundesen's theory of visual attention (TVA) (Bundesen, 1990) offers a quantitative analysis of the different facets of attention within a unitary model and provides a powerful analytic framework for understanding individual differences in attentional functions. Visuospatial attention is contingent upon large networks, distributed across both hemispheres, consisting of several cortical areas interconnected by long-association frontoparietal pathways, including three branches of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF I-III) and the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF). Here we examine whether structural variability within human frontoparietal networks mediates differences in attention abilities as assessed by the TVA. Structural measures were based on spherical deconvolution and tractography-derived indices of tract volume and hindrance-modulated orientational anisotropy (HMOA). Individual differences in visual short-term memory (VSTM) were linked to variability in the microstructure (HMOA) of SLF II, SLF III, and IFOF within the right hemisphere. Moreover, VSTM and speed of information processing were linked to hemispheric lateralization within the IFOF. Differences in spatial bias were mediated by both variability in microstructure and volume of the right SLF II. Our data indicate that the microstructural and macrostrucutral organization of white matter pathways differentially contributes to both the anatomical lateralization of frontoparietal attentional networks and to individual differences in attentional functions. We conclude that individual differences in VSTM capacity, processing speed, and spatial bias, as assessed by TVA, link to variability in structural organization within frontoparietal pathways. Copyright © 2015 Chechlacz et al.

  18. Active pedestrian safety by automatic braking and evasive steering

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Keller, C.; Dang, T.; Fritz, H.; Joos, A.; Rabe, C.; Gavrila, D.M.

    2011-01-01

    Active safety systems hold great potential for reducing accident frequency and severity by warning the driver and/or exerting automatic vehicle control ahead of crashes. This paper presents a novel active pedestrian safety system that combines sensing, situation analysis, decision making, and

  19. Fronto-parietal and fronto-temporal theta phase synchronization for visual and auditory-verbal working memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kawasaki, Masahiro; Kitajo, Keiichi; Yamaguchi, Yoko

    2014-01-01

    In humans, theta phase (4-8 Hz) synchronization observed on electroencephalography (EEG) plays an important role in the manipulation of mental representations during working memory (WM) tasks; fronto-temporal synchronization is involved in auditory-verbal WM tasks and fronto-parietal synchronization is involved in visual WM tasks. However, whether or not theta phase synchronization is able to select the to-be-manipulated modalities is uncertain. To address the issue, we recorded EEG data from subjects who were performing auditory-verbal and visual WM tasks; we compared the theta synchronizations when subjects performed either auditory-verbal or visual manipulations in separate WM tasks, or performed both two manipulations in the same WM task. The auditory-verbal WM task required subjects to calculate numbers presented by an auditory-verbal stimulus, whereas the visual WM task required subjects to move a spatial location in a mental representation in response to a visual stimulus. The dual WM task required subjects to manipulate auditory-verbal, visual, or both auditory-verbal and visual representations while maintaining auditory-verbal and visual representations. Our time-frequency EEG analyses revealed significant fronto-temporal theta phase synchronization during auditory-verbal manipulation in both auditory-verbal and auditory-verbal/visual WM tasks, but not during visual manipulation tasks. Similarly, we observed significant fronto-parietal theta phase synchronization during visual manipulation tasks, but not during auditory-verbal manipulation tasks. Moreover, we observed significant synchronization in both the fronto-temporal and fronto-parietal theta signals during simultaneous auditory-verbal/visual manipulations. These findings suggest that theta synchronization seems to flexibly connect the brain areas that manipulate WM.

  20. Fronto-parietal and fronto-temporal theta phase synchronization for visual and auditory-verbal working memory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Masahiro eKawasaki

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available In humans, theta phase (4–8 Hz synchronization observed on electroencephalography (EEG plays an important role in the manipulation of mental representations during working memory (WM tasks; fronto-temporal synchronization is involved in auditory-verbal WM tasks and fronto-parietal synchronization is involved in visual WM tasks. However, whether or not theta phase synchronization is able to select the to-be-manipulated modalities is uncertain. To address the issue, we recorded EEG data from subjects who were performing auditory-verbal and visual WM tasks; we compared the theta synchronizations when subjects performed either auditory-verbal or visual manipulations in separate WM tasks, or performed both two manipulations in the same WM task. The auditory-verbal WM task required subjects to calculate numbers presented by an auditory-verbal stimulus, whereas the visual WM task required subjects to move a spatial location in a mental representation in response to a visual stimulus. The dual WM task required subjects to manipulate auditory-verbal, visual, or both auditory-verbal and visual representations while maintaining auditory-verbal and visual representations. Our time-frequency EEG analyses revealed significant fronto-temporal theta phase synchronization during auditory-verbal manipulation in both auditory-verbal and auditory-verbal/visual WM tasks, but not during visual manipulation tasks. Similarly, we observed significant fronto-parietal theta phase synchronization during visual manipulation tasks, but not during auditory-verbal manipulation tasks. Moreover, we observed significant synchronization in both the fronto-temporal and fronto-parietal theta signals during simultaneous auditory-verbal/visual manipulations. These findings suggest that theta synchronization seems to flexibly connect the brain areas that manipulate WM.

  1. Decreased Fronto-Parietal and Increased Default Mode Network Activation is Associated with Subtle Cognitive Deficits in Elderly Controls

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Davide Zanchi

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Background: Cognitive functions progressively deteriorate during aging and neurodegenerative diseases. The present study aims at investigating differences in working memory performance as well as functional brain changes during the earliest stages of cognitive decline in health elderly individuals. Methods: 62 elderly individuals (41 females, including 41 controls (35 females and 21 middle cognitive impairment subjects (6 females, underwent neuropsychological assessment at baseline and an fMRI examination in a N-back paradigm contrasting 2-back vs. 0-back condition. Upon a 18 months follow-up, we identified stable controls (sCON with preserved cognition and deteriorating controls (dCON with -1SD decrease of performances in at least two neuropsychological tests. Data analyses included accuracy and reaction time (RT for the 2-back condition and general linear model (GLM for the fMRI sequence. Results: At the behavioral level, sCON and dCON performed better than MCI in terms of accuracy and reaction time. At the brain level, functional differences in regions of the fronto-parietal network (FPN and of the Default Mode Network (DFM were observed. Significantly lower neural activations in the bilateral inferior and middle frontal gyri were found in MCI versus both dCON / sCON and for dCON versus sCON. Significantly increased activations in the anterior cingulate cortex and posterior cingulate cortex and bilateral insula were found in MCI versus both dCON / sCON and in dCON versus sCON. Conclusion: The present study suggests that brain functional changes in FPN and DMN anticipate differences in cognitive performance in healthy elderly individuals with subsequent subtle cognitive decline.

  2. Using activity-related behavioural features towards more effective automatic stress detection.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dimitris Giakoumis

    Full Text Available This paper introduces activity-related behavioural features that can be automatically extracted from a computer system, with the aim to increase the effectiveness of automatic stress detection. The proposed features are based on processing of appropriate video and accelerometer recordings taken from the monitored subjects. For the purposes of the present study, an experiment was conducted that utilized a stress-induction protocol based on the stroop colour word test. Video, accelerometer and biosignal (Electrocardiogram and Galvanic Skin Response recordings were collected from nineteen participants. Then, an explorative study was conducted by following a methodology mainly based on spatiotemporal descriptors (Motion History Images that are extracted from video sequences. A large set of activity-related behavioural features, potentially useful for automatic stress detection, were proposed and examined. Experimental evaluation showed that several of these behavioural features significantly correlate to self-reported stress. Moreover, it was found that the use of the proposed features can significantly enhance the performance of typical automatic stress detection systems, commonly based on biosignal processing.

  3. ACTIV - a program for automatic processing of gamma-ray spectra

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zlokazov, V.B.

    1982-01-01

    Program ACTIV is intended for precise analysis of γ-rays and X-ray spectra and allows the user to carry out the full cycle of automatic processing of a series of spectra, i.e. calibration, automatic peak search, determination of peak positions and areas, identification of the radioisotopes and the transformation of the areas found into masses of isotopes in the irradiated sample. ACTIV uses a complex mathematical technique and is oriented mainly to large computers, but using overlaid loading, it can be run also on small computers like the PDP 11/70. Compared with other similar programs, ACTIV has some advantages in accuracy of peak shape description and in the reliability of the peak search and its least-square analysis. The program can be used for the purpose of activation analysis. The program can analyze spectra with poor statistics and with broad and narrow peaks. (orig.)

  4. Automatic evaluation stimuli – The most frequently used words to describe physical activity and the pleasantness of physical activity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amanda Lea Rebar

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Physical activity is partially regulated by non-conscious processes including automatic evaluations – the spontaneous affective reactions we have to physical activity that lead us to approach or avoid physical activity opportunities. A sound understanding of which words best represent the concepts of physical activity and pleasantness (as associated with physical activity is needed to improve the measurement of automatic evaluations and related constructs (e.g., automatic self-schemas, attentional biases. The first aim of this study was to establish population-level evidence of the most common word stimuli for physical activity and pleasantness. Given that response latency measures have been applied to assess automatic evaluations of physical activity and exercise, the second aim was to determine whether people use the same behavior and pleasant descriptors for physical activity and exercise. Australian adults (N = 1,318; 54.3% women; 48.9% aged 55 years or older were randomly assigned to one of two groups, through a computer-generated 1:1 ratio allocation, to be asked to list either five behaviors and pleasant descriptors of physical activity (n = 686 or of exercise (n = 632. The words were independently coded twice as to whether they were novel words or the same as another (i.e., same stem or same meaning. Intercoder reliability varied between moderate and strong (agreement = 50.1% to 97.8%; κ = 0.48 to 0.82. A list of the 20 most common behavior and pleasantness words were established based on how many people reported them, weighted by the ranking (1-5 people gave them. The words people described as physical activity were mostly the same as those people used to describe exercise. The most common behavior words were ‘walking,’ ‘running,’ ‘swimming,’ ‘bike riding,’ and ‘gardening’; and the most common pleasant descriptor words were ‘relaxing,’ ‘happiness,’ ‘enjoyment,’ ‘exhilarating,’ ‘exhausting,’ and

  5. Automaticity Revisited: When Print Doesn't Activate Semantics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elsa Magdalena Labuschagne

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available It is widely accepted that the presentation of a printed word automatically triggers processing that ends with full semantic activation. This processing, among other characteristics, is held to occur without intention, and cannot be stopped. The results of the present experiment show that this account is problematic in the context of a variant of the Stroop paradigm. Subjects named the print color of words that were either neutral or semantically related to color. When the letters were all colored, all spatially cued, and the spaces between letters were filled with characters from the top of the keyboard (i.e., 4, #, 5, %, 6, and *, color naming yielded a semantically based Stroop effect and a semantically based negative priming effect. In contrast, the same items yielded neither a semantic Stroop effect nor a negative priming effect when a single target letter was uniquely colored and spatially cued. These findings undermine the widespread view that lexical-semantic activation in word reading is automatic in the sense that it occurs without intention and cannot be derailed.

  6. Automatic activation of exercise and sedentary stereotypes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berry, Tanya; Spence, John C

    2009-09-01

    We examined the automatic activation of "sedentary" and "exerciser" stereotypes using a social prime Stroop task. Results showed significantly slower response times between the exercise words and the exercise control words and between the sedentary words and the exercise control words when preceded by an attractive exerciser prime. Words preceded by a normal-weight exerciser prime showed significantly slower response times for sedentary words over sedentary control words and exercise words. An overweight sedentary prime resulted in significantly slower response times for sedentary words over exercise words and exercise control words. These results highlight the need for increased awareness of how active and sedentary lifestyles are portrayed in the media.

  7. Automatic and Controlled Semantic Retrieval: TMS Reveals Distinct Contributions of Posterior Middle Temporal Gyrus and Angular Gyrus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davey, James; Cornelissen, Piers L; Thompson, Hannah E; Sonkusare, Saurabh; Hallam, Glyn; Smallwood, Jonathan; Jefferies, Elizabeth

    2015-11-18

    Semantic retrieval involves both (1) automatic spreading activation between highly related concepts and (2) executive control processes that tailor this activation to suit the current context or goals. Two structures in left temporoparietal cortex, angular gyrus (AG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), are thought to be crucial to semantic retrieval and are often recruited together during semantic tasks; however, they show strikingly different patterns of functional connectivity at rest (coupling with the "default mode network" and "frontoparietal control system," respectively). Here, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to establish a causal yet dissociable role for these sites in semantic cognition in human volunteers. TMS to AG disrupted thematic judgments particularly when the link between probe and target was strong (e.g., a picture of an Alsatian with a bone), and impaired the identification of objects at a specific but not a superordinate level (for the verbal label "Alsatian" not "animal"). In contrast, TMS to pMTG disrupted thematic judgments for weak but not strong associations (e.g., a picture of an Alsatian with razor wire), and impaired identity matching for both superordinate and specific-level labels. Thus, stimulation to AG interfered with the automatic retrieval of specific concepts from the semantic store while stimulation of pMTG impaired semantic cognition when there was a requirement to flexibly shape conceptual activation in line with the task requirements. These results demonstrate that AG and pMTG make a dissociable contribution to automatic and controlled aspects of semantic retrieval. We demonstrate a novel functional dissociation between the angular gyrus (AG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) in conceptual processing. These sites are often coactivated during neuroimaging studies using semantic tasks, but their individual contributions are unclear. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation and tasks designed to

  8. Differential recruitment of the sensorimotor putamen and frontoparietal cortex during motor chunking in humans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wymbs, Nicholas F; Bassett, Danielle S; Mucha, Peter J; Porter, Mason A; Grafton, Scott T

    2012-06-07

    Motor chunking facilitates movement production by combining motor elements into integrated units of behavior. Previous research suggests that chunking involves two processes: concatenation, aimed at the formation of motor-motor associations between elements or sets of elements, and segmentation, aimed at the parsing of multiple contiguous elements into shorter action sets. We used fMRI to measure the trial-wise recruitment of brain regions associated with these chunking processes as healthy subjects performed a cued-sequence production task. A dynamic network analysis identified chunking structure for a set of motor sequences acquired during fMRI and collected over 3 days of training. Activity in the bilateral sensorimotor putamen positively correlated with chunk concatenation, whereas a left-hemisphere frontoparietal network was correlated with chunk segmentation. Across subjects, there was an aggregate increase in chunk strength (concatenation) with training, suggesting that subcortical circuits play a direct role in the creation of fluid transitions across chunks. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  9. Controversies over the mechanisms underlying the crucial role of the left fronto-parietal areas in the representation of tools

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guido eGainotti

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available Anatomo-clinical and neuroimaging data show that the left fronto-parietal areas play an important role in representing tools. As manipulation is an important source of knowledge about tools, it has been assumed that motor activity explains the link between tool knowledge and the left fronto-parietal areas. However, controversies exist over the exact mechanisms underlying this relationship. According to a strong version of the ‘embodied cognition theory’, activation of a tool concept necessarily involves re-enactment of the corresponding kind of action. Impairment of the ability to use tools should, therefore, lead to impairment of tool knowledge. Both the ‘domains of knowledge hypothesis’ and the ‘sensory-motor model of conceptual knowledge’ refute the strong version of the ‘embodied cognition hypothesis’ but acknowledge that manipulation and other action schemata play an important role in our knowledge of tools. The basic difference between these two models is that the former is based on an innatist model and the latter holds that the brain’s organization of categories is experience dependent. Data supporting and arguing against each of these models are briefly reviewed. In particular, the following lines of research, which argue against the innate nature of the brain’s categorical organization, are discussed: (1 the observation that in patients with category-specific disorders the semantic impairment does not respect the boundaries between biological entities and artefact items; (2 data showing that experience-driven neuroplasticity in musicians is not confined to alterations of perceptual and motor maps but also leads to the establishment of higher-level semantic representations for musical instruments; (3 results of experiments using previously unfamiliar materials showing that the history of our sensory-motor experience with an object significantly affects its neural representation.

  10. Training conquers multitasking costs by dividing task representations in the frontoparietal-subcortical system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garner, K G; Dux, Paul E

    2015-11-17

    Negotiating the information-rich sensory world often requires the concurrent management of multiple tasks. Despite this requirement, humans are thought to be poor at multitasking because of the processing limitations of frontoparietal and subcortical (FP-SC) brain regions. Although training is known to improve multitasking performance, it is unknown how the FP-SC system functionally changes to support improved multitasking. To address this question, we characterized the FP-SC changes that predict training outcomes using an individual differences approach. Participants (n = 100) performed single and multiple tasks in pre- and posttraining magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sessions interspersed by either a multitasking or an active-control training regimen. Multivoxel pattern analyses (MVPA) revealed that training induced multitasking improvements were predicted by divergence in the FP-SC blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response patterns to the trained tasks. Importantly, this finding was only observed for participants who completed training on the component (single) tasks and their combination (multitask) and not for the control group. Therefore, the FP-SC system supports multitasking behavior by segregating constituent task representations.

  11. What is said or how it is said makes a difference: role of the right fronto-parietal operculum in emotional prosody as revealed by repetitive TMS.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Rijn, Sophie; Aleman, André; van Diessen, Eric; Berckmoes, Celine; Vingerhoets, Guy; Kahn, René S

    2005-06-01

    Emotional signals in spoken language can be conveyed by semantic as well as prosodic cues. We investigated the role of the fronto-parietal operculum, a somatosensory area where the lips, tongue and jaw are represented, in the right hemisphere to detection of emotion in prosody vs. semantics. A total of 14 healthy volunteers participated in the present experiment, which involved transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in combination with frameless stereotaxy. As predicted, compared with sham stimulation, TMS over the right fronto-parietal operculum differentially affected the reaction times for detection of emotional prosody vs. emotional semantics, showing that there is a dissociation at a neuroanatomical level. Detection of withdrawal emotions (fear and sadness) in prosody was delayed significantly by TMS. No effects of TMS were observed for approach emotions (happiness and anger). We propose that the right fronto-parietal operculum is not globally involved in emotion evaluation, but sensitive to specific forms of emotional discrimination and emotion types.

  12. Fronto-parietal and fronto-temporal theta phase synchronization for visual and auditory-verbal working memory

    OpenAIRE

    Masahiro eKawasaki; Masahiro eKawasaki; Masahiro eKawasaki; Keiichi eKitajo; Keiichi eKitajo; Yoko eYamaguchi

    2014-01-01

    In humans, theta phase (4–8 Hz) synchronization observed on electroencephalography (EEG) plays an important role in the manipulation of mental representations during working memory (WM) tasks; fronto-temporal synchronization is involved in auditory-verbal WM tasks and fronto-parietal synchronization is involved in visual WM tasks. However, whether or not theta phase synchronization is able to select the to-be-manipulated modalities is uncertain. To address the issue, we recorded EEG data from...

  13. [Alexithymia and automatic activation of emotional-evaluative information].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suslow, T; Arolt, V; Junghanns, K

    1998-05-01

    The emotional valence of stimuli seems to be stored in the associative network and is automatically activated on the mere observation of a stimulus. A principal characteristic of alexithymia represents the difficulty to symbolize emotions verbally. The present study examines the relationship between the dimensions of the alexithymia construct and emotional priming effects in a word-word paradigma. The 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale was administered to 32 subjects along with two word reading tasks as measures of emotional and semantic priming effects. The subscale "difficulty describing feelings" correlated as expected negatively with the negative inhibition effect. The subscale "externally oriented thinking" tended to correlate negatively with the negative facilitation effect. Thus, these dimensions of alexithymia are inversely related to the degree of automatic emotional priming. In summary, there is evidence for an impaired structural integration of emotion and language in persons with difficulties in describing feelings. Poor "symbolization" of emotions in alexithymia is discussed from a cognitive perspective.

  14. Abnormal frontoparietal synaptic gain mediating the P300 in patients with psychotic disorder and their unaffected relatives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Díez, Álvaro; Ranlund, Siri; Pinotsis, Dimitris; Calafato, Stella; Shaikh, Madiha; Hall, Mei-Hua; Walshe, Muriel; Nevado, Ángel; Friston, Karl J; Adams, Rick A; Bramon, Elvira

    2017-06-01

    The "dysconnection hypothesis" of psychosis suggests that a disruption of functional integration underlies cognitive deficits and clinical symptoms. Impairments in the P300 potential are well documented in psychosis. Intrinsic (self-)connectivity in a frontoparietal cortical hierarchy during a P300 experiment was investigated. Dynamic Causal Modeling was used to estimate how evoked activity results from the dynamics of coupled neural populations and how neural coupling changes with the experimental factors. Twenty-four patients with psychotic disorder, twenty-four unaffected relatives, and twenty-five controls underwent EEG recordings during an auditory oddball paradigm. Sixteen frontoparietal network models (including primary auditory, superior parietal, and superior frontal sources) were analyzed and an optimal model of neural coupling, explaining diagnosis and genetic risk effects, as well as their interactions with task condition were identified. The winning model included changes in connectivity at all three hierarchical levels. Patients showed decreased self-inhibition-that is, increased cortical excitability-in left superior frontal gyrus across task conditions, compared with unaffected participants. Relatives had similar increases in excitability in left superior frontal and right superior parietal sources, and a reversal of the normal synaptic gain changes in response to targets relative to standard tones. It was confirmed that both subjects with psychotic disorder and their relatives show a context-independent loss of synaptic gain control at the highest hierarchy levels. The relatives also showed abnormal gain modulation responses to task-relevant stimuli. These may be caused by NMDA-receptor and/or GABAergic pathologies that change the excitability of superficial pyramidal cells and may be a potential biological marker for psychosis. Hum Brain Mapp 38:3262-3276, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  15. Cognitive-Affective Dimensions of Female Orgasm: The Role of Automatic Thoughts and Affect During Sexual Activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tavares, Inês M; Laan, Ellen T M; Nobre, Pedro J

    2017-06-01

    Cognitive-affective factors contribute to female sexual dysfunctions, defined as clinically significant difficulties in the ability to respond sexually or to experience sexual pleasure. Automatic thoughts and affect presented during sexual activity are acknowledged as maintenance factors for these difficulties. However, there is a lack of studies on the influence of these cognitive-affective dimensions regarding female orgasm. To assess the role of automatic thoughts and affect during sexual activity in predicting female orgasm occurrence and to investigate the mediator role of these variables in the relation between sexual activity and orgasm occurrence. Nine hundred twenty-six sexually active heterosexual premenopausal women reported on frequency of sexual activities and frequency of orgasm occurrence, cognitive factors, and social desirability. Participants completed the Sexual Modes Questionnaire-Automatic Thoughts Subscale, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, and the Socially Desirable Response Set. Multiple linear regressions and mediation analyses were performed, controlling for the effect of covariates such as social desirability, sociodemographic and medical characteristics, and relationship factors. The main outcome measurement was orgasm frequency as predicted and mediated by automatic thoughts and affect experienced during sexual activities. The presence of failure thoughts and lack of erotic thoughts during sexual activity significantly and negatively predicted female orgasm, whereas positive affect experienced during sexual activity significantly and positively predicted female orgasm. Moreover, negative automatic thoughts and positive affect during sexual activity were found to mediate the relation between sexual activity and female orgasm occurrence. These data suggest that the cognitive aspects of sexual involvement are critical to enhancing female orgasm experience and can aid the development of strategies that contemplate the central role

  16. Aircraft noise effects on sleep: a systematic comparison of EEG awakenings and automatically detected cardiac activations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Basner, Mathias; Müller, Uwe; Elmenhorst, Eva-Maria; Kluge, Götz; Griefahn, Barbara

    2008-01-01

    Polysomnography is the gold standard for investigating noise effects on sleep, but data collection and analysis are sumptuous and expensive. We recently developed an algorithm for the automatic identification of cardiac activations associated with cortical arousals, which uses heart rate information derived from a single electrocardiogram (ECG) channel. We hypothesized that cardiac activations can be used as estimates for EEG awakenings. Polysomnographic EEG awakenings and automatically detected cardiac activations were systematically compared using laboratory data of 112 subjects (47 male, mean ± SD age 37.9 ± 13 years), 985 nights and 23 855 aircraft noise events (ANEs). The probability of automatically detected cardiac activations increased monotonically with increasing maximum sound pressure levels of ANEs, exceeding the probability of EEG awakenings by up to 18.1%. If spontaneous reactions were taken into account, exposure–response curves were practically identical for EEG awakenings and cardiac activations. Automatically detected cardiac activations may be used as estimates for EEG awakenings. More investigations are needed to further validate the ECG algorithm in the field and to investigate inter-individual differences in its ability to predict EEG awakenings. This inexpensive, objective and non-invasive method facilitates large-scale field studies on the effects of traffic noise on sleep

  17. Fronto-parietal network oscillations reveal relationship between working memory capacity and cognitive control

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rasa eGulbinaite

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Executive-attention theory proposes a close relationship between working memory capacity (WMC and cognitive control abilities. However, conflicting results are documented in the literature, with some studies reporting that individual variations in WMC predict differences in cognitive control and trial-to-trial control adjustments (operationalized as the size of the congruency effect and congruency sequence effects, respectively, while others report no WMC-related differences. We hypothesized that brain network dynamics might be a more sensitive measure of WMC-related differences in cognitive control abilities. Thus, in the present study, we measured human EEG during the Simon task to characterize WMC-related differences in the neural dynamics of conflict processing and adaptation to conflict. Although high- and low-WMC individuals did not differ behaviorally, there were substantial WMC-related differences in theta (4-8 Hz and delta (1-3 Hz connectivity in fronto-parietal networks. Group differences in local theta and delta power were relatively less pronounced. These results suggest that the relationship between WMC and cognitive control abilities is more strongly reflected in large-scale oscillatory network dynamics than in spatially localized activity or in behavioral task performance.

  18. Effective connectivity within the frontoparietal control network differentiates cognitive control and working memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harding, Ian H; Yücel, Murat; Harrison, Ben J; Pantelis, Christos; Breakspear, Michael

    2015-02-01

    Cognitive control and working memory rely upon a common fronto-parietal network that includes the inferior frontal junction (IFJ), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), pre-supplementary motor area/dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (pSMA/dACC), and intraparietal sulcus (IPS). This network is able to flexibly adapt its function in response to changing behavioral goals, mediating a wide range of cognitive demands. Here we apply dynamic causal modeling to functional magnetic resonance imaging data to characterize task-related alterations in the strength of network interactions across distinct cognitive processes. Evidence in favor of task-related connectivity dynamics was accrued across a very large space of possible network structures. Cognitive control and working memory demands were manipulated using a factorial combination of the multi-source interference task and a verbal 2-back working memory task, respectively. Both were found to alter the sensitivity of the IFJ to perceptual information, and to increase IFJ-to-pSMA/dACC connectivity. In contrast, increased connectivity from the pSMA/dACC to the IPS, as well as from the dlPFC to the IFJ, was uniquely driven by cognitive control demands; a task-induced negative influence of the dlPFC on the pSMA/dACC was specific to working memory demands. These results reflect a system of both shared and unique context-dependent dynamics within the fronto-parietal network. Mechanisms supporting cognitive engagement, response selection, and action evaluation may be shared across cognitive domains, while dynamic updating of task and context representations within this network are potentially specific to changing demands on cognitive control. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Striving to be known by significant others: automatic activation of self-verification goals in relationship contexts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kraus, Michael W; Chen, Serena

    2009-07-01

    Extending research on the automatic activation of goals associated with significant others, the authors hypothesized that self-verification goals typically pursued with significant others are automatically elicited when a significant-other representation is activated. Supporting this hypothesis, the activation of a significant-other representation through priming (Experiments 1 and 3) or through a transference encounter (Experiment 2) led participants to seek feedback that verifies their preexisting self-views. Specifically, significant-other primed participants desired self-verifying feedback, in general (Experiment 1), from an upcoming interaction partner (Experiment 2), and relative to acquaintance-primed participants and favorable feedback (Experiment 3). Finally, self-verification goals were activated, especially for relational self-views deemed high in importance to participants' self-concepts (Experiment 2) and held with high certainty (Experiment 3). Implications for research on self-evaluative goals, the relational self, and the automatic goal activation literature are discussed, as are consequences for close relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

  20. Alignment effects in beer mugs: Automatic action activation or response competition?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roest, Sander A; Pecher, Diane; Naeije, Lilian; Zeelenberg, René

    2016-08-01

    Responses to objects with a graspable handle are faster when the response hand and handle orientation are aligned (e.g., a key press with the right hand is required and the object handle is oriented to the right) than when they are not aligned. This effect could be explained by automatic activation of specific motor programs when an object is viewed. Alternatively, the effect could be explained by competition at the response level. Participants performed a reach-and-grasp or reach-and-button-press action with their left or right hand in response to the color of a beer mug. The alignment effect did not vary as a function of the type of action. In addition, the alignment effect disappeared in a go/no-go version of the task. The same results were obtained when participants made upright/inverted decisions, so that object shape was task-relevant. Our results indicate that alignment effects are not due to automatic motor activation of the left or right limb.

  1. The frontoparietal control system: A central role in mental health

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cole, Michael W.; Repovs, Grega; Anticevic, Alan

    2014-01-01

    Recent findings suggest the existence of a frontoparietal control system consisting of ‘flexible hubs’ that regulate distributed systems (e.g., visual, limbic, motor) according to current task goals. A growing number of studies are reporting alterations of this control system across a striking range of mental diseases. We suggest this may reflect a critical role for the control system in promoting and maintaining mental health. Specifically, we propose that this system implements feedback control to regulate symptoms as they arise (e.g., excessive anxiety reduced via regulation of amygdala), such that an intact control system is protective against a variety of mental illnesses. Consistent with this possibility, recent results indicate that several major mental illnesses involve altered brain-wide connectivity of the control system, likely altering its ability to regulate symptoms. These results suggest that this ‘immune system of the mind’ may be an especially important target for future basic and clinical research. PMID:24622818

  2. Frontoparietal regions may become hypoactive after intermittent theta burst stimulation over the contralateral homologous cortex in humans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Xiaofei; Lan, Yue; Xu, Guangqing; Mao, Yurong; Chen, Zhenghong; Huang, Dongfeng; Pei, Zhong

    2013-12-01

    Brain injury to the dorsal frontoparietal networks, including the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), commonly cause spatial neglect. However, the interaction of these different regions in spatial attention is unclear. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether hyperexcitable neural networks can cause an abnormal interhemispheric inhibition. The Attention Network Test was used to test subjects following intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) to the left or right frontoparietal networks. During the Attention Network Test task, all subjects tolerated each conditioning iTBS without any obvious iTBS-related side effects. Subjects receiving real-right-PPC iTBS showed significant enhancement in both alerting and orienting efficiency compared with those receiving either sham-right-PPC iTBS or real-left-PPC iTBS. Moreover, subjects exposed to the real-right-DLPFC iTBS exhibited significant improvement in both alerting and executive control efficiency, compared with those exposed to either the sham-right-DLPFC or real-left-DLPFC conditioning. Interestingly, compared with subjects exposed to the sham-left-PPC stimuli, subjects exposed to the real-left-PPC iTBS had a significant deficit in the orienting index. The present study indicates that iTBS over the contralateral homologous cortex may induce the hypoactivity of the right PPC through interhemispheric competition in spatial orienting attention.

  3. Active Learning for Automatic Audio Processing of Unwritten Languages (ALAPUL)

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-07-01

    AFRL-RH-WP-TR-2016-0074 ACTIVE LEARNING FOR AUTOMATIC AUDIO PROCESSING OF UNWRITTEN LANGUAGES (ALAPUL) Dimitra Vergyri Andreas Kathol Wen Wang...FA8650-15-C-9101 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) *Dimitra Vergyri; Andreas Kathol; Wen Wang; Chris Bartels; Julian VanHout...feature transform through deep auto-encoders for better phone recognition performance. We target iterative learning to improve the system through

  4. Where one hand meets the other: limb-specific and action-dependent movement plans decoded from preparatory signals in single human frontoparietal brain areas.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallivan, Jason P; McLean, D Adam; Flanagan, J Randall; Culham, Jody C

    2013-01-30

    Planning object-directed hand actions requires successful integration of the movement goal with the acting limb. Exactly where and how this sensorimotor integration occurs in the brain has been studied extensively with neurophysiological recordings in nonhuman primates, yet to date, because of limitations of non-invasive methodologies, the ability to examine the same types of planning-related signals in humans has been challenging. Here we show, using a multivoxel pattern analysis of functional MRI (fMRI) data, that the preparatory activity patterns in several frontoparietal brain regions can be used to predict both the limb used and hand action performed in an upcoming movement. Participants performed an event-related delayed movement task whereby they planned and executed grasp or reach actions with either their left or right hand toward a single target object. We found that, although the majority of frontoparietal areas represented hand actions (grasping vs reaching) for the contralateral limb, several areas additionally coded hand actions for the ipsilateral limb. Notable among these were subregions within the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), dorsal premotor cortex (PMd), ventral premotor cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, presupplementary motor area, and motor cortex, a region more traditionally implicated in contralateral movement generation. Additional analyses suggest that hand actions are represented independently of the intended limb in PPC and PMd. In addition to providing a unique mapping of limb-specific and action-dependent intention-related signals across the human cortical motor system, these findings uncover a much stronger representation of the ipsilateral limb than expected from previous fMRI findings.

  5. Automatic Earthquake Detection by Active Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bergen, K.; Beroza, G. C.

    2017-12-01

    In recent years, advances in machine learning have transformed fields such as image recognition, natural language processing and recommender systems. Many of these performance gains have relied on the availability of large, labeled data sets to train high-accuracy models; labeled data sets are those for which each sample includes a target class label, such as waveforms tagged as either earthquakes or noise. Earthquake seismologists are increasingly leveraging machine learning and data mining techniques to detect and analyze weak earthquake signals in large seismic data sets. One of the challenges in applying machine learning to seismic data sets is the limited labeled data problem; learning algorithms need to be given examples of earthquake waveforms, but the number of known events, taken from earthquake catalogs, may be insufficient to build an accurate detector. Furthermore, earthquake catalogs are known to be incomplete, resulting in training data that may be biased towards larger events and contain inaccurate labels. This challenge is compounded by the class imbalance problem; the events of interest, earthquakes, are infrequent relative to noise in continuous data sets, and many learning algorithms perform poorly on rare classes. In this work, we investigate the use of active learning for automatic earthquake detection. Active learning is a type of semi-supervised machine learning that uses a human-in-the-loop approach to strategically supplement a small initial training set. The learning algorithm incorporates domain expertise through interaction between a human expert and the algorithm, with the algorithm actively posing queries to the user to improve detection performance. We demonstrate the potential of active machine learning to improve earthquake detection performance with limited available training data.

  6. Triggered activity and automaticity in ventricular trabeculae of failing human and rabbit hearts

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vermeulen, J. T.; McGuire, M. A.; Opthof, T.; Coronel, R.; de Bakker, J. M.; Klöpping, C.; Janse, M. J.

    1994-01-01

    The aim of the study was to assess the occurrence of triggered activity and automaticity in ventricular trabeculae from failing human hearts and normal and failing rabbit hearts during exposure to a normal and altered extracellular environment. Ventricular trabeculae were harvested from failing

  7. What Automaticity Deficit? Activation of Lexical Information by Readers with Dyslexia in a Rapid Automatized Naming Stroop-Switch Task

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Manon W.; Snowling, Margaret J.; Moll, Kristina

    2016-01-01

    Reading fluency is often predicted by rapid automatized naming (RAN) speed, which as the name implies, measures the automaticity with which familiar stimuli (e.g., letters) can be retrieved and named. Readers with dyslexia are considered to have less "automatized" access to lexical information, reflected in longer RAN times compared with…

  8. Automatic activation of motor programs by object affordances in patients with Parkinson's disease

    OpenAIRE

    Oguro, Hiroaki; Ward, Robert; Bracewel, Martyn; Hindle, John; Rafal, Robert

    2009-01-01

    Clinical observations of kinesia paradoxica and freezing in patients with Parkinson's disease suggest that the automatic activation of motor programmes by visual stimuli may not require intact basal ganglia function, and that an increased sensitivity to such object affordances may contribute to some symptoms of the disease. Employing a paradigm that measures the degree of interference from object affordances on voluntary actions, we confirm that activation of object affordances are preserved ...

  9. Fast automatic analysis of antenatal dexamethasone on micro-seizure activity in the EEG

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rastin, S.J.; Unsworth, C.P.; Bennet, L.

    2010-01-01

    Full text: In this work wc develop an automatic scheme for studying the effect of the antenatal Dexamethasone on the EEG activity. To do so an FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) based detector was designed and applied to the EEG recordings obtained from two groups of fetal sheep. Both groups received two injections with a time delay of 24 h between them. However the applied medicine was different for each group (Dex and saline). The detector developed was used to automatically identify and classify micro-seizures that occurred in the frequency bands corresponding to the EEG transients known as slow waves (2.5 14 Hz). For each second of the data recordings the spectrum was computed and the rise of the energy in each predefined frequency band then counted when the energy level exceeded a predefined corresponding threshold level (Where the threshold level was obtained from the long term average of the spectral points at each band). Our results demonstrate that it was possible to automatically count the micro-seizures for the three different bands in a time effective manner. It was found that the number of transients did not strongly depend on the nature of the injected medicine which was consistent with the results manually obtained by an EEG expert. Tn conclusion, the automatic detection scheme presented here would allow for rapid micro-seizure event identification of hours of highly sampled EEG data thus providing a valuable time-saving device.

  10. Fast automatic 3D liver segmentation based on a three-level AdaBoost-guided active shape model

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    He, Baochun; Huang, Cheng; Zhou, Shoujun; Hu, Qingmao; Jia, Fucang, E-mail: fc.jia@siat.ac.cn [Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055 (China); Sharp, Gregory [Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02114 (United States); Fang, Chihua; Fan, Yingfang [Department of Hepatology (I), Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510280 (China)

    2016-05-15

    Purpose: A robust, automatic, and rapid method for liver delineation is urgently needed for the diagnosis and treatment of liver disorders. Until now, the high variability in liver shape, local image artifacts, and the presence of tumors have complicated the development of automatic 3D liver segmentation. In this study, an automatic three-level AdaBoost-guided active shape model (ASM) is proposed for the segmentation of the liver based on enhanced computed tomography images in a robust and fast manner, with an emphasis on the detection of tumors. Methods: The AdaBoost voxel classifier and AdaBoost profile classifier were used to automatically guide three-level active shape modeling. In the first level of model initialization, fast automatic liver segmentation by an AdaBoost voxel classifier method is proposed. A shape model is then initialized by registration with the resulting rough segmentation. In the second level of active shape model fitting, a prior model based on the two-class AdaBoost profile classifier is proposed to identify the optimal surface. In the third level, a deformable simplex mesh with profile probability and curvature constraint as the external force is used to refine the shape fitting result. In total, three registration methods—3D similarity registration, probability atlas B-spline, and their proposed deformable closest point registration—are used to establish shape correspondence. Results: The proposed method was evaluated using three public challenge datasets: 3Dircadb1, SLIVER07, and Visceral Anatomy3. The results showed that our approach performs with promising efficiency, with an average of 35 s, and accuracy, with an average Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) of 0.94 ± 0.02, 0.96 ± 0.01, and 0.94 ± 0.02 for the 3Dircadb1, SLIVER07, and Anatomy3 training datasets, respectively. The DSC of the SLIVER07 testing and Anatomy3 unseen testing datasets were 0.964 and 0.933, respectively. Conclusions: The proposed automatic approach

  11. Fast automatic 3D liver segmentation based on a three-level AdaBoost-guided active shape model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Baochun; Huang, Cheng; Sharp, Gregory; Zhou, Shoujun; Hu, Qingmao; Fang, Chihua; Fan, Yingfang; Jia, Fucang

    2016-05-01

    A robust, automatic, and rapid method for liver delineation is urgently needed for the diagnosis and treatment of liver disorders. Until now, the high variability in liver shape, local image artifacts, and the presence of tumors have complicated the development of automatic 3D liver segmentation. In this study, an automatic three-level AdaBoost-guided active shape model (ASM) is proposed for the segmentation of the liver based on enhanced computed tomography images in a robust and fast manner, with an emphasis on the detection of tumors. The AdaBoost voxel classifier and AdaBoost profile classifier were used to automatically guide three-level active shape modeling. In the first level of model initialization, fast automatic liver segmentation by an AdaBoost voxel classifier method is proposed. A shape model is then initialized by registration with the resulting rough segmentation. In the second level of active shape model fitting, a prior model based on the two-class AdaBoost profile classifier is proposed to identify the optimal surface. In the third level, a deformable simplex mesh with profile probability and curvature constraint as the external force is used to refine the shape fitting result. In total, three registration methods-3D similarity registration, probability atlas B-spline, and their proposed deformable closest point registration-are used to establish shape correspondence. The proposed method was evaluated using three public challenge datasets: 3Dircadb1, SLIVER07, and Visceral Anatomy3. The results showed that our approach performs with promising efficiency, with an average of 35 s, and accuracy, with an average Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) of 0.94 ± 0.02, 0.96 ± 0.01, and 0.94 ± 0.02 for the 3Dircadb1, SLIVER07, and Anatomy3 training datasets, respectively. The DSC of the SLIVER07 testing and Anatomy3 unseen testing datasets were 0.964 and 0.933, respectively. The proposed automatic approach achieves robust, accurate, and fast liver

  12. Automaticity and localisation of concurrents predicts colour area activity in grapheme-colour synaesthesia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gould van Praag, Cassandra D; Garfinkel, Sarah; Ward, Jamie; Bor, Daniel; Seth, Anil K

    2016-07-29

    In grapheme-colour synaesthesia (GCS), the presentation of letters or numbers induces an additional 'concurrent' experience of colour. Early functional MRI (fMRI) investigations of GCS reported activation in colour-selective area V4 during the concurrent experience. However, others have failed to replicate this key finding. We reasoned that individual differences in synaesthetic phenomenology might explain this inconsistency in the literature. To test this hypothesis, we examined fMRI BOLD responses in a group of grapheme-colour synaesthetes (n=20) and matched controls (n=20) while characterising the individual phenomenology of the synaesthetes along dimensions of 'automaticity' and 'localisation'. We used an independent functional localiser to identify colour-selective areas in both groups. Activations in these areas were then assessed during achromatic synaesthesia-inducing, and non-inducing conditions; we also explored whole brain activations, where we sought to replicate the existing literature regarding synaesthesia effects. Controls showed no significant activations in the contrast of inducing > non-inducing synaesthetic stimuli, in colour-selective ROIs or at the whole brain level. In the synaesthete group, we correlated activation within colour-selective ROIs with individual differences in phenomenology using the Coloured Letters and Numbers (CLaN) questionnaire which measures, amongst other attributes, the subjective automaticity/attention in synaesthetic concurrents, and their spatial localisation. Supporting our hypothesis, we found significant correlations between individual measures of synaesthetic phenomenology and BOLD responses in colour-selective areas, when contrasting inducing against non-inducing stimuli. Specifically, left-hemisphere colour area responses were stronger for synaesthetes scoring high on phenomenological localisation and automaticity/attention, while right-hemisphere colour area responses showed a relationship with localisation

  13. Automatic Image Segmentation Using Active Contours with Univariate Marginal Distribution

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I. Cruz-Aceves

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents a novel automatic image segmentation method based on the theory of active contour models and estimation of distribution algorithms. The proposed method uses the univariate marginal distribution model to infer statistical dependencies between the control points on different active contours. These contours have been generated through an alignment process of reference shape priors, in order to increase the exploration and exploitation capabilities regarding different interactive segmentation techniques. This proposed method is applied in the segmentation of the hollow core in microscopic images of photonic crystal fibers and it is also used to segment the human heart and ventricular areas from datasets of computed tomography and magnetic resonance images, respectively. Moreover, to evaluate the performance of the medical image segmentations compared to regions outlined by experts, a set of similarity measures has been adopted. The experimental results suggest that the proposed image segmentation method outperforms the traditional active contour model and the interactive Tseng method in terms of segmentation accuracy and stability.

  14. What is said or how it is said makes a difference : role of the right fronto-parietal operculum in emotional prosody as revealed by repetitive TMS

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Rijn, S; Aleman, A; van Diessen, E; Berckmoes, C; Vingerhoets, G; Kahn, RS

    Emotional signals in spoken language can be conveyed by semantic as well as prosodic cues. We investigated the role of the fronto-parietal operculum, a somatosensory area where the lips, tongue and jaw are represented, in the right hemisphere to detection of emotion in prosody vs. semantics. A total

  15. The automatic pelvic floor muscle response to the active straight leg raise in cases with pelvic girdle pain and matched controls.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stuge, Britt; Sætre, Kaja; Ingeborg Hoff, Brækken

    2013-08-01

    The active straight leg raise (ASLR) test has been proposed as a clinical test for the assessment of pelvic girdle pain (PGP). Little is known about the activation of the pelvic floor muscles (PFM) during ASLR. The main aim of this study was to examine the automatic PFM contraction during ASLR. Specific aims were to compare automatic contraction to rest and to voluntary contraction, to compare PFM contraction during ASLR with and without compression and to examine whether there were any differences in PFM contraction between women with and without clinically diagnosed PGP during ASLR. Forty-nine pairs of women participated in a cross-sectional study with individual, one-to-one matched cases and controls. PFM was assessed by reliable and valid 3D ultrasound at rest, during voluntary and automatic contraction. Test-retest data for the levator hiatus during ASLR showed good repeatability. Significantly automatic PFM contractions occurred when ASLR tests were performed. There was a strong positive correlation between voluntary and automatic PFM contractions. Manual compression reduced the automatic PFM contraction during ASLR by 62-66%. There were no significant differences between cases and controls in reduction of levator hiatus or muscle length from rest to automatic contractions during ASLR. Interestingly, a significantly smaller levator hiatus was found in women with PGP than in controls, at rest, during an automatic contraction with ASLR and during voluntary contraction. In conclusion, a significant automatic PFM contraction occurred during ASLR, both in cases and in controls. Women with PGP had a significantly smaller levator hiatus than controls. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Automatically-Activated Attitudes as Mechanisms for Message Effects: The Case of Alcohol Advertisements

    OpenAIRE

    Goodall, Catherine E.; Slater, Michael D.

    2010-01-01

    Alcohol advertisements may influence impulsive, risky behaviors indirectly, via automatically-activated attitudes toward alcohol. Results from an experiment in which participants were exposed to either four alcohol advertisements, four control advertisements, or four drunk driving public service advertisements, suggested that alcohol advertisements had more measurable effects on implicit, than on explicit attitude measures. Moreover, there were significant indirect paths from alcohol advertis...

  17. Activation of Anterior Insula during Self-Reflection

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Modinos, Gemma; Ormel, Johan; Aleman, Andre

    2009-01-01

    Background: Functional neuroimaging studies have suggested activation of midline frontoparietal brain regions to be at the core of self-related processes. However, although some studies reported involvement of the insula, little attention has been paid to this region as forming part of the

  18. Automatic activation of motor programs by object affordances in patients with Parkinson's disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oguro, Hiroaki; Ward, Robert; Bracewel, Martyn; Hindle, John; Rafal, Robert

    2009-09-29

    Clinical observations of kinesia paradoxica and freezing in patients with Parkinson's disease suggest that the automatic activation of motor programmes by visual stimuli may not require intact basal ganglia function, and that an increased sensitivity to such object affordances may contribute to some symptoms of the disease. Employing a paradigm that measures the degree of interference from object affordances on voluntary actions, we confirm that activation of object affordances are preserved in Parkinson's disease, but find no evidence that there is an increased sensitivity to the effects of object affordances on voluntary action.

  19. Automatic activation of motor programs by object affordances in patients with Parkinson's disease

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oguro, Hiroaki; Ward, Robert; Bracewel, Martyn; Hindle, John; Rafal, Robert

    2009-01-01

    Clinical observations of kinesia paradoxica and freezing in patients with Parkinson's disease suggest that the automatic activation of motor programmes by visual stimuli may not require intact basal ganglia function, and that an increased sensitivity to such object affordances may contribute to some symptoms of the disease. Employing a paradigm that measures the degree of interference from object affordances on voluntary actions, we confirm that activation of object affordances are preserved in Parkinson's disease, but find no evidence that there is an increased sensitivity to the effects of object affordances on voluntary action. PMID:19616073

  20. Fronto-Parietal Network Reconfiguration Supports the Development of Reasoning Ability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wendelken, Carter; Ferrer, Emilio; Whitaker, Kirstie J; Bunge, Silvia A

    2016-05-01

    The goal of this fMRI study was to examine how well developmental improvements in reasoning ability can be explained by changes in functional connectivity between specific nodes in prefrontal and parietal cortices. To this end, we examined connectivity within the lateral fronto-parietal network (LFPN) and its relation to reasoning ability in 132 children and adolescents aged 6-18 years, 56 of whom were scanned twice over the course of 1.5 years. Developmental changes in strength of connections within the LFPN were most prominent in late childhood and early adolescence. Reasoning ability was related to functional connectivity between left rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL), but only among 12-18-year olds. For 9-11-year olds, reasoning ability was most strongly related to connectivity between left and right RLPFC; this relationship was mediated by working memory. For 6-8-year olds, significant relationships between connectivity and performance were not observed; in this group, processing speed was the primary mediator of improvement in reasoning ability. We conclude that different connections best support reasoning at different points in development and that RLPFC-IPL connectivity becomes an important predictor of reasoning during adolescence. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  1. Health smart home for elders - a tool for automatic recognition of activities of daily living.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Le, Xuan Hoa Binh; Di Mascolo, Maria; Gouin, Alexia; Noury, Norbert

    2008-01-01

    Elders live preferently in their own home, but with aging comes the loss of autonomy and associated risks. In order to help them live longer in safe conditions, we need a tool to automatically detect their loss of autonomy by assessing the degree of performance of activities of daily living. This article presents an approach enabling the activities recognition of an elder living alone in a home equipped with noninvasive sensors.

  2. Cognitive-Affective Dimensions of Female Orgasm: The Role of Automatic Thoughts and Affect During Sexual Activity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tavares, Inês M.; Laan, Ellen T. M.; Nobre, Pedro J.

    2017-01-01

    Cognitive-affective factors contribute to female sexual dysfunctions, defined as clinically significant difficulties in the ability to respond sexually or to experience sexual pleasure. Automatic thoughts and affect presented during sexual activity are acknowledged as maintenance factors for these

  3. Automatic activation of word phonology from print in deep dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katz, R B; Lanzoni, S M

    1992-11-01

    The performance of deep dyslexics in oral reading and other tasks suggests that they are poor at activating the phonology of words and non-words from printed stimuli. As the tasks ordinarily used to test deep dyslexics require controlled processing, it is possible that the phonology of printed words can be better activated on an automatic basis. This study investigated this possibility by testing a deep dyslexic patient on a lexical decision task with pairs of stimuli presented simultaneously. In Experiment 1, which used content words as stimuli, the deep dyslexic, like normal subjects, showed faster reaction times on trials with rhyming, similarly spelled stimuli (e.g. bribe-tribe) than on control trials (consisting of non-rhyming, dissimilarly spelled words), but slower reaction times on trials with non-rhyming, similarly spelled stimuli (e.g. couch-touch). When the experiment was repeated using function words as stimuli, the patient no longer showed a phonological effect. Therefore, the phonological activation of printed content words by deep dyslexics may be better than would be expected on the basis of their oral reading performance.

  4. Top-Down Activation of Spatiotopic Sensory Codes in Perceptual and Working Memory Search.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuo, Bo-Cheng; Nobre, Anna Christina; Scerif, Gaia; Astle, Duncan E

    2016-07-01

    A critical requirement of an efficient cognitive system is the selection and prioritization of relevant information. This occurs when selecting specific items from our sensory inputs, which then receive preferential status at subsequent levels of processing. Many everyday tasks also require us to select internal representations, such as a relevant item from memory. We show that both of these types of search are underpinned by the spatiotopic activation of sensory codes, using both fMRI and MEG data. When individuals searched for perceived and remembered targets, the MEG data highlighted a sensor level electrophysiological effect that reflects the contralateral organization of the visual system-namely, the N2pc. The fMRI data were used to identify a network of frontoparietal areas common to both types of search, as well as the early visual areas activated by the search display. We then combined fMRI and MEG data to explore the temporal dynamics of functional connections between the frontoparietal network and the early visual areas. Searching for a target item resulted in significantly enhanced phase-phase coupling between the frontoparietal network and the visual areas contralateral to the perceived or remembered location of that target. This enhancement of spatially specific phase-phase coupling occurred before the N2pc effect and was significantly associated with it on a trial-by-trial basis. The combination of these two imaging modalities suggests that perceptual and working memory search are underpinned by the synchronization of a frontoparietal network and the relevant sensory cortices.

  5. Automatic prediction of rheumatoid arthritis disease activity from the electronic medical records.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chen Lin

    Full Text Available We aimed to mine the data in the Electronic Medical Record to automatically discover patients' Rheumatoid Arthritis disease activity at discrete rheumatology clinic visits. We cast the problem as a document classification task where the feature space includes concepts from the clinical narrative and lab values as stored in the Electronic Medical Record.The Training Set consisted of 2792 clinical notes and associated lab values. Test Set 1 included 1749 clinical notes and associated lab values. Test Set 2 included 344 clinical notes for which there were no associated lab values. The Apache clinical Text Analysis and Knowledge Extraction System was used to analyze the text and transform it into informative features to be combined with relevant lab values.Experiments over a range of machine learning algorithms and features were conducted. The best performing combination was linear kernel Support Vector Machines with Unified Medical Language System Concept Unique Identifier features with feature selection and lab values. The Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUC is 0.831 (σ = 0.0317, statistically significant as compared to two baselines (AUC = 0.758, σ = 0.0291. Algorithms demonstrated superior performance on cases clinically defined as extreme categories of disease activity (Remission and High compared to those defined as intermediate categories (Moderate and Low and included laboratory data on inflammatory markers.Automatic Rheumatoid Arthritis disease activity discovery from Electronic Medical Record data is a learnable task approximating human performance. As a result, this approach might have several research applications, such as the identification of patients for genome-wide pharmacogenetic studies that require large sample sizes with precise definitions of disease activity and response to therapies.

  6. Automatic Program Development

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Automatic Program Development is a tribute to Robert Paige (1947-1999), our accomplished and respected colleague, and moreover our good friend, whose untimely passing was a loss to our academic and research community. We have collected the revised, updated versions of the papers published in his...... honor in the Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation Journal in the years 2003 and 2005. Among them there are two papers by Bob: (i) a retrospective view of his research lines, and (ii) a proposal for future studies in the area of the automatic program derivation. The book also includes some papers...... by members of the IFIP Working Group 2.1 of which Bob was an active member. All papers are related to some of the research interests of Bob and, in particular, to the transformational development of programs and their algorithmic derivation from formal specifications. Automatic Program Development offers...

  7. Heterogeneity within the frontoparietal control network and its relationship to the default and dorsal attention networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dixon, Matthew L; De La Vega, Alejandro; Mills, Caitlin; Andrews-Hanna, Jessica; Spreng, R Nathan; Cole, Michael W; Christoff, Kalina

    2018-02-13

    The frontoparietal control network (FPCN) plays a central role in executive control. It has been predominantly viewed as a unitary domain general system. Here, we examined patterns of FPCN functional connectivity (FC) across multiple conditions of varying cognitive demands, to test for FPCN heterogeneity. We identified two distinct subsystems within the FPCN based on hierarchical clustering and machine learning classification analyses of within-FPCN FC patterns. These two FPCN subsystems exhibited distinct patterns of FC with the default network (DN) and the dorsal attention network (DAN). FPCN A exhibited stronger connectivity with the DN than the DAN, whereas FPCN B exhibited the opposite pattern. This twofold FPCN differentiation was observed across four independent datasets, across nine different conditions (rest and eight tasks), at the level of individual-participant data, as well as in meta-analytic coactivation patterns. Notably, the extent of FPCN differentiation varied across conditions, suggesting flexible adaptation to task demands. Finally, we used meta-analytic tools to identify several functional domains associated with the DN and DAN that differentially predict activation in the FPCN subsystems. These findings reveal a flexible and heterogeneous FPCN organization that may in part emerge from separable DN and DAN processing streams. We propose that FPCN A may be preferentially involved in the regulation of introspective processes, whereas FPCN B may be preferentially involved in the regulation of visuospatial perceptual attention.

  8. Development and installation of an automatic sample changer for neutron activation analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Domienikan, Claudio; Lapolli, Andre L.; Schoueri, Roberto M.; Moreira, Edson G.; Vasconcellos, Marina B.A.

    2013-01-01

    A Programmable and Automatic Sample Changer was built and installed at the Neutron Activation Analysis Laboratory of the Nuclear and Energy Research Institute - IPEN-CNEN/SP, Brazil. This Automatic Sample Changer allows the fully automated measurement of up to 25 samples in one run. Basically it consists of an electronic circuit and C++ program that controls the positioning of a sample holder in two axes of motion (X and Y). Each sample is transported and positioned, one by one, inside the shielding coupled to a high-purity germanium (HPGe) radiation detector. A Canberra DSA-1000 Multichannel Analyzer coupled to the Genie 2000 software performs the data acquisition for analysis of the samples. When the counting is finished the results are saved in a hard disk of a PC computer. The sample is brought back by the sample holder to its initial position, and the next sample is carried to the shielding. The Sample Changer was designed and constructed at IPEN-CNEN/SP by employing national components and expertise. (author)

  9. Automatic lung segmentation in functional SPECT images using active shape models trained on reference lung shapes from CT.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheimariotis, Grigorios-Aris; Al-Mashat, Mariam; Haris, Kostas; Aletras, Anthony H; Jögi, Jonas; Bajc, Marika; Maglaveras, Nicolaos; Heiberg, Einar

    2018-02-01

    Image segmentation is an essential step in quantifying the extent of reduced or absent lung function. The aim of this study is to develop and validate a new tool for automatic segmentation of lungs in ventilation and perfusion SPECT images and compare automatic and manual SPECT lung segmentations with reference computed tomography (CT) volumes. A total of 77 subjects (69 patients with obstructive lung disease, and 8 subjects without apparent perfusion of ventilation loss) performed low-dose CT followed by ventilation/perfusion (V/P) SPECT examination in a hybrid gamma camera system. In the training phase, lung shapes from the 57 anatomical low-dose CT images were used to construct two active shape models (right lung and left lung) which were then used for image segmentation. The algorithm was validated in 20 patients, comparing its results to reference delineation of corresponding CT images, and by comparing automatic segmentation to manual delineations in SPECT images. The Dice coefficient between automatic SPECT delineations and manual SPECT delineations were 0.83 ± 0.04% for the right and 0.82 ± 0.05% for the left lung. There was statistically significant difference between reference volumes from CT and automatic delineations for the right (R = 0.53, p = 0.02) and left lung (R = 0.69, p automatic quantification of wide range of measurements.

  10. Difficulty identifying feelings and automatic activation in the fusiform gyrus in response to facial emotion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eichmann, Mischa; Kugel, Harald; Suslow, Thomas

    2008-12-01

    Difficulties in identifying and differentiating one's emotions are a central characteristic of alexithymia. In the present study, automatic activation of the fusiform gyrus to facial emotion was investigated as a function of alexithymia as assessed by the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale. During 3 Tesla fMRI scanning, pictures of faces bearing sad, happy, and neutral expressions masked by neutral faces were presented to 22 healthy adults who also responded to the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. The fusiform gyrus was selected as the region of interest, and voxel values of this region were extracted, summarized as means, and tested among the different conditions (sad, happy, and neutral faces). Masked sad facial emotions were associated with greater bilateral activation of the fusiform gyrus than masked neutral faces. The subscale, Difficulty Identifying Feelings, was negatively correlated with the neural response of the fusiform gyrus to masked sad faces. The correlation results suggest that automatic hyporesponsiveness of the fusiform gyrus to negative emotion stimuli may reflect problems in recognizing one's emotions in everyday life.

  11. Experiences with automatic N and P measurements of an activated sludge process in a research environment

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Isaacs, Steven Howard; Temmink, H.

    1996-01-01

    Some of the advantages of on-line automatic measurement of ammonia, nitrate and phosphate for studying activated sludge systems are pointed out with the help of examples of batch experiments. Sample taking is performed by cross-flow filtration and measurement of all three analytes is performed by...

  12. Feature-selective Attention in Frontoparietal Cortex: Multivoxel Codes Adjust to Prioritize Task-relevant Information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jackson, Jade; Rich, Anina N; Williams, Mark A; Woolgar, Alexandra

    2017-02-01

    Human cognition is characterized by astounding flexibility, enabling us to select appropriate information according to the objectives of our current task. A circuit of frontal and parietal brain regions, often referred to as the frontoparietal attention network or multiple-demand (MD) regions, are believed to play a fundamental role in this flexibility. There is evidence that these regions dynamically adjust their responses to selectively process information that is currently relevant for behavior, as proposed by the "adaptive coding hypothesis" [Duncan, J. An adaptive coding model of neural function in prefrontal cortex. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2, 820-829, 2001]. Could this provide a neural mechanism for feature-selective attention, the process by which we preferentially process one feature of a stimulus over another? We used multivariate pattern analysis of fMRI data during a perceptually challenging categorization task to investigate whether the representation of visual object features in the MD regions flexibly adjusts according to task relevance. Participants were trained to categorize visually similar novel objects along two orthogonal stimulus dimensions (length/orientation) and performed short alternating blocks in which only one of these dimensions was relevant. We found that multivoxel patterns of activation in the MD regions encoded the task-relevant distinctions more strongly than the task-irrelevant distinctions: The MD regions discriminated between stimuli of different lengths when length was relevant and between the same objects according to orientation when orientation was relevant. The data suggest a flexible neural system that adjusts its representation of visual objects to preferentially encode stimulus features that are currently relevant for behavior, providing a neural mechanism for feature-selective attention.

  13. Longitudinal Alterations of Frontoparietal and Frontotemporal Networks Predict Future Creative Cognitive Ability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Qunlin; Beaty, Roger E; Wei, Dongtao; Yang, Junyi; Sun, Jiangzhou; Liu, Wei; Yang, Wenjing; Zhang, Qinglin; Qiu, Jiang

    2018-01-01

    Creative cognition is important to academic performance and career success during late adolescence and adulthood. However, there is a lack of longitudinal data on whether brain structural development could predict improvements in creative thinking, and how such changes interact with other cognitive abilities to support creative performance. Here we examined longitudinal alterations of brain structure and their relation to creative cognitive ability in a sample of 159 healthy young adults who were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging 2-3 times over the course of 3 years. The most robust predictor of future creative ability was the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which in conjunction with baseline creative capacity showed a 31% prediction rate. Longitudinal analysis revealed that slower decreases in gray matter density within left frontoparietal and right frontotemporal clusters predicted enhanced creative ability. Moreoever, the relationship between longitudinal alterations within frontal-related clusters and improved creative ability was moderated by the right DLPFC and working memory ability. We conclude that continuous goal-directed planning and accumulated knowledge are implemented in the right DLPFC and temporal areas, respectively, which in turn support longitudinal gains in creative cognitive ability. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  14. Fronto-Parietal Brain Responses to Visuotactile Congruence in an Anatomical Reference Frame

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jakub Limanowski

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Spatially and temporally congruent visuotactile stimulation of a fake hand together with one’s real hand may result in an illusory self-attribution of the fake hand. Although this illusion relies on a representation of the two touched body parts in external space, there is tentative evidence that, for the illusion to occur, the seen and felt touches also need to be congruent in an anatomical reference frame. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging and a somatotopical, virtual reality-based setup to isolate the neuronal basis of such a comparison. Participants’ index or little finger was synchronously touched with the index or little finger of a virtual hand, under congruent or incongruent orientations of the real and virtual hands. The left ventral premotor cortex responded significantly more strongly to visuotactile co-stimulation of the same versus different fingers of the virtual and real hand. Conversely, the left anterior intraparietal sulcus responded significantly more strongly to co-stimulation of different versus same fingers. Both responses were independent of hand orientation congruence and of spatial congruence of the visuotactile stimuli. Our results suggest that fronto-parietal areas previously associated with multisensory processing within peripersonal space and with tactile remapping evaluate the congruence of visuotactile stimulation on the body according to an anatomical reference frame.

  15. Fronto-Parietal Brain Responses to Visuotactile Congruence in an Anatomical Reference Frame.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Limanowski, Jakub; Blankenburg, Felix

    2018-01-01

    Spatially and temporally congruent visuotactile stimulation of a fake hand together with one's real hand may result in an illusory self-attribution of the fake hand. Although this illusion relies on a representation of the two touched body parts in external space, there is tentative evidence that, for the illusion to occur, the seen and felt touches also need to be congruent in an anatomical reference frame. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging and a somatotopical, virtual reality-based setup to isolate the neuronal basis of such a comparison. Participants' index or little finger was synchronously touched with the index or little finger of a virtual hand, under congruent or incongruent orientations of the real and virtual hands. The left ventral premotor cortex responded significantly more strongly to visuotactile co-stimulation of the same versus different fingers of the virtual and real hand. Conversely, the left anterior intraparietal sulcus responded significantly more strongly to co-stimulation of different versus same fingers. Both responses were independent of hand orientation congruence and of spatial congruence of the visuotactile stimuli. Our results suggest that fronto-parietal areas previously associated with multisensory processing within peripersonal space and with tactile remapping evaluate the congruence of visuotactile stimulation on the body according to an anatomical reference frame.

  16. Automatic activation of alcohol cues by child maltreatment related words: a replication attempt in a different treatment setting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Potthast, Nadine; Neuner, Frank; Catani, Claudia

    2017-01-03

    A growing body of research attempts to clarify the underlying mechanisms of the association between emotional maltreatment and alcohol dependence (AD). In a preceding study, we found considerable support for a specific priming effect in subjects with AD and emotional abuse experiences receiving alcohol rehabilitation treatment. We concluded that maltreatment related cues can automatically activate an associative memory network comprising cues eliciting craving as well as alcohol-related responses. Generalizability of the results to other treatment settings remains unclear because of considerable differences in German treatment settings as well as insufficiently clarified influences of selection effects. As replication studies in other settings are necessary, the current study aimed to replicate the specific priming effect in a qualified detoxification sample. 22 AD subjects (n = 10 with emotional abuse vs. n = 12 without emotional abuse) participated in a priming experiment. Comparison data from 34 healthy control subjects were derived from the prior study. Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not find a specific priming effect. We could not replicate the result of an automatic network activation by maltreatment related words in a sample of subjects with AD and emotional abuse experiences receiving qualified detoxification treatment. This discrepancy might be attributed to reasons related to treatment settings as well as to methodological limitations. Future work is required to determine the generalizability of the specific priming effect before valid conclusions regarding automatic activation can be drawn.

  17. A neurocomputational model of automatic sequence production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Helie, Sebastien; Roeder, Jessica L; Vucovich, Lauren; Rünger, Dennis; Ashby, F Gregory

    2015-07-01

    Most behaviors unfold in time and include a sequence of submovements or cognitive activities. In addition, most behaviors are automatic and repeated daily throughout life. Yet, relatively little is known about the neurobiology of automatic sequence production. Past research suggests a gradual transfer from the associative striatum to the sensorimotor striatum, but a number of more recent studies challenge this role of the BG in automatic sequence production. In this article, we propose a new neurocomputational model of automatic sequence production in which the main role of the BG is to train cortical-cortical connections within the premotor areas that are responsible for automatic sequence production. The new model is used to simulate four different data sets from human and nonhuman animals, including (1) behavioral data (e.g., RTs), (2) electrophysiology data (e.g., single-neuron recordings), (3) macrostructure data (e.g., TMS), and (4) neurological circuit data (e.g., inactivation studies). We conclude with a comparison of the new model with existing models of automatic sequence production and discuss a possible new role for the BG in automaticity and its implication for Parkinson's disease.

  18. Automatic procedure go keep updated the activity levels for each radionuclide existing in a radioactivity laboratory

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Los Arcos, J.M.

    1988-01-01

    An automatic procedure to keep updated the activity levels each radionuclide existing in a radioactivity laboratory, and its classification according to the Spanish Regulations on Nuclear and Radioactive Establishments is described. This procedure takes into account the mixed composition of each source and whether it is sealed or the activity and mass variation due to extraction or evaporation in non-sealed sources. For a given date and time, the procedure prints out a complete listing of the activity of each radioactive source, the accumulated activity for each radionuclide, for each kind of radionuclide and the actual classification of the laboratory according to the legal regulations above mentioned. (Author)

  19. Solar Powered Automatic Shrimp Feeding System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dindo T. Ani

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available - Automatic system has brought many revolutions in the existing technologies. One among the technologies, which has greater developments, is the solar powered automatic shrimp feeding system. For instance, the solar power which is a renewable energy can be an alternative solution to energy crisis and basically reducing man power by using it in an automatic manner. The researchers believe an automatic shrimp feeding system may help solve problems on manual feeding operations. The project study aimed to design and develop a solar powered automatic shrimp feeding system. It specifically sought to prepare the design specifications of the project, to determine the methods of fabrication and assembly, and to test the response time of the automatic shrimp feeding system. The researchers designed and developed an automatic system which utilizes a 10 hour timer to be set in intervals preferred by the user and will undergo a continuous process. The magnetic contactor acts as a switch connected to the 10 hour timer which controls the activation or termination of electrical loads and powered by means of a solar panel outputting electrical power, and a rechargeable battery in electrical communication with the solar panel for storing the power. By undergoing through series of testing, the components of the modified system were proven functional and were operating within the desired output. It was recommended that the timer to be used should be tested to avoid malfunction and achieve the fully automatic system and that the system may be improved to handle changes in scope of the project.

  20. Re-examining the automaticity and directionality of the activation of the spatial-valence "good is up" metaphoric association.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yanli Huang

    Full Text Available According to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, people understand abstract concepts depending on the activation of more concrete concepts, but not vice versa. The present research aims to investigate the role of directionality and automaticity regarding the activation of the conceptual metaphor "good is up". Experiment 1 tested the automaticity of the spatial-to-valence metaphoric congruency effect by having participants judge the valence of a positive or negative word that appeared either at the top or at the bottom of the screen. They performed the task concurrently with a 6-digit verbal rehearsal task in the working-memory-load (WML blocks and without this task in the non-WML blocks. The spatial-to-valence metaphoric congruency effect occurred for the positive words in the non-WML blocks (i.e., positive words are judged more quickly when they appeared at the top than at the bottom of the screen, but not in the WML blocks, suggesting that this metaphoric association might not be activated automatically. Experiments 2-6 investigated the valence-to-spatial metaphoric association and its automaticity. Participants processed a positive or negative prime, which appeared at the center of the screen, and then identified a letter (p/q that subsequently appeared at the top or bottom of the screen. The valence-to-spatial metaphoric congruency effect did not occur in the WML (6-digit verbal rehearsal or non-WML blocks, whether response modality to the prime was key-press or vocal, or whether the prime was a word or a picture. The effect only unexpectedly occurred when the task was simultaneously performed with a 4-dot-position visuospatial rehearsal task. Nevertheless, the data collapsed across multiple experiments showed a null valence-to-spatial metaphoric congruency effect, suggesting the absence of the valence-to-spatial metaphoric association in general. The implications of the current findings for the Conceptual Metaphor Theory and its alternatives

  1. Study of structure of marine specialist activity in an ergative system on monitoring and managing automatic control parameters of safe navigation process

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kholichev S. N.

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The study of structures' common features and dynamics of the technical object tuning circuit performing automatic adjustment of safe navigation options has been conducted for the first time in the theory of ergative systems. The research of the structure and process of ergative system functioning including an automatic control system with the option of safe navigation conditions has been fulfilled. The function of signals' selection performing optimal control law reconfiguration of the mentioned system has been given, and some sequence of marine specialist activities allowing solve the problem of navigation safety has been composed. The ergative system retargeted by the ship specialist has a two-tier hierarchy. The first level is an automatic control of the safe navigation parameter, and the second is the level of reconfiguration where the ship specialist changes the parameters of regulation act. The two-level hierarchical representation of the ergative navigation security settings management system makes it possible to introduce the concept of reconfiguration of regulation level as ship specialist activity which is to reduce the uncertainty in the environment in the operation of this layer. Such a reduction can be achieved as a result of exposure to the upper level associated with ideas of the ship specialist on the regulation of safe navigation parameters of the vessel on the lower level – the level of direct control automatic safe navigation option. As a result of studying the activities of the ship specialist in the ergative system on monitoring and managing automatic control parameters of safe navigation process it has been found that the main task of the ship specialist in the operation within the ergative system ensuring the navigation safety is to monitor the input and output of the automatic control system, decisions on the choice of reconfiguration laws regulating signal on the basis of information about deviations and the

  2. Automatic sweep circuit

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keefe, Donald J.

    1980-01-01

    An automatically sweeping circuit for searching for an evoked response in an output signal in time with respect to a trigger input. Digital counters are used to activate a detector at precise intervals, and monitoring is repeated for statistical accuracy. If the response is not found then a different time window is examined until the signal is found.

  3. Automatic evaluations and exercise setting preference in frequent exercisers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Antoniewicz, Franziska; Brand, Ralf

    2014-12-01

    The goals of this study were to test whether exercise-related stimuli can elicit automatic evaluative responses and whether automatic evaluations reflect exercise setting preference in highly active exercisers. An adapted version of the Affect Misattribution Procedure was employed. Seventy-two highly active exercisers (26 years ± 9.03; 43% female) were subliminally primed (7 ms) with pictures depicting typical fitness center scenarios or gray rectangles (control primes). After each prime, participants consciously evaluated the "pleasantness" of a Chinese symbol. Controlled evaluations were measured with a questionnaire and were more positive in participants who regularly visited fitness centers than in those who reported avoiding this exercise setting. Only center exercisers gave automatic positive evaluations of the fitness center setting (partial eta squared = .08). It is proposed that a subliminal Affect Misattribution Procedure paradigm can elicit automatic evaluations to exercising and that, in highly active exercisers, these evaluations play a role in decisions about the exercise setting rather than the amounts of physical exercise. Findings are interpreted in terms of a dual systems theory of social information processing and behavior.

  4. Primary Ewing's Sarcoma of Frontoparietal Bone with Major Soft Tissue Extension: An Unusual Presentation and Review of the Literature

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anshu Gupta

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available An 11-year-old girl presented with progressively increasing swelling in scalp of 8-month duration with no neurological deficit. Local examination showed a hard swelling that seemed to be arising from frontal bone. General and systemic examination was normal. MRI revealed a well-defined lytic lesion in left frontoparietal bone with a subgaleal component. The patient was operated upon and excision of tumor with reconstruction of skull was done. Histopathological examination showed a monomorphic small round cell tumor of bone infiltrating into the subcutaneous tissue. Immunohistochemical stain showed diffuse immunopositivity for MIC-2 in tumor cells, thus final diagnosis of Ewing’s sarcoma was made. The patient was kept for follow up for 3 months and had no symptoms.

  5. Automatic Imitation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heyes, Cecilia

    2011-01-01

    "Automatic imitation" is a type of stimulus-response compatibility effect in which the topographical features of task-irrelevant action stimuli facilitate similar, and interfere with dissimilar, responses. This article reviews behavioral, neurophysiological, and neuroimaging research on automatic imitation, asking in what sense it is "automatic"…

  6. Automatic radioxenon analyzer for CTBT monitoring

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bowyer, T.W.; Abel, K.H.; Hensley, W.K.

    1996-12-01

    Over the past 3 years, with support from US DOE's NN-20 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) R ampersand D program, PNNL has developed and demonstrated a fully automatic analyzer for collecting and measuring the four Xe radionuclides, 131m Xe(11.9 d), 133m Xe(2.19 d), 133 Xe (5.24 d), and 135 Xe(9.10 h), in the atmosphere. These radionuclides are important signatures in monitoring for compliance to a CTBT. Activity ratios permit discriminating radioxenon from nuclear detonation and that from nuclear reactor operations, nuclear fuel reprocessing, or medical isotope production and usage. In the analyzer, Xe is continuously and automatically separated from the atmosphere at flow rates of about 7 m 3 /h on sorption bed. Aliquots collected for 6-12 h are automatically analyzed by electron-photon coincidence spectrometry to produce sensitivities in the range of 20-100 μBq/m 3 of air, about 100-fold better than with reported laboratory-based procedures for short time collection intervals. Spectral data are automatically analyzed and the calculated radioxenon concentrations and raw gamma- ray spectra automatically transmitted to data centers

  7. Dynamic spatial coding within the dorsal frontoparietal network during a visual search task.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wieland H Sommer

    Full Text Available To what extent are the left and right visual hemifields spatially coded in the dorsal frontoparietal attention network? In many experiments with neglect patients, the left hemisphere shows a contralateral hemifield preference, whereas the right hemisphere represents both hemifields. This pattern of spatial coding is often used to explain the right-hemispheric dominance of lesions causing hemispatial neglect. However, pathophysiological mechanisms of hemispatial neglect are controversial because recent experiments on healthy subjects produced conflicting results regarding the spatial coding of visual hemifields. We used an fMRI paradigm that allowed us to distinguish two attentional subprocesses during a visual search task. Either within the left or right hemifield subjects first attended to stationary locations (spatial orienting and then shifted their attentional focus to search for a target line. Dynamic changes in spatial coding of the left and right hemifields were observed within subregions of the dorsal front-parietal network: During stationary spatial orienting, we found the well-known spatial pattern described above, with a bilateral hemifield representation in the right hemisphere and a contralateral preference in the left hemisphere. However, during search, the right hemisphere had a contralateral preference and the left hemisphere equally represented both hemifields. This finding leads to novel perspectives regarding models of visuospatial attention and hemispatial neglect.

  8. Altered resting state connectivity in right side frontoparietal network in primary insomnia patients

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li, Shumei; Tian, Junzhang; Li, Meng; Wang, Tianyue; Lin, Chulan; Yin, Yi; Jiang, Guihua [Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital, Department of Medical Imaging, Guangzhou (China); Zeng, Luxian [Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital, Department of Science and Education, Guangzhou (China); Li, Cheng [Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital, Department of Renal Transplantation, Guangzhou (China)

    2018-02-15

    This study investigated alterations of resting-state networks (RSNs) in primary insomnia patients as well as relationships between these changes and clinical features. Fifty-nine primary insomnia patients and 53 healthy control subjects underwent a resting-state fMRI scan (rs-fMRI). Ten RSNs were identified using independent component analysis of rs-fMRI data. To assess significant differences between the two groups, voxel-wise analysis of ten RSNs was conducted using dual regression with FSL randomised non-parametric permutation testing and a threshold-free cluster enhanced technique to control for multiple comparisons. Relationships between abnormal functional connectivity and clinical variables were then investigated with Pearson's correlation analysis. Primary insomnia patients showed decreased connectivity in regions of the right frontoparietal network (FPN), including the superior parietal lobule and superior frontal gyrus. Moreover, decreased connectivity in the right middle temporal gyrus and right lateral occipital cortex with the FPN showed significant positive correlations with disease duration and self-rated anxiety, respectively. Our study suggests that primary insomnia patients are characterised by abnormal organisation of the right FPN, and dysfunction of the FPN is correlated with disease duration and anxiety. The results enhance our understanding of neural substrates underlying symptoms of primary insomnia from the viewpoint of resting-state networks. (orig.)

  9. Altered resting state connectivity in right side frontoparietal network in primary insomnia patients

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li, Shumei; Tian, Junzhang; Li, Meng; Wang, Tianyue; Lin, Chulan; Yin, Yi; Jiang, Guihua; Zeng, Luxian; Li, Cheng

    2018-01-01

    This study investigated alterations of resting-state networks (RSNs) in primary insomnia patients as well as relationships between these changes and clinical features. Fifty-nine primary insomnia patients and 53 healthy control subjects underwent a resting-state fMRI scan (rs-fMRI). Ten RSNs were identified using independent component analysis of rs-fMRI data. To assess significant differences between the two groups, voxel-wise analysis of ten RSNs was conducted using dual regression with FSL randomised non-parametric permutation testing and a threshold-free cluster enhanced technique to control for multiple comparisons. Relationships between abnormal functional connectivity and clinical variables were then investigated with Pearson's correlation analysis. Primary insomnia patients showed decreased connectivity in regions of the right frontoparietal network (FPN), including the superior parietal lobule and superior frontal gyrus. Moreover, decreased connectivity in the right middle temporal gyrus and right lateral occipital cortex with the FPN showed significant positive correlations with disease duration and self-rated anxiety, respectively. Our study suggests that primary insomnia patients are characterised by abnormal organisation of the right FPN, and dysfunction of the FPN is correlated with disease duration and anxiety. The results enhance our understanding of neural substrates underlying symptoms of primary insomnia from the viewpoint of resting-state networks. (orig.)

  10. Automatic sweep circuit

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Keefe, D.J.

    1980-01-01

    An automatically sweeping circuit for searching for an evoked response in an output signal in time with respect to a trigger input is described. Digital counters are used to activate a detector at precise intervals, and monitoring is repeated for statistical accuracy. If the response is not found then a different time window is examined until the signal is found

  11. Automatic classification of background EEG activity in healthy and sick neonates

    Science.gov (United States)

    Löfhede, Johan; Thordstein, Magnus; Löfgren, Nils; Flisberg, Anders; Rosa-Zurera, Manuel; Kjellmer, Ingemar; Lindecrantz, Kaj

    2010-02-01

    The overall aim of our research is to develop methods for a monitoring system to be used at neonatal intensive care units. When monitoring a baby, a range of different types of background activity needs to be considered. In this work, we have developed a scheme for automatic classification of background EEG activity in newborn babies. EEG from six full-term babies who were displaying a burst suppression pattern while suffering from the after-effects of asphyxia during birth was included along with EEG from 20 full-term healthy newborn babies. The signals from the healthy babies were divided into four behavioural states: active awake, quiet awake, active sleep and quiet sleep. By using a number of features extracted from the EEG together with Fisher's linear discriminant classifier we have managed to achieve 100% correct classification when separating burst suppression EEG from all four healthy EEG types and 93% true positive classification when separating quiet sleep from the other types. The other three sleep stages could not be classified. When the pathological burst suppression pattern was detected, the analysis was taken one step further and the signal was segmented into burst and suppression, allowing clinically relevant parameters such as suppression length and burst suppression ratio to be calculated. The segmentation of the burst suppression EEG works well, with a probability of error around 4%.

  12. Automatic reference selection for quantitative EEG interpretation: identification of diffuse/localised activity and the active earlobe reference, iterative detection of the distribution of EEG rhythms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Bei; Wang, Xingyu; Ikeda, Akio; Nagamine, Takashi; Shibasaki, Hiroshi; Nakamura, Masatoshi

    2014-01-01

    EEG (Electroencephalograph) interpretation is important for the diagnosis of neurological disorders. The proper adjustment of the montage can highlight the EEG rhythm of interest and avoid false interpretation. The aim of this study was to develop an automatic reference selection method to identify a suitable reference. The results may contribute to the accurate inspection of the distribution of EEG rhythms for quantitative EEG interpretation. The method includes two pre-judgements and one iterative detection module. The diffuse case is initially identified by pre-judgement 1 when intermittent rhythmic waveforms occur over large areas along the scalp. The earlobe reference or averaged reference is adopted for the diffuse case due to the effect of the earlobe reference depending on pre-judgement 2. An iterative detection algorithm is developed for the localised case when the signal is distributed in a small area of the brain. The suitable averaged reference is finally determined based on the detected focal and distributed electrodes. The presented technique was applied to the pathological EEG recordings of nine patients. One example of the diffuse case is introduced by illustrating the results of the pre-judgements. The diffusely intermittent rhythmic slow wave is identified. The effect of active earlobe reference is analysed. Two examples of the localised case are presented, indicating the results of the iterative detection module. The focal and distributed electrodes are detected automatically during the repeating algorithm. The identification of diffuse and localised activity was satisfactory compared with the visual inspection. The EEG rhythm of interest can be highlighted using a suitable selected reference. The implementation of an automatic reference selection method is helpful to detect the distribution of an EEG rhythm, which can improve the accuracy of EEG interpretation during both visual inspection and automatic interpretation. Copyright © 2013 IPEM

  13. The development of an automatic sample-changer and control instrumentation for isotope-source neutron-activation analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Andeweg, A.H.; Watterson, J.I.W.

    1983-01-01

    An automatic sample-changer was developed at the Council for Mineral Technology for use in isotope-source neutron-activation analysis. Tests show that the sample-changer can transfer a sample of up to 3 kg in mass over a distance of 3 m within 5 s. In addition, instrumentation in the form of a three-stage sequential timer was developed to control the sequence of irradiation transfer and analysis

  14. Application of semi-active RFID power meter in automatic verification pipeline and intelligent storage system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Xiangqun; Huang, Rui; Shen, Liman; chen, Hao; Xiong, Dezhi; Xiao, Xiangqi; Liu, Mouhai; Xu, Renheng

    2018-03-01

    In this paper, the semi-active RFID watt-hour meter is applied to automatic test lines and intelligent warehouse management, from the transmission system, test system and auxiliary system, monitoring system, realize the scheduling of watt-hour meter, binding, control and data exchange, and other functions, make its more accurate positioning, high efficiency of management, update the data quickly, all the information at a glance. Effectively improve the quality, efficiency and automation of verification, and realize more efficient data management and warehouse management.

  15. Automatic and Deliberate Affective Associations with Sexual Stimuli in Women with Superficial Dyspareunia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Brauer, Marieke; de Jong, Peter J.; Huijding, Jorg; Laan, Ellen; ter Kuile, Moniek M.

    Current views suggest that in women with superficial dyspareunia the prospect of penile-vaginal intercourse automatically activates fear-related associations. The automatic activation of negative associations is assumed to interfere with the development of sexual arousal. In turn, this may further

  16. Automatic video surveillance of outdoor scenes using track before detect

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Morten; Sørensen, Helge Bjarup Dissing; Birkemark, Christian M.

    2005-01-01

    This paper concerns automatic video surveillance of outdoor scenes using a single camera. The first step in automatic interpretation of the video stream is activity detection based on background subtraction. Usually, this process will generate a large number of false alarms in outdoor scenes due...

  17. Modulation of brain activity during action observation: influence of perspective, transitivity and meaningfulness.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sébastien Hétu

    Full Text Available The coupling process between observed and performed actions is thought to be performed by a fronto-parietal perception-action system including regions of the inferior frontal gyrus and the inferior parietal lobule. When investigating the influence of the movements' characteristics on this process, most research on action observation has focused on only one particular variable even though the type of movements we observe can vary on several levels. By manipulating the visual perspective, transitivity and meaningfulness of observed movements in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study we aimed at investigating how the type of movements and the visual perspective can modulate brain activity during action observation in healthy individuals. Importantly, we used an active observation task where participants had to subsequently execute or imagine the observed movements. Our results show that the fronto-parietal regions of the perception action system were mostly recruited during the observation of meaningless actions while visual perspective had little influence on the activity within the perception-action system. Simultaneous investigation of several sources of modulation during active action observation is probably an approach that could lead to a greater ecological comprehension of this important sensorimotor process.

  18. 'Becquerel screening' device to automatically measure activity level of contaminated soil in flexible containers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Okada, Hisashi; Yamaguchi, Yoshihisa; Yamamoto, Shuji

    2014-01-01

    Contaminated soil and incineration ash collected during offsite decontamination work following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station of Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc. is being stored in flexible containers. These containers are managed taking their activity level into account in accordance with the Decontamination Guidelines issued by the Ministry of the Environment. Toshiba has developed the 'Becquerel Screening' device that can automatically measure the activity level of the contents of each flexible container simply by placing the container on a palette, without the need to take samples for analysis from the container. The Becquerel Screening device is expected to contribute not only to improved operational efficiency but also to reduced exposure of operators to radiation, because it eliminates the need for direct contact with contaminated soil and ash. (author)

  19. Preventing SQL Injection through Automatic Query Sanitization with ASSIST

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raymond Mui

    2010-09-01

    Full Text Available Web applications are becoming an essential part of our everyday lives. Many of our activities are dependent on the functionality and security of these applications. As the scale of these applications grows, injection vulnerabilities such as SQL injection are major security challenges for developers today. This paper presents the technique of automatic query sanitization to automatically remove SQL injection vulnerabilities in code. In our technique, a combination of static analysis and program transformation are used to automatically instrument web applications with sanitization code. We have implemented this technique in a tool named ASSIST (Automatic and Static SQL Injection Sanitization Tool for protecting Java-based web applications. Our experimental evaluation showed that our technique is effective against SQL injection vulnerabilities and has a low overhead.

  20. Functional Connectivity in Frontoparietal Network: Indicator of Preoperative Cognitive Function and Cognitive Outcome Following Surgery in Patients with Glioma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lang, Stefan; Gaxiola-Valdez, Ismael; Opoku-Darko, Michael; Partlo, Lisa A; Goodyear, Bradley G; Kelly, John J P; Federico, Paolo

    2017-09-01

    Patients with diffuse glioma are known to have impaired cognitive functions preoperatively. However, the mechanism of these cognitive deficits remains unclear. Resting-state functional connectivity in the frontoparietal network (FPN) is associated with cognitive performance in healthy subjects. For this reason, it was hypothesized that functional connectivity of the FPN would be related to cognitive functioning in patients with glioma. To assess this relationship, preoperative cognitive status was correlated to patient-specific connectivity within the FPN. Further, we assessed whether connectivity could predict neuropsychologic outcome following surgery. Sixteen patients with diffuse glioma underwent neuropsychologic assessment and preoperative functional magnetic resonance imaging using task (n-back) and resting-state scans. Thirteen patients had postoperative cognitive assessment. An index of patient-specific functional connectivity in the FPN was derived by averaging connectivity values between 2 prefrontal and 2 parietal cortex regions defined by activation during the n-back task. The relationship of these indices with cognitive performance was assessed. Higher average connectivity within the FPN is associated with lower composite cognitive scores. Higher connectivity of the parietal region of the tumor-affected hemisphere is associated specifically with lower fluid cognition. Lower connectivity of the parietal region of the nontumor hemisphere is associated with worse neuropsychologic outcome 1 month after surgery. Resting-state functional connectivity between key regions of the FPN is associated with cognitive performance in patients with glioma and is related to cognitive outcome following surgery. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. A full automatic system controlled with IBM-PC/XT micro-computer for neutron activation analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Song Quanxun

    1992-01-01

    A full automatic system controlled with micro-computers for NAA is described. All processes are automatically completed with an IBM-PC/XT micro-computer. The device is stable, reliable, flexible and convenient for use and has many functions and applications in automatical analysis of long, middle and short lived nuclides. Due to a high working efficiency of the instrument and micro-computers, both time and power can be saved. This method can be applied in other nuclear analysis techniques

  2. Automatic differentiation bibliography

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Corliss, G.F. [comp.

    1992-07-01

    This is a bibliography of work related to automatic differentiation. Automatic differentiation is a technique for the fast, accurate propagation of derivative values using the chain rule. It is neither symbolic nor numeric. Automatic differentiation is a fundamental tool for scientific computation, with applications in optimization, nonlinear equations, nonlinear least squares approximation, stiff ordinary differential equation, partial differential equations, continuation methods, and sensitivity analysis. This report is an updated version of the bibliography which originally appeared in Automatic Differentiation of Algorithms: Theory, Implementation, and Application.

  3. RISK DECREASE PROBLEM WITH MAKING ERRORS IN ACTIVITY OF OPERATORS DEALING WITH AUTOMATIC CONTROL SYSTEMS OF GAS-DISTRIBUTION STATIONS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. V. Egorov

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper contains an analysis of specific features pertaining to the activity of operators dealing with automatic control systems of gas-distribution stations. The professional operator’s activity is presented in the form of the developed data model. Possible conceptual approaches to the research are analyzed in the paper. The paper describes an author’s approach to studying a risk decrease problem in the activity of operators on the basis of the analytical research results. Technology for obtaining  research results is cited in the paper. 

  4. Automatic interpretation and writing report of the adult waking electroencephalogram.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shibasaki, Hiroshi; Nakamura, Masatoshi; Sugi, Takenao; Nishida, Shigeto; Nagamine, Takashi; Ikeda, Akio

    2014-06-01

    Automatic interpretation of the EEG has so far been faced with significant difficulties because of a large amount of spatial as well as temporal information contained in the EEG, continuous fluctuation of the background activity depending on changes in the subject's vigilance and attention level, the occurrence of paroxysmal activities such as spikes and spike-and-slow-waves, contamination of the EEG with a variety of artefacts and the use of different recording electrodes and montages. Therefore, previous attempts of automatic EEG interpretation have been focussed only on a specific EEG feature such as paroxysmal abnormalities, delta waves, sleep stages and artefact detection. As a result of a long-standing cooperation between clinical neurophysiologists and system engineers, we report for the first time on a comprehensive, computer-assisted, automatic interpretation of the adult waking EEG. This system analyses the background activity, intermittent abnormalities, artefacts and the level of vigilance and attention of the subject, and automatically presents its report in written form. Besides, it also detects paroxysmal abnormalities and evaluates the effects of intermittent photic stimulation and hyperventilation on the EEG. This system of automatic EEG interpretation was formed by adopting the strategy that the qualified EEGers employ for the systematic visual inspection. This system can be used as a supplementary tool for the EEGer's visual inspection, and for educating EEG trainees and EEG technicians. Copyright © 2014 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Influencing food choices by training: evidence for modulation of frontoparietal control signals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schonberg, Tom; Bakkour, Akram; Hover, Ashleigh M; Mumford, Jeanette A; Poldrack, Russell A

    2014-02-01

    To overcome unhealthy behaviors, one must be able to make better choices. Changing food preferences is an important strategy in addressing the obesity epidemic and its accompanying public health risks. However, little is known about how food preferences can be effectively affected and what neural systems support such changes. In this study, we investigated a novel extensive training paradigm where participants chose from specific pairs of palatable junk food items and were rewarded for choosing the items with lower subjective value over higher value ones. In a later probe phase, when choices were made for real consumption, participants chose the lower-valued item more often in the trained pairs compared with untrained pairs. We replicated the behavioral results in an independent sample of participants while they were scanned with fMRI. We found that, as training progressed, there was decreased recruitment of regions that have been previously associated with cognitive control, specifically the left dorsolateral pFC and bilateral parietal cortices. Furthermore, we found that connectivity of the left dorsolateral pFC was greater with primary motor regions by the end of training for choices of lower-valued items that required exertion of self-control, suggesting a formation of a stronger stimulus-response association. These findings demonstrate that it is possible to influence food choices through training and that this training is associated with a decreasing need for top-down frontoparietal control. The results suggest that training paradigms may be promising as the basis for interventions to influence real-world food preferences.

  6. Changes of functional connectivity in the left frontoparietal network following aphasic stroke

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dan eZhu

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Language is an essential higher cognitive function supported by large-scale brain networks. In this study, we investigated functional connectivity changes in the left frontoparietal network (LFPN, a language-cognition related brain network in aphasic patients. We enrolled thirteen aphasic patients who had undergone a stroke in the left hemisphere and age-, gender-, educational level-matched controls and analyzed the data by integrating independent component analysis (ICA with a network connectivity analysis method. Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI and clinical evaluation of language function were assessed at two stages: one and two months after stroke onset. We found reduced functional connectivity between the LFPN and the right middle frontal cortex, medial frontal cortex and right inferior frontal cortex in aphasic patients as compared to controls. Correlation analysis showed that stronger functional connectivity between the LFPN and the right middle frontal cortex and medial frontal cortex coincided with more preserved language comprehension ability after stroke. Network connectivity analysis showed reduced LFPN connectivity as indicated by the mean network connectivity index of key regions in the LFPN of aphasic patients. The decreased LFPN connectivity in stroke patients was significantly associated with the impairment of language function in their comprehension ability. We also found significant association between recovery of comprehension ability and the mean changes in intrinsic LFPN connectivity. Our findings suggest that brain lesions may influence language comprehension by altering functional connectivity between regions and that the patterns of abnormal functional connectivity may contribute to the recovery of language deficits.

  7. Robot-assisted automatic ultrasound calibration.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aalamifar, Fereshteh; Cheng, Alexis; Kim, Younsu; Hu, Xiao; Zhang, Haichong K; Guo, Xiaoyu; Boctor, Emad M

    2016-10-01

    Ultrasound (US) calibration is the process of determining the unknown transformation from a coordinate frame such as the robot's tooltip to the US image frame and is a necessary task for any robotic or tracked US system. US calibration requires submillimeter-range accuracy for most applications, but it is a time-consuming and repetitive task. We provide a new framework for automatic US calibration with robot assistance and without the need for temporal calibration. US calibration based on active echo (AE) phantom was previously proposed, and its superiority over conventional cross-wire phantom-based calibration was shown. In this work, we use AE to guide the robotic arm motion through the process of data collection; we combine the capability of the AE point to localize itself in the frame of the US image with the automatic motion of the robotic arm to provide a framework for calibrating the arm to the US image automatically. We demonstrated the efficacy of the automated method compared to the manual method through experiments. To highlight the necessity of frequent ultrasound calibration, it is demonstrated that the calibration precision changed from 1.67 to 3.20 mm if the data collection is not repeated after a dismounting/mounting of the probe holder. In a large data set experiment, similar reconstruction precision of automatic and manual data collection was observed, while the time was reduced by 58 %. In addition, we compared ten automatic calibrations with ten manual ones, each performed in 15 min, and showed that all the automatic ones could converge in the case of setting the initial matrix as identity, while this was not achieved by manual data sets. Given the same initial matrix, the repeatability of the automatic was [0.46, 0.34, 0.80, 0.47] versus [0.42, 0.51, 0.98, 1.15] mm in the manual case for the US image four corners. The submillimeter accuracy requirement of US calibration makes frequent data collections unavoidable. We proposed an automated

  8. When abuse primes addiction - automatic activation of alcohol concepts by child maltreatment related cues in emotionally abused alcoholics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Potthast, Nadine; Neuner, Frank; Catani, Claudia

    2015-09-01

    Recent research indicates that there is a link between emotional maltreatment and alcohol dependence (AD), but the underlying mechanisms still need to be clarified. There is reason to assume that maltreatment related cues automatically activate an associative memory network comprising cues eliciting craving as well as alcohol-related responses. The current study aimed to examine this network in AD patients who experienced emotional abuse using a priming paradigm. A specific priming effect in emotionally abused AD subjects was hypothesized for maltreatment related words that preceded alcohol related words. 49 AD subjects (n=14 with emotional abuse vs. n=35 without emotional abuse) and 34 control subjects performed a priming task with maltreatment related and neutral prime words combined with alcohol related and neutral target words. Maltreatment related words consisted of socially and physically threatening words. As hypothesized, a specific priming effect for socially threatening and physically threatening cues was found only in AD subjects with emotional abuse. The present data are the first to provide evidence that child maltreatment related cues automatically activate an associative memory network in alcoholics with emotional abuse experiences. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Neural bases of selective attention in action video game players.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bavelier, D; Achtman, R L; Mani, M; Föcker, J

    2012-05-15

    Over the past few years, the very act of playing action video games has been shown to enhance several different aspects of visual selective attention, yet little is known about the neural mechanisms that mediate such attentional benefits. A review of the aspects of attention enhanced in action game players suggests there are changes in the mechanisms that control attention allocation and its efficiency (Hubert-Wallander, Green, & Bavelier, 2010). The present study used brain imaging to test this hypothesis by comparing attentional network recruitment and distractor processing in action gamers versus non-gamers as attentional demands increased. Moving distractors were found to elicit lesser activation of the visual motion-sensitive area (MT/MST) in gamers as compared to non-gamers, suggestive of a better early filtering of irrelevant information in gamers. As expected, a fronto-parietal network of areas showed greater recruitment as attentional demands increased in non-gamers. In contrast, gamers barely engaged this network as attentional demands increased. This reduced activity in the fronto-parietal network that is hypothesized to control the flexible allocation of top-down attention is compatible with the proposal that action game players may allocate attentional resources more automatically, possibly allowing more efficient early filtering of irrelevant information. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Different Roles of Direct and Indirect Frontoparietal Pathways for Individual Working Memory Capacity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ekman, Matthias; Fiebach, Christian J; Melzer, Corina; Tittgemeyer, Marc; Derrfuss, Jan

    2016-03-09

    The ability to temporarily store and manipulate information in working memory is a hallmark of human intelligence and differs considerably across individuals, but the structural brain correlates underlying these differences in working memory capacity (WMC) are only poorly understood. In two separate studies, diffusion MRI data and WMC scores were collected for 70 and 109 healthy individuals. Using a combination of probabilistic tractography and network analysis of the white matter tracts, we examined whether structural brain network properties were predictive of individual WMC. Converging evidence from both studies showed that lateral prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex of high-capacity individuals are more densely connected compared with low-capacity individuals. Importantly, our network approach was further able to dissociate putative functional roles associated with two different pathways connecting frontal and parietal regions: a corticocortical pathway and a subcortical pathway. In Study 1, where participants were required to maintain and update working memory items, the connectivity of the direct and indirect pathway was predictive of WMC. In contrast, in Study 2, where participants were required to maintain working memory items without updating, only the connectivity of the direct pathway was predictive of individual WMC. Our results suggest an important dissociation in the circuitry connecting frontal and parietal regions, where direct frontoparietal connections might support storage and maintenance, whereas subcortically mediated connections support the flexible updating of working memory content. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/362894-10$15.00/0.

  11. Temporo-Parietal and Fronto-Parietal Lobe Contributions to Theory of Mind and Executive Control: An fMRI Study of Verbal Jokes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yu-Chen eChan

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available ‘Getting a joke’ always requires resolving an apparent incongruity but the particular cognitive operations called upon vary depending on the nature of the joke itself. Previous research has identified the primary neural correlates of the cognitive and affective processes called upon to respond to humor generally, but little work has been done on the substrates underlying the distinct cognitive operations required to comprehend particular joke types. This study explored the neural correlates of the cognitive processes required to successfully comprehend three joke types: bridging-inference jokes, exaggeration jokes and ambiguity jokes. For all joke types, the left dlPFC appeared to support common cognitive mechanisms, such as script-shifting, while the vACC was associated with affective appreciation. The temporo-parietal lobe (TPJ and MTG was associated with bridging-inference jokes, suggesting involvement of these regions with ‘theory of mind’ processing. The ventral fronto-parietal lobe (IPL and IFG was associated with both exaggeration and ambiguity jokes, suggesting that it supports executive control processes such as retrieval from episodic memory, self-awareness, and language-based decoding. The social-affective appreciation of verbal jokes was associated with activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vACC, and parahippocampal gyrus. These results allow a more precise account of the neural

  12. Neural network for automatic analysis of motility data

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jakobsen, Erik; Kruse-Andersen, S; Kolberg, Jens Godsk

    1994-01-01

    comparable. However, the neural network recognized pressure peaks clearly generated by muscular activity that had escaped detection by the conventional program. In conclusion, we believe that neurocomputing has potential advantages for automatic analysis of gastrointestinal motility data.......Continuous recording of intraluminal pressures for extended periods of time is currently regarded as a valuable method for detection of esophageal motor abnormalities. A subsequent automatic analysis of the resulting motility data relies on strict mathematical criteria for recognition of pressure...

  13. Automatic assessment of cardiac perfusion MRI

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ólafsdóttir, Hildur; Stegmann, Mikkel Bille; Larsson, Henrik B.W.

    2004-01-01

    In this paper, a method based on Active Appearance Models (AAM) is applied for automatic registration of myocardial perfusion MRI. A semi-quantitative perfusion assessment of the registered image sequences is presented. This includes the formation of perfusion maps for three parameters; maximum up...

  14. CLG for Automatic Image Segmentation

    OpenAIRE

    Christo Ananth; S.Santhana Priya; S.Manisha; T.Ezhil Jothi; M.S.Ramasubhaeswari

    2017-01-01

    This paper proposes an automatic segmentation method which effectively combines Active Contour Model, Live Wire method and Graph Cut approach (CLG). The aim of Live wire method is to provide control to the user on segmentation process during execution. Active Contour Model provides a statistical model of object shape and appearance to a new image which are built during a training phase. In the graph cut technique, each pixel is represented as a node and the distance between those nodes is rep...

  15. An information theory account of late frontoparietal ERP positivities in cognitive control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barceló, Francisco; Cooper, Patrick S

    2018-03-01

    ERP research on task switching has revealed distinct transient and sustained positive waveforms (latency circa 300-900 ms) while shifting task rules or stimulus-response (S-R) mappings. However, it remains unclear whether such switch-related positivities show similar scalp topography and index context-updating mechanisms akin to those posed for domain-general (i.e., classic P300) positivities in many task domains. To examine this question, ERPs were recorded from 31 young adults (18-30 years) while they were intermittently cued to switch or repeat their perceptual categorization of Gabor gratings varying in color and thickness (switch task), or else they performed two visually identical control tasks (go/no-go and oddball). Our task cueing paradigm examined two temporarily distinct stages of proactive rule updating and reactive rule execution. A simple information theory model helped us gauge cognitive demands under distinct temporal and task contexts in terms of low-level S-R pathways and higher-order rule updating operations. Task demands modulated domain-general (indexed by classic oddball P3) and switch positivities-indexed by both a cue-locked late positive complex and a sustained positivity ensuing task transitions. Topographic scalp analyses confirmed subtle yet significant split-second changes in the configuration of neural sources for both domain-general P3s and switch positivities as a function of both the temporal and task context. These findings partly meet predictions from information estimates, and are compatible with a family of P3-like potentials indexing functionally distinct neural operations within a common frontoparietal "multiple demand" system during the preparation and execution of simple task rules. © 2016 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

  16. Automatic Fiscal Stabilizers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Narcis Eduard Mitu

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available Policies or institutions (built into an economic system that automatically tend to dampen economic cycle fluctuations in income, employment, etc., without direct government intervention. For example, in boom times, progressive income tax automatically reduces money supply as incomes and spendings rise. Similarly, in recessionary times, payment of unemployment benefits injects more money in the system and stimulates demand. Also called automatic stabilizers or built-in stabilizers.

  17. Physics of Automatic Target Recognition

    CERN Document Server

    Sadjadi, Firooz

    2007-01-01

    Physics of Automatic Target Recognition addresses the fundamental physical bases of sensing, and information extraction in the state-of-the art automatic target recognition field. It explores both passive and active multispectral sensing, polarimetric diversity, complex signature exploitation, sensor and processing adaptation, transformation of electromagnetic and acoustic waves in their interactions with targets, background clutter, transmission media, and sensing elements. The general inverse scattering, and advanced signal processing techniques and scientific evaluation methodologies being used in this multi disciplinary field will be part of this exposition. The issues of modeling of target signatures in various spectral modalities, LADAR, IR, SAR, high resolution radar, acoustic, seismic, visible, hyperspectral, in diverse geometric aspects will be addressed. The methods for signal processing and classification will cover concepts such as sensor adaptive and artificial neural networks, time reversal filt...

  18. Putting age-related task activation into large-scale brain networks: A meta-analysis of 114 fMRI studies on healthy aging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Hui-Jie; Hou, Xiao-Hui; Liu, Han-Hui; Yue, Chun-Lin; Lu, Guang-Ming; Zuo, Xi-Nian

    2015-10-01

    Normal aging is associated with cognitive decline and underlying brain dysfunction. Previous studies concentrated less on brain network changes at a systems level. Our goal was to examine these age-related changes of fMRI-derived activation with a common network parcellation of the human brain function, offering a systems-neuroscience perspective of healthy aging. We conducted a series of meta-analyses on a total of 114 studies that included 2035 older adults and 1845 young adults. Voxels showing significant age-related changes in activation were then overlaid onto seven commonly referenced neuronal networks. Older adults present moderate cognitive decline in behavioral performance during fMRI scanning, and hypo-activate the visual network and hyper-activate both the frontoparietal control and default mode networks. The degree of increased activation in frontoparietal network was associated with behavioral performance in older adults. Age-related changes in activation present different network patterns across cognitive domains. The systems neuroscience approach used here may be useful for elucidating the underlying network mechanisms of various brain plasticity processes during healthy aging. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  19. Do means-end chains exist? Experimental tests of their hierarchicity, automatic spreading activation, directionality, and self-relevance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Scholderer, Joachim; Grunert, Klaus G.

    2004-01-01

    , bidirectionality, and self-relevance. The predictions were tested in altogether six experiments, using the same basic methodology. Two sessions were held with each participant. In a pilot session, a set of conventional MEC representations was elicited from each participant using the laddering technique. From......Despite its popularity in consumer research, means-end chain (MEC) theory suffers from problems of unconfirmed validity. Theoretically, MECs can be cast as associative networks with a three-layered structure that should exhibit four properties: hierarchicity, automatic spreading activation...

  20. Alteration of basal ganglia and right frontoparietal network in early drug-naïve Parkinson’s disease during heat pain stimuli and resting state

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ying eTan

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Background: The symptoms and pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD are complicated and accurate diagnosis is difficult, particularly in early-stage. Functional magnetic resonance imaging is noninvasive and characterized by the integration of different brain areas at functional connectivity (FC. Considering pain process in PD, we hypothesized that pain is one of the earliest symptoms and investigated whether FC of the pain network was disrupted in PD without pain.Methods: Fourteen early drug-naïve PD without pain and 17 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HC participated in our test. We investigate abnormalities in FC and in functional network connectivity in PD compared with HC during the task (51 °C heat pain stimuli and at rest.Results: Compared with HC, PD showed decreased FC in basal ganglia network (BGN, salience network (SN and sensorimotor network in two states respectively. FNC between the BGN and the SN are reduced during both states in PD compared with HC. In addition, the FNC associated with right frontoparietal network (RFPN was also significantly disturbed during the task.Conclusion: These findings suggest that BGN plays a role in the pathological mechanisms of pain underlying PD, and RFPN likely contributes greatly to harmonization between intrinsic brain activity and external stimuli.

  1. Retraining of automatic action tendencies in individuals with obesity : A randomized controlled trial

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ferentzi, H.; Scheibner, H.; Wiers, R.; Becker, E.S.; Lindenmeyer, J.; Beisel, S.; Rinck, M.

    2018-01-01

    Obesity is a major health concern, characterized by an automatically activated tendency to (over)-eat. Recent research suggests that an effective way to counteract automatic approach tendencies in unhealthy consumption behavior might be approach bias modification. Therefore, we investigated an

  2. Analysis of automobile’s automatic control systems for the hill climbing start

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Valeriy I. Klimenko

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available To improve road safety while driving on the rise, facilitating the driver’s activity the automobile industry leaders are introducing automatic hill-hold control systems into the car design. This study purpose relates to the existing automatic start control systems’ design analysis. Analyzed are the existing design developments of automatic hill start assist control systems applied for driving at the start of the climbing. The effected research allows to select the scheme for further development of start driving automatic control systems. Further improvement of driving control systems and primarily the driver assistance hill-hold control systems is necessary to increase both the driving comfort and the traffic safety.

  3. Very Portable Remote Automatic Weather Stations

    Science.gov (United States)

    John R. Warren

    1987-01-01

    Remote Automatic Weather Stations (RAWS) were introduced to Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management field units in 1978 following development, test, and evaluation activities conducted jointly by the two agencies. The original configuration was designed for semi-permanent installation. Subsequently, a need for a more portable RAWS was expressed, and one was...

  4. Finding weak points automatically

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Archinger, P.; Wassenberg, M.

    1999-01-01

    Operators of nuclear power stations have to carry out material tests at selected components by regular intervalls. Therefore a full automaticated test, which achieves a clearly higher reproducibility, compared to part automaticated variations, would provide a solution. In addition the full automaticated test reduces the dose of radiation for the test person. (orig.) [de

  5. Stable and variable affordances are both automatic and flexible

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna M Borghi

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available The mere observation of pictures or words referring to manipulable objects is sufficient to evoke their affordances since objects and their nouns elicit components of appropriate motor programs associated with object interaction. While nobody doubts that objects actually evoke motor information, the degree of automaticity of this activation has been recently disputed. Recent evidence has indeed revealed that affordances activation is flexibly modulated by the task and by the physical and social context. It is therefore crucial to understand whether these results challenge previous evidence showing that motor information is activated independently from the task. The context and the task can indeed act as an early or late filter. We will review recent data consistent with the notion that objects automatically elicit multiple affordances and that top-down processes select among them probably inhibiting motor information that is not consistent with behaviour goals. We will therefore argue that automaticity and flexibility of affordances are not in conflict. We will also discuss how language can incorporate affordances showing similarities, but also differences, between the motor information elicited by vision and language. Finally we will show how the distinction between stable and variable affordances can accommodate all these effects.

  6. The automatic component of habit in health behavior: habit as cue-contingent automaticity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Orbell, Sheina; Verplanken, Bas

    2010-07-01

    Habit might be usefully characterized as a form of automaticity that involves the association of a cue and a response. Three studies examined habitual automaticity in regard to different aspects of the cue-response relationship characteristic of unhealthy and healthy habits. In each study, habitual automaticity was assessed by the Self-Report Habit Index (SRHI). In Study 1 SRHI scores correlated with attentional bias to smoking cues in a Stroop task. Study 2 examined the ability of a habit cue to elicit an unwanted habit response. In a prospective field study, habitual automaticity in relation to smoking when drinking alcohol in a licensed public house (pub) predicted the likelihood of cigarette-related action slips 2 months later after smoking in pubs had become illegal. In Study 3 experimental group participants formed an implementation intention to floss in response to a specified situational cue. Habitual automaticity of dental flossing was rapidly enhanced compared to controls. The studies provided three different demonstrations of the importance of cues in the automatic operation of habits. Habitual automaticity assessed by the SRHI captured aspects of a habit that go beyond mere frequency or consistency of the behavior. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

  7. Semi-Automatic Rating Method for Neutrophil Alkaline Phosphatase Activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sugano, Kanae; Hashi, Kotomi; Goto, Misaki; Nishi, Kiyotaka; Maeda, Rie; Kono, Keigo; Yamamoto, Mai; Okada, Kazunori; Kaga, Sanae; Miwa, Keiko; Mikami, Taisei; Masauzi, Nobuo

    2017-01-01

    The neutrophil alkaline phosphatase (NAP) score is a valuable test for the diagnosis of myeloproliferative neoplasms, but it has still manually rated. Therefore, we developed a semi-automatic rating method using Photoshop ® and Image-J, called NAP-PS-IJ. Neutrophil alkaline phosphatase staining was conducted with Tomonaga's method to films of peripheral blood taken from three healthy volunteers. At least 30 neutrophils with NAP scores from 0 to 5+ were observed and taken their images. From which the outer part of neutrophil was removed away with Image-J. These were binarized with two different procedures (P1 and P2) using Photoshop ® . NAP-positive area (NAP-PA) and granule (NAP-PGC) were measured and counted with Image-J. The NAP-PA in images binarized with P1 significantly (P < 0.05) differed between images with NAP scores from 0 to 3+ (group 1) and those from 4+ to 5+ (group 2). The original images in group 1 were binarized with P2. NAP-PGC of them significantly (P < 0.05) differed among all four NAP score groups. The mean NAP-PGC with NAP-PS-IJ indicated a good correlation (r = 0.92, P < 0.001) to results by human examiners. The sensitivity and specificity of NAP-PS-IJ were 60% and 92%, which might be considered as a prototypic method for the full-automatic rating NAP score. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  8. Automatic prejudice in childhood and early adolescence

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Degner, J.; Wentura, D.

    2010-01-01

    Four cross-sectional studies are presented that investigated the automatic activation of prejudice in children and adolescents (aged 9 years to 15 years). Therefore, 4 different versions of the affective priming task were used, with pictures of ingroup and outgroup members being presented as

  9. Specific predictive power of automatic spider-related affective associations for controllable and uncontrollable fear responses toward spiders

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Huijdlng, J; de Jong, PJ; Huijding, J.

    This study examined the predictive power of automatically activated spider-related affective associations for automatic and controllable fear responses. The Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST; De Houwer, 2003) was used to indirectly assess automatic spider fear-related associations. The EAST and

  10. Neural Correlates of Automatic and Controlled Auditory Processing in Schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morey, Rajendra A.; Mitchell, Teresa V.; Inan, Seniha; Lieberman, Jeffrey A.; Belger, Aysenil

    2009-01-01

    Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrate impairments in selective attention and sensory processing. The authors assessed differences in brain function between 26 participants with schizophrenia and 17 comparison subjects engaged in automatic (unattended) and controlled (attended) auditory information processing using event-related functional MRI. Lower regional neural activation during automatic auditory processing in the schizophrenia group was not confined to just the temporal lobe, but also extended to prefrontal regions. Controlled auditory processing was associated with a distributed frontotemporal and subcortical dysfunction. Differences in activation between these two modes of auditory information processing were more pronounced in the comparison group than in the patient group. PMID:19196926

  11. Microprocessor controlled system for automatic and semi-automatic syntheses of radiopharmaceuticals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ruth, T.J.; Adam, M.J.; Morris, D.; Jivan, S.

    1986-01-01

    A computer based system has been constructed to control the automatic synthesis of 2-deoxy-2-( 18 F)fluoro-D-glucose and is also being used in the development of an automatic synthesis of L-6-( 18 F)fluorodopa. (author)

  12. Automatic Camera Control

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Burelli, Paolo; Preuss, Mike

    2014-01-01

    Automatically generating computer animations is a challenging and complex problem with applications in games and film production. In this paper, we investigate howto translate a shot list for a virtual scene into a series of virtual camera configurations — i.e automatically controlling the virtual...

  13. Spatio-temporal dynamics of the mirror neuron system during social intentions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cacioppo, Stephanie; Bolmont, Mylene; Monteleone, George

    2017-10-27

    Previous research has shown that specific goals and intentions influence a person's allocation of social attention. From a neural viewpoint, a growing body of evidence suggests that the inferior fronto-parietal network, including the mirror neuron system, plays a role in the planning and the understanding of motor intentions. However, it is unclear whether and when the mirror neuron system plays a role in social intentions. Combining a behavioral task with electrical neuroimaging in 22 healthy male participants, the current study investigates whether the temporal brain dynamic of the mirror neuron system differs during two types of social intentions i.e., lust vs. romantic intentions. Our results showed that 62% of the stimuli evoking lustful intentions also evoked romantic intentions, and both intentions were sustained by similar activations of the inferior frontal gyrus and the inferior parietal lobule/angular gyrus for the first 432 ms after stimulus onset. Intentions to not love or not lust, on the other hand, were characterized by earlier differential activations of the inferior fronto-parietal network i.e., as early as 244 ms after stimulus onset. These results suggest that the mirror neuron system may not only code for the motor correlates of intentions, but also for the social meaning of intentions and its valence at both early/automatic and later/more elaborative stages of information processing.

  14. 11th Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control

    CERN Document Server

    Matos, Aníbal; Veiga, Germano

    2015-01-01

    During the last 20 years the Portuguese association of automatic control, Associação Portuguesa de Controlo Automático, with the sponsorship of IFAC have established the CONTROLO conference as a reference international forum where an effective exchange of knowledge and experience amongst researchers active in various theoretical and applied areas of systems and control can take place, always including considerable space for promoting new technical applications and developments, real-world challenges and success stories. In this 11th edition the CONTROLO conference evolved by introducing two strategic partnerships with Spanish and Brazilian associations in automatic control, Comité Español de Automática and Sociedade Brasileira de Automatica, respectively.

  15. Automatic production of Iodine-123 with PLC 135/U

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Moghaddam-Banaem, L.; Afarideh, H.

    2004-01-01

    In this project, the automatic system for production of Iodine-123 with PLC/135μ Siemens, which is designed and installed for the first time in Iran, is discussed. The PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) is used to control industrial processing, which is similar to a computer and consists of central processing unit and memory and Input/Output units. PLC receives input information from auxiliary units such as sensors, switches, etc. and software processes data in memory and then sends commands to output units such as relays, motors, etc.The target section in Iodine production consists of 8 stages. In order to be sure automation works properly the system can be operated both manually and automatically. First PLC checks Manual/Automatic switch and in the case of automatic mode, PLC runs the program in memory and processing is done automatically. For this purpose, PLC takes the value of pressures and temperatures from analog inputs and after processing them it sends commands to digital output to activate valves or vacuum pumps or heaters. In this paper the following subjects are discussed: 1) Production of Iodine 123 2) PLC structure and auxiliary boards 3) Sensors and actuators and their connection to PLC 4) Software flowchart

  16. Motor automaticity in Parkinson’s disease

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Tao; Hallett, Mark; Chan, Piu

    2017-01-01

    Bradykinesia is the most important feature contributing to motor difficulties in Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, the pathophysiology underlying bradykinesia is not fully understood. One important aspect is that PD patients have difficulty in performing learned motor skills automatically, but this problem has been generally overlooked. Here we review motor automaticity associated motor deficits in PD, such as reduced arm swing, decreased stride length, freezing of gait, micrographia and reduced facial expression. Recent neuroimaging studies have revealed some neural mechanisms underlying impaired motor automaticity in PD, including less efficient neural coding of movement, failure to shift automated motor skills to the sensorimotor striatum, instability of the automatic mode within the striatum, and use of attentional control and/or compensatory efforts to execute movements usually performed automatically in healthy people. PD patients lose previously acquired automatic skills due to their impaired sensorimotor striatum, and have difficulty in acquiring new automatic skills or restoring lost motor skills. More investigations on the pathophysiology of motor automaticity, the effect of L-dopa or surgical treatments on automaticity, and the potential role of using measures of automaticity in early diagnosis of PD would be valuable. PMID:26102020

  17. Semi-Automatic Evaluation of Intrasubject Variability and Inter-session of Cerebral Activation Areas by Neuro functional Magnetic Resonance (FMRI)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rascovsky, Simon; Delgado, Jorge Andres; Sanz, Alexander

    2008-01-01

    To verify the reproducibility of word generation, text comprehension, antonyms generation and motor/somatosensory RMF protocols in a test-retest evaluation through a semiautomatic stereotaxical localization method for activation comparison. Methods: Word generation, text comprehension, antonyms generation and motor/somatosensory FMRI paradigms were applied on 8 healthy subjects on two separate sessions, performing the evaluation of inter-session activations through conjunction and cluster analysis. Results: Activations according to Brodmann areas were reproducible in 50%, 62.5% and 75% for word generation, text comprehension and antonyms generation respectively. For the motor paradigms, right motor conjoined activations were found in 86% of subjects and in 100% of subjects for left conjoined activations. Conclusions: The semi-automatic method of determining inter-session areas of common activation allows its use for functional cytoarchitectonic localization of fMRI activations with minimal intervention, and can be used as a quality control measure of the different paradigms used in RMF, minimizing observer bias.

  18. Acquisition of automatic imitation is sensitive to sensorimotor contingency.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cook, Richard; Press, Clare; Dickinson, Anthony; Heyes, Cecilia

    2010-08-01

    The associative sequence learning model proposes that the development of the mirror system depends on the same mechanisms of associative learning that mediate Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning. To test this model, two experiments used the reduction of automatic imitation through incompatible sensorimotor training to assess whether mirror system plasticity is sensitive to contingency (i.e., the extent to which activation of one representation predicts activation of another). In Experiment 1, residual automatic imitation was measured following incompatible training in which the action stimulus was a perfect predictor of the response (contingent) or not at all predictive of the response (noncontingent). A contingency effect was observed: There was less automatic imitation indicative of more learning in the contingent group. Experiment 2 replicated this contingency effect and showed that, as predicted by associative learning theory, it can be abolished by signaling trials in which the response occurs in the absence of an action stimulus. These findings support the view that mirror system development depends on associative learning and indicate that this learning is not purely Hebbian. If this is correct, associative learning theory could be used to explain, predict, and intervene in mirror system development.

  19. Automatic Photoelectric Telescope Service

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Genet, R.M.; Boyd, L.J.; Kissell, K.E.; Crawford, D.L.; Hall, D.S.; BDM Corp., McLean, VA; Kitt Peak National Observatory, Tucson, AZ; Dyer Observatory, Nashville, TN)

    1987-01-01

    Automatic observatories have the potential of gathering sizable amounts of high-quality astronomical data at low cost. The Automatic Photoelectric Telescope Service (APT Service) has realized this potential and is routinely making photometric observations of a large number of variable stars. However, without observers to provide on-site monitoring, it was necessary to incorporate special quality checks into the operation of the APT Service at its multiple automatic telescope installation on Mount Hopkins. 18 references

  20. Automatic imitation: A meta-analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cracco, Emiel; Bardi, Lara; Desmet, Charlotte; Genschow, Oliver; Rigoni, Davide; De Coster, Lize; Radkova, Ina; Deschrijver, Eliane; Brass, Marcel

    2018-05-01

    Automatic imitation is the finding that movement execution is facilitated by compatible and impeded by incompatible observed movements. In the past 15 years, automatic imitation has been studied to understand the relation between perception and action in social interaction. Although research on this topic started in cognitive science, interest quickly spread to related disciplines such as social psychology, clinical psychology, and neuroscience. However, important theoretical questions have remained unanswered. Therefore, in the present meta-analysis, we evaluated seven key questions on automatic imitation. The results, based on 161 studies containing 226 experiments, revealed an overall effect size of g z = 0.95, 95% CI [0.88, 1.02]. Moderator analyses identified automatic imitation as a flexible, largely automatic process that is driven by movement and effector compatibility, but is also influenced by spatial compatibility. Automatic imitation was found to be stronger for forced choice tasks than for simple response tasks, for human agents than for nonhuman agents, and for goalless actions than for goal-directed actions. However, it was not modulated by more subtle factors such as animacy beliefs, motion profiles, or visual perspective. Finally, there was no evidence for a relation between automatic imitation and either empathy or autism. Among other things, these findings point toward actor-imitator similarity as a crucial modulator of automatic imitation and challenge the view that imitative tendencies are an indicator of social functioning. The current meta-analysis has important theoretical implications and sheds light on longstanding controversies in the literature on automatic imitation and related domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  1. Automatic α-spectrometry using surface barrier detectors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Czarwinski, R.; Loessner, V.; Klucke, H.; Krause, J.

    1984-01-01

    A measurement system has been developed for the routine determination of transuranics in biosamples by α-spectrometry. It employs high-resolution surface-barrier detectors and can be operated automatically by means of an integrated CAMAC system. For 241 Am, the minimum detectable activity is 2.4 x 10 -3 Bq. (author)

  2. Automatic behavior - its social embedding and individual consequences

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jonas, K.J.

    2013-01-01

    Automatic behavior, that is, the non-conscious activation of perceiver behavior by social category priming, has undergone considerable development in the recent years. While initial effects pointed to often rather surprising effects that could be characterized as imitation of the behavior of the

  3. Increased density of DISC1-immunoreactive oligodendroglial cells in fronto-parietal white matter of patients with paranoid schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bernstein, Hans-Gert; Jauch, Esther; Dobrowolny, Henrik; Mawrin, Christian; Steiner, Johann; Bogerts, Bernhard

    2016-09-01

    Profound white matter abnormalities have repeatedly been described in schizophrenia, which involve the altered expression of numerous oligodendrocyte-associated genes. Transcripts of the disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) gene, a key susceptibility factor in schizophrenia, have recently been shown to be expressed by oligodendroglial cells and to negatively regulate oligodendrocyte differentiation and maturation. To learn more about the putative role(s) of oligodendroglia-associated DISC1 in schizophrenia, we analyzed the density of DISC1-immunoreactive oligodendrocytes in the fronto-parietal white matter in postmortem brains of patients with schizophrenia. Compared with controls (N = 12) and cases with undifferentiated/residual schizophrenia (N = 6), there was a significantly increased density of DISC1-expressing glial cells in paranoid schizophrenia (N = 12), which unlikely resulted from neuroleptic treatment. Pathophysiologically, over-expression of DISC1 protein(s) in white matter oligodendrocytes might add to the reduced levels of two myelin markers, 2',3'-cyclic-nucleotide 3'-phosphodiesterase and myelin basic protein in schizophrenia. Moreover, it might significantly contribute to cell cycle abnormalities as well as to deficits in oligodendroglial cell differentiation and maturation found in schizophrenia.

  4. Atypical Balance between Occipital and Fronto-Parietal Activation for Visual Shape Extraction in Dyslexia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Ying; Whitfield-Gabrieli, Susan; Christodoulou, Joanna A.; Gabrieli, John D. E.

    2013-01-01

    Reading requires the extraction of letter shapes from a complex background of text, and an impairment in visual shape extraction would cause difficulty in reading. To investigate the neural mechanisms of visual shape extraction in dyslexia, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain activation while adults with or without dyslexia responded to the change of an arrow’s direction in a complex, relative to a simple, visual background. In comparison to adults with typical reading ability, adults with dyslexia exhibited opposite patterns of atypical activation: decreased activation in occipital visual areas associated with visual perception, and increased activation in frontal and parietal regions associated with visual attention. These findings indicate that dyslexia involves atypical brain organization for fundamental processes of visual shape extraction even when reading is not involved. Overengagement in higher-order association cortices, required to compensate for underengagment in lower-order visual cortices, may result in competition for top-down attentional resources helpful for fluent reading. PMID:23825653

  5. Early Automatic Detection of Parkinson's Disease Based on Sleep Recordings

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kempfner, Jacob; Sorensen, Helge B D; Nikolic, Miki

    2014-01-01

    SUMMARY: Idiopathic rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) is most likely the earliest sign of Parkinson's Disease (PD) and is characterized by REM sleep without atonia (RSWA) and consequently increased muscle activity. However, some muscle twitching in normal subjects occurs...... during REM sleep. PURPOSE: There are no generally accepted methods for evaluation of this activity and a normal range has not been established. Consequently, there is a need for objective criteria. METHOD: In this study we propose a full-automatic method for detection of RSWA. REM sleep identification...... the number of outliers during REM sleep was used as a quantitative measure of muscle activity. RESULTS: The proposed method was able to automatically separate all iRBD test subjects from healthy elderly controls and subjects with periodic limb movement disorder. CONCLUSION: The proposed work is considered...

  6. Automatic indexing, compiling and classification

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Andreewsky, Alexandre; Fluhr, Christian.

    1975-06-01

    A review of the principles of automatic indexing, is followed by a comparison and summing-up of work by the authors and by a Soviet staff from the Moscou INFORM-ELECTRO Institute. The mathematical and linguistic problems of the automatic building of thesaurus and automatic classification are examined [fr

  7. Automatic processing of unattended lexical information in visual oddball presentation: neurophysiological evidence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yury eShtyrov

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available Previous electrophysiological studies of automatic language processing revealed early (100-200 ms reflections of access to lexical characteristics of speech signal using the so-called mismatch negativity (MMN, a negative ERP deflection elicited by infrequent irregularities in unattended repetitive auditory stimulation. In those studies, lexical processing of spoken stimuli became manifest as an enhanced ERP in response to unattended real words as opposed to phonologically matched but meaningless pseudoword stimuli. This lexical ERP enhancement was explained by automatic activation of word memory traces realised as distributed strongly intra-connected neuronal circuits, whose robustness guarantees memory trace activation even in the absence of attention on spoken input. Such an account would predict the automatic activation of these memory traces upon any presentation of linguistic information, irrespective of the presentation modality. As previous lexical MMN studies exclusively used auditory stimulation, we here adapted the lexical MMN paradigm to investigate early automatic lexical effects in the visual modality. In a visual oddball sequence, matched short word and pseudoword stimuli were presented tachistoscopically in perifoveal area outside the visual focus of attention, as the subjects’ attention was concentrated on a concurrent non-linguistic visual dual task in the centre of the screen. Using EEG, we found a visual analogue of the lexical ERP enhancement effect, with unattended written words producing larger brain response amplitudes than matched pseudowords, starting at ~100 ms. Furthermore, we also found significant visual MMN, reported here for the first time for unattended lexical stimuli presented perifoveally. The data suggest early automatic lexical processing of visually presented language outside the focus of attention.

  8. Gaming is related to enhanced working memory performance and task-related cortical activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moisala, M; Salmela, V; Hietajärvi, L; Carlson, S; Vuontela, V; Lonka, K; Hakkarainen, K; Salmela-Aro, K; Alho, K

    2017-01-15

    Gaming experience has been suggested to lead to performance enhancements in a wide variety of working memory tasks. Previous studies have, however, mostly focused on adult expert gamers and have not included measurements of both behavioral performance and brain activity. In the current study, 167 adolescents and young adults (aged 13-24 years) with different amounts of gaming experience performed an n-back working memory task with vowels, with the sensory modality of the vowel stream switching between audition and vision at random intervals. We studied the relationship between self-reported daily gaming activity, working memory (n-back) task performance and related brain activity measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results revealed that the extent of daily gaming activity was related to enhancements in both performance accuracy and speed during the most demanding (2-back) level of the working memory task. This improved working memory performance was accompanied by enhanced recruitment of a fronto-parietal cortical network, especially the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In contrast, during the less demanding (1-back) level of the task, gaming was associated with decreased activity in the same cortical regions. Our results suggest that a greater degree of daily gaming experience is associated with better working memory functioning and task difficulty-dependent modulation in fronto-parietal brain activity already in adolescence and even when non-expert gamers are studied. The direction of causality within this association cannot be inferred with certainty due to the correlational nature of the current study. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. A computer program for automatic gamma-ray spectra analysis with isotope identification for the purpose of activation analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Weigel, H.; Dauk, J.

    1974-01-01

    A FORTRAN IV program for a PDP-9 computer, with 16K storage capacity, is developed performing automatic analysis of complex gamma-spectra, taken with Ge/Li/ detectors. It searches for full energy peaks and evaluates the peak areas. The program features and automatically performed isotope identifiaction. It is written in such a flexible manner that after reactor irradiation, spectra from samples of any composition can be evaluated for activation analysis. The peak search rutin is based on the following criteria: the counting rate has to increase for two succesive channels; and the amplitude of the corresponding maximum has to be greater than/or equal to F 1 times the statistical error of the counting rate in the valley just before the maximum. In order to detect superimposed peaks, it is assumed that the dependence of FWHM on channel number is roughly approximated by a linear function, and the actual and''theoretical''FWHM values are compared. To determine the net peak area a Gaussian based function is fitted to each peak. The isotope identification is based on the procedure developed by ADAMS and DAMS. (T.G.)

  10. Automatic sets and Delone sets

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Barbe, A; Haeseler, F von

    2004-01-01

    Automatic sets D part of Z m are characterized by having a finite number of decimations. They are equivalently generated by fixed points of certain substitution systems, or by certain finite automata. As examples, two-dimensional versions of the Thue-Morse, Baum-Sweet, Rudin-Shapiro and paperfolding sequences are presented. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for an automatic set D part of Z m to be a Delone set in R m . The result is then extended to automatic sets that are defined as fixed points of certain substitutions. The morphology of automatic sets is discussed by means of examples

  11. CNS activation and regional connectivity during pantomime observation: no engagement of the mirror neuron system for deaf signers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Emmorey, Karen; Xu, Jiang; Gannon, Patrick; Goldin-Meadow, Susan; Braun, Allen

    2010-01-01

    Deaf signers have extensive experience using their hands to communicate. Using fMRI, we examined the neural systems engaged during the perception of manual communication in 14 deaf signers and 14 hearing non-signers. Participants passively viewed blocked video clips of pantomimes (e.g., peeling an imaginary banana) and action verbs in American Sign Language (ASL) that were rated as meaningless by non-signers (e.g., TO-DANCE). In contrast to visual fixation, pantomimes strongly activated fronto-parietal regions (the mirror neuron system, MNS) in hearing non-signers, but only bilateral middle temporal regions in deaf signers. When contrasted with ASL verbs, pantomimes selectively engaged inferior and superior parietal regions in hearing non-signers, but right superior temporal cortex in deaf signers. The perception of ASL verbs recruited similar regions as pantomimes for deaf signers, with some evidence of greater involvement of left inferior frontal gyrus for ASL verbs. Functional connectivity analyses with left hemisphere seed voxels (ventral premotor, inferior parietal lobule, fusiform gyrus) revealed robust connectivity with the MNS for the hearing non-signers. Deaf signers exhibited functional connectivity with the right hemisphere that was not observed for the hearing group for the fusiform gyrus seed voxel. We suggest that life-long experience with manual communication, and/or auditory deprivation, may alter regional connectivity and brain activation when viewing pantomimes. We conclude that the lack of activation within the MNS for deaf signers does not support an account of human communication that depends upon automatic sensorimotor resonance between perception and action.

  12. Automatisms: bridging clinical neurology with criminal law.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rolnick, Joshua; Parvizi, Josef

    2011-03-01

    The law, like neurology, grapples with the relationship between disease states and behavior. Sometimes, the two disciplines share the same terminology, such as automatism. In law, the "automatism defense" is a claim that action was involuntary or performed while unconscious. Someone charged with a serious crime can acknowledge committing the act and yet may go free if, relying on the expert testimony of clinicians, the court determines that the act of crime was committed in a state of automatism. In this review, we explore the relationship between the use of automatism in the legal and clinical literature. We close by addressing several issues raised by the automatism defense: semantic ambiguity surrounding the term automatism, the presence or absence of consciousness during automatisms, and the methodological obstacles that have hindered the study of cognition during automatisms. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  13. Automatic quantitative renal scintigraphy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Valeyre, J.; Deltour, G.; Delisle, M.J.; Bouchard, A.

    1976-01-01

    Renal scintigraphy data may be analyzed automatically by the use of a processing system coupled to an Anger camera (TRIDAC-MULTI 8 or CINE 200). The computing sequence is as follows: normalization of the images; background noise subtraction on both images; evaluation of mercury 197 uptake by the liver and spleen; calculation of the activity fractions on each kidney with respect to the injected dose, taking into account the kidney depth and the results referred to normal values; edition of the results. Automation minimizes the scattering parameters and by its simplification is a great asset in routine work [fr

  14. Generic and robust method for automatic segmentation of PET images using an active contour model

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhuang, Mingzan [Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, 9700 RB Groningen (Netherlands)

    2016-08-15

    Purpose: Although positron emission tomography (PET) images have shown potential to improve the accuracy of targeting in radiation therapy planning and assessment of response to treatment, the boundaries of tumors are not easily distinguishable from surrounding normal tissue owing to the low spatial resolution and inherent noisy characteristics of PET images. The objective of this study is to develop a generic and robust method for automatic delineation of tumor volumes using an active contour model and to evaluate its performance using phantom and clinical studies. Methods: MASAC, a method for automatic segmentation using an active contour model, incorporates the histogram fuzzy C-means clustering, and localized and textural information to constrain the active contour to detect boundaries in an accurate and robust manner. Moreover, the lattice Boltzmann method is used as an alternative approach for solving the level set equation to make it faster and suitable for parallel programming. Twenty simulated phantom studies and 16 clinical studies, including six cases of pharyngolaryngeal squamous cell carcinoma and ten cases of nonsmall cell lung cancer, were included to evaluate its performance. Besides, the proposed method was also compared with the contourlet-based active contour algorithm (CAC) and Schaefer’s thresholding method (ST). The relative volume error (RE), Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), and classification error (CE) metrics were used to analyze the results quantitatively. Results: For the simulated phantom studies (PSs), MASAC and CAC provide similar segmentations of the different lesions, while ST fails to achieve reliable results. For the clinical datasets (2 cases with connected high-uptake regions excluded) (CSs), CAC provides for the lowest mean RE (−8.38% ± 27.49%), while MASAC achieves the best mean DSC (0.71 ± 0.09) and mean CE (53.92% ± 12.65%), respectively. MASAC could reliably quantify different types of lesions assessed in this work

  15. Culture-related differences in default network activity during visuo-spatial judgments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goh, Joshua O S; Hebrank, Andrew C; Sutton, Bradley P; Chee, Michael W L; Sim, Sam K Y; Park, Denise C

    2013-02-01

    Studies on culture-related differences in cognition have shown that Westerners attend more to object-related information, whereas East Asians attend more to contextual information. Neural correlates of these different culture-related visual processing styles have been reported in the ventral-visual and fronto-parietal regions. We conducted an fMRI study of East Asians and Westerners on a visuospatial judgment task that involved relative, contextual judgments, which are typically more challenging for Westerners. Participants judged the relative distances between a dot and a line in visual stimuli during task blocks and alternated finger presses during control blocks. Behaviorally, East Asians responded faster than Westerners, reflecting greater ease of the task for East Asians. In response to the greater task difficulty, Westerners showed greater neural engagement compared to East Asians in frontal, parietal, and occipital areas. Moreover, Westerners also showed greater suppression of the default network-a brain network that is suppressed under condition of high cognitive challenge. This study demonstrates for the first time that cultural differences in visual attention during a cognitive task are manifested both by differences in activation in fronto-parietal regions as well as suppression in default regions.

  16. Body integrity identity disorder: deranged body processing, right fronto-parietal dysfunction, and phenomenological experience of body incongruity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giummarra, Melita J; Bradshaw, John L; Nicholls, Michael E R; Hilti, Leonie M; Brugger, Peter

    2011-12-01

    Body integrity identity disorder (BIID) is characterised by profound experience of incongruity between the biological and desired body structure. The condition manifests in "non-belonging" of body parts, and the subsequent desire to amputate, paralyse or disable a limb. Little is known about BIID; however, a neuropsychological model implicating right fronto-parietal and insular networks is emerging, with potential disruption to body representation. We argue that, as there is scant systematic research on BIID published to date and much of the research is methodologically weak, it is premature to assume that the only process underlying bodily experience that is compromised is body representation. The present review systematically investigates which aspects of neurological processing of the body, and sense of self, may be compromised in BIID. We argue that the disorder most likely reflects dysregulation in multiple levels of body processing. That is, the disunity between self and the body could arguably come about through congenital and/or developmental disruption of body representations, which, together with altered multisensory integration, may preclude the experience of self-attribution and embodiment of affected body parts. Ulimately, there is a need for official diagnostic criteria to facilitate epidemiological characterisation of BIID, and for further research to systematically investigate which aspects of body representation and processing are truly compromised in the disorder.

  17. Using stochastic activity networks to study the energy feasibility of automatic weather stations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cassano, Luca [Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano (Italy); Cesarini, Daniel [Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa (Italy); Avvenuti, Marco [Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, University of Pisa (Italy)

    2015-03-10

    Automatic Weather Stations (AWSs) are systems equipped with a number of environmental sensors and communication interfaces used to monitor harsh environments, such as glaciers and deserts. Designing such systems is challenging, since designers have to maximize the amount of sampled and transmitted data while considering the energy needs of the system that, in most cases, is powered by rechargeable batteries and exploits energy harvesting, e.g., solar cells and wind turbines. To support designers of AWSs in the definition of the software tasks and of the hardware configuration of the AWS we designed and implemented an energy-aware simulator of such systems. The simulator relies on the Stochastic Activity Networks (SANs) formalism and has been developed using the Möbius tool. In this paper we first show how we used the SAN formalism to model the various components of an AWS, we then report results from an experiment carried out to validate the simulator against a real-world AWS and we finally show some examples of usage of the proposed simulator.

  18. Toward a noninvasive automatic seizure control system in rats with transcranial focal stimulations via tripolar concentric ring electrodes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Makeyev, Oleksandr; Liu, Xiang; Luna-Munguía, Hiram; Rogel-Salazar, Gabriela; Mucio-Ramirez, Samuel; Liu, Yuhong; Sun, Yan L; Kay, Steven M; Besio, Walter G

    2012-07-01

    Epilepsy affects approximately 1% of the world population. Antiepileptic drugs are ineffective in approximately 30% of patients and have side effects. We are developing a noninvasive, or minimally invasive, transcranial focal electrical stimulation system through our novel tripolar concentric ring electrodes to control seizures. In this study, we demonstrate feasibility of an automatic seizure control system in rats with pentylenetetrazole-induced seizures through single and multiple stimulations. These stimulations are automatically triggered by a real-time electrographic seizure activity detector based on a disjunctive combination of detections from a cumulative sum algorithm and a generalized likelihood ratio test. An average seizure onset detection accuracy of 76.14% was obtained for the test set (n = 13). Detection of electrographic seizure activity was accomplished in advance of the early behavioral seizure activity in 76.92% of the cases. Automatically triggered stimulation significantly (p = 0.001) reduced the electrographic seizure activity power in the once stimulated group compared to controls in 70% of the cases. To the best of our knowledge this is the first closed-loop automatic seizure control system based on noninvasive electrical brain stimulation using tripolar concentric ring electrode electrographic seizure activity as feedback.

  19. Automatic media-adventitia IVUS image segmentation based on sparse representation framework and dynamic directional active contour model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zakeri, Fahimeh Sadat; Setarehdan, Seyed Kamaledin; Norouzi, Somayye

    2017-10-01

    Segmentation of the arterial wall boundaries from intravascular ultrasound images is an important image processing task in order to quantify arterial wall characteristics such as shape, area, thickness and eccentricity. Since manual segmentation of these boundaries is a laborious and time consuming procedure, many researchers attempted to develop (semi-) automatic segmentation techniques as a powerful tool for educational and clinical purposes in the past but as yet there is no any clinically approved method in the market. This paper presents a deterministic-statistical strategy for automatic media-adventitia border detection by a fourfold algorithm. First, a smoothed initial contour is extracted based on the classification in the sparse representation framework which is combined with the dynamic directional convolution vector field. Next, an active contour model is utilized for the propagation of the initial contour toward the interested borders. Finally, the extracted contour is refined in the leakage, side branch openings and calcification regions based on the image texture patterns. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated by comparing the results to those manually traced borders by an expert on 312 different IVUS images obtained from four different patients. The statistical analysis of the results demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed method in the media-adventitia border detection with enough consistency in the leakage and calcification regions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. Neural Bases of Automaticity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Servant, Mathieu; Cassey, Peter; Woodman, Geoffrey F.; Logan, Gordon D.

    2018-01-01

    Automaticity allows us to perform tasks in a fast, efficient, and effortless manner after sufficient practice. Theories of automaticity propose that across practice processing transitions from being controlled by working memory to being controlled by long-term memory retrieval. Recent event-related potential (ERP) studies have sought to test this…

  1. Development of new techniques and enhancement of automatic capability of neutron activation analysis at the Dalat Research Reactor

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ho Manh Dung; Ho Van Doanh; Tran Quang Thien; Pham Ngoc Tuan; Pham Ngoc Son; Tran Quoc Duong; Nguyen Van Cuong; Nguyen Minh Tuan; Nguyen Giang; Nguyen Thi Sy

    2017-01-01

    The techniques of neutron activation analysis (NAA) including cyclic, epithermal and prompt-gamma (CNAA, ENAA and PGNAA, respectively) have been developed at the Dalat research reactor (DRR). In addition, the efforts has been spent to improve the automatic capability of irradiation, measurement and data processing of NAA. The renewal of necessary devices/tools for sample preparation have also been done. Eventually, the performance and the utility in terms of sensitivity, accuracy and stability of the analytical results generated by NAA at DRR have significantly been improved. The main results of the project are: 1) Upgrading of the fast irradiation system on Channel 13-2/TC to allow the cyclic irradiations; 2) Development of CNAA; 3) Development of ENAA; 4) Application of k0-method for PGNAA; 5) Investigation of the automatic sample changer (ASC2); 6) Upgrading of Ko-DALAT software for ENAA and modification of k0-IAEA software for CNAA and PGNAA; and 7) Optimization of irradiation and measurement facilities as well as sample preparation devices/tools. A set of procedures of relevant developed techniques in the project were established. The procedures have been evaluated by analysis of the reference materials for which they are meeting the requirements of multi-element analysis for the intended applications. (author)

  2. Brand and automaticity

    OpenAIRE

    Liu, J.

    2008-01-01

    A presumption of most consumer research is that consumers endeavor to maximize the utility of their choices and are in complete control of their purchasing and consumption behavior. However, everyday life experience suggests that many of our choices are not all that reasoned or conscious. Indeed, automaticity, one facet of behavior, is indispensable to complete the portrait of consumers. Despite its importance, little attention is paid to how the automatic side of behavior can be captured and...

  3. Development of advanced automatic operation system for nuclear ship. 1. Perfect automatic normal operation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nakazawa, Toshio; Yabuuti, Noriaki; Takahashi, Hiroki; Shimazaki, Junya

    1999-02-01

    Development of operation support system such as automatic operating system and anomaly diagnosis systems of nuclear reactor is very important in practical nuclear ship because of a limited number of operators and severe conditions in which receiving support from others in a case of accident is very difficult. The goal of development of the operation support systems is to realize the perfect automatic control system in a series of normal operation from the reactor start-up to the shutdown. The automatic control system for the normal operation has been developed based on operating experiences of the first Japanese nuclear ship 'Mutsu'. Automation technique was verified by 'Mutsu' plant data at manual operation. Fully automatic control of start-up and shutdown operations was achieved by setting the desired value of operation and the limiting value of parameter fluctuation, and by making the operation program of the principal equipment such as the main coolant pump and the heaters. This report presents the automatic operation system developed for the start-up and the shutdown of reactor and the verification of the system using the Nuclear Ship Engineering Simulator System. (author)

  4. Predictors of Mental Health Symptoms, Automatic Thoughts, and Self-Esteem Among University Students.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hiçdurmaz, Duygu; İnci, Figen; Karahan, Sevilay

    2017-01-01

    University youth is a risk group regarding mental health, and many mental health problems are frequent in this group. Sociodemographic factors such as level of income and familial factors such as relationship with father are reported to be associated with mental health symptoms, automatic thoughts, and self-esteem. Also, there are interrelations between mental health problems, automatic thoughts, and self-esteem. The extent of predictive effect of each of these variables on automatic thoughts, self-esteem, and mental health symptoms is not known. We aimed to determine the predictive factors of mental health symptoms, automatic thoughts, and self-esteem in university students. Participants were 530 students enrolled at a university in Turkey, during 2014-2015 academic year. Data were collected using the student information form, the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Mental health symptoms, self-esteem, perception of the relationship with the father, and level of income as a student significantly predicted automatic thoughts. Automatic thoughts, mental health symptoms, participation in family decisions, and age had significant predictive effects on self-esteem. Finally, automatic thoughts, self-esteem, age, and perception of the relationship with the father had significant predictive effects on mental health symptoms. The predictive factors revealed in our study provide important information to practitioners and researchers by showing the elements that need to be screened for mental health of university students and issues that need to be included in counseling activities.

  5. 14 CFR 23.1329 - Automatic pilot system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Automatic pilot system. 23.1329 Section 23...: Installation § 23.1329 Automatic pilot system. If an automatic pilot system is installed, it must meet the following: (a) Each system must be designed so that the automatic pilot can— (1) Be quickly and positively...

  6. 46 CFR 52.01-10 - Automatic controls.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 46 Shipping 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Automatic controls. 52.01-10 Section 52.01-10 Shipping... Requirements § 52.01-10 Automatic controls. (a) Each main boiler must meet the special requirements for automatic safety controls in § 62.35-20(a)(1) of this chapter. (b) Each automatically controlled auxiliary...

  7. Recent activities on clearance in IAEA and clearance automatic laser inspection system (CLALIS)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hattori, Takatoshi; Sasaki, Michiya

    2005-01-01

    Exemption levels for bulk amounts of materials have been described in RS-G-1.7 published as a safety guide in IAEA on August 2004. In Japan, the Nuclear Safety Commission adopted the RS-G-1.7 values as Japanese clearance levels after the careful review of dose assessment results. After completing revises of regulatory laws in relation to clearance level, solid wastes from decommissioning and operating nuclear power plants will be targets of clearance inspection. In CRIEPI, Clearance Automatic Laser Inspection System (CLALIS) has been developed, which can give high reliability and objectivity to the measurement data. The CLALIS is a new monitoring system coupling with 3D laser shape measurement, Monte-Carlo calculation and gamma measurement techniques, which can keep a high accuracy in the measurement data using an automatic correction technique for self-shielding effects of metal waste itself and is expected to apply as a practical use in actual clearance inspections. (author)

  8. Evolving a rule system controller for automatic driving in a car racing competition

    OpenAIRE

    Pérez, Diego; Sáez Achaerandio, Yago; Recio Isasi, Gustavo; Isasi Viñuela, Pedro

    2008-01-01

    IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games. Perth, Australia, 15-18 December 2008. The techniques and the technologies supporting Automatic Vehicle Guidance are important issues. Automobile manufacturers view automatic driving as a very interesting product with motivating key features which allow improvement of the car safety, reduction in emission or fuel consumption or optimization of driver comfort during long journeys. Car racing is an active research field where new ...

  9. PACS quality control and automatic problem notifier

    Science.gov (United States)

    Honeyman-Buck, Janice C.; Jones, Douglas; Frost, Meryll M.; Staab, Edward V.

    1997-05-01

    One side effect of installing a clinical PACS Is that users become dependent upon the technology and in some cases it can be very difficult to revert back to a film based system if components fail. The nature of system failures range from slow deterioration of function as seen in the loss of monitor luminance through sudden catastrophic loss of the entire PACS networks. This paper describes the quality control procedures in place at the University of Florida and the automatic notification system that alerts PACS personnel when a failure has happened or is anticipated. The goal is to recover from a failure with a minimum of downtime and no data loss. Routine quality control is practiced on all aspects of PACS, from acquisition, through network routing, through display, and including archiving. Whenever possible, the system components perform self and between platform checks for active processes, file system status, errors in log files, and system uptime. When an error is detected or a exception occurs, an automatic page is sent to a pager with a diagnostic code. Documentation on each code, trouble shooting procedures, and repairs are kept on an intranet server accessible only to people involved in maintaining the PACS. In addition to the automatic paging system for error conditions, acquisition is assured by an automatic fax report sent on a daily basis to all technologists acquiring PACS images to be used as a cross check that all studies are archived prior to being removed from the acquisition systems. Daily quality control is preformed to assure that studies can be moved from each acquisition and contrast adjustment. The results of selected quality control reports will be presented. The intranet documentation server will be described with the automatic pager system. Monitor quality control reports will be described and the cost of quality control will be quantified. As PACS is accepted as a clinical tool, the same standards of quality control must be established

  10. Automatic welding and cladding in heavy fabrication

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Altamer, A. de

    1980-01-01

    A description is given of the automatic welding processes used by an Italian fabricator of pressure vessels for petrochemical and nuclear plant. The automatic submerged arc welding, submerged arc strip cladding, pulsed TIG, hot wire TIG and MIG welding processes have proved satisfactory in terms of process reliability, metal deposition rate, and cost effectiveness for low alloy and carbon steels. An example shows sequences required during automatic butt welding, including heat treatments. Factors which govern satisfactory automatic welding include automatic anti-drift rotator device, electrode guidance and bead programming system, the capability of single and dual head operation, flux recovery and slag removal systems, operator environment and controls, maintaining continuity of welding and automatic reverse side grinding. Automatic welding is used for: joining vessel sections; joining tubes to tubeplate; cladding of vessel rings and tubes, dished ends and extruded nozzles; nozzle to shell and butt welds, including narrow gap welding. (author)

  11. Automatic and creative skills in reading Automatic and creative skills in reading

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leonor Scliar Cabral

    2008-04-01

    Full Text Available In this article I will discuss the automatic and creative skills in reading, focusing on the differences between 1 processes involved while learning how to read and processes employed by the proficient reader and 2 knowledge for using language and metalinguistic awareness. The arguments will derive mainly from the definition of reading as a process where the receivers combine the information extracted from the written material with their specialized knowledge activated during this process (i.e. linguistic systems and correspondent rules and enciclopedic knowledge in order to comprehend, interpret and internalize structured new information and/or to experience aesthetic pleasure. Evidence to illustrate the arguments comes from experiments (1 with pre-school children and beginning readers on narrativity and on the dichotic paradigm, and with illiterate and literate adults with diferent levels of proficiency of reading in a task of erasing an initial syllable and an initial consonant. In this article I will discuss the automatic and creative skills in reading, focusing on the differences between 1 processes involved while learning how to read and processes employed by the proficient reader and 2 knowledge for using language and metalinguistic awareness. The arguments will derive mainly from the definition of reading as a process where the receivers combine the information extracted from the written material with their specialized knowledge activated during this process (i.e. linguistic systems and correspondent rules and enciclopedic knowledge in order to comprehend, interpret and internalize structured new information and/or to experience aesthetic pleasure. Evidence to illustrate the arguments comes from experiments (1 with pre-school children and beginning readers on narrativity and on the dichotic paradigm, and with illiterate and literate adults with diferent levels of proficiency of reading in a task of erasing an initial syllable

  12. Automatic differentiation of functions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Douglas, S.R.

    1990-06-01

    Automatic differentiation is a method of computing derivatives of functions to any order in any number of variables. The functions must be expressible as combinations of elementary functions. When evaluated at specific numerical points, the derivatives have no truncation error and are automatically found. The method is illustrated by simple examples. Source code in FORTRAN is provided

  13. Effects of multicomponent training of cognitive control on cognitive function and brain activation in older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Hoyoung; Chey, Jeanyung; Lee, Sanghun

    2017-11-01

    The aim of this study was to investigate the changes in cognitive functions and brain activation after multicomponent training of cognitive control in non-demented older adults, utilizing neuropsychological tests and fMRI. We developed and implemented a computerized Multicomponent Training of Cognitive Control (MTCC), characterized by task variability and adaptive procedures, in order to maximize training effects in cognitive control and transfer to other cognitive domains. Twenty-seven community-dwelling adults, aged 64-77 years, without any history of neurological or psychiatric problems, participated in this study (14 in the training group and 13 in the control group). The MTCC was administered to the participants assigned to the training group for 8 weeks, while those in the control group received no training. Neuropsychological tests and fMRI were administered prior to and after the training. Trained participants showed improvements in cognitive control, recognition memory and general cognitive functioning. Furthermore, the MTCC led to an increased brain activation of the regions adjacent to the baseline cognitive control-related areas in the frontoparietal network. Future studies are necessary to confirm our hypothesis that MTCC improves cognitive functioning of healthy elderly individuals by expanding their frontoparietal network that is involved in cognitive control. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Vaginismus and dyspareunia: automatic vs. deliberate disgust responsivity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Borg, Charmaine; de Jong, Peter J; Schultz, Willibrord Weijmar

    2010-06-01

    The difficulty of penetration experienced in vaginismus and dyspareunia may at least partly be due to a disgust-induced defensive response. To examine if sex stimuli specifically elicit: (i) automatic disgust-related memory associations; (ii) physiological disgust responsivity; and/or (iii) deliberate expression of disgust/threat. Two single target Implicit Association Task (st-IAT) and electromyography (EMG) were conducted on three groups: vaginismus (N = 24), dyspareunia (N = 24), and control (N = 31) group. st-IAT, to index their initial disgust-related associations and facial EMG for the m. levator labii and m. corrugator supercilii regions. Both clinical groups showed enhanced automatic sex-disgust associations. As a unique physiological expression of disgust, the levator activity was specifically enhanced for the vaginismus group, when exposed to a women-friendly SEX video clip. Also at the deliberate level, specifically the vaginismus group showed enhanced subjective disgust toward SEX pictures and the SEX clip, along with higher threat responses. Supporting the view that disgust is involved in vaginismus and dyspareunia, for both, clinical groups' sex stimuli automatically elicited associations with disgust. Particularly for the vaginismus group, these initial disgust associations persisted during subsequent validation processes and were also evident at the level of facial expression and self-report data. Findings are consistent with the notion that uncontrollable activated associations are involved in eliciting defensive reactions at the prospect of penetration seen in both conditions. Whereas deliberate attitudes, usually linked with the desire for having intercourse, possibly generate the distinction (e.g., severity) between these two conditions.

  15. Development of a microcontroller-based automatic control system for the electrohydraulic total artificial heart.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, H C; Khanwilkar, P S; Bearnson, G B; Olsen, D B

    1997-01-01

    An automatic physiological control system for the actively filled, alternately pumped ventricles of the volumetrically coupled, electrohydraulic total artificial heart (EHTAH) was developed for long-term use. The automatic control system must ensure that the device: 1) maintains a physiological response of cardiac output, 2) compensates for an nonphysiological condition, and 3) is stable, reliable, and operates at a high power efficiency. The developed automatic control system met these requirements both in vitro, in week-long continuous mock circulation tests, and in vivo, in acute open-chested animals (calves). Satisfactory results were also obtained in a series of chronic animal experiments, including 21 days of continuous operation of the fully automatic control mode, and 138 days of operation in a manual mode, in a 159-day calf implant.

  16. Dynamic Anthropometry – Deffning Protocols for Automatic Body Measurement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Slavenka Petrak

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents the research on possibilities of protocol development for automatic computer-based determination of measurements on a 3D body model in defined dynamic positions. Initially, two dynamic body positions were defined for the research on dimensional changes of targeted body lengths and surface segments during body movement from basic static position into a selected dynamic body position. The assumption was that during body movement, specifi c length and surface dimensions would change significantly from the aspect of clothing construction and functionality of a garment model. 3D body scanning of a female test sample was performed in basic static and two defined dynamic positions. 3D body models were processed and measurement points were defined as a starting point for the determination of characteristic body measurements. The protocol for automatic computer measurement was defined for every dynamic body position by the systematic set of activities based on determined measurement points. The verification of developed protocols was performed by automatic determination of defined measurements on the test sample and by comparing the results with the conventional manual measurement.

  17. Exploratory field trial of motorcycle autonomous emergency braking (MAEB): Considerations on the acceptability of unexpected automatic decelerations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Savino, Giovanni; Pierini, Marco; Thompson, Jason; Fitzharris, Michael; Lenné, Michael G

    2016-11-16

    Autonomous emergency braking (AEB) acts to slow down a vehicle when an unavoidable impending collision is detected. In addition to documented benefits when applied to passenger cars, AEB has also shown potential when applied to motorcycles (MAEB). However, the feasibility of MAEB as practically applied to motorcycles in the real world is not well understood. In this study we performed a field trial involving 16 riders on a test motorcycle subjected to automatic decelerations, thus simulating MAEB activation. The tests were conducted along a rectilinear path at nominal speed of 40 km/h and with mean deceleration of 0.15 g (15% of full braking) deployed at random times. Riders were also exposed to one final undeclared brake activation with the aim of providing genuinely unexpected automatic braking events. Participants were consistently able to manage automatic decelerations of the vehicle with minor to moderate effort. Results of undeclared activations were consistent with those of standard runs. This study demonstrated the feasibility of a moderate automatic deceleration in a scenario of motorcycle travelling in a straight path, supporting the notion that the application of AEB on motorcycles is practicable. Furthermore, the proposed field trial can be used as a reference for future regulation or consumer tests in order to address safety and acceptability of unexpected automatic decelerations on a motorcycle.

  18. Altered brain activation and functional connectivity in working memory related networks in patients with type 2 diabetes: An ICA-based analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Yang; Lu, Shan; Liu, Chunlei; Zhang, Huimei; Zhou, Xuanhe; Ni, Changlin; Qin, Wen; Zhang, Quan

    2016-01-01

    Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) can cause multidimensional cognitive deficits, among which working memory (WM) is usually involved at an early stage. However, the neural substrates underlying impaired WM in T2DM patients are still unclear. To clarify this issue, we utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and independent component analysis to evaluate T2DM patients for alterations in brain activation and functional connectivity (FC) in WM networks and to determine their associations with cognitive and clinical variables. Twenty complication-free T2DM patients and 19 matched healthy controls (HCs) were enrolled, and fMRI data were acquired during a block-designed 1-back WM task. The WM metrics of the T2DM patients showed no differences compared with those of the HCs, except for a slightly lower accuracy rate in the T2DM patients. Compared with the HCs, the T2DM patients demonstrated increased activation within their WM fronto-parietal networks, and activation strength was significantly correlated with WM performance. The T2DM patients also showed decreased FC within and between their WM networks. Our results indicate that the functional integration of WM sub-networks was disrupted in the complication-free T2DM patients and that strengthened regional activity in fronto-parietal networks may compensate for the WM impairment caused by T2DM. PMID:27021340

  19. Automatic text summarization

    CERN Document Server

    Torres Moreno, Juan Manuel

    2014-01-01

    This new textbook examines the motivations and the different algorithms for automatic document summarization (ADS). We performed a recent state of the art. The book shows the main problems of ADS, difficulties and the solutions provided by the community. It presents recent advances in ADS, as well as current applications and trends. The approaches are statistical, linguistic and symbolic. Several exemples are included in order to clarify the theoretical concepts.  The books currently available in the area of Automatic Document Summarization are not recent. Powerful algorithms have been develop

  20. Automatic Ultrasound Scanning

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Moshavegh, Ramin

    on the user adjustments on the scanner interface to optimize the scan settings. This explains the huge interest in the subject of this PhD project entitled “AUTOMATIC ULTRASOUND SCANNING”. The key goals of the project have been to develop automated techniques to minimize the unnecessary settings...... on the scanners, and to improve the computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) in ultrasound by introducing new quantitative measures. Thus, four major issues concerning automation of the medical ultrasound are addressed in this PhD project. They touch upon gain adjustments in ultrasound, automatic synthetic aperture image...

  1. Automatic Speech Recognition from Neural Signals: A Focused Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian Herff

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Speech interfaces have become widely accepted and are nowadays integrated in various real-life applications and devices. They have become a part of our daily life. However, speech interfaces presume the ability to produce intelligible speech, which might be impossible due to either loud environments, bothering bystanders or incapabilities to produce speech (i.e.~patients suffering from locked-in syndrome. For these reasons it would be highly desirable to not speak but to simply envision oneself to say words or sentences. Interfaces based on imagined speech would enable fast and natural communication without the need for audible speech and would give a voice to otherwise mute people.This focused review analyzes the potential of different brain imaging techniques to recognize speech from neural signals by applying Automatic Speech Recognition technology. We argue that modalities based on metabolic processes, such as functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, are less suited for Automatic Speech Recognition from neural signals due to low temporal resolution but are very useful for the investigation of the underlying neural mechanisms involved in speech processes. In contrast, electrophysiologic activity is fast enough to capture speech processes and is therefor better suited for ASR. Our experimental results indicate the potential of these signals for speech recognition from neural data with a focus on invasively measured brain activity (electrocorticography. As a first example of Automatic Speech Recognition techniques used from neural signals, we discuss the emph{Brain-to-text} system.

  2. Age-Related Differences in Dynamic Interactions Among Default Mode, Frontoparietal Control, and Dorsal Attention Networks during Resting-State and Interference Resolution

    Science.gov (United States)

    Avelar-Pereira, Bárbara; Bäckman, Lars; Wåhlin, Anders; Nyberg, Lars; Salami, Alireza

    2017-01-01

    Resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) can identify large-scale brain networks, including the default mode (DMN), frontoparietal control (FPN) and dorsal attention (DAN) networks. Interactions among these networks are critical for supporting complex cognitive functions, yet the way in which they are modulated across states is not well understood. Moreover, it remains unclear whether these interactions are similarly affected in aging regardless of cognitive state. In this study, we investigated age-related differences in functional interactions among the DMN, FPN and DAN during rest and the Multi-Source Interference task (MSIT). Networks were identified using independent component analysis (ICA), and functional connectivity was measured during rest and task. We found that the FPN was more coupled with the DMN during rest and with the DAN during the MSIT. The degree of FPN-DMN connectivity was lower in older compared to younger adults, whereas no age-related differences were observed in FPN-DAN connectivity in either state. This suggests that dynamic interactions of the FPN are stable across cognitive states. The DMN and DAN were anti correlated and age-sensitive during the MSIT only, indicating variation in a task-dependent manner. Increased levels of anticorrelation from rest to task also predicted successful interference resolution. Additional analyses revealed that the degree of DMN-DAN anticorrelation during the MSIT was associated to resting cerebral blood flow (CBF) within the DMN. This suggests that reduced DMN neural activity during rest underlies an impaired ability to achieve higher levels of anticorrelation during a task. Taken together, our results suggest that only parts of age-related differences in connectivity are uncovered at rest and thus, should be studied in the functional connectome across multiple states for a more comprehensive picture. PMID:28588476

  3. Ongoing activity in temporally coherent networks predicts intra-subject fluctuation of response time to sporadic executive control demands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nozawa, Takayuki; Sugiura, Motoaki; Yokoyama, Ryoichi; Ihara, Mizuki; Kotozaki, Yuka; Miyauchi, Carlos Makoto; Kanno, Akitake; Kawashima, Ryuta

    2014-01-01

    Can ongoing fMRI BOLD signals predict fluctuations in swiftness of a person's response to sporadic cognitive demands? This is an important issue because it clarifies whether intrinsic brain dynamics, for which spatio-temporal patterns are expressed as temporally coherent networks (TCNs), have effects not only on sensory or motor processes, but also on cognitive processes. Predictivity has been affirmed, although to a limited extent. Expecting a predictive effect on executive performance for a wider range of TCNs constituting the cingulo-opercular, fronto-parietal, and default mode networks, we conducted an fMRI study using a version of the color-word Stroop task that was specifically designed to put a higher load on executive control, with the aim of making its fluctuations more detectable. We explored the relationships between the fluctuations in ongoing pre-trial activity in TCNs and the task response time (RT). The results revealed the existence of TCNs in which fluctuations in activity several seconds before the onset of the trial predicted RT fluctuations for the subsequent trial. These TCNs were distributed in the cingulo-opercular and fronto-parietal networks, as well as in perceptual and motor networks. Our results suggest that intrinsic brain dynamics in these networks constitute "cognitive readiness," which plays an active role especially in situations where information for anticipatory attention control is unavailable. Fluctuations in these networks lead to fluctuations in executive control performance.

  4. Automatic Scheduling and Planning (ASAP) in future ground control systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matlin, Sam

    1988-01-01

    This report describes two complementary approaches to the problem of space mission planning and scheduling. The first is an Expert System or Knowledge-Based System for automatically resolving most of the activity conflicts in a candidate plan. The second is an Interactive Graphics Decision Aid to assist the operator in manually resolving the residual conflicts which are beyond the scope of the Expert System. The two system designs are consistent with future ground control station activity requirements, support activity timing constraints, resource limits and activity priority guidelines.

  5. 30 CFR 77.314 - Automatic temperature control instruments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Automatic temperature control instruments. 77... UNDERGROUND COAL MINES Thermal Dryers § 77.314 Automatic temperature control instruments. (a) Automatic temperature control instruments for thermal dryer system shall be of the recording type. (b) Automatic...

  6. Altered resting-state effective connectivity of fronto-parietal motor control systems on the primary motor network following stroke

    Science.gov (United States)

    Inman, Cory S.; James, G. Andrew; Hamann, Stephan; Rajendra, Justin K.; Pagnoni, Giuseppe; Butler, Andrew J.

    2011-01-01

    Previous brain imaging work suggests that stroke alters the effective connectivity (the influence neural regions exert upon each other) of motor execution networks. The present study examines the intrinsic effective connectivity of top-down motor control in stroke survivors (n=13) relative to healthy participants (n=12). Stroke survivors exhibited significant deficits in motor function, as assessed by the Fugl-Meyer Motor Assessment. We used structural equation modeling (SEM) of resting-state fMRI data to investigate the relationship between motor deficits and the intrinsic effective connectivity between brain regions involved in motor control and motor execution. An exploratory adaptation of SEM determined the optimal model of motor execution effective connectivity in healthy participants, and confirmatory SEM assessed stroke survivors’ fit to that model. We observed alterations in spontaneous resting-state effective connectivity from fronto-parietal guidance systems to the motor network in stroke survivors. More specifically, diminished connectivity was found in connections from the superior parietal cortex to primary motor cortex and supplementary motor cortex. Furthermore, the paths demonstrated large individual variance in stroke survivors but less variance in healthy participants. These findings suggest that characterizing the deficits in resting-state connectivity of top-down processes in stroke survivors may help optimize cognitive and physical rehabilitation therapies by individually targeting specific neural pathway. PMID:21839174

  7. Automatic control systems engineering

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shin, Yun Gi

    2004-01-01

    This book gives descriptions of automatic control for electrical electronics, which indicates history of automatic control, Laplace transform, block diagram and signal flow diagram, electrometer, linearization of system, space of situation, state space analysis of electric system, sensor, hydro controlling system, stability, time response of linear dynamic system, conception of root locus, procedure to draw root locus, frequency response, and design of control system.

  8. Automatic Generation and Ranking of Questions for Critical Review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Ming; Calvo, Rafael A.; Rus, Vasile

    2014-01-01

    Critical review skill is one important aspect of academic writing. Generic trigger questions have been widely used to support this activity. When students have a concrete topic in mind, trigger questions are less effective if they are too general. This article presents a learning-to-rank based system which automatically generates specific trigger…

  9. Development of advanced automatic control system for nuclear ship. 2. Perfect automatic operation after reactor scram events

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yabuuchi, Noriaki; Nakazawa, Toshio; Takahashi, Hiroki; Shimazaki, Junya; Hoshi, Tsutao

    1997-11-01

    An automatic operation system has been developed for the purpose of realizing a perfect automatic plant operation after reactor scram events. The goal of the automatic operation after a reactor scram event is to bring the reactor hot stand-by condition automatically. The basic functions of this system are as follows; to monitor actions of the equipments of safety actions after a reactor scram, to control necessary control equipments to bring a reactor to a hot stand-by condition automatically, and to energize a decay heat removal system. The performance evaluation on this system was carried out by comparing the results using to Nuclear Ship Engineering Simulation System (NESSY) and the those measured in the scram test of the nuclear ship 'Mutsu'. As the result, it was showed that this system had the sufficient performance to bring a reactor to a hot syand-by condition quickly and safety. (author)

  10. Development of advanced automatic control system for nuclear ship. 2. Perfect automatic operation after reactor scram events

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yabuuchi, Noriaki; Nakazawa, Toshio; Takahashi, Hiroki; Shimazaki, Junya; Hoshi, Tsutao [Japan Atomic Energy Research Inst., Tokai, Ibaraki (Japan). Tokai Research Establishment

    1997-11-01

    An automatic operation system has been developed for the purpose of realizing a perfect automatic plant operation after reactor scram events. The goal of the automatic operation after a reactor scram event is to bring the reactor hot stand-by condition automatically. The basic functions of this system are as follows; to monitor actions of the equipments of safety actions after a reactor scram, to control necessary control equipments to bring a reactor to a hot stand-by condition automatically, and to energize a decay heat removal system. The performance evaluation on this system was carried out by comparing the results using to Nuclear Ship Engineering Simulation System (NESSY) and the those measured in the scram test of the nuclear ship `Mutsu`. As the result, it was showed that this system had the sufficient performance to bring a reactor to a hot syand-by condition quickly and safety. (author)

  11. Automatic exchange unit for control rod drive device

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nasu, Seiji; Sasaki, Masayoshi.

    1982-01-01

    Purpose: To enable automatic reoperation and continuation without external power interruption remedy device at the time of recovering the interrupted power soruce during automatic positioning operation. Constitution: In case of an automatic exchange unit for a control rod drive device of the control type for setting the deviation between the positioning target position and the present position of the device to zero, the position data of the drive device of the positioning target value of the device is automatically read, and an interlock of operation inhibit is applied to a control system until the data reading is completed and automatic operation start or restart conditions are sequentially confirmed. After the confirmation, the interlock is released to start the automatic operation or reoperation. Accordingly, the automatic operation can be safely restarted and continued. (Yoshihara, H.)

  12. Temporal Evolution of “Automatic Gain-Scaling”

    OpenAIRE

    Pruszynski, J. Andrew; Kurtzer, Isaac; Lillicrap, Timothy P.; Scott, Stephen H.

    2009-01-01

    The earliest neural response to a mechanical perturbation, the short-latency stretch response (R1: 20–45 ms), is known to exhibit “automatic gain-scaling” whereby its magnitude is proportional to preperturbation muscle activity. Because gain-scaling likely reflects an intrinsic property of the motoneuron pool (via the size-recruitment principle), counteracting this property poses a fundamental challenge for the nervous system, which must ultimately counter the absolute change in load regardle...

  13. Representing Space through the Interplay between Attention and Multisensory Integration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Emiliano Macaluso

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Multisensory integration has been traditionally thought to rely on a restricted set of multisensory brain areas, and to occur automatically and pre-attentively. More recently, it has become evident that multisensory interactions can be found almost everywhere in the brain, including areas involved in attention control and areas modulated by attention. In a series of fMRI experiments, we manipulated concurrently the position of multisensory stimuli and the distribution of spatial attention. This enabled us to highlight the role of high-order fronto-parietal areas, as well as sensory-specific occipital cortex, for multisensory processing and spatial attention control. We found that specific task constraints regarding the nature of attentional deployment (endogenous vs. exogenous, the spatial relationship between stimulus position and attended location, and attentional load shape the interplay between attention and multisensory processing. We suggest that multisensory integration acts as a saliency-defining process that can interact with attentional control beyond any within-modality mechanism. We propose that an anatomically-distributed, but functionally-integrated, representation of space makes use of multisensory interactions to help attention selecting relevant spatial locations. Stimuli at the attended location undergo enhanced processing, including boosting of multisensory signals there. In this perspective, attention and multisensory integration operate in an interactive manner jointly determining the activity of a wide-spread network that includes high-order fronto-parietal regions and sensory-specific areas.

  14. An Automatic Video Meteor Observation Using UFO Capture at the Showa Station

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fujiwara, Y.; Nakamura, T.; Ejiri, M.; Suzuki, H.

    2012-05-01

    The goal of our study is to clarify meteor activities in the southern hemi-sphere by continuous optical observations with video cameras with automatic meteor detection and recording at Syowa station, Antarctica.

  15. Position automatic determination technology

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1985-10-01

    This book tells of method of position determination and characteristic, control method of position determination and point of design, point of sensor choice for position detector, position determination of digital control system, application of clutch break in high frequency position determination, automation technique of position determination, position determination by electromagnetic clutch and break, air cylinder, cam and solenoid, stop position control of automatic guide vehicle, stacker crane and automatic transfer control.

  16. Lynx: Automatic Elderly Behavior Prediction in Home Telecare

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jose Manuel Lopez-Guede

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper introduces Lynx, an intelligent system for personal safety at home environments, oriented to elderly people living independently, which encompasses a decision support machine for automatic home risk prevention, tested in real-life environments to respond to real time situations. The automatic system described in this paper prevents such risks by an advanced analytic methods supported by an expert knowledge system. It is minimally intrusive, using plug-and-play sensors and machine learning algorithms to learn the elder’s daily activity taking into account even his health records. If the system detects that something unusual happens (in a wide sense or if something is wrong relative to the user’s health habits or medical recommendations, it sends at real-time alarm to the family, care center, or medical agents, without human intervention. The system feeds on information from sensors deployed in the home and knowledge of subject physical activities, which can be collected by mobile applications and enriched by personalized health information from clinical reports encoded in the system. The system usability and reliability have been tested in real-life conditions, with an accuracy larger than 81%.

  17. Lynx: Automatic Elderly Behavior Prediction in Home Telecare

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lopez-Guede, Jose Manuel; Moreno-Fernandez-de-Leceta, Aitor; Martinez-Garcia, Alexeiw; Graña, Manuel

    2015-01-01

    This paper introduces Lynx, an intelligent system for personal safety at home environments, oriented to elderly people living independently, which encompasses a decision support machine for automatic home risk prevention, tested in real-life environments to respond to real time situations. The automatic system described in this paper prevents such risks by an advanced analytic methods supported by an expert knowledge system. It is minimally intrusive, using plug-and-play sensors and machine learning algorithms to learn the elder's daily activity taking into account even his health records. If the system detects that something unusual happens (in a wide sense) or if something is wrong relative to the user's health habits or medical recommendations, it sends at real-time alarm to the family, care center, or medical agents, without human intervention. The system feeds on information from sensors deployed in the home and knowledge of subject physical activities, which can be collected by mobile applications and enriched by personalized health information from clinical reports encoded in the system. The system usability and reliability have been tested in real-life conditions, with an accuracy larger than 81%. PMID:26783514

  18. Automatic ultrasound image enhancement for 2D semi-automatic breast-lesion segmentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Kongkuo; Hall, Christopher S.

    2014-03-01

    Breast cancer is the fastest growing cancer, accounting for 29%, of new cases in 2012, and second leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States and worldwide. Ultrasound (US) has been used as an indispensable tool for breast cancer detection/diagnosis and treatment. In computer-aided assistance, lesion segmentation is a preliminary but vital step, but the task is quite challenging in US images, due to imaging artifacts that complicate detection and measurement of the suspect lesions. The lesions usually present with poor boundary features and vary significantly in size, shape, and intensity distribution between cases. Automatic methods are highly application dependent while manual tracing methods are extremely time consuming and have a great deal of intra- and inter- observer variability. Semi-automatic approaches are designed to counterbalance the advantage and drawbacks of the automatic and manual methods. However, considerable user interaction might be necessary to ensure reasonable segmentation for a wide range of lesions. This work proposes an automatic enhancement approach to improve the boundary searching ability of the live wire method to reduce necessary user interaction while keeping the segmentation performance. Based on the results of segmentation of 50 2D breast lesions in US images, less user interaction is required to achieve desired accuracy, i.e. < 80%, when auto-enhancement is applied for live-wire segmentation.

  19. The ‘Continuing Misfortune’ of Automatism in Early Surrealism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tessel M. Bauduin

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available In the 1924 Manifesto of Surrealism surrealist leader André Breton (1896-1966 defined Surrealism as ‘psychic automatism in its pure state,’ positioning ‘psychic automatism’ as both a concept and a technique. This definition followed upon an intense period of experimentation with various forms of automatism among the proto-surrealist group; predominantly automatic writing, but also induced dream states. This article explores how surrealist ‘psychic automatism’ functioned as a mechanism for communication, or the expression of thought as directly as possible through the unconscious, in the first two decades of Surrealism. It touches upon automatic writing, hysteria as an automatic bodily performance of the unconscious, dreaming and the experimentation with induced dream states, and automatic drawing and other visual arts-techniques that could be executed more or less automatically as well. For all that the surrealists reinvented automatism for their own poetic, artistic and revolutionary aims, the automatic techniques were primarily drawn from contemporary Spiritualism, psychical research and experimentation with mediums, and the article teases out the connections to mediumistic automatism. It is demonstrated how the surrealists effectively and successfully divested automatism of all things spiritual. It furthermore becomes clear that despite various mishaps, automatism in many forms was a very successful creative technique within Surrealism.

  20. C-H Activation and Alkyne Annulation via Automatic or Intrinsic Directing Groups: Towards High Step Economy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheng, Liyao; Hua, Ruimao

    2018-06-01

    Direct transformation of carbon-hydrogen bond (C-H) has emerged to be a trend for construction of molecules from building blocks with no or less prefunctionalization, leading high atom and step economy. Directing group (DG) strategy is widely used to achieve higher reactivity and selectivity, but additional steps are usually needed for installation and/or cleavage of DGs, limiting step economy of the overall transformation. To meet this challenge, we proposed a concept of automatic DG (DG auto ), which is auto-installed and/or auto-cleavable. Multifunctional oxime and hydrazone DG auto were designed for C-H activation and alkyne annulation to furnish diverse nitrogen-containing heterocycles. Imidazole was employed as an intrinsic DG (DG in ) to synthesize ring-fused and π-extended functional molecules. The alkyne group in the substrates can also be served as DG in for ortho-C-H activation to afford carbocycles. In this account, we intend to give a review of our progress in this area and brief introduction of other related advances on C-H functionalization using DG auto or DG in strategies. © 2018 The Chemical Society of Japan & Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  1. Programmable automatic alpha--beta air sample counter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Howell, W.P.

    1978-01-01

    A programmable automatic alpha-beta air sample counter was developed for routine sample counting by operational health physics personnel. The system is composed of an automatic sample changer utilizing a large silicon diode detector, an electronic counting system with energy analysis capability, an automatic data acquisition controller, an interface module, and a teletypewriter with paper tape punch and paper tape reader. The system is operated through the teletypewriter keyboard and the paper tape reader, which are used to instruct the automatic data acquisition controller. Paper tape programs are provided for background counting, Chi 2 test, and sample counting. Output data are printed by the teletypewriter on standard continuous roll or multifold paper. Data are automatically corrected for background and counter efficiency

  2. Focused attention, open monitoring and automatic self-transcending: Categories to organize meditations from Vedic, Buddhist and Chinese traditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Travis, Fred; Shear, Jonathan

    2010-12-01

    This paper proposes a third meditation-category--automatic self-transcending--to extend the dichotomy of focused attention and open monitoring proposed by Lutz. Automatic self-transcending includes techniques designed to transcend their own activity. This contrasts with focused attention, which keeps attention focused on an object; and open monitoring, which keeps attention involved in the monitoring process. Each category was assigned EEG bands, based on reported brain patterns during mental tasks, and meditations were categorized based on their reported EEG. Focused attention, characterized by beta/gamma activity, included meditations from Tibetan Buddhist, Buddhist, and Chinese traditions. Open monitoring, characterized by theta activity, included meditations from Buddhist, Chinese, and Vedic traditions. Automatic self-transcending, characterized by alpha1 activity, included meditations from Vedic and Chinese traditions. Between categories, the included meditations differed in focus, subject/object relation, and procedures. These findings shed light on the common mistake of averaging meditations together to determine mechanisms or clinical effects. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Automatic measurement of the radioactive mercury uptake by the kidney

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zurowski, S.; Raynaud, C.; CEA, 91 - Orsay

    1976-01-01

    An entirely automatic method to measure the Hg uptake by the kidney is proposed. The following operations are carried out in succession: measurement of extrarenal activity, demarcation of uptake areas, anatomical identification of uptake areas, separation of overlapping organ images and measurement of kidney depth. The first results thus calculated on 30 patients are very close to those obtained with a standard manual method and are highly encouraging. Two important points should be stressed: a broad demarcation of the uptake areas is necessary and an original method, that of standard errors, is useful for the background noise determination and uptake area demarcation. This automatic measurement technique is so designed that it can be applied to other special cases [fr

  4. Emotion Regulation and Complex Brain Networks: Association Between Expressive Suppression and Efficiency in the Fronto-Parietal Network and Default-Mode Network

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Junhao Pan

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Emotion regulation (ER refers to the “implementation of a conscious or non-conscious goal to start, stop or otherwise modulate the trajectory of an emotion” (Etkin et al., 2015. Whereas multiple brain areas have been found to be involved in ER, relatively little is known about whether and how ER is associated with the global functioning of brain networks. Recent advances in brain connectivity research using graph-theory based analysis have shown that the brain can be organized into complex networks composed of functionally or structurally connected brain areas. Global efficiency is one graphic metric indicating the efficiency of information exchange among brain areas and is utilized to measure global functioning of brain networks. The present study examined the relationship between trait measures of ER (expressive suppression (ES and cognitive reappraisal (CR and global efficiency in resting-state functional brain networks (the whole brain network and ten predefined networks using structural equation modeling (SEM. The results showed that ES was reliably associated with efficiency in the fronto-parietal network and default-mode network. The finding advances the understanding of neural substrates of ER, revealing the relationship between ES and efficient organization of brain networks.

  5. Robust Fallback Scheme for the Danish Automatic Voltage Control System

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Qin, Nan; Dmitrova, Evgenia; Lund, Torsten

    2015-01-01

    This paper proposes a fallback scheme for the Danish automatic voltage control system. It will be activated in case of the local station loses telecommunication to the control center and/or the local station voltage violates the acceptable operational limits. It cuts in/out switchable and tap...... power system....

  6. Sensitivity analysis and design optimization through automatic differentiation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hovland, Paul D; Norris, Boyana; Strout, Michelle Mills; Bhowmick, Sanjukta; Utke, Jean

    2005-01-01

    Automatic differentiation is a technique for transforming a program or subprogram that computes a function, including arbitrarily complex simulation codes, into one that computes the derivatives of that function. We describe the implementation and application of automatic differentiation tools. We highlight recent advances in the combinatorial algorithms and compiler technology that underlie successful implementation of automatic differentiation tools. We discuss applications of automatic differentiation in design optimization and sensitivity analysis. We also describe ongoing research in the design of language-independent source transformation infrastructures for automatic differentiation algorithms

  7. fMRI characterization of visual working memory recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rahm, Benjamin; Kaiser, Jochen; Unterrainer, Josef M; Simon, Juliane; Bledowski, Christoph

    2014-04-15

    Encoding and maintenance of information in visual working memory have been extensively studied, highlighting the crucial and capacity-limiting role of fronto-parietal regions. In contrast, the neural basis of recognition in visual working memory has remained largely unspecified. Cognitive models suggest that recognition relies on a matching process that compares sensory information with the mental representations held in memory. To characterize the neural basis of recognition we varied both the need for recognition and the degree of similarity between the probe item and the memory contents, while independently manipulating memory load to produce load-related fronto-parietal activations. fMRI revealed a fractionation of working memory functions across four distributed networks. First, fronto-parietal regions were activated independent of the need for recognition. Second, anterior parts of load-related parietal regions contributed to recognition but their activations were independent of the difficulty of matching in terms of sample-probe similarity. These results argue against a key role of the fronto-parietal attention network in recognition. Rather the third group of regions including bilateral temporo-parietal junction, posterior cingulate cortex and superior frontal sulcus reflected demands on matching both in terms of sample-probe-similarity and the number of items to be compared. Also, fourth, bilateral motor regions and right superior parietal cortex showed higher activation when matching provided clear evidence for a decision. Together, the segregation between the well-known fronto-parietal activations attributed to attentional operations in working memory from those regions involved in matching supports the theoretical view of separable attentional and mnemonic contributions to working memory. Yet, the close theoretical and empirical correspondence to perceptual decision making may call for an explicit consideration of decision making mechanisms in

  8. Automatically sweeping dual-channel boxcar integrator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Keefe, D.J.; Patterson, D.R.

    1978-01-01

    An automatically sweeping dual-channel boxcar integrator has been developed to automate the search for a signal that repeatedly follows a trigger pulse by a constant or slowly varying time delay when that signal is completely hidden in random electrical noise and dc-offset drifts. The automatically sweeping dual-channel boxcar integrator improves the signal-to-noise ratio and eliminates dc-drift errors in the same way that a conventional dual-channel boxcar integrator does, but, in addition, automatically locates the hidden signal. When the signal is found, its time delay is displayed with 100-ns resolution, and its peak value is automatically measured and displayed. This relieves the operator of the tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone search for the signal whenever the time delay changes. The automatically sweeping boxcar integrator can also be used as a conventional dual-channel boxcar integrator. In either mode, it can repeatedly integrate a signal up to 990 times and thus make accurate measurements of the signal pulse height in the presence of random noise, dc offsets, and unsynchronized interfering signals

  9. 14 CFR 29.1329 - Automatic pilot system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Automatic pilot system. 29.1329 Section 29... pilot system. (a) Each automatic pilot system must be designed so that the automatic pilot can— (1) Be sufficiently overpowered by one pilot to allow control of the rotorcraft; and (2) Be readily and positively...

  10. 14 CFR 27.1329 - Automatic pilot system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Automatic pilot system. 27.1329 Section 27... pilot system. (a) Each automatic pilot system must be designed so that the automatic pilot can— (1) Be sufficiently overpowered by one pilot to allow control of the rotorcraft; and (2) Be readily and positively...

  11. Automatic sample changer control software for automation of neutron activation analysis process in Malaysian Nuclear Agency

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yussup, N.; Ibrahim, M. M.; Rahman, N. A. A.; Mokhtar, M.; Salim, N. A. A.; Soh@Shaari, S. C.; Azman, A.; Lombigit, L.; Azman, A.; Omar, S. A.

    2018-01-01

    Most of the procedures in neutron activation analysis (NAA) process that has been established in Malaysian Nuclear Agency (Nuclear Malaysia) since 1980s were performed manually. These manual procedures carried out by the NAA laboratory personnel are time consuming and inefficient especially for sample counting and measurement process. The sample needs to be changed and the measurement software needs to be setup for every one hour counting time. Both of these procedures are performed manually for every sample. Hence, an automatic sample changer system (ASC) that consists of hardware and software is developed to automate sample counting process for up to 30 samples consecutively. This paper describes the ASC control software for NAA process which is designed and developed to control the ASC hardware and call GammaVision software for sample measurement. The software is developed by using National Instrument LabVIEW development package.

  12. Automatic differentiation algorithms in model analysis

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Huiskes, M.J.

    2002-01-01

    Title: Automatic differentiation algorithms in model analysis
    Author: M.J. Huiskes
    Date: 19 March, 2002

    In this thesis automatic differentiation algorithms and derivative-based methods

  13. Automatization and Orthographic Development in Second Language Visual Word Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kida, Shusaku

    2016-01-01

    The present study investigated second language (L2) learners' acquisition of automatic word recognition and the development of L2 orthographic representation in the mental lexicon. Participants in the study were Japanese university students enrolled in a compulsory course involving a weekly 30-minute sustained silent reading (SSR) activity with…

  14. Automatic intelligent cruise control

    OpenAIRE

    Stanton, NA; Young, MS

    2006-01-01

    This paper reports a study on the evaluation of automatic intelligent cruise control (AICC) from a psychological perspective. It was anticipated that AICC would have an effect upon the psychology of driving—namely, make the driver feel like they have less control, reduce the level of trust in the vehicle, make drivers less situationally aware, but might reduce the workload and make driving might less stressful. Drivers were asked to drive in a driving simulator under manual and automatic inte...

  15. Fast and automatic activation of an abstract representation of money in the human ventral visual pathway.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Catherine Tallon-Baudry

    Full Text Available Money, when used as an incentive, activates the same neural circuits as rewards associated with physiological needs. However, unlike physiological rewards, monetary stimuli are cultural artifacts: how are monetary stimuli identified in the first place? How and when does the brain identify a valid coin, i.e. a disc of metal that is, by social agreement, endowed with monetary properties? We took advantage of the changes in the Euro area in 2002 to compare neural responses to valid coins (Euros, Australian Dollars with neural responses to invalid coins that have lost all monetary properties (French Francs, Finnish Marks. We show in magneto-encephalographic recordings, that the ventral visual pathway automatically distinguishes between valid and invalid coins, within only ∼150 ms. This automatic categorization operates as well on coins subjects were familiar with as on unfamiliar coins. No difference between neural responses to scrambled controls could be detected. These results could suggest the existence of a generic, all-purpose neural representation of money that is independent of experience. This finding is reminiscent of a central assumption in economics, money fungibility, or the fact that a unit of money is substitutable to another. From a neural point of view, our findings may indicate that the ventral visual pathway, a system previously thought to analyze visual features such as shape or color and to be influenced by daily experience, could also able to use conceptual attributes such as monetary validity to categorize familiar as well as unfamiliar visual objects. The symbolic abilities of the posterior fusiform region suggested here could constitute an efficient neural substrate to deal with culturally defined symbols, independently of experience, which probably fostered money's cultural emergence and success.

  16. Functional role of voltage gated Ca2+ channels in heart automaticity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pietro eMesirca

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available Pacemaker activity of automatic cardiac myocytes controls the heartbeat in everyday life. Cardiac automaticity is under the control of several neurotransmitters and hormones and is constantly regulated by the autonomic nervous system to match the physiological needs of the organism. Several classes of ion channels and proteins involved in intracellular Ca2+ dynamics contribute to pacemaker activity. The functional role of voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs in heart automaticity and impulse conduction has been matter of debate for 30 years. However, growing evidence shows that VGCCs are important regulators of the pacemaker mechanisms and play also a major role in atrio-ventricular impulse conduction. Incidentally, studies performed in genetically modified mice lacking L-type Cav1.3 (Cav1.3-/- or T-type Cav3.1 (Cav3.1-/- channels show that genetic inactivation of these channels strongly impacts pacemaking. In cardiac pacemaker cells, VGCCs activate at negative voltages at the beginning of the diastolic depolarization and importantly contribute to this phase by supplying inward current. Loss-of-function of these channels also impairs atrio-ventricular conduction. Furthermore, inactivation of Cav1.3 channels promotes also atrial fibrillation and flutter in knockout mice suggesting that these channels can play a role in stabilizing atrial rhythm. Genomic analysis demonstrated that Cav1.3 and Cav3.1 channels are widely expressed in pacemaker tissue of mice, rabbits and humans. Importantly, human diseases of pacemaker activity such as congenital bradycardia and heart block have been attributed to loss-of-function of Cav1.3 and Cav3.1 channels. In this article, we will review the current knowledge on the role of VGCCs in the generation and regulation of heart rate and rhythm. We will discuss also how loss of Ca2+ entry through VGCCs could influence intracellular Ca2+ handling and promote atrial arrhythmias.

  17. Automatic plasma control in magnetic traps

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Samojlenko, Y.; Chuyanov, V.

    1984-01-01

    Hot plasma is essentially in thermodynamic non-steady state. Automatic plasma control basically means monitoring deviations from steady state and producing a suitable magnetic or electric field which brings the plasma back to its original state. Briefly described are two systems of automatic plasma control: control with a magnetic field using a negative impedance circuit, and control using an electric field. It appears that systems of automatic plasma stabilization will be an indispensable component of the fusion reactor and its possibilities will in many ways determine the reactor economy. (Ha)

  18. Word Processing in Dyslexics: An Automatic Decoding Deficit?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yap, Regina; Van Der Leu, Aryan

    1993-01-01

    Compares dyslexic children with normal readers on measures of phonological decoding and automatic word processing. Finds that dyslexics have a deficit in automatic phonological decoding skills. Discusses results within the framework of the phonological deficit and the automatization deficit hypotheses. (RS)

  19. Manifestation of automaticity in the pulmonary-vein myocardium of rats with abdominal aorto-venocaval shunt

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shogo Hamaguchi

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Effect of abdominal aorto-venocaval shunt (AVS on the automaticity of the pulmonary-vein myocardium was studied in the rat. Spontaneous electrical activity was observed in one third of the isolated pulmonary-vein preparations from the AVS rats, but scarcely in those from sham-operated rats; the activity was induced by tertiapin and suppressed by carbachol or chelation of intracellular Ca2+. The evoked action potentials in AVS rats had less negative resting membrane potential and longer action potential duration than those in sham-operated rats. These results suggest that the automaticity of the rat pulmonary-vein myocardium is manifested under chronic volume overload.

  20. Automatic fault tracing of active faults in the Sutlej valley (NW-Himalayas, India)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Janda, C.; Faber, R.; Hager, C.; Grasemann, B.

    2003-04-01

    In the Sutlej Valley the Lesser Himalayan Crystalline Sequence (LHCS) is actively extruding between the Munsiari Thrust (MT) at the base, and the Karcham Normal Fault (KNF) at the top. The clear evidences for ongoing deformation are brittle faults in Holocene lake deposits, hot springs activity near the faults and dramatically younger cooling ages within the LHCS (Vannay and Grasemann, 2001). Because these brittle fault zones obviously influence the morphology in the field we developed a new method for automatically tracing the intersections of planar fault geometries with digital elevation models (Faber, 2002). Traditional mapping techniques use structure contours (i.e. lines or curves connecting points of equal elevation on a geological structure) in order to construct intersections of geological structures with topographic maps. However, even if the geological structure is approximated by a plane and therefore structure contours are equally spaced lines, this technique is rather time consuming and inaccurate, because errors are cumulative. Drawing structure contours by hand makes it also impossible to slightly change the azimuth and dip direction of the favoured plane without redrawing everything from the beginning on. However, small variations of the fault position which are easily possible by either inaccuracies of measurement in the field or small local variations in the trend and/or dip of the fault planes can have big effects on the intersection with topography. The developed method allows to interactively view intersections in a 2D and 3D mode. Unlimited numbers of planes can be moved separately in 3 dimensions (translation and rotation) and intersections with the topography probably following morphological features can be mapped. Besides the increase of efficiency this method underlines the shortcoming of classical lineament extraction ignoring the dip of planar structures. Using this method, areas of active faulting influencing the morphology, can be

  1. Improvement in automatic postural coordination following alexander technique lessons in a person with low back pain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cacciatore, Timothy W; Horak, Fay B; Henry, Sharon M

    2005-06-01

    The relationship between abnormal postural coordination and back pain is unclear. The Alexander Technique (AT) aims to improve postural coordination by using conscious processes to alter automatic postural coordination and ongoing muscular activity, and it has been reported to reduce low back pain. This case report describes the use of the AT with a client with low back pain and the observed changes in automatic postural responses and back pain. The client was a 49-year-old woman with a 25-year history of left-sided, idiopathic, lumbrosacral back pain. Automatic postural coordination was measured using a force plate during horizontal platform translations and one-legged standing. The client was tested monthly for 4 months before AT lessons and for 3 months after lessons. Before lessons, she consistently had laterally asymmetric automatic postural responses to translations. After AT lessons, the magnitude and asymmetry of her responses and balance improved and her low back pain decreased. Further research is warranted to study whether AT lessons improve low back pain-associated abnormalities in automatic postural coordination and whether improving automatic postural coordination helps to reduce low back pain.

  2. Unconsciousness, automatisms, and myoclonic jerks with diffuse rhythmic 9-Hz discharges.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nadel, A; Waddell, G; Volow, M; Escueta, A V

    1975-09-01

    A 25-year-old man presented with seizures characterized by unconsciousness, automatic behavior, and myoclonic jerks lasting 0.5 to 8 sec. Videotape analysis of 300 simultaneously recorded electroencephalographic and clinical attacks revealed 8- to 9-Hz 150 to 200 muV sharp waves beginning in both medial temporal areas during eyelid flutters. When discharges spread diffusely on both sides and lasted 2 to 3 sec, 20 degrees forward flexion of the head, unconsciousness, pupil dilation, and staring became evident. Asymmetrical myoclonic jerks invariably appeared. When paroxysms were greater than 3 sec, automatisms and tonic posturing occurred. The electroencephalographic and clinical seizures appeared during the awake and relaxed states, i.e., with normal alpha rhythm. They were suppressed during physical and mental activities and during sleep, i.e., in the absence of alpha rhythm. Our studies suggest that these seizures associated with diffuse electroencephalographic alpha-like activities are subcortical in origin and should be tested in their responsivity to alpha suppressants and inducers.

  3. Deliberation versus automaticity in decision making: Which presentation format features facilitate automatic decision making?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anke Soellner

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available The idea of automatic decision making approximating normatively optimal decisions without necessitating much cognitive effort is intriguing. Whereas recent findings support the notion that such fast, automatic processes explain empirical data well, little is known about the conditions under which such processes are selected rather than more deliberate stepwise strategies. We investigate the role of the format of information presentation, focusing explicitly on the ease of information acquisition and its influence on information integration processes. In a probabilistic inference task, the standard matrix employed in prior research was contrasted with a newly created map presentation format and additional variations of both presentation formats. Across three experiments, a robust presentation format effect emerged: Automatic decision making was more prevalent in the matrix (with high information accessibility, whereas sequential decision strategies prevailed when the presentation format demanded more information acquisition effort. Further scrutiny of the effect showed that it is not driven by the presentation format as such, but rather by the extent of information search induced by a format. Thus, if information is accessible with minimal need for information search, information integration is likely to proceed in a perception-like, holistic manner. In turn, a moderate demand for information search decreases the likelihood of behavior consistent with the assumptions of automatic decision making.

  4. Analysis of a phase synchronized functional network based on the rhythm of brain activities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li Ling; Jin Zhen-Lan; Li Bin

    2011-01-01

    Rhythm of brain activities represents oscillations of postsynaptic potentials in neocortex, therefore it can serve as an indicator of the brain activity state. In order to check the connectivity of brain rhythm, this paper develops a new method of constructing functional network based on phase synchronization. Electroencephalogram (EEG) data were collected while subjects looking at a green cross in two states, performing an attention task and relaxing with eyes-open. The EEG from these two states was filtered by three band-pass filters to obtain signals of theta (4–7 Hz), alpha (8–13 Hz) and beta (14–30 Hz) bands. Mean resultant length was used to estimate strength of phase synchronization in three bands to construct networks of both states, and mean degree K and cluster coefficient C of networks were calculated as a function of threshold. The result shows higher cluster coefficient in the attention state than in the eyes-open state in all three bands, suggesting that cluster coefficient reflects brain state. In addition, an obvious fronto-parietal network is found in the attention state, which is a well-known attention network. These results indicate that attention modulates the fronto-parietal connectivity in different modes as compared with the eyes-open state. Taken together this method is an objective and important tool to study the properties of neural networks of brain rhythm. (interdisciplinary physics and related areas of science and technology)

  5. Forensic Automatic Speaker Recognition Based on Likelihood Ratio Using Acoustic-phonetic Features Measured Automatically

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huapeng Wang

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Forensic speaker recognition is experiencing a remarkable paradigm shift in terms of the evaluation framework and presentation of voice evidence. This paper proposes a new method of forensic automatic speaker recognition using the likelihood ratio framework to quantify the strength of voice evidence. The proposed method uses a reference database to calculate the within- and between-speaker variability. Some acoustic-phonetic features are extracted automatically using the software VoiceSauce. The effectiveness of the approach was tested using two Mandarin databases: A mobile telephone database and a landline database. The experiment's results indicate that these acoustic-phonetic features do have some discriminating potential and are worth trying in discrimination. The automatic acoustic-phonetic features have acceptable discriminative performance and can provide more reliable results in evidence analysis when fused with other kind of voice features.

  6. Recent advances in Automatic Speech Recognition for Vietnamese

    OpenAIRE

    Le , Viet-Bac; Besacier , Laurent; Seng , Sopheap; Bigi , Brigitte; Do , Thi-Ngoc-Diep

    2008-01-01

    International audience; This paper presents our recent activities for automatic speech recognition for Vietnamese. First, our text data collection and processing methods and tools are described. For language modeling, we investigate word, sub-word and also hybrid word/sub-word models. For acoustic modeling, when only limited speech data are available for Vietnamese, we propose some crosslingual acoustic modeling techniques. Furthermore, since the use of sub-word units can reduce the high out-...

  7. 46 CFR 63.25-1 - Small automatic auxiliary boilers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 46 Shipping 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Small automatic auxiliary boilers. 63.25-1 Section 63.25... AUXILIARY BOILERS Requirements for Specific Types of Automatic Auxiliary Boilers § 63.25-1 Small automatic auxiliary boilers. Small automatic auxiliary boilers defined as having heat-input ratings of 400,000 Btu/hr...

  8. CERPI and CEREL, two computer codes for the automatic identification and determination of gamma emitters in thermal-neutron-activated samples

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Giannini, M.; Oliva, P.R.; Ramorino, M.C.

    1979-01-01

    A computer code that automatically analyzes gamma-ray spectra obtained with Ge(Li) detectors is described. The program contains such features as automatic peak location and fitting, determination of peak energies and intensities, nuclide identification, and calculation of masses and errors. Finally, the results obtained with this computer code for a lunar sample are reported and briefly discussed

  9. Automatic polymerase chain reaction product detection system for food safety monitoring using zinc finger protein fused to luciferase

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yoshida, Wataru; Kezuka, Aki; Murakami, Yoshiyuki; Lee, Jinhee; Abe, Koichi [Department of Biotechnology and Life Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, 2-24-16 Naka-cho, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8588 (Japan); Motoki, Hiroaki; Matsuo, Takafumi; Shimura, Nobuaki [System Instruments Co., Ltd., 776-2 Komiya-cho, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0031 (Japan); Noda, Mamoru; Igimi, Shizunobu [Division of Biomedical Food Research, National Institute of Health Sciences, 1-18-1 Kamiyoga, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 158-8501 (Japan); Ikebukuro, Kazunori, E-mail: ikebu@cc.tuat.ac.jp [Department of Biotechnology and Life Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, 2-24-16 Naka-cho, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8588 (Japan)

    2013-11-01

    Graphical abstract: -- Highlights: •Zif268 fused to luciferase was used for E. coli O157, Salmonella and coliform detection. •Artificial zinc finger protein fused to luciferase was constructed for Norovirus detection. •An analyzer that automatically detects PCR products by zinc finger protein fused to luciferase was developed. •Target pathogens were specifically detected by the automatic analyzer with zinc finger protein fused to luciferase. -- Abstract: An automatic polymerase chain reaction (PCR) product detection system for food safety monitoring using zinc finger (ZF) protein fused to luciferase was developed. ZF protein fused to luciferase specifically binds to target double stranded DNA sequence and has luciferase enzymatic activity. Therefore, PCR products that comprise ZF protein recognition sequence can be detected by measuring the luciferase activity of the fusion protein. We previously reported that PCR products from Legionella pneumophila and Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157 genomic DNA were detected by Zif268, a natural ZF protein, fused to luciferase. In this study, Zif268–luciferase was applied to detect the presence of Salmonella and coliforms. Moreover, an artificial zinc finger protein (B2) fused to luciferase was constructed for a Norovirus detection system. In the luciferase activity detection assay, several bound/free separation process is required. Therefore, an analyzer that automatically performed the bound/free separation process was developed to detect PCR products using the ZF–luciferase fusion protein. By means of the automatic analyzer with ZF–luciferase fusion protein, target pathogenic genomes were specifically detected in the presence of other pathogenic genomes. Moreover, we succeeded in the detection of 10 copies of E. coli BL21 without extraction of genomic DNA by the automatic analyzer and E. coli was detected with a logarithmic dependency in the range of 1.0 × 10 to 1.0 × 10{sup 6} copies.

  10. Automatic polymerase chain reaction product detection system for food safety monitoring using zinc finger protein fused to luciferase

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yoshida, Wataru; Kezuka, Aki; Murakami, Yoshiyuki; Lee, Jinhee; Abe, Koichi; Motoki, Hiroaki; Matsuo, Takafumi; Shimura, Nobuaki; Noda, Mamoru; Igimi, Shizunobu; Ikebukuro, Kazunori

    2013-01-01

    Graphical abstract: -- Highlights: •Zif268 fused to luciferase was used for E. coli O157, Salmonella and coliform detection. •Artificial zinc finger protein fused to luciferase was constructed for Norovirus detection. •An analyzer that automatically detects PCR products by zinc finger protein fused to luciferase was developed. •Target pathogens were specifically detected by the automatic analyzer with zinc finger protein fused to luciferase. -- Abstract: An automatic polymerase chain reaction (PCR) product detection system for food safety monitoring using zinc finger (ZF) protein fused to luciferase was developed. ZF protein fused to luciferase specifically binds to target double stranded DNA sequence and has luciferase enzymatic activity. Therefore, PCR products that comprise ZF protein recognition sequence can be detected by measuring the luciferase activity of the fusion protein. We previously reported that PCR products from Legionella pneumophila and Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157 genomic DNA were detected by Zif268, a natural ZF protein, fused to luciferase. In this study, Zif268–luciferase was applied to detect the presence of Salmonella and coliforms. Moreover, an artificial zinc finger protein (B2) fused to luciferase was constructed for a Norovirus detection system. In the luciferase activity detection assay, several bound/free separation process is required. Therefore, an analyzer that automatically performed the bound/free separation process was developed to detect PCR products using the ZF–luciferase fusion protein. By means of the automatic analyzer with ZF–luciferase fusion protein, target pathogenic genomes were specifically detected in the presence of other pathogenic genomes. Moreover, we succeeded in the detection of 10 copies of E. coli BL21 without extraction of genomic DNA by the automatic analyzer and E. coli was detected with a logarithmic dependency in the range of 1.0 × 10 to 1.0 × 10 6 copies

  11. 49 CFR 236.825 - System, automatic train control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false System, automatic train control. 236.825 Section..., INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE, AND REPAIR OF SIGNAL AND TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Definitions § 236.825 System, automatic train control. A system so arranged that its operation will automatically...

  12. Automatic validation of numerical solutions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Stauning, Ole

    1997-01-01

    This thesis is concerned with ``Automatic Validation of Numerical Solutions''. The basic theory of interval analysis and self-validating methods is introduced. The mean value enclosure is applied to discrete mappings for obtaining narrow enclosures of the iterates when applying these mappings...... differential equations, but in this thesis, we describe how to use the methods for enclosing iterates of discrete mappings, and then later use them for discretizing solutions of ordinary differential equations. The theory of automatic differentiation is introduced, and three methods for obtaining derivatives...... are described: The forward, the backward, and the Taylor expansion methods. The three methods have been implemented in the C++ program packages FADBAD/TADIFF. Some examples showing how to use the three metho ds are presented. A feature of FADBAD/TADIFF not present in other automatic differentiation packages...

  13. Vehicle-to-Grid Automatic Load Sharing with Driver Preference in Micro-Grids

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wang, Yubo; Nazaripouya, Hamidreza; Chu, Chi-Cheng; Gadh, Rajit; Pota, Hemanshu R.

    2014-10-15

    Integration of Electrical Vehicles (EVs) with power grid not only brings new challenges for load management, but also opportunities for distributed storage and generation. This paper comprehensively models and analyzes distributed Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) for automatic load sharing with driver preference. In a micro-grid with limited communications, V2G EVs need to decide load sharing based on their own power and voltage profile. A droop based controller taking into account driver preference is proposed in this paper to address the distributed control of EVs. Simulations are designed for three fundamental V2G automatic load sharing scenarios that include all system dynamics of such applications. Simulation results demonstrate that active power sharing is achieved proportionally among V2G EVs with consideration of driver preference. In additional, the results also verify the system stability and reactive power sharing analysis in system modelling, which sheds light on large scale V2G automatic load sharing in more complicated cases.

  14. Automaticity of walking: functional significance, mechanisms, measurement and rehabilitation strategies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David J Clark

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Automaticity is a hallmark feature of walking in adults who are healthy and well-functioning. In the context of walking, ‘automaticity’ refers to the ability of the nervous system to successfully control typical steady state walking with minimal use of attention-demanding executive control resources. Converging lines of evidence indicate that walking deficits and disorders are characterized in part by a shift in the locomotor control strategy from healthy automaticity to compensatory executive control. This is potentially detrimental to walking performance, as an executive control strategy is not optimized for locomotor control. Furthermore, it places excessive demands on a limited pool of executive reserves. The result is compromised ability to perform basic and complex walking tasks and heightened risk for adverse mobility outcomes including falls. Strategies for rehabilitation of automaticity are not well defined, which is due to both a lack of systematic research into the causes of impaired automaticity and to a lack of robust neurophysiological assessments by which to gauge automaticity. These gaps in knowledge are concerning given the serious functional implications of compromised automaticity. Therefore, the objective of this article is to advance the science of automaticity of walking by consolidating evidence and identifying gaps in knowledge regarding: a functional significance of automaticity; b neurophysiology of automaticity; c measurement of automaticity; d mechanistic factors that compromise automaticity; and e strategies for rehabilitation of automaticity.

  15. The Use of Automatic Indexing for Authority Control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dillon, Martin; And Others

    1981-01-01

    Uses an experimental system for authority control on a collection of bibliographic records to demonstrate the resemblance between thesaurus-based automatic indexing and automatic authority control. Details of the automatic indexing system are given, results discussed, and the benefits of the resemblance examined. Included are a rules appendix and…

  16. 30 CFR 77.1401 - Automatic controls and brakes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Automatic controls and brakes. 77.1401 Section... MINES Personnel Hoisting § 77.1401 Automatic controls and brakes. Hoists and elevators shall be equipped with overspeed, overwind, and automatic stop controls and with brakes capable of stopping the elevator...

  17. 30 CFR 57.19006 - Automatic hoist braking devices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Automatic hoist braking devices. 57.19006 Section 57.19006 Mineral Resources MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR METAL AND... Hoisting Hoists § 57.19006 Automatic hoist braking devices. Automatic hoists shall be provided with devices...

  18. 30 CFR 56.19006 - Automatic hoist braking devices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Automatic hoist braking devices. 56.19006 Section 56.19006 Mineral Resources MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR METAL AND... Hoisting Hoists § 56.19006 Automatic hoist braking devices. Automatic hoists shall be provided with devices...

  19. Development of the automatic control rod operation system for JOYO. Verification of automatic control rod operation guide system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Terakado, Tsuguo; Suzuki, Shinya; Kawai, Masashi; Aoki, Hiroshi; Ohkubo, Toshiyuki

    1999-10-01

    The automatic control rod operation system was developed to control the JOYO reactor power automatically in all operation modes(critical approach, cooling system heat up, power ascent, power descent), development began in 1989. Prior to applying the system, verification tests of the automatic control rod operation guide system was conducted during 32nd duty cycles of JOYO' from Dec. 1997 to Feb. 1998. The automatic control rod operation guide system consists of the control rod operation guide function and the plant operation guide function. The control rod operation guide function provides information on control rod movement and position, while the plant operation guide function provide guidance for plant operations corresponding to reactor power changes(power ascent or power descent). Control rod insertion or withdrawing are predicted by fuzzy algorithms. (J.P.N.)

  20. Automatic temporal expectancy: a high-density event-related potential study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giovanni Mento

    Full Text Available How we compute time is not fully understood. Questions include whether an automatic brain mechanism is engaged in temporally regular environmental structure in order to anticipate events, and whether this can be dissociated from task-related processes, including response preparation, selection and execution. To investigate these issues, a passive temporal oddball task requiring neither time-based motor response nor explicit decision was specifically designed and delivered to participants during high-density, event-related potentials recording. Participants were presented with pairs of audiovisual stimuli (S1 and S2 interspersed with an Inter-Stimulus Interval (ISI that was manipulated according to an oddball probabilistic distribution. In the standard condition (70% of trials, the ISI lasted 1,500 ms, while in the two alternative, deviant conditions (15% each, it lasted 2,500 and 3,000 ms. The passive over-exposition to the standard ISI drove participants to automatically and progressively create an implicit temporal expectation of S2 onset, reflected by the time course of the Contingent Negative Variation response, which always peaked in correspondence to the point of S2 maximum expectation and afterwards inverted in polarity towards the baseline. Brain source analysis of S1- and ISI-related ERP activity revealed activation of sensorial cortical areas and the supplementary motor area (SMA, respectively. In particular, since the SMA time course synchronised with standard ISI, we suggest that this area is the major cortical generator of the temporal CNV reflecting an automatic, action-independent mechanism underlying temporal expectancy.

  1. CERPI and CEREL, two computer codes for the automatic identification and determination of gamma emitters in thermal neutron activated samples

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Giannini, M.; Oliva, P.R.; Ramorino, C.

    1978-01-01

    A description is given of a computer code which automatically analyses gamma-ray spectra obtained with Ge(Li) detectors. The program contains features as automatic peak location and fitting, determination of peak energies and intensities, nuclide identification and calculation of masses and errors. Finally the results obtained with our computer code for a lunar sample are reported and briefly discussed

  2. ROADS CENTRE-AXIS EXTRACTION IN AIRBORNE SAR IMAGES: AN APPROACH BASED ON ACTIVE CONTOUR MODEL WITH THE USE OF SEMI-AUTOMATIC SEEDING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R. G. Lotte

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Research works dealing with computational methods for roads extraction have considerably increased in the latest two decades. This procedure is usually performed on optical or microwave sensors (radar imagery. Radar images offer advantages when compared to optical ones, for they allow the acquisition of scenes regardless of atmospheric and illumination conditions, besides the possibility of surveying regions where the terrain is hidden by the vegetation canopy, among others. The cartographic mapping based on these images is often manually accomplished, requiring considerable time and effort from the human interpreter. Maps for detecting new roads or updating the existing roads network are among the most important cartographic products to date. There are currently many studies involving the extraction of roads by means of automatic or semi-automatic approaches. Each of them presents different solutions for different problems, making this task a scientific issue still open. One of the preliminary steps for roads extraction can be the seeding of points belonging to roads, what can be done using different methods with diverse levels of automation. The identified seed points are interpolated to form the initial road network, and are hence used as an input for an extraction method properly speaking. The present work introduces an innovative hybrid method for the extraction of roads centre-axis in a synthetic aperture radar (SAR airborne image. Initially, candidate points are fully automatically seeded using Self-Organizing Maps (SOM, followed by a pruning process based on specific metrics. The centre-axis are then detected by an open-curve active contour model (snakes. The obtained results were evaluated as to their quality with respect to completeness, correctness and redundancy.

  3. Precision about the automatic emotional brain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vuilleumier, Patrik

    2015-01-01

    The question of automaticity in emotion processing has been debated under different perspectives in recent years. Satisfying answers to this issue will require a better definition of automaticity in terms of relevant behavioral phenomena, ecological conditions of occurrence, and a more precise mechanistic account of the underlying neural circuits.

  4. Automatic control of nuclear power plants

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jover, P.

    1976-01-01

    The fundamental concepts in automatic control are surveyed, and the purpose of the automatic control of pressurized water reactors is given. The response characteristics for the main components are then studied and block diagrams are given for the main control loops (turbine, steam generator, and nuclear reactors) [fr

  5. Interactivity in automatic control: foundations and experiences

    OpenAIRE

    Dormido Bencomo, Sebastián; Guzmán Sánchez, José Luis; Costa Castelló, Ramon; Berenguel, M

    2012-01-01

    The first part of this paper presents the concepts of interactivity and visualization and its essential role in learning the fundamentals and techniques of automatic control. More than 10 years experience of the authors in the development and design of interactive tools dedicated to the study of automatic control concepts are also exposed. The second part of the paper summarizes the main features of the “Automatic Control with Interactive Tools” text that has been recently published by Pea...

  6. Towards unifying inheritance and automatic program specialization

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schultz, Ulrik Pagh

    2002-01-01

    with covariant specialization to control the automatic application of program specialization to class members. Lapis integrates object-oriented concepts, block structure, and techniques from automatic program specialization to provide both a language where object-oriented designs can be e#ciently implemented......Inheritance allows a class to be specialized and its attributes refined, but implementation specialization can only take place by overriding with manually implemented methods. Automatic program specialization can generate a specialized, effcient implementation. However, specialization of programs...

  7. Automatic anatomy recognition via multiobject oriented active shape models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Xinjian; Udupa, Jayaram K; Alavi, Abass; Torigian, Drew A

    2010-12-01

    This paper studies the feasibility of developing an automatic anatomy recognition (AAR) system in clinical radiology and demonstrates its operation on clinical 2D images. The anatomy recognition method described here consists of two main components: (a) multiobject generalization of OASM and (b) object recognition strategies. The OASM algorithm is generalized to multiple objects by including a model for each object and assigning a cost structure specific to each object in the spirit of live wire. The delineation of multiobject boundaries is done in MOASM via a three level dynamic programming algorithm, wherein the first level is at pixel level which aims to find optimal oriented boundary segments between successive landmarks, the second level is at landmark level which aims to find optimal location for the landmarks, and the third level is at the object level which aims to find optimal arrangement of object boundaries over all objects. The object recognition strategy attempts to find that pose vector (consisting of translation, rotation, and scale component) for the multiobject model that yields the smallest total boundary cost for all objects. The delineation and recognition accuracies were evaluated separately utilizing routine clinical chest CT, abdominal CT, and foot MRI data sets. The delineation accuracy was evaluated in terms of true and false positive volume fractions (TPVF and FPVF). The recognition accuracy was assessed (1) in terms of the size of the space of the pose vectors for the model assembly that yielded high delineation accuracy, (2) as a function of the number of objects and objects' distribution and size in the model, (3) in terms of the interdependence between delineation and recognition, and (4) in terms of the closeness of the optimum recognition result to the global optimum. When multiple objects are included in the model, the delineation accuracy in terms of TPVF can be improved to 97%-98% with a low FPVF of 0.1%-0.2%. Typically, a

  8. Automatic detection of children's engagement using non-verbal features and ordinal learning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kim, Jaebok; Truong, Khiet Phuong; Evers, Vanessa

    In collaborative play, young children can exhibit different types of engagement. Some children are engaged with other children in the play activity while others are just looking. In this study, we investigated methods to automatically detect the children's levels of engagement in play settings using

  9. LANGUAGE REPETITION AND SHORT-TERM MEMORY: AN INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Steve eMajerus

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Short-term maintenance of verbal information is a core factor of language repetition, especially when reproducing multiple or unfamiliar stimuli. Many models of language processing locate the verbal short-term maintenance function in the left posterior superior temporo-parietal area and its connections with the inferior frontal gyrus. However, research in the field of short-term memory has implicated bilateral fronto-parietal networks, involved in attention and serial order processing, as being critical for the maintenance and reproduction of verbal sequences. We present here an integrative framework aimed at bridging research in the language processing and short-term memory fields. This framework considers verbal short-term maintenance as an emergent function resulting from synchronized and integrated activation in dorsal and ventral language processing networks as well as fronto-parietal attention and serial order processing networks. To-be-maintained item representations are temporarily activated in the dorsal and ventral language processing networks, novel phoneme and word serial order information is proposed to be maintained via a right fronto-parietal serial order processing network, and activation in these different networks is proposed to be coordinated and maintained via a left fronto-parietal attention processing network. This framework provides new perspectives for our understanding of information maintenance at the nonword-, word- and sentence-level as well as of verbal maintenance deficits in case of brain injury.

  10. Language repetition and short-term memory: an integrative framework.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Majerus, Steve

    2013-01-01

    Short-term maintenance of verbal information is a core factor of language repetition, especially when reproducing multiple or unfamiliar stimuli. Many models of language processing locate the verbal short-term maintenance function in the left posterior superior temporo-parietal area and its connections with the inferior frontal gyrus. However, research in the field of short-term memory has implicated bilateral fronto-parietal networks, involved in attention and serial order processing, as being critical for the maintenance and reproduction of verbal sequences. We present here an integrative framework aimed at bridging research in the language processing and short-term memory fields. This framework considers verbal short-term maintenance as an emergent function resulting from synchronized and integrated activation in dorsal and ventral language processing networks as well as fronto-parietal attention and serial order processing networks. To-be-maintained item representations are temporarily activated in the dorsal and ventral language processing networks, novel phoneme and word serial order information is proposed to be maintained via a right fronto-parietal serial order processing network, and activation in these different networks is proposed to be coordinated and maintained via a left fronto-parietal attention processing network. This framework provides new perspectives for our understanding of information maintenance at the non-word-, word- and sentence-level as well as of verbal maintenance deficits in case of brain injury.

  11. Automatic extraction of forward stroke volume using dynamic 11C-acetate PET/CT

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Harms, Hans; Tolbod, Lars Poulsen; Hansson, Nils Henrik

    Objectives: Dynamic PET with 11C-acetate can be used to quantify myocardial blood flow and oxidative metabolism, the latter of which is used to calculate myocardial external efficiency (MEE). Calculation of MEE requires forward stroke volume (FSV) data. FSV is affected by cardiac loading conditions......, potentially introducing bias if measured with a separate modality. The aim of this study was to develop and validate methods for automatically extracting FSV directly from the dynamic PET used for measuring oxidative metabolism. Methods: 16 subjects underwent a dynamic 27 min PET scan on a Siemens Biograph...... TruePoint 64 PET/CT scanner after bolus injection of 399±27 MBq of 11C-acetate. The LV-aortic time-activity curve (TAC) was extracted automatically from dynamic PET data using cluster analysis. The first-pass peak was derived by automatic extrapolation of the down-slope of the TAC. FSV...

  12. Automatic measurement for solid state track detectors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ogura, Koichi

    1982-01-01

    Since in solid state track detectors, their tracks are measured with a microscope, observers are forced to do hard works that consume time and labour. This causes to obtain poor statistic accuracy or to produce personal error. Therefore, many researches have been done to aim at simplifying and automating track measurement. There are two categories in automating the measurement: simple counting of the number of tracks and the requirements to know geometrical elements such as the size of tracks or their coordinates as well as the number of tracks. The former is called automatic counting and the latter automatic analysis. The method to generally evaluate the number of tracks in automatic counting is the estimation of the total number of tracks in the total detector area or in a field of view of a microscope. It is suitable for counting when the track density is higher. The method to count tracks one by one includes the spark counting and the scanning microdensitometer. Automatic analysis includes video image analysis in which the high quality images obtained with a high resolution video camera are processed with a micro-computer, and the tracks are automatically recognized and measured by feature extraction. This method is described in detail. In many kinds of automatic measurements reported so far, frequently used ones are ''spark counting'' and ''video image analysis''. (Wakatsuki, Y.)

  13. Risk seeking for losses modulates the functional connectivity of the default mode and left frontoparietal networks in young males.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deza Araujo, Yacila I; Nebe, Stephan; Neukam, Philipp T; Pooseh, Shakoor; Sebold, Miriam; Garbusow, Maria; Heinz, Andreas; Smolka, Michael N

    2018-06-01

    Value-based decision making (VBDM) is a principle that states that humans and other species adapt their behavior according to the dynamic subjective values of the chosen or unchosen options. The neural bases of this process have been extensively investigated using task-based fMRI and lesion studies. However, the growing field of resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) may shed light on the organization and function of brain connections across different decision-making domains. With this aim, we used independent component analysis to study the brain network dynamics in a large cohort of young males (N = 145) and the relationship of these dynamics with VBDM. Participants completed a battery of behavioral tests that evaluated delay aversion, risk seeking for losses, risk aversion for gains, and loss aversion, followed by an RSFC scan session. We identified a set of large-scale brain networks and conducted our analysis only on the default mode network (DMN) and networks comprising cognitive control, appetitive-driven, and reward-processing regions. Higher risk seeking for losses was associated with increased connectivity between medial temporal regions, frontal regions, and the DMN. Higher risk seeking for losses was also associated with increased coupling between the left frontoparietal network and occipital cortices. These associations illustrate the participation of brain regions involved in prospective thinking, affective decision making, and visual processing in participants who are greater risk-seekers, and they demonstrate the sensitivity of RSFC to detect brain connectivity differences associated with distinct VBDM parameters.

  14. Automatization of welding

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Iwabuchi, Masashi; Tomita, Jinji; Nishihara, Katsunori.

    1978-01-01

    Automatization of welding is one of the effective measures for securing high degree of quality of nuclear power equipment, as well as for correspondence to the environment at the site of plant. As the latest ones of the automatic welders practically used for welding of nuclear power apparatuses in factories of Toshiba and IHI, those for pipes and lining tanks are described here. The pipe welder performs the battering welding on the inside of pipe end as the so-called IGSCC countermeasure and the succeeding butt welding through the same controller. The lining tank welder is able to perform simultaneous welding of two parallel weld lines on a large thin plate lining tank. Both types of the welders are demonstrating excellent performance at the shops as well as at the plant site. (author)

  15. No effects of a single 3G UMTS mobile phone exposure on spontaneous EEG activity, ERP correlates, and automatic deviance detection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Trunk, Attila; Stefanics, Gábor; Zentai, Norbert; Kovács-Bálint, Zsófia; Thuróczy, György; Hernádi, István

    2013-01-01

    Potential effects of a 30 min exposure to third generation (3G) Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) mobile phone-like electromagnetic fields (EMFs) were investigated on human brain electrical activity in two experiments. In the first experiment, spontaneous electroencephalography (sEEG) was analyzed (n = 17); in the second experiment, auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) and automatic deviance detection processes reflected by mismatch negativity (MMN) were investigated in a passive oddball paradigm (n = 26). Both sEEG and ERP experiments followed a double-blind protocol where subjects were exposed to either genuine or sham irradiation in two separate sessions. In both experiments, electroencephalograms (EEG) were recorded at midline electrode sites before and after exposure while subjects were watching a silent documentary. Spectral power of sEEG data was analyzed in the delta, theta, alpha, and beta frequency bands. In the ERP experiment, subjects were presented with a random series of standard (90%) and frequency-deviant (10%) tones in a passive binaural oddball paradigm. The amplitude and latency of the P50, N100, P200, MMN, and P3a components were analyzed. We found no measurable effects of a 30 min 3G mobile phone irradiation on the EEG spectral power in any frequency band studied. Also, we found no significant effects of EMF irradiation on the amplitude and latency of any of the ERP components. In summary, the present results do not support the notion that a 30 min unilateral 3G EMF exposure interferes with human sEEG activity, auditory evoked potentials or automatic deviance detection indexed by MMN. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  16. Speed and automaticity of word recognition - inseparable twins?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Poulsen, Mads; Asmussen, Vibeke; Elbro, Carsten

    'Speed and automaticity' of word recognition is a standard collocation. However, it is not clear whether speed and automaticity (i.e., effortlessness) make independent contributions to reading comprehension. In theory, both speed and automaticity may save cognitive resources for comprehension...... processes. Hence, the aim of the present study was to assess the unique contributions of word recognition speed and automaticity to reading comprehension while controlling for decoding speed and accuracy. Method: 139 Grade 5 students completed tests of reading comprehension and computer-based tests of speed...... of decoding and word recognition together with a test of effortlessness (automaticity) of word recognition. Effortlessness was measured in a dual task in which participants were presented with a word enclosed in an unrelated figure. The task was to read the word and decide whether the figure was a triangle...

  17. The Track of Brain Activity during the Observation of TV Commercials with the High-Resolution EEG Technology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laura Astolfi

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available We estimate cortical activity in normal subjects during the observation of TV commercials inserted within a movie by using high-resolution EEG techniques. The brain activity was evaluated in both time and frequency domains by solving the associate inverse problem of EEG with the use of realistic head models. In particular, we recover statistically significant information about cortical areas engaged by particular scenes inserted within the TV commercial proposed with respect to the brain activity estimated while watching a documentary. Results obtained in the population investigated suggest that the statistically significant brain activity during the observation of the TV commercial was mainly concentrated in frontoparietal cortical areas, roughly coincident with the Brodmann areas 8, 9, and 7, in the analyzed population.

  18. Automatic Identification of Physical Activity Intensity and Modality from the Fusion of Accelerometry and Heart Rate Data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    García-García, Fernando; Benito, Pedro J; Hernando, María E

    2016-12-07

    Physical activity (PA) is essential to prevent and to treat a variety of chronic diseases. The automated detection and quantification of PA over time empowers lifestyle interventions, facilitating reliable exercise tracking and data-driven counseling. We propose and compare various combinations of machine learning (ML) schemes for the automatic classification of PA from multi-modal data, simultaneously captured by a biaxial accelerometer and a heart rate (HR) monitor. Intensity levels (low / moderate / vigorous) were recognized, as well as for vigorous exercise, its modality (sustained aerobic / resistance / mixed). In total, 178.63 h of data about PA intensity (65.55 % low / 18.96 % moderate / 15.49 % vigorous) and 17.00 h about modality were collected in two experiments: one in free-living conditions, another in a fitness center under controlled protocols. The structure used for automatic classification comprised: a) definition of 42 time-domain signal features, b) dimensionality reduction, c) data clustering, and d) temporal filtering to exploit time redundancy by means of a Hidden Markov Model (HMM). Four dimensionality reduction techniques and four clustering algorithms were studied. In order to cope with class imbalance in the dataset, a custom performance metric was defined to aggregate recognition accuracy, precision and recall. The best scheme, which comprised a projection through Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and k-means clustering, was evaluated in leave-one-subject-out cross-validation; notably outperforming the standard industry procedures for PA intensity classification: score 84.65 %, versus up to 63.60 %. Errors tended to be brief and to appear around transients. The application of ML techniques for pattern identification and temporal filtering allowed to merge accelerometry and HR data in a solid manner, and achieved markedly better recognition performances than the standard methods for PA intensity estimation.

  19. Automatic terrain modeling using transfinite element analysis

    KAUST Repository

    Collier, Nathan; Calo, Victor M.

    2010-01-01

    An automatic procedure for modeling terrain is developed based on L2 projection-based interpolation of discrete terrain data onto transfinite function spaces. The function space is refined automatically by the use of image processing techniques

  20. Fully automatic registration and segmentation of first-pass myocardial perfusion MR image sequences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gupta, Vikas; Hendriks, Emile A; Milles, Julien; van der Geest, Rob J; Jerosch-Herold, Michael; Reiber, Johan H C; Lelieveldt, Boudewijn P F

    2010-11-01

    Derivation of diagnostically relevant parameters from first-pass myocardial perfusion magnetic resonance images involves the tedious and time-consuming manual segmentation of the myocardium in a large number of images. To reduce the manual interaction and expedite the perfusion analysis, we propose an automatic registration and segmentation method for the derivation of perfusion linked parameters. A complete automation was accomplished by first registering misaligned images using a method based on independent component analysis, and then using the registered data to automatically segment the myocardium with active appearance models. We used 18 perfusion studies (100 images per study) for validation in which the automatically obtained (AO) contours were compared with expert drawn contours on the basis of point-to-curve error, Dice index, and relative perfusion upslope in the myocardium. Visual inspection revealed successful segmentation in 15 out of 18 studies. Comparison of the AO contours with expert drawn contours yielded 2.23 ± 0.53 mm and 0.91 ± 0.02 as point-to-curve error and Dice index, respectively. The average difference between manually and automatically obtained relative upslope parameters was found to be statistically insignificant (P = .37). Moreover, the analysis time per slice was reduced from 20 minutes (manual) to 1.5 minutes (automatic). We proposed an automatic method that significantly reduced the time required for analysis of first-pass cardiac magnetic resonance perfusion images. The robustness and accuracy of the proposed method were demonstrated by the high spatial correspondence and statistically insignificant difference in perfusion parameters, when AO contours were compared with expert drawn contours. Copyright © 2010 AUR. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. Towards automatic exchange of information

    OpenAIRE

    Oberson, Xavier

    2015-01-01

    This article describes the various steps that led towards automatic exchange of information as the global standard and the issues that remain to be solved. First, the various competing models of exchange information, such as Double Tax Treaty (DTT), TIEA's, FATCA or UE Directives are described with a view to show how they interact between themselves. Second, the so-called Rubik Strategy is summarized and compared with an automatic exchange of information (AEOI). The third part then describes ...

  2. Automatic creation of simulation configuration. The SIPA workshop: SWORD

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Oudot, G.; Valembois, A.

    1994-01-01

    SWORD (Software Workshop Oriented towards Research and Development) is not only a software management system but also and mainly a software development system. The SWORD workshop is organised in hierarchical levels: (1) the automatic or manual creation of elementary models based on FORTRAN ANSI standard language; these models have interface variables structured in so-called connection points; Automatic model generators are used for the simulation of standard, repeated equipment: HYTHERNET covers the simulation of hydraulic, thermal, chemistry and activity; CONTRONET covers the simulation of I and C system, i.e. logic, protection and control systems; The capture of system topology for both generators is carried out on a graphic workstation under CAD system, (2) The models assembly generator, in charge of linking models (via connection points) and organizing their calling sequence in order to create a simulation application, (3) The configurations in charge of creation of external environment and of links between models assembly and external environment (connection with control desk, plant computer system, safety parameter display etc.), (4) The configuration generator which exports the simulation configuration to the target machine and generates the appropriate command for compilations and link editions; The workshop Administration ensures management, consistency checks are carried out at each step with warnings generated when applicable, and automatic chaining of the appropriate commands according to engineer request are available. (orig.) (4 refs., 4 figs.)

  3. Automatically processed alpha-track radon monitor

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Langner, G.H. Jr.

    1993-01-01

    An automatically processed alpha-track radon monitor is provided which includes a housing having an aperture allowing radon entry, and a filter that excludes the entry of radon daughters into the housing. A flexible track registration material is located within the housing that records alpha-particle emissions from the decay of radon and radon daughters inside the housing. The flexible track registration material is capable of being spliced such that the registration material from a plurality of monitors can be spliced into a single strip to facilitate automatic processing of the registration material from the plurality of monitors. A process for the automatic counting of radon registered by a radon monitor is also provided

  4. Sexual Modes Questionnaire (SMQ): Translation and Psychometric Properties of the Italian Version of the Automatic Thought Scale.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nimbi, Filippo Maria; Tripodi, Francesca; Simonelli, Chiara; Nobre, Pedro

    2018-03-01

    The Sexual Modes Questionnaire (SMQ) is a validated and widespread used tool to assess the association among negative automatic thoughts, emotions, and sexual response during sexual activity in men and women. To test the psychometric characteristics of the Italian version of the SMQ focusing on the Automatic Thoughts subscale (SMQ-AT). After linguistic translation, the psychometric properties (internal consistency, construct, and discriminant validity) were evaluated. 1,051 participants (425 men and 626 women, 776 healthy and 275 clinical groups complaining about sexual problems) participated in the present study. 2 confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the fit of the original factor structures of the SMQ versions. In addition, 2 principal component analyses were performed to highlight 2 new factorial structures that were further validated with confirmatory factor analyses. Cronbach α and composite reliability were used as internal consistency measures and differences between clinical and control groups were run to test the discriminant validity for the male and female versions. The associations with emotions and sexual functioning measures also are reported. Principal component analyses identified 5 factors in the male version: erection concerns thoughts, lack of erotic thoughts, age- and body-related thoughts, negative thoughts toward sex, and worries about partner's evaluation and failure anticipation thoughts. In the female version 6 factors were found: sexual abuse thoughts, lack of erotic thoughts, low self-body image thoughts, failure and disengagement thoughts, sexual passivity and control, and partner's lack of affection. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the adequacy of the factor structure for men and women. Moreover, the SMQ showed a strong association with emotional response and sexual functioning, differentiating between clinical and control groups. This measure is useful to evaluate patients and design interventions focused on

  5. Automatic Lamp and Fan Control Based on Microcontroller

    Science.gov (United States)

    Widyaningrum, V. T.; Pramudita, Y. D.

    2018-01-01

    In general, automation can be described as a process following pre-determined sequential steps with a little or without any human exertion. Automation is provided with the use of various sensors suitable to observe the production processes, actuators and different techniques and devices. In this research, the automation system developed is an automatic lamp and an automatic fan on the smart home. Both of these systems will be processed using an Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller. A microcontroller is used to obtain values of physical conditions through sensors connected to it. In the automatic lamp system required sensors to detect the light of the LDR (Light Dependent Resistor) sensor. While the automatic fan system required sensors to detect the temperature of the DHT11 sensor. In tests that have been done lamps and fans can work properly. The lamp can turn on automatically when the light begins to darken, and the lamp can also turn off automatically when the light begins to bright again. In addition, it can concluded also that the readings of LDR sensors are placed outside the room is different from the readings of LDR sensors placed in the room. This is because the light intensity received by the existing LDR sensor in the room is blocked by the wall of the house or by other objects. Then for the fan, it can also turn on automatically when the temperature is greater than 25°C, and the fan speed can also be adjusted. The fan may also turn off automatically when the temperature is less than equal to 25°C.

  6. Network-dependent modulation of brain activity during sleep.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watanabe, Takamitsu; Kan, Shigeyuki; Koike, Takahiko; Misaki, Masaya; Konishi, Seiki; Miyauchi, Satoru; Miyahsita, Yasushi; Masuda, Naoki

    2014-09-01

    Brain activity dynamically changes even during sleep. A line of neuroimaging studies has reported changes in functional connectivity and regional activity across different sleep stages such as slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. However, it remains unclear whether and how the large-scale network activity of human brains changes within a given sleep stage. Here, we investigated modulation of network activity within sleep stages by applying the pairwise maximum entropy model to brain activity obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging from sleeping healthy subjects. We found that the brain activity of individual brain regions and functional interactions between pairs of regions significantly increased in the default-mode network during SWS and decreased during REM sleep. In contrast, the network activity of the fronto-parietal and sensory-motor networks showed the opposite pattern. Furthermore, in the three networks, the amount of the activity changes throughout REM sleep was negatively correlated with that throughout SWS. The present findings suggest that the brain activity is dynamically modulated even in a sleep stage and that the pattern of modulation depends on the type of the large-scale brain networks. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Automatic control system at the ''Loviisa'' NPP

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kukhtevich, I.V.; Mal'tsev, B.K.; Sergievskaya, E.N.

    1980-01-01

    Automatic control system of the Loviisa-1 NPP (Finland) is described. According to operation conditions of Finland power system the Loviisa-1 NPP must operate in the mode of week and day control of loading schedule and participate in current control of power system frequency and capacity. With provision for these requirements NPP is equipped with the all-regime system for automatic control functioning during reactor start-up, shut-down, in normal and transient regimes and in emergency situations. The automatic control system includes: a data subsystem, an automatic control subsystem, a discrete control subsystem including remote, a subsystem for reactor control and protection and overall station system of protections: control and dosimetry inside the reactor. Structures of a data-computer complex, discrete control subsystems, reactor control and protection systems, neutron flux control system, inside-reactor control system, station protection system and system for control of fuel element tightness are presented in short. Two-year experience of the NPP operation confirmed advisability of the chosen volume of automatization. The Loviisa-1 NPP operates successfully in the mode of the week and day control of supervisor schedule and current control of frequency (short-term control)

  8. Entrance C - New Automatic Number Plate Recognition System

    CERN Multimedia

    2013-01-01

    Entrance C (Satigny) is now equipped with a latest-generation Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system and a fast-action road gate.   During the month of August, Entrance C will be continuously open from 7.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. (working days only). The security guards will open the gate as usual from 7.00 a.m. to 9.00 a.m. and from 5.00 p.m. to 7.00 p.m. For the rest of the working day (9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.) the gate will operate automatically. Please observe the following points:       Stop at the STOP sign on the ground     Position yourself next to the card reader for optimal recognition     Motorcyclists must use their CERN card     Cyclists may not activate the gate and should use the bicycle turnstile     Keep a safe distance from the vehicle in front of you   If access is denied, please check that your vehicle regist...

  9. Automatic Setting Procedure for Exoskeleton-Assisted Overground Gait: Proof of Concept on Stroke Population

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marta Gandolla

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Stroke-related locomotor impairments are often associated with abnormal timing and intensity of recruitment of the affected and non-affected lower limb muscles. Restoring the proper lower limbs muscles activation is a key factor to facilitate recovery of gait capacity and performance, and to reduce maladaptive plasticity. Ekso is a wearable powered exoskeleton robot able to support over-ground gait training. The user controls the exoskeleton by triggering each single step during the gait cycle. The fine-tuning of the exoskeleton control system is crucial—it is set according to the residual functional abilities of the patient, and it needs to ensure lower limbs powered gait to be the most physiological as possible. This work focuses on the definition of an automatic calibration procedure able to detect the best Ekso setting for each patient. EMG activity has been recorded from Tibialis Anterior, Soleus, Rectus Femoris, and Semitendinosus muscles in a group of 7 healthy controls and 13 neurological patients. EMG signals have been processed so to obtain muscles activation patterns. The mean muscular activation pattern derived from the controls cohort has been set as reference. The developed automatic calibration procedure requires the patient to perform overground walking trials supported by the exoskeleton while changing parameters setting. The Gait Metric index is calculated for each trial, where the closer the performance is to the normative muscular activation pattern, in terms of both relative amplitude and timing, the higher the Gait Metric index is. The trial with the best Gait Metric index corresponds to the best parameters set. It has to be noted that the automatic computational calibration procedure is based on the same number of overground walking trials, and the same experimental set-up as in the current manual calibration procedure. The proposed approach allows supporting the rehabilitation team in the setting procedure. It has been

  10. Automatic Setting Procedure for Exoskeleton-Assisted Overground Gait: Proof of Concept on Stroke Population.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gandolla, Marta; Guanziroli, Eleonora; D'Angelo, Andrea; Cannaviello, Giovanni; Molteni, Franco; Pedrocchi, Alessandra

    2018-01-01

    Stroke-related locomotor impairments are often associated with abnormal timing and intensity of recruitment of the affected and non-affected lower limb muscles. Restoring the proper lower limbs muscles activation is a key factor to facilitate recovery of gait capacity and performance, and to reduce maladaptive plasticity. Ekso is a wearable powered exoskeleton robot able to support over-ground gait training. The user controls the exoskeleton by triggering each single step during the gait cycle. The fine-tuning of the exoskeleton control system is crucial-it is set according to the residual functional abilities of the patient, and it needs to ensure lower limbs powered gait to be the most physiological as possible. This work focuses on the definition of an automatic calibration procedure able to detect the best Ekso setting for each patient. EMG activity has been recorded from Tibialis Anterior, Soleus, Rectus Femoris, and Semitendinosus muscles in a group of 7 healthy controls and 13 neurological patients. EMG signals have been processed so to obtain muscles activation patterns. The mean muscular activation pattern derived from the controls cohort has been set as reference. The developed automatic calibration procedure requires the patient to perform overground walking trials supported by the exoskeleton while changing parameters setting. The Gait Metric index is calculated for each trial, where the closer the performance is to the normative muscular activation pattern, in terms of both relative amplitude and timing, the higher the Gait Metric index is. The trial with the best Gait Metric index corresponds to the best parameters set. It has to be noted that the automatic computational calibration procedure is based on the same number of overground walking trials, and the same experimental set-up as in the current manual calibration procedure. The proposed approach allows supporting the rehabilitation team in the setting procedure. It has been demonstrated to be

  11. Automatic Setting Procedure for Exoskeleton-Assisted Overground Gait: Proof of Concept on Stroke Population

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gandolla, Marta; Guanziroli, Eleonora; D'Angelo, Andrea; Cannaviello, Giovanni; Molteni, Franco; Pedrocchi, Alessandra

    2018-01-01

    Stroke-related locomotor impairments are often associated with abnormal timing and intensity of recruitment of the affected and non-affected lower limb muscles. Restoring the proper lower limbs muscles activation is a key factor to facilitate recovery of gait capacity and performance, and to reduce maladaptive plasticity. Ekso is a wearable powered exoskeleton robot able to support over-ground gait training. The user controls the exoskeleton by triggering each single step during the gait cycle. The fine-tuning of the exoskeleton control system is crucial—it is set according to the residual functional abilities of the patient, and it needs to ensure lower limbs powered gait to be the most physiological as possible. This work focuses on the definition of an automatic calibration procedure able to detect the best Ekso setting for each patient. EMG activity has been recorded from Tibialis Anterior, Soleus, Rectus Femoris, and Semitendinosus muscles in a group of 7 healthy controls and 13 neurological patients. EMG signals have been processed so to obtain muscles activation patterns. The mean muscular activation pattern derived from the controls cohort has been set as reference. The developed automatic calibration procedure requires the patient to perform overground walking trials supported by the exoskeleton while changing parameters setting. The Gait Metric index is calculated for each trial, where the closer the performance is to the normative muscular activation pattern, in terms of both relative amplitude and timing, the higher the Gait Metric index is. The trial with the best Gait Metric index corresponds to the best parameters set. It has to be noted that the automatic computational calibration procedure is based on the same number of overground walking trials, and the same experimental set-up as in the current manual calibration procedure. The proposed approach allows supporting the rehabilitation team in the setting procedure. It has been demonstrated to be

  12. 21 CFR 211.68 - Automatic, mechanical, and electronic equipment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... SERVICES (CONTINUED) DRUGS: GENERAL CURRENT GOOD MANUFACTURING PRACTICE FOR FINISHED PHARMACEUTICALS Equipment § 211.68 Automatic, mechanical, and electronic equipment. (a) Automatic, mechanical, or electronic... 21 Food and Drugs 4 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Automatic, mechanical, and electronic equipment...

  13. Automatic Clustering Using FSDE-Forced Strategy Differential Evolution

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yasid, A.

    2018-01-01

    Clustering analysis is important in datamining for unsupervised data, cause no adequate prior knowledge. One of the important tasks is defining the number of clusters without user involvement that is known as automatic clustering. This study intends on acquiring cluster number automatically utilizing forced strategy differential evolution (AC-FSDE). Two mutation parameters, namely: constant parameter and variable parameter are employed to boost differential evolution performance. Four well-known benchmark datasets were used to evaluate the algorithm. Moreover, the result is compared with other state of the art automatic clustering methods. The experiment results evidence that AC-FSDE is better or competitive with other existing automatic clustering algorithm.

  14. Assessment of automatic segmentation of teeth using a watershed-based method.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Galibourg, Antoine; Dumoncel, Jean; Telmon, Norbert; Calvet, Adèle; Michetti, Jérôme; Maret, Delphine

    2018-01-01

    Tooth 3D automatic segmentation (AS) is being actively developed in research and clinical fields. Here, we assess the effect of automatic segmentation using a watershed-based method on the accuracy and reproducibility of 3D reconstructions in volumetric measurements by comparing it with a semi-automatic segmentation(SAS) method that has already been validated. The study sample comprised 52 teeth, scanned with micro-CT (41 µm voxel size) and CBCT (76; 200 and 300 µm voxel size). Each tooth was segmented by AS based on a watershed method and by SAS. For all surface reconstructions, volumetric measurements were obtained and analysed statistically. Surfaces were then aligned using the SAS surfaces as the reference. The topography of the geometric discrepancies was displayed by using a colour map allowing the maximum differences to be located. AS reconstructions showed similar tooth volumes when compared with SAS for the 41 µm voxel size. A difference in volumes was observed, and increased with the voxel size for CBCT data. The maximum differences were mainly found at the cervical margins and incisal edges but the general form was preserved. Micro-CT, a modality used in dental research, provides data that can be segmented automatically, which is timesaving. AS with CBCT data enables the general form of the region of interest to be displayed. However, our AS method can still be used for metrically reliable measurements in the field of clinical dentistry if some manual refinements are applied.

  15. Comparing Automatic CME Detections in Multiple LASCO and SECCHI Catalogs

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hess, Phillip [NRC Research Associate, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC (United States); Colaninno, Robin C., E-mail: phillip.hess.ctr@nrl.navy.mil, E-mail: robin.colaninno@nrl.navy.mil [U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC (United States)

    2017-02-10

    With the creation of numerous automatic detection algorithms, a number of different catalogs of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) spanning the entirety of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory ( SOHO ) Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) mission have been created. Some of these catalogs have been further expanded for use on data from the Solar Terrestrial Earth Observatory ( STEREO ) Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) as well. We compare the results from different automatic detection catalogs (Solar Eruption Event Detection System (SEEDS), Computer Aided CME Tracking (CACTus), and Coronal Image Processing (CORIMP)) to ensure the consistency of detections in each. Over the entire span of the LASCO catalogs, the automatic catalogs are well correlated with one another, to a level greater than 0.88. Focusing on just periods of higher activity, these correlations remain above 0.7. We establish the difficulty in comparing detections over the course of LASCO observations due to the change in the instrument image cadence in 2010. Without adjusting catalogs for the cadence, CME detection rates show a large spike in cycle 24, despite a notable drop in other indices of solar activity. The output from SEEDS, using a consistent image cadence, shows that the CME rate has not significantly changed relative to sunspot number in cycle 24. These data, and mass calculations from CORIMP, lead us to conclude that any apparent increase in CME rate is a result of the change in cadence. We study detection characteristics of CMEs, discussing potential physical changes in events between cycles 23 and 24. We establish that, for detected CMEs, physical parameters can also be sensitive to the cadence.

  16. Automatic learning rate adjustment for self-supervising autonomous robot control

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arras, Michael K.; Protzel, Peter W.; Palumbo, Daniel L.

    1992-01-01

    Described is an application in which an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) controls the positioning of a robot arm with five degrees of freedom by using visual feedback provided by two cameras. This application and the specific ANN model, local liner maps, are based on the work of Ritter, Martinetz, and Schulten. We extended their approach by generating a filtered, average positioning error from the continuous camera feedback and by coupling the learning rate to this error. When the network learns to position the arm, the positioning error decreases and so does the learning rate until the system stabilizes at a minimum error and learning rate. This abolishes the need for a predetermined cooling schedule. The automatic cooling procedure results in a closed loop control with no distinction between a learning phase and a production phase. If the positioning error suddenly starts to increase due to an internal failure such as a broken joint, or an environmental change such as a camera moving, the learning rate increases accordingly. Thus, learning is automatically activated and the network adapts to the new condition after which the error decreases again and learning is 'shut off'. The automatic cooling is therefore a prerequisite for the autonomy and the fault tolerance of the system.

  17. Evaluation of automatic face recognition for automatic border control on actual data recorded of travellers at Schiphol Airport

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Spreeuwers, Lieuwe Jan; Hendrikse, A.J.; Gerritsen, K.J.; Brömme, A.; Busch, C.

    2012-01-01

    Automatic border control at airports using automated facial recognition for checking the passport is becoming more and more common. A problem is that it is not clear how reliable these automatic gates are. Very few independent studies exist that assess the reliability of automated facial recognition

  18. An introduction to automatic radioactive sample counters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1980-01-01

    The subject is covered in chapters, entitled; the detection of radiation in sample counters; nucleonic equipment; liquid scintillation counting; basic features of automatic sample counters; statistics of counting; data analysis; purchase, installation, calibration and maintenance of automatic sample counters. (U.K.)

  19. Automatic Cobb Angle Determination From Radiographic Images

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sardjono, Tri Arief; Wilkinson, Michael H. F.; Veldhuizen, Albert G.; van Ooijen, Peter M. A.; Purnama, Ketut E.; Verkerke, Gijsbertus J.

    2013-01-01

    Study Design. Automatic measurement of Cobb angle in patients with scoliosis. Objective. To test the accuracy of an automatic Cobb angle determination method from frontal radiographical images. Summary of Background Data. Thirty-six frontal radiographical images of patients with scoliosis. Methods.

  20. Observed use of automatic seat belts in 1987 cars.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, A F; Wells, J K; Lund, A K; Teed, N

    1989-10-01

    Usage of the automatic belt systems supplied by six large-volume automobile manufacturers to meet the federal requirements for automatic restraints were observed in suburban Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. The different belt systems studied were: Ford and Toyota (motorized, nondetachable automatic shoulder belt), Nissan (motorized, detachable shoulder belt), VW and Chrysler (nonmotorized, detachable shoulder belt), and GM (nonmotorized detachable lap and shoulder belt). Use of automatic belts was significantly greater than manual belt use in otherwise comparable late-model cars for all manufacturers except Chrysler; in Chrysler cars, automatic belt use was significantly lower than manual belt use. The automatic shoulder belts provided by Ford, Nissan, Toyota, and VW increased use rates to about 90%. Because use rates were lower in Ford cars with manual belts, their increase was greater. GM cars had the smallest increase in use rates; however, lap belt use was highest in GM cars. The other manufacturers supply knee bolsters to supplement shoulder belt protection; all--except VW--also provide manual lap belts, which were used by about half of those who used the automatic shoulder belt. The results indicate that some manufacturers have been more successful than others in providing automatic belt systems that result in high use that, in turn, will mean fewer deaths and injuries in those cars.

  1. A new preprocessing parameter estimation based on geodesic active contour model for automatic vestibular neuritis diagnosis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ben Slama, Amine; Mouelhi, Aymen; Sahli, Hanene; Manoubi, Sondes; Mbarek, Chiraz; Trabelsi, Hedi; Fnaiech, Farhat; Sayadi, Mounir

    2017-07-01

    The diagnostic of the vestibular neuritis (VN) presents many difficulties to traditional assessment methods This paper deals with a fully automatic VN diagnostic system based on nystagmus parameter estimation using a pupil detection algorithm. A geodesic active contour model is implemented to find an accurate segmentation region of the pupil. Hence, the novelty of the proposed algorithm is to speed up the standard segmentation by using a specific mask located on the region of interest. This allows a drastically computing time reduction and a great performance and accuracy of the obtained results. After using this fast segmentation algorithm, the obtained estimated parameters are represented in temporal and frequency settings. A useful principal component analysis (PCA) selection procedure is then applied to obtain a reduced number of estimated parameters which are used to train a multi neural network (MNN). Experimental results on 90 eye movement videos show the effectiveness and the accuracy of the proposed estimation algorithm versus previous work. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. Automatic 2D segmentation of airways in thorax computed tomography images

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cavalcante, Tarique da Silveira; Cortez, Paulo Cesar; Almeida, Thomaz Maia de; Felix, John Hebert da Silva; Holanda, Marcelo Alcantara

    2013-01-01

    Introduction: much of the world population is affected by pulmonary diseases, such as the bronchial asthma, bronchitis and bronchiectasis. The bronchial diagnosis is based on the airways state. In this sense, the automatic segmentation of the airways in Computed Tomography (CT) scans is a critical step in the aid to diagnosis of these diseases. Methods: this paper evaluates algorithms for airway automatic segmentation, using Neural Network Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and Lung Densities Analysis (LDA) for detecting airways, along with Region Growing (RG), Active Contour Method (ACM) Balloon and Topology Adaptive to segment them. Results: we obtained results in three stages: comparative analysis of the detection algorithms MLP and LDA, with a gold standard acquired by three physicians with expertise in CT imaging of the chest; comparative analysis of segmentation algorithms ACM Balloon, ACM Topology Adaptive, MLP and RG; and evaluation of possible combinations between segmentation and detection algorithms, resulting in the complete method for automatic segmentation of the airways in 2D. Conclusion: the low incidence of false negative and the significant reduction of false positive, results in similarity coefficient and sensitivity exceeding 91% and 87% respectively, for a combination of algorithms with satisfactory segmentation quality. (author)

  3. Automatic sample changers maintenance manual

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Myers, T.A.

    1978-10-01

    This manual describes and provides trouble-shooting aids for the Automatic Sample Changer electronics on the automatic beta counting system, developed by the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Group CNC-11. The output of a gas detector is shaped by a preamplifier, then is coupled to an amplifier. Amplifier output is discriminated and is the input to a scaler. An identification number is associated with each sample. At a predetermined count length, the identification number, scaler data plus other information is punched out on a data card. The next sample to be counted is automatically selected. The beta counter uses the same electronics as the prior count did, the only difference being the sample identification number and sample itself. This manual is intended as a step-by-step aid in trouble-shooting the electronics associated with positioning the sample, counting the sample, and getting the needed data punched on an 80-column data card

  4. Automatic, semi-automatic and manual validation of urban drainage data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Branisavljević, N; Prodanović, D; Pavlović, D

    2010-01-01

    Advances in sensor technology and the possibility of automated long distance data transmission have made continuous measurements the preferable way of monitoring urban drainage processes. Usually, the collected data have to be processed by an expert in order to detect and mark the wrong data, remove them and replace them with interpolated data. In general, the first step in detecting the wrong, anomaly data is called the data quality assessment or data validation. Data validation consists of three parts: data preparation, validation scores generation and scores interpretation. This paper will present the overall framework for the data quality improvement system, suitable for automatic, semi-automatic or manual operation. The first two steps of the validation process are explained in more detail, using several validation methods on the same set of real-case data from the Belgrade sewer system. The final part of the validation process, which is the scores interpretation, needs to be further investigated on the developed system.

  5. Automatic Encoding and Language Detection in the GSDL

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Otakar Pinkas

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Automatic detection of encoding and language of the text is part of the Greenstone Digital Library Software (GSDL for building and distributing digital collections. It is developed by the University of Waikato (New Zealand in cooperation with UNESCO. The automatic encoding and language detection in Slavic languages is difficult and it sometimes fails. The aim is to detect cases of failure. The automatic detection in the GSDL is based on n-grams method. The most frequent n-grams for Czech are presented. The whole process of automatic detection in the GSDL is described. The input documents to test collections are plain texts encoded in ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-2 and Windows-1250. We manually evaluated the quality of automatic detection. To the causes of errors belong the improper language model predominance and the incorrect switch to Windows-1250. We carried out further tests on documents that were more complex.

  6. 12th Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control

    CERN Document Server

    Soares, Filomena; Moreira, António

    2017-01-01

    The biennial CONTROLO conferences are the main events promoted by The CONTROLO 2016 – 12th Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control, Guimarães, Portugal, September 14th to 16th, was organized by Algoritmi, School of Engineering, University of Minho, in partnership with INESC TEC, and promoted by the Portuguese Association for Automatic Control – APCA, national member organization of the International Federation of Automatic Control – IFAC. The seventy-five papers published in this volume cover a wide range of topics. Thirty-one of them, of a more theoretical nature, are distributed among the first five parts: Control Theory; Optimal and Predictive Control; Fuzzy, Neural and Genetic Control; Modeling and Identification; Sensing and Estimation. The papers go from cutting-edge theoretical research to innovative control applications and show expressively how Automatic Control can be used to increase the well being of people. .

  7. Implementation of a microcontroller-based semi-automatic coagulator.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chan, K; Kirumira, A; Elkateeb, A

    2001-01-01

    The coagulator is an instrument used in hospitals to detect clot formation as a function of time. Generally, these coagulators are very expensive and therefore not affordable by a doctors' office and small clinics. The objective of this project is to design and implement a low cost semi-automatic coagulator (SAC) prototype. The SAC is capable of assaying up to 12 samples and can perform the following tests: prothrombin time (PT), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), and PT/APTT combination. The prototype has been tested successfully.

  8. Improvement and automatization of a proportional alpha-beta counting system - FAG

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    German, U.; Levinson, S.; Pelled, O.; Shemesh, Y.; Assido, H.

    1997-01-01

    An alpha and beta counting system - FAG*, for planchette samples is operated at the Health Physics department's laboratory of the NRCN. The original operation mode of the system was based on manual tasks handled by the FHT1 100 electronics. An option for a basic computer keyboard operation was available too. A computer with an appropriate I/O card was connected to the system and a new operating program was developed which enables full automatic control of the various components. The program includes activity calculations and statistical checks as well as data management. A bar-code laser system for sample number reading was integrated into the Alpha-Beta automatic counting system. The sample identification by means of an attached bar-code label enables unmistakable and reliable attribution of results to the counted sample. authors)

  9. Comparison of liver volumetry on contrast-enhanced CT images: one semiautomatic and two automatic approaches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cai, Wei; He, Baochun; Fan, Yingfang; Fang, Chihua; Jia, Fucang

    2016-11-08

    This study was to evaluate the accuracy, consistency, and efficiency of three liver volumetry methods- one interactive method, an in-house-developed 3D medical Image Analysis (3DMIA) system, one automatic active shape model (ASM)-based segmentation, and one automatic probabilistic atlas (PA)-guided segmentation method on clinical contrast-enhanced CT images. Forty-two datasets, including 27 normal liver and 15 space-occupying liver lesion patients, were retrospectively included in this study. The three methods - one semiautomatic 3DMIA, one automatic ASM-based, and one automatic PA-based liver volumetry - achieved an accuracy with VD (volume difference) of -1.69%, -2.75%, and 3.06% in the normal group, respectively, and with VD of -3.20%, -3.35%, and 4.14% in the space-occupying lesion group, respectively. However, the three methods achieved an efficiency of 27.63 mins, 1.26 mins, 1.18 mins on average, respectively, compared with the manual volumetry, which took 43.98 mins. The high intraclass correlation coefficient between the three methods and the manual method indicated an excel-lent agreement on liver volumetry. Significant differences in segmentation time were observed between the three methods (3DMIA, ASM, and PA) and the manual volumetry (p volumetries (ASM and PA) and the semiautomatic volumetry (3DMIA) (p < 0.001). The semiautomatic interactive 3DMIA, automatic ASM-based, and automatic PA-based liver volum-etry agreed well with manual gold standard in both the normal liver group and the space-occupying lesion group. The ASM- and PA-based automatic segmentation have better efficiency in clinical use. © 2016 The Authors.

  10. Some experimental results for an automatic helium liquefier

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Watanabe, T.; Kudo, T.; Kuraoka, Y.; Sakura, K.; Tsuruga, H.; Watanabe, T.

    1984-01-01

    This chapter describes the testing of an automatic cooldown system. The liquefying machine examined is a CTi Model 1400. The automatic helium gas liquefying system is operated by using sequence control with a programmable controller. The automatic mode is carried out by operation of two compressors. The monitoring system consists of 41 remote sensors. Liquid level is measured by a superconducting level meter. The J-T valve and return valve, which require precise control, are operated by pulse motors. The advantages of the automatic cooldown system are reduced operator man power; temperatures and pressures are changed smoothly, so that the flow chart of automation is simple; and the system makes continuous liquefier operation possible

  11. Automatic Construction of Finite Algebras

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    张健

    1995-01-01

    This paper deals with model generation for equational theories,i.e.,automatically generating (finite)models of a given set of (logical) equations.Our method of finite model generation and a tool for automatic construction of finite algebras is described.Some examples are given to show the applications of our program.We argue that,the combination of model generators and theorem provers enables us to get a better understanding of logical theories.A brief comparison betwween our tool and other similar tools is also presented.

  12. Grinding Parts For Automatic Welding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burley, Richard K.; Hoult, William S.

    1989-01-01

    Rollers guide grinding tool along prospective welding path. Skatelike fixture holds rotary grinder or file for machining large-diameter rings or ring segments in preparation for welding. Operator grasps handles to push rolling fixture along part. Rollers maintain precise dimensional relationship so grinding wheel cuts precise depth. Fixture-mounted grinder machines surface to quality sufficient for automatic welding; manual welding with attendant variations and distortion not necessary. Developed to enable automatic welding of parts, manual welding of which resulted in weld bead permeated with microscopic fissures.

  13. 46 CFR 171.118 - Automatic ventilators and side ports.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 46 Shipping 7 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Automatic ventilators and side ports. 171.118 Section 171.118 Shipping COAST GUARD, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (CONTINUED) SUBDIVISION AND STABILITY... Bulkhead or Weather Deck § 171.118 Automatic ventilators and side ports. (a) An automatic ventilator must...

  14. 30 CFR 75.1404 - Automatic brakes; speed reduction gear.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Automatic brakes; speed reduction gear. 75.1404... Automatic brakes; speed reduction gear. [Statutory Provisions] Each locomotive and haulage car used in an... permit automatic brakes, locomotives and haulage cars shall be subject to speed reduction gear, or other...

  15. Automatic Error Recovery in Robot Assembly Operations Using Reverse Execution

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Laursen, Johan Sund; Schultz, Ulrik Pagh; Ellekilde, Lars-Peter

    2015-01-01

    , in particular for small-batch productions. As an alternative, we propose a system for automatically handling certain classes of errors instead of preventing them. Specifically, we show that many operations can be automatically reversed. Errors can be handled through automatic reverse execution of the control...... program to a safe point, from which forward execution can be resumed. This paper describes the principles behind automatic reversal of robotic assembly operations, and experimentally demonstrates the use of a domain-specific language that supports automatic error handling through reverse execution. Our...

  16. Automatic crude oil handling through a pressurized system from the wellhead to the refinery

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Davis, W.B.; Truman, P.W.; Groeneman, A.R.

    1967-01-01

    Production from 51 wells completed in the 3 unitized formations of the Lost Soldier Field, Sweetwater Co., Wyoming, is brought to a central point through individual flow lines. Here the fluids are directed through separate automatic well testing and oil treating facilities, one for each formation. After separation of oil, gas and water, the oil goes to pressurized surge tanks and then to lease automatic custody transfer units. There is one surge tank and one LACT unit for each formation. The oil is automatically transferred to the Sinclair Pipe Line Co. for delivery to Sinclair's refinery at Sinclair, Wyoming, through a closed pipe line system. A central console provides: (1) supervisory control from the wellheads through the LACT units, (2) well test and production data logging, and (3) monitoring by activating alarms for abnormal conditions of flow, liquid levels, temperatures and pressures.

  17. Shaping electromagnetic waves using software-automatically-designed metasurfaces.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Qian; Wan, Xiang; Liu, Shuo; Yuan Yin, Jia; Zhang, Lei; Jun Cui, Tie

    2017-06-15

    We present a fully digital procedure of designing reflective coding metasurfaces to shape reflected electromagnetic waves. The design procedure is completely automatic, controlled by a personal computer. In details, the macro coding units of metasurface are automatically divided into several types (e.g. two types for 1-bit coding, four types for 2-bit coding, etc.), and each type of the macro coding units is formed by discretely random arrangement of micro coding units. By combining an optimization algorithm and commercial electromagnetic software, the digital patterns of the macro coding units are optimized to possess constant phase difference for the reflected waves. The apertures of the designed reflective metasurfaces are formed by arranging the macro coding units with certain coding sequence. To experimentally verify the performance, a coding metasurface is fabricated by automatically designing two digital 1-bit unit cells, which are arranged in array to constitute a periodic coding metasurface to generate the required four-beam radiations with specific directions. Two complicated functional metasurfaces with circularly- and elliptically-shaped radiation beams are realized by automatically designing 4-bit macro coding units, showing excellent performance of the automatic designs by software. The proposed method provides a smart tool to realize various functional devices and systems automatically.

  18. Automatic trend estimation

    CERN Document Server

    Vamos¸, C˘alin

    2013-01-01

    Our book introduces a method to evaluate the accuracy of trend estimation algorithms under conditions similar to those encountered in real time series processing. This method is based on Monte Carlo experiments with artificial time series numerically generated by an original algorithm. The second part of the book contains several automatic algorithms for trend estimation and time series partitioning. The source codes of the computer programs implementing these original automatic algorithms are given in the appendix and will be freely available on the web. The book contains clear statement of the conditions and the approximations under which the algorithms work, as well as the proper interpretation of their results. We illustrate the functioning of the analyzed algorithms by processing time series from astrophysics, finance, biophysics, and paleoclimatology. The numerical experiment method extensively used in our book is already in common use in computational and statistical physics.

  19. Neural Determinants of Task Performance during Feature-Based Attention in Human Cortex

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gong, Mengyuan

    2018-01-01

    Abstract Studies of feature-based attention have associated activity in a dorsal frontoparietal network with putative attentional priority signals. Yet, how this neural activity mediates attentional selection and whether it guides behavior are fundamental questions that require investigation. We reasoned that endogenous fluctuations in the quality of attentional priority should influence task performance. Human subjects detected a speed increment while viewing clockwise (CW) or counterclockwise (CCW) motion (baseline task) or while attending to either direction amid distracters (attention task). In an fMRI experiment, direction-specific neural pattern similarity between the baseline task and the attention task revealed a higher level of similarity for correct than incorrect trials in frontoparietal regions. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we disrupted posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and found a selective deficit in the attention task, but not in the baseline task, demonstrating the necessity of this cortical area during feature-based attention. These results reveal that frontoparietal areas maintain attentional priority that facilitates successful behavioral selection. PMID:29497703

  20. Brain correlates of automatic visual change detection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cléry, H; Andersson, F; Fonlupt, P; Gomot, M

    2013-07-15

    A number of studies support the presence of visual automatic detection of change, but little is known about the brain generators involved in such processing and about the modulation of brain activity according to the salience of the stimulus. The study presented here was designed to locate the brain activity elicited by unattended visual deviant and novel stimuli using fMRI. Seventeen adult participants were presented with a passive visual oddball sequence while performing a concurrent visual task. Variations in BOLD signal were observed in the modality-specific sensory cortex, but also in non-specific areas involved in preattentional processing of changing events. A degree-of-deviance effect was observed, since novel stimuli elicited more activity in the sensory occipital regions and at the medial frontal site than small changes. These findings could be compared to those obtained in the auditory modality and might suggest a "general" change detection process operating in several sensory modalities. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. Automatic control of commercial computer programs

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rezvov, B.A.; Artem'ev, A.N.; Maevskij, A.G.; Demkiv, A.A.; Kirillov, B.F.; Belyaev, A.D.; Artem'ev, N.A.

    2010-01-01

    The way of automatic control of commercial computer programs is presented. The developed connection of the EXAFS spectrometer automatic system (which is managed by PC for DOS) is taken with the commercial program for the CCD detector control (which is managed by PC for Windows). The described complex system is used for the automation of intermediate amplitude spectra processing in EXAFS spectrum measurements at Kurchatov SR source

  2. Automatic shadowing device for electron microscopy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bishop, F W; Bogitch, S

    1960-01-01

    For the past ten years in the laboratory of the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Biology at the University of California, and before that at Rochester, New York, every evaporation was done with the aid of an automatic shadowing device. For several months the automatic shadowing device has been available at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) Hiroshima, Japan with the modifications described. 1 reference.

  3. Bouncy knee in a semi-automatic knee lock prosthesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fisher, L D; Lord, M

    1986-04-01

    The Bouncy Knee concept has previously proved of value when fitted to stabilised knee units of active amputees. The stance phase flex-extend action afforded by a Bouncy Knee increased the symmetry of gait and also gave better tolerance to slopes and uneven ground. A bouncy function has now been incorporated into a knee of the semi-automatic knee lock design in a pilot laboratory trial involving six patients. These less active patients did not show consistent changes in symmetry of gait, but demonstrated an improved ability to walk on slopes and increased their walking range. Subjective response was positive, as noted in the previous trials.

  4. An Interesting Case of Barbiturate Automatism and Review of Literature

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sankalp Gokhale

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available A 48 year old man with a diagnosis of HIV infection since 1993, on highly active anti-retro viral therapy (HAART with stable CD4 count and undetectable viral load for years and seizure disorder presented with recurrent drowsiness. His seizures were well controlled on phenobarbitone for years. Repeated laboratory evaluation demonstrated toxic levels of phenobarbitone in his blood. A thorough clinical, psychiatric, laboratory and imaging evaluation did not reveal any obvious etiology for the recurrent barbiturate intoxication in this man. Our findings suggest the possible diagnosis of barbiturate drug automatism in this patient. Though drug automatism is a controversial entity, it merits continued attention. There are recent reports of similar phenomenon with newer sedative agents such as Zolpidem. It is important to be aware of this phenomenon as a possible explanation for recurrent intoxication with barbiturates without a clear etiology for drug overdose.

  5. Automatic extraction of forward stroke volume using dynamic PET/CT

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Harms, Hans; Tolbod, Lars Poulsen; Hansson, Nils Henrik Stubkjær

    2015-01-01

    Background The aim of this study was to develop and validate an automated method for extracting forward stroke volume (FSV) using indicator dilution theory directly from dynamic positron emission tomography (PET) studies for two different tracers and scanners. Methods 35 subjects underwent...... a dynamic 11 C-acetate PET scan on a Siemens Biograph TruePoint-64 PET/CT (scanner I). In addition, 10 subjects underwent both dynamic 15 O-water PET and 11 C-acetate PET scans on a GE Discovery-ST PET/CT (scanner II). The left ventricular (LV)-aortic time-activity curve (TAC) was extracted automatically...... from PET data using cluster analysis. The first-pass peak was isolated by automatic extrapolation of the downslope of the TAC. FSV was calculated as the injected dose divided by the product of heart rate and the area under the curve of the first-pass peak. Gold standard FSV was measured using phase...

  6. Development of an automatic scaler

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    He Yuehong

    2009-04-01

    A self-designed automatic scaler is introduced. A microcontroller LPC936 is used as the master chip in the scaler. A counter integrated with the micro-controller is configured to operate as external pulse counter. Software employed in the scaler is based on a embedded real-time operating system kernel named Small RTOS. Data storage, calculation and some other functions are also provided. The scaler is designed for applications with low cost, low power consumption solutions. By now, the automatic scaler has been applied in a surface contamination instrument. (authors)

  7. Annual review in automatic programming

    CERN Document Server

    Goodman, Richard

    2014-01-01

    Annual Review in Automatic Programming focuses on the techniques of automatic programming used with digital computers. Topics covered range from the design of machine-independent programming languages to the use of recursive procedures in ALGOL 60. A multi-pass translation scheme for ALGOL 60 is described, along with some commercial source languages. The structure and use of the syntax-directed compiler is also considered.Comprised of 12 chapters, this volume begins with a discussion on the basic ideas involved in the description of a computing process as a program for a computer, expressed in

  8. A Unification of Inheritance and Automatic Program Specialization

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schultz, Ulrik Pagh

    2004-01-01

    , inheritance is used to control the automatic application of program specialization to class members during compilation to obtain an efficient implementation. This paper presents the language JUST, which integrates object-oriented concepts, block structure, and techniques from automatic program specialization......The object-oriented style of programming facilitates program adaptation and enhances program genericness, but at the expense of efficiency. Automatic program specialization can be used to generate specialized, efficient implementations for specific scenarios, but requires the program...... to be structured appropriately for specialization and is yet another new concept for the programmer to understand and apply. We have unified automatic program specialization and inheritance into a single concept, and implemented this approach in a modified version of Java named JUST. When programming in JUST...

  9. Automatic System for Producing and Distributing Lecture Recordings and Livestreams Using Opencast Matterhorn

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jonach, Rafael; Ebner, Martin; Grigoriadis, Ypatios

    2015-01-01

    Lectures of courses at universities are increasingly being recorded and offered through various distribution channels to support students' learning activities. This research work aims to create an automatic system for producing and distributing high quality lecture recordings. Opencast Matterhorn is an open source platform for automated video…

  10. Equipment for fully automatic radiographic pipe inspection

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Basler, G.; Sperl, H.; Weinschenk, K.

    1977-01-01

    The patent describes a device for fully automatic radiographic testing of large pipes with longitudinal welds. Furthermore the invention enables automatic marking of films in radiographic inspection with regard to a ticketing of the test piece and of that part of it where testing took place. (RW) [de

  11. Metabolic changes in occipital lobe epilepsy with automatisms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wong, Chong H; Mohamed, Armin; Wen, Lingfeng; Eberl, Stefan; Somerville, Ernest; Fulham, Michael; Bleasel, Andrew F

    2014-01-01

    Some studies suggest that the pattern of glucose hypometabolism relates not only to the ictal-onset zone but also reflects seizure propagation. We investigated metabolic changes in patients with occipital lobe epilepsy (OLE) that may reflect propagation of ictal discharge during seizures with automatisms. Fifteen patients who had undergone epilepsy surgery for intractable OLE and had undergone interictal Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography ((18)F-FDG-PET) between 1994 and 2004 were divided into two groups (with and without automatisms during seizure). Significant regions of hypometabolism were identified by comparing (18)F-FDG-PET results from each group with 16 healthy controls by using statistical parametric mapping. Significant hypometabolism was confined largely to the epileptogenic occipital lobe in the patient group without automatisms. In patients with automatisms, glucose hypometabolism extended from the epileptogenic occipital lobe into the ipsilateral temporal lobe. We identified a distinctive hypometabolic pattern that was specific for OLE patients with automatisms during a seizure. This finding supports the postulate that seizure propagation is a cause of glucose hypometabolism beyond the region of seizure onset.

  12. Automatic analysis of attack data from distributed honeypot network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Safarik, Jakub; Voznak, MIroslav; Rezac, Filip; Partila, Pavol; Tomala, Karel

    2013-05-01

    There are many ways of getting real data about malicious activity in a network. One of them relies on masquerading monitoring servers as a production one. These servers are called honeypots and data about attacks on them brings us valuable information about actual attacks and techniques used by hackers. The article describes distributed topology of honeypots, which was developed with a strong orientation on monitoring of IP telephony traffic. IP telephony servers can be easily exposed to various types of attacks, and without protection, this situation can lead to loss of money and other unpleasant consequences. Using a distributed topology with honeypots placed in different geological locations and networks provides more valuable and independent results. With automatic system of gathering information from all honeypots, it is possible to work with all information on one centralized point. Communication between honeypots and centralized data store use secure SSH tunnels and server communicates only with authorized honeypots. The centralized server also automatically analyses data from each honeypot. Results of this analysis and also other statistical data about malicious activity are simply accessible through a built-in web server. All statistical and analysis reports serve as information basis for an algorithm which classifies different types of used VoIP attacks. The web interface then brings a tool for quick comparison and evaluation of actual attacks in all monitored networks. The article describes both, the honeypots nodes in distributed architecture, which monitor suspicious activity, and also methods and algorithms used on the server side for analysis of gathered data.

  13. Experimental Applications of Automatic Test Markup Language (ATML)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lansdowne, Chatwin A.; McCartney, Patrick; Gorringe, Chris

    2012-01-01

    The authors describe challenging use-cases for Automatic Test Markup Language (ATML), and evaluate solutions. The first case uses ATML Test Results to deliver active features to support test procedure development and test flow, and bridging mixed software development environments. The second case examines adding attributes to Systems Modelling Language (SysML) to create a linkage for deriving information from a model to fill in an ATML document set. Both cases are outside the original concept of operations for ATML but are typical when integrating large heterogeneous systems with modular contributions from multiple disciplines.

  14. 30 CFR 75.1403-4 - Criteria-Automatic elevators.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... appropriate on automatic elevators which will automatically shut-off the power and apply the brakes in the... telephone or other effective communication system by which aid or assistance can be obtained promptly. ...

  15. Automatic positioning control device for automatic control rod exchanger

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nasu, Seiji; Sasaki, Masayoshi.

    1982-01-01

    Purpose: To attain accurate positioning for a control rod exchanger. Constitution: The present position for an automatic control rod exchanger is detected by a synchro generator. An aimed stopping position for the exchanger, a stop instruction range depending on the distantial operation delay in the control system and the inertia-running distance of the mechanical system, and a coincidence confirmation range depending on the required positioning accuracy are previously set. If there is a difference between the present position and the aimed stopping position, the automatic exchanger is caused to run toward the aimed stopping position. A stop instruction is generated upon arrival at the position within said stop instruction range, and a coincidence confirmation signal is generated upon arrival at the position within the coincidence confirmation range. Since uncertain factors such as operation delay in the control system and the inertia-running distance of the mechanical system that influence the positioning accuracy are made definite by the method of actual measurement or the like and the stop instruction range and the coincidence confirmation range are set based on the measured data, the accuracy for the positioning can be improved. (Ikeda, J.)

  16. Automatic Operation For A Robot Lawn Mower

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Y. Y.; Cao, Z. L.; Oh, S. J.; Kattan, E. U.; Hall, E. L.

    1987-02-01

    A domestic mobile robot, lawn mower, which performs the automatic operation mode, has been built up in the Center of Robotics Research, University of Cincinnati. The robot lawn mower automatically completes its work with the region filling operation, a new kind of path planning for mobile robots. Some strategies for region filling of path planning have been developed for a partly-known or a unknown environment. Also, an advanced omnidirectional navigation system and a multisensor-based control system are used in the automatic operation. Research on the robot lawn mower, especially on the region filling of path planning, is significant in industrial and agricultural applications.

  17. Automatic face morphing for transferring facial animation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bui Huu Trung, B.H.T.; Bui, T.D.; Poel, Mannes; Heylen, Dirk K.J.; Nijholt, Antinus; Hamza, H.M.

    2003-01-01

    In this paper, we introduce a novel method of automatically finding the training set of RBF networks for morphing a prototype face to represent a new face. This is done by automatically specifying and adjusting corresponding feature points on a target face. The RBF networks are then used to transfer

  18. Automatic needle insertion diminishes pain during growth hormone injection

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Main, K M; Jørgensen, J T; Hertel, N T

    1995-01-01

    prototype pens for GH administration, providing either manual or automatic sc needle insertion, using a combined visual analogue/facial scale and a five-item scale in 18 children. With the automatic pen there was a significantly lower maximum pain score compared with the manual pen (median 28.5 versus 52.......0 mm) as well as a lower mean pain score (mean 13.7 versus 23.5 mm). The five-item scale revealed that automatic needle insertion was significantly less painful than manual insertion and 13 patients chose to continue treatment with the automatic pen. In conclusion, pain during GH injection can...

  19. Exposure to violent video games increases automatic aggressiveness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uhlmann, Eric; Swanson, Jane

    2004-02-01

    The effects of exposure to violent video games on automatic associations with the self were investigated in a sample of 121 students. Playing the violent video game Doom led participants to associate themselves with aggressive traits and actions on the Implicit Association Test. In addition, self-reported prior exposure to violent video games predicted automatic aggressive self-concept, above and beyond self-reported aggression. Results suggest that playing violent video games can lead to the automatic learning of aggressive self-views.

  20. Automatic Knowledge Extraction and Knowledge Structuring for a National Term Bank

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lassen, Tine; Madsen, Bodil Nistrup; Erdman Thomsen, Hanne

    2011-01-01

    This paper gives an introduction to the plans and ongoing work in a project, the aim of which is to develop methods for automatic knowledge extraction and automatic construction and updating of ontologies. The project also aims at developing methods for automatic merging of terminological data fr...... various existing sources, as well as methods for target group oriented knowledge dissemination. In this paper, we mainly focus on the plans for automatic knowledge extraction and knowledge structuring that will result in ontologies for a national term bank.......This paper gives an introduction to the plans and ongoing work in a project, the aim of which is to develop methods for automatic knowledge extraction and automatic construction and updating of ontologies. The project also aims at developing methods for automatic merging of terminological data from...

  1. Development of automatic ultrasonic testing system and its application

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Oh, Sang Hong; Matsuura, Toshihiko; Iwata, Ryusuke; Nakagawa, Michio; Horikawa, Kohsuke; Kim, You Chul

    1997-01-01

    The radiographic testing (RT) has been usually applied to a nondestructive testing, which is carried out on purpose to detect internal defects at welded joints of a penstock. In the case that RT could not be applied to, the ultrasonic testing (UT) was performed. UT was generally carried out by manual scanning and the inspections data were recorded by the inspector in a site. So, as a weak point, there was no objective inspection records correspond to films of RT. It was expected that the automatic ultrasonic testing system by which automatic scanning and automatic recording are possible was developed. In this respect, the automatic ultrasonic testing system was developed. Using newly developed the automatic ultrasonic testing system, test results to the circumferential welded joints of the penstock at a site were shown in this paper.

  2. Automatic mimicry reactions as related to differences in emotional empathy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sonnby-Borgström, Marianne

    2002-12-01

    The hypotheses of this investigation were derived by conceiving of automatic mimicking as a component of emotional empathy. Differences between subjects high and low in emotional empathy were investigated. The parameters compared were facial mimicry reactions, as represented by electromyographic (EMG) activity when subjects were exposed to pictures of angry or happy faces, and the degree of correspondence between subjects' facial EMG reactions and their self-reported feelings. The comparisons were made at different stimulus exposure times in order to elicit reactions at different levels of information processing. The high-empathy subjects were found to have a higher degree of mimicking behavior than the low-empathy subjects, a difference that emerged at short exposure times (17-40 ms) that represented automatic reactions. The low-empathy subjects tended already at short exposure times (17-40 ms) to show inverse zygomaticus muscle reactions, namely "smiling" when exposed to an angry face. The high-empathy group was characterized by a significantly higher correspondence between facial expressions and self-reported feelings. No differences were found between the high- and low-empathy subjects in their verbally reported feelings when presented a happy or an angry face. Thus, the differences between the groups in emotional empathy appeared to be related to differences in automatic somatic reactions to facial stimuli rather than to differences in their conscious interpretation of the emotional situation.

  3. Automatic REM Sleep Detection Associated with Idiopathic REM Sleep Behavior Disorder

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kempfner, Jacob; Sørensen, Gertrud Laura; Sørensen, Helge Bjarup Dissing

    2011-01-01

    Rapid eye movement sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD) is a strong early marker of later development of Parkinsonism. Currently there are no objective methods to identify and discriminate abnormal from normal motor activity during REM sleep. Therefore, a REM sleep detection without the use of chin...... electromyography (EMG) is useful. This is addressed by analyzing the classification performance when implementing two automatic REM sleep detectors. The first detector uses the electroencephalography (EEG), electrooculography (EOG) and EMG to detect REM sleep, while the second detector only uses the EEG and EOG......, an automatic computerized REM detection algorithm has been implemented, using wavelet packet combined with artificial neural network. Results: When using the EEG, EOG and EMG modalities, it was possible to correctly classify REM sleep with an average Area Under Curve (AUC) equal to 0:900:03 for normal subjects...

  4. Automatic welding of stainless steel tubing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clautice, W. E.

    1978-01-01

    The use of automatic welding for making girth welds in stainless steel tubing was investigated as well as the reduction in fabrication costs resulting from the elimination of radiographic inspection. Test methodology, materials, and techniques are discussed, and data sheets for individual tests are included. Process variables studied include welding amperes, revolutions per minute, and shielding gas flow. Strip chart recordings, as a definitive method of insuring weld quality, are studied. Test results, determined by both radiographic and visual inspection, are presented and indicate that once optimum welding procedures for specific sizes of tubing are established, and the welding machine operations are certified, then the automatic tube welding process produces good quality welds repeatedly, with a high degree of reliability. Revised specifications for welding tubing using the automatic process and weld visual inspection requirements at the Kennedy Space Center are enumerated.

  5. Automatic change detection to facial expressions in adolescents

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Liu, Tongran; Xiao, Tong; Jiannong, Shi

    2016-01-01

    Adolescence is a critical period for the neurodevelopment of social-emotional processing, wherein the automatic detection of changes in facial expressions is crucial for the development of interpersonal communication. Two groups of participants (an adolescent group and an adult group) were...... in facial expressions between the two age groups. The current findings demonstrated that the adolescent group featured more negative vMMN amplitudes than the adult group in the fronto-central region during the 120–200 ms interval. During the time window of 370–450 ms, only the adult group showed better...... automatic processing on fearful faces than happy faces. The present study indicated that adolescent’s posses stronger automatic detection of changes in emotional expression relative to adults, and sheds light on the neurodevelopment of automatic processes concerning social-emotional information....

  6. Automatic Control of Silicon Melt Level

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duncan, C. S.; Stickel, W. B.

    1982-01-01

    A new circuit, when combined with melt-replenishment system and melt level sensor, offers continuous closed-loop automatic control of melt-level during web growth. Installed on silicon-web furnace, circuit controls melt-level to within 0.1 mm for as long as 8 hours. Circuit affords greater area growth rate and higher web quality, automatic melt-level control also allows semiautomatic growth of web over long periods which can greatly reduce costs.

  7. Automatic lip reading by using multimodal visual features

    Science.gov (United States)

    Takahashi, Shohei; Ohya, Jun

    2013-12-01

    Since long time ago, speech recognition has been researched, though it does not work well in noisy places such as in the car or in the train. In addition, people with hearing-impaired or difficulties in hearing cannot receive benefits from speech recognition. To recognize the speech automatically, visual information is also important. People understand speeches from not only audio information, but also visual information such as temporal changes in the lip shape. A vision based speech recognition method could work well in noisy places, and could be useful also for people with hearing disabilities. In this paper, we propose an automatic lip-reading method for recognizing the speech by using multimodal visual information without using any audio information such as speech recognition. First, the ASM (Active Shape Model) is used to track and detect the face and lip in a video sequence. Second, the shape, optical flow and spatial frequencies of the lip features are extracted from the lip detected by ASM. Next, the extracted multimodal features are ordered chronologically so that Support Vector Machine is performed in order to learn and classify the spoken words. Experiments for classifying several words show promising results of this proposed method.

  8. Automatic Payroll Deposit System.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davidson, D. B.

    1979-01-01

    The Automatic Payroll Deposit System in Yakima, Washington's Public School District No. 7, directly transmits each employee's salary amount for each pay period to a bank or other financial institution. (Author/MLF)

  9. Thai Automatic Speech Recognition

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Suebvisai, Sinaporn; Charoenpornsawat, Paisarn; Black, Alan; Woszczyna, Monika; Schultz, Tanja

    2005-01-01

    .... We focus on the discussion of the rapid deployment of ASR for Thai under limited time and data resources, including rapid data collection issues, acoustic model bootstrap, and automatic generation of pronunciations...

  10. Modeling Patterns of Activities using Activity Curves.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dawadi, Prafulla N; Cook, Diane J; Schmitter-Edgecombe, Maureen

    2016-06-01

    Pervasive computing offers an unprecedented opportunity to unobtrusively monitor behavior and use the large amount of collected data to perform analysis of activity-based behavioral patterns. In this paper, we introduce the notion of an activity curve , which represents an abstraction of an individual's normal daily routine based on automatically-recognized activities. We propose methods to detect changes in behavioral routines by comparing activity curves and use these changes to analyze the possibility of changes in cognitive or physical health. We demonstrate our model and evaluate our change detection approach using a longitudinal smart home sensor dataset collected from 18 smart homes with older adult residents. Finally, we demonstrate how big data-based pervasive analytics such as activity curve-based change detection can be used to perform functional health assessment. Our evaluation indicates that correlations do exist between behavior and health changes and that these changes can be automatically detected using smart homes, machine learning, and big data-based pervasive analytics.

  11. Development of An Automatic Verification Program for Thermal-hydraulic System Codes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lee, J. Y.; Ahn, K. T.; Ko, S. H.; Kim, Y. S.; Kim, D. W. [Pusan National University, Busan (Korea, Republic of); Suh, J. S.; Cho, Y. S.; Jeong, J. J. [System Engineering and Technology Co., Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

    2012-05-15

    As a project activity of the capstone design competitive exhibition, supported by the Education Center for Green Industry-friendly Fusion Technology (GIFT), we have developed a computer program which can automatically perform non-regression test, which is needed repeatedly during a developmental process of a thermal-hydraulic system code, such as the SPACE code. A non-regression test (NRT) is an approach to software testing. The purpose of the non-regression testing is to verify whether, after updating a given software application (in this case, the code), previous software functions have not been compromised. The goal is to prevent software regression, whereby adding new features results in software bugs. As the NRT is performed repeatedly, a lot of time and human resources will be needed during the development period of a code. It may cause development period delay. To reduce the cost and the human resources and to prevent wasting time, non-regression tests need to be automatized. As a tool to develop an automatic verification program, we have used Visual Basic for Application (VBA). VBA is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6 and its associated integrated development environment, which are built into most Microsoft Office applications (In this case, Excel)

  12. Development of An Automatic Verification Program for Thermal-hydraulic System Codes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lee, J. Y.; Ahn, K. T.; Ko, S. H.; Kim, Y. S.; Kim, D. W.; Suh, J. S.; Cho, Y. S.; Jeong, J. J.

    2012-01-01

    As a project activity of the capstone design competitive exhibition, supported by the Education Center for Green Industry-friendly Fusion Technology (GIFT), we have developed a computer program which can automatically perform non-regression test, which is needed repeatedly during a developmental process of a thermal-hydraulic system code, such as the SPACE code. A non-regression test (NRT) is an approach to software testing. The purpose of the non-regression testing is to verify whether, after updating a given software application (in this case, the code), previous software functions have not been compromised. The goal is to prevent software regression, whereby adding new features results in software bugs. As the NRT is performed repeatedly, a lot of time and human resources will be needed during the development period of a code. It may cause development period delay. To reduce the cost and the human resources and to prevent wasting time, non-regression tests need to be automatized. As a tool to develop an automatic verification program, we have used Visual Basic for Application (VBA). VBA is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6 and its associated integrated development environment, which are built into most Microsoft Office applications (In this case, Excel)

  13. [An automatic system for anatomophysiological correlation in three planes simultaneously during functional neurosurgery].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teijeiro, E J; Macías, R J; Morales, J M; Guerra, E; López, G; Alvarez, L M; Fernández, F; Maragoto, C; Seijo, F; Alvarez, E

    The Neurosurgical Deep Recording System (NDRS) using a personal computer takes the place of complex electronic equipment for recording and processing deep cerebral electrical activity, as a guide in stereotaxic functional neurosurgery. It also permits increased possibilities of presenting information in direct graphic form with automatic management and sufficient flexibility to implement different analyses. This paper describes the possibilities of automatic simultaneous graphic representation in three almost orthogonal planes, available with the new 5.1 version of NDRS so as to facilitate the analysis of anatomophysiological correlation in the localization of deep structures of the brain during minimal access surgery. This new version can automatically show the spatial behaviour of signals registered throughout the path of the electrode inside the brain, superimposed simultaneously on sagittal, coronal and axial sections of an anatomical atlas of the brain, after adjusting the scale automatically according to the dimensions of the brain of each individual patient. This may also be shown in a tridimensional representation of the different planes themselves intercepting. The NDRS system has been successfully used in Spain and Cuba in over 300 functional neurosurgery operations. The new version further facilitates analysis of spatial anatomophysiological correlation for the localization of brain structures. This system has contributed to increase the precision and safety in selecting surgical targets in the control of Parkinson s disease and other disorders of movement.

  14. Automatic extraction of forward stroke volume using dynamic PET/CT

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Harms, Hans; Tolbod, Lars Poulsen; Hansson, Nils Henrik

    Background: Dynamic PET can be used to extract forward stroke volume (FSV) by the indicator dilution principle. The technique employed can be automated and is in theory independent on the tracer used and may therefore be added to any dynamic cardiac PET protocol. The aim of this study...... was to validate automated methods for extracting FSV directly from dynamic PET studies for two different tracers and to examine potential scanner hardware bias. Methods: 21 subjects underwent a dynamic 27 min 11C-acetate PET scan on a Siemens Biograph TruePoint 64 PET/CT scanner (scanner I). In addition, 8...... subjects underwent a dynamic 6 min 15O-water PET scan followed by a 27 min 11C-acetate PET scan on a GE Discovery ST PET/CT scanner (scanner II). The LV-aortic time-activity curve (TAC) was extracted automatically from dynamic PET data using cluster analysis. The first-pass peak was isolated by automatic...

  15. Design and implementation of microcontroller-based automatic sequence counting and switching system

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joshua ABOLARINWA

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Technological advancement and its influence on human being have been on the increase in recent time. Major areas of such influence, include monitoring and control activities. In order to keep track of human movement in and out of a particular building, there is the need for an automatic counting system. Therefore, in this paper, we present the design and implementation of a microcontroller-based automatic sequence counting and switching system. This system was designed and developed to save cost, time, energy, and to achieve seamless control in the event of switching on or off of electrical appliances within a building. Top-down modular design approach was used in conjunction with the versatility of microcontroller. The system is able to monitor, sequentially count the number of entry and exit of people through an entrance, afterwards, automatically control any electrical device connected to it. From various tests and measurements obtained, there are comparative benefits derived from the deployment of this system in terms of simplicity and accuracy over similar system that is not microcontroller-based. Therefore, this system can be deployed at commercial quantity with wide range of applications in homes, offices and other public places.

  16. Culture, attribution and automaticity: a social cognitive neuroscience view.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mason, Malia F; Morris, Michael W

    2010-06-01

    A fundamental challenge facing social perceivers is identifying the cause underlying other people's behavior. Evidence indicates that East Asian perceivers are more likely than Western perceivers to reference the social context when attributing a cause to a target person's actions. One outstanding question is whether this reflects a culture's influence on automatic or on controlled components of causal attribution. After reviewing behavioral evidence that culture can shape automatic mental processes as well as controlled reasoning, we discuss the evidence in favor of cultural differences in automatic and controlled components of causal attribution more specifically. We contend that insights emerging from social cognitive neuroscience research can inform this debate. After introducing an attribution framework popular among social neuroscientists, we consider findings relevant to the automaticity of attribution, before speculating how one could use a social neuroscience approach to clarify whether culture affects automatic, controlled or both types of attribution processes.

  17. Automatic Hidden-Web Table Interpretation by Sibling Page Comparison

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tao, Cui; Embley, David W.

    The longstanding problem of automatic table interpretation still illudes us. Its solution would not only be an aid to table processing applications such as large volume table conversion, but would also be an aid in solving related problems such as information extraction and semi-structured data management. In this paper, we offer a conceptual modeling solution for the common special case in which so-called sibling pages are available. The sibling pages we consider are pages on the hidden web, commonly generated from underlying databases. We compare them to identify and connect nonvarying components (category labels) and varying components (data values). We tested our solution using more than 2,000 tables in source pages from three different domains—car advertisements, molecular biology, and geopolitical information. Experimental results show that the system can successfully identify sibling tables, generate structure patterns, interpret tables using the generated patterns, and automatically adjust the structure patterns, if necessary, as it processes a sequence of hidden-web pages. For these activities, the system was able to achieve an overall F-measure of 94.5%.

  18. Realizing parameterless automatic classification of remote sensing imagery using ontology engineering and cyberinfrastructure techniques

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Ziheng; Fang, Hui; Di, Liping; Yue, Peng

    2016-09-01

    It was an untouchable dream for remote sensing experts to realize total automatic image classification without inputting any parameter values. Experts usually spend hours and hours on tuning the input parameters of classification algorithms in order to obtain the best results. With the rapid development of knowledge engineering and cyberinfrastructure, a lot of data processing and knowledge reasoning capabilities become online accessible, shareable and interoperable. Based on these recent improvements, this paper presents an idea of parameterless automatic classification which only requires an image and automatically outputs a labeled vector. No parameters and operations are needed from endpoint consumers. An approach is proposed to realize the idea. It adopts an ontology database to store the experiences of tuning values for classifiers. A sample database is used to record training samples of image segments. Geoprocessing Web services are used as functionality blocks to finish basic classification steps. Workflow technology is involved to turn the overall image classification into a total automatic process. A Web-based prototypical system named PACS (Parameterless Automatic Classification System) is implemented. A number of images are fed into the system for evaluation purposes. The results show that the approach could automatically classify remote sensing images and have a fairly good average accuracy. It is indicated that the classified results will be more accurate if the two databases have higher quality. Once the experiences and samples in the databases are accumulated as many as an expert has, the approach should be able to get the results with similar quality to that a human expert can get. Since the approach is total automatic and parameterless, it can not only relieve remote sensing workers from the heavy and time-consuming parameter tuning work, but also significantly shorten the waiting time for consumers and facilitate them to engage in image

  19. Adaptive pseudolinear compensators of dynamic characteristics of automatic control systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Skorospeshkin, M. V.; Sukhodoev, M. S.; Timoshenko, E. A.; Lenskiy, F. V.

    2016-04-01

    Adaptive pseudolinear gain and phase compensators of dynamic characteristics of automatic control systems are suggested. The automatic control system performance with adaptive compensators has been explored. The efficiency of pseudolinear adaptive compensators in the automatic control systems with time-varying parameters has been demonstrated.

  20. Emotion and sex of facial stimuli modulate conditional automaticity in behavioral and neuronal interference in healthy men.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kohn, Nils; Fernández, Guillén

    2017-12-06

    Our surrounding provides a host of sensory input, which we cannot fully process without streamlining and automatic processing. Levels of automaticity differ for different cognitive and affective processes. Situational and contextual interactions between cognitive and affective processes in turn influence the level of automaticity. Automaticity can be measured by interference in Stroop tasks. We applied an emotional version of the Stroop task to investigate how stress as a contextual factor influences the affective valence-dependent level of automaticity. 120 young, healthy men were investigated for behavioral and brain interference following a stress induction or control procedure in a counter-balanced cross-over-design. Although Stroop interference was always observed, sex and emotion of the face strongly modulated interference, which was larger for fearful and male faces. These effects suggest higher automaticity when processing happy and also female faces. Supporting behavioral patterns, brain data show lower interference related brain activity in executive control related regions in response to happy and female faces. In the absence of behavioral stress effects, congruent compared to incongruent trials (reverse interference) showed little to no deactivation under stress in response to happy female and fearful male trials. These congruency effects are potentially based on altered context- stress-related facial processing that interact with sex-emotion stereotypes. Results indicate that sex and facial emotion modulate Stroop interference in brain and behavior. These effects can be explained by altered response difficulty as a consequence of the contextual and stereotype related modulation of automaticity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Automatic Complexity Analysis

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rosendahl, Mads

    1989-01-01

    One way to analyse programs is to to derive expressions for their computational behaviour. A time bound function (or worst-case complexity) gives an upper bound for the computation time as a function of the size of input. We describe a system to derive such time bounds automatically using abstract...

  2. Process and device for automatically surveying complex installations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pekrul, P.J.; Thiele, A.W.

    1976-01-01

    A description is given of a process for automatically analysing separate signal processing channels in real time, one channel per signal, in a facility with significant background noise in signals varying in time and coming from transducers at selected points for the continuous monitoring of the operating conditions of the various components of the installation. The signals are intended to determine potential breakdowns, determine conclusions as to the severity of these potential breakdowns and indicate to an operator the measures to be taken in consequence. The feature of this process is that it comprises the automatic and successive selection of each channel for the purpose of spectral analysis, the automatic processing of the signal of each selected channel to show energy spectrum density data at pre-determined frequencies, the automatic comparison of the energy spectrum density data of each channel with pre-determined sets of limits varying with the frequency, and the automatic indication to the operator of the condition of the various components of the installation associated to each channel and the measures to be taken depending on the set of limits [fr

  3. Metabolic changes in occipital lobe epilepsy with automatisms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chong H Wong

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: Some studies suggest that the pattern of glucose hypometabolism relates not only to the ictal-onset zone, but also reflects seizure propagation. We investigated metabolic changes in patients with occipital lobe epilepsy (OLE that may reflect propagation of ictal discharge during seizures with automatisms.Methods: Fifteen patients who had undergone epilepsy surgery for intractable OLE and had undergone interictal Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG-PET between 1994 and 2004 were divided into two groups (with and without automatisms during seizure. Significant regions of hypometabolism were identified by comparing 18F-FDG-PET results from each group with 16 healthy controls by using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM 2.Key Findings: Significant hypometabolism was confined largely to the epileptogenic occipital lobe in the patient group without automatisms. In patients with automatisms, glucose hypometabolism extended from the epileptogenic occipital lobe into the ipsilateral temporal lobe.Significance: We identified a distinctive hypometabolic pattern that was specific for OLE patients with automatisms during a seizure. This finding supports the postulate that seizure propagation is a cause of glucose hypometabolism beyond the region of seizure onset.

  4. Experience in connecting the power generating units of thermal power plants to automatic secondary frequency regulation within the united power system of Russia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhukov, A. V.; Komarov, A. N.; Safronov, A. N.; Barsukov, I. V.

    2009-01-01

    The principles of central control of the power generating units of thermal power plants by automatic secondary frequency and active power overcurrent regulation systems, and the algorithms for interactions between automatic power control systems for the power production units in thermal power plants and centralized systems for automatic frequency and power regulation, are discussed. The order of switching the power generating units of thermal power plants over to control by a centralized system for automatic frequency and power regulation and by the Central Coordinating System for automatic frequency and power regulation is presented. The results of full-scale system tests of the control of power generating units of the Kirishskaya, Stavropol, and Perm GRES (State Regional Electric Power Plants) by the Central Coordinating System for automatic frequency and power regulation at the United Power System of Russia on September 23-25, 2008, are reported.

  5. Availability verification of information for human system interface in automatic SG level control using activity diagram

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Nuraslinda, Anuar; Kim, Dong Young; Kim, Jong Hyun [KEPCO International Nuclear Graduate School, Uljugun (Korea, Republic of)

    2012-10-15

    Steam Generator (SG) level control system in OPR 1000 is one of representative automatic systems that falls under the Supervisory Control level in Endsley's taxonomy. Supervisory control of automated systems is classified as a form of out of the loop (OOTL) performance due to passive involvement in the systems operation, which could lead to loss of situation awareness (SA). There was a reported event, which was caused by inadequate human automation communication that contributed to an unexpected reactor trip in July 2005. A high SG level trip occurred in Yeonggwang (YGN) Unit 6 Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) due to human operator failure to recognize the need to change the control mode of the economizer valve controller (EVC) to manual mode during swap over (the transition from low power mode to high power mode) after the loss of offsite power (LOOP) event was recovered. This paper models the human system interaction in NPP SG level control system using Unified Modeling Language (UML) Activity Diagram. Then, it identifies the missing information for operators in the OPR1000 Main Control Room (MCR) and suggests some means of improving the human system interaction.

  6. Availability verification of information for human system interface in automatic SG level control using activity diagram

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nuraslinda, Anuar; Kim, Dong Young; Kim, Jong Hyun

    2012-01-01

    Steam Generator (SG) level control system in OPR 1000 is one of representative automatic systems that falls under the Supervisory Control level in Endsley's taxonomy. Supervisory control of automated systems is classified as a form of out of the loop (OOTL) performance due to passive involvement in the systems operation, which could lead to loss of situation awareness (SA). There was a reported event, which was caused by inadequate human automation communication that contributed to an unexpected reactor trip in July 2005. A high SG level trip occurred in Yeonggwang (YGN) Unit 6 Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) due to human operator failure to recognize the need to change the control mode of the economizer valve controller (EVC) to manual mode during swap over (the transition from low power mode to high power mode) after the loss of offsite power (LOOP) event was recovered. This paper models the human system interaction in NPP SG level control system using Unified Modeling Language (UML) Activity Diagram. Then, it identifies the missing information for operators in the OPR1000 Main Control Room (MCR) and suggests some means of improving the human system interaction

  7. Knowledge-based full-automatic control system for a nuclear ship reactor

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shimazaki, J.; Nakazawa, T.; Yabuuchi, N.

    2000-01-01

    Plant operations aboard nuclear ships require quick judgements and actions due to changing marine conditions such as wind, waves and currents. Furthermore, additional human support is not available for nuclear ship operation at sea, so advanced automatic operations are necessary to reduce the number of operators required finally. Therefore, an advanced automatic operating system has been developed based on operational knowledge of nuclear ship 'Mutsu' plant. The advanced automatic operating system includes both the automatic operation system and the operator-support system which assists operators in completing actions during plant accidents, anomaly diagnosis and plant supervision. These system are largely being developed using artificial intelligent techniques such as neural network, fuzzy logic and knowledge-based expert. The automatic operation system is fundamentally based upon application of an operator's knowledge of both normal (start-up to rated power level) and abnormal (after scram) operations. Comparing plant behaviors from start-up to power level by the automatic operation with by 'Mutsu' manual operation, stable automatic operation was obtained almost same as manual operation within all operating limits. The abnormal automatic system was for hard work of manual operations after scram or LOCA accidents. An integrating system with the normal and the abnormal automatic systems are being developed for interacting smoothly both systems. (author)

  8. Retrieval Search and Strength Evoke Dissociable Brain Activity during Episodic Memory Recall

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reas, Emilie T.; Brewer, James B.

    2014-01-01

    Neuroimaging studies of episodic memory retrieval have revealed activations in the human frontal, parietal, and medial-temporal lobes that are associated with memory strength. However, it remains unclear whether these brain responses are veritable signals of memory strength or are instead regulated by concomitant subcomponents of retrieval such as retrieval effort or mental search. This study used event-related fMRI during cued recall of previously memorized word-pair associates to dissociate brain responses modulated by memory search from those modulated by the strength of a recalled memory. Search-related deactivations, dissociated from activity due to memory strength, were observed in regions of the default network, whereas distinctly strength-dependent activations were present in superior and inferior parietal and dorsolateral PFC. Both search and strength regulated activity in dorsal anterior cingulate and anterior insula. These findings suggest that, although highly correlated and partially subserved by overlapping cognitive control mechanisms, search and memory strength engage dissociable regions of frontoparietal attention and default networks. PMID:23190328

  9. Fully automatic oil spill detection from COSMO-SkyMed imagery using a neural network approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Avezzano, Ruggero G.; Del Frate, Fabio; Latini, Daniele

    2012-09-01

    The increased amount of available Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images acquired over the ocean represents an extraordinary potential for improving oil spill detection activities. On the other side this involves a growing workload on the operators at analysis centers. In addition, even if the operators go through extensive training to learn manual oil spill detection, they can provide different and subjective responses. Hence, the upgrade and improvements of algorithms for automatic detection that can help in screening the images and prioritizing the alarms are of great benefit. In the framework of an ASI Announcement of Opportunity for the exploitation of COSMO-SkyMed data, a research activity (ASI contract L/020/09/0) aiming at studying the possibility to use neural networks architectures to set up fully automatic processing chains using COSMO-SkyMed imagery has been carried out and results are presented in this paper. The automatic identification of an oil spill is seen as a three step process based on segmentation, feature extraction and classification. We observed that a PCNN (Pulse Coupled Neural Network) was capable of providing a satisfactory performance in the different dark spots extraction, close to what it would be produced by manual editing. For the classification task a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) Neural Network was employed.

  10. Accurate expectancies diminish perceptual distraction during visual search

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sy, Jocelyn L.; Guerin, Scott A.; Stegman, Anna; Giesbrecht, Barry

    2014-01-01

    The load theory of visual attention proposes that efficient selective perceptual processing of task-relevant information during search is determined automatically by the perceptual demands of the display. If the perceptual demands required to process task-relevant information are not enough to consume all available capacity, then the remaining capacity automatically and exhaustively “spills-over” to task-irrelevant information. The spill-over of perceptual processing capacity increases the likelihood that task-irrelevant information will impair performance. In two visual search experiments, we tested the automaticity of the allocation of perceptual processing resources by measuring the extent to which the processing of task-irrelevant distracting stimuli was modulated by both perceptual load and top-down expectations using behavior, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and electrophysiology. Expectations were generated using a trial-by-trial cue that provided information about the likely load of the upcoming visual search task. When the cues were valid, behavioral interference was eliminated and the influence of load on frontoparietal and visual cortical responses was attenuated relative to when the cues were invalid. In conditions in which task-irrelevant information interfered with performance and modulated visual activity, individual differences in mean blood oxygenation level dependent responses measured from the left intraparietal sulcus were negatively correlated with individual differences in the severity of distraction. These results are consistent with the interpretation that a top-down biasing mechanism interacts with perceptual load to support filtering of task-irrelevant information. PMID:24904374

  11. Accurate expectancies diminish perceptual distraction during visual search

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jocelyn L Sy

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available The load theory of visual attention proposes that efficient selective perceptual processing of task-relevant information during search is determined automatically by the perceptual demands of the display. If the perceptual demands required to process task-relevant information are not enough to consume all available capacity, then the remaining capacity automatically and exhaustively spills-over to task-irrelevant information. The spill-over of perceptual processing capacity increases the likelihood that task-irrelevant information will impair performance. In two visual search experiments, we tested the automaticity of the allocation of perceptual processing resources by measuring the extent to which the processing of task-irrelevant distracting stimuli was modulated by both perceptual load and top-down expectations using behavior, fMRI, and electrophysiology. Expectations were generated by a trial-by-trial cue that provided information about the likely load of the upcoming visual search task. When the cues were valid, behavioral interference was eliminated and the influence of load on frontoparietal and visual cortical responses was attenuated relative to when the cues were invalid. In conditions in which task-irrelevant information interfered with performance and modulated visual activity, individual differences in mean BOLD responses measured from the left intraparietal sulcus were negatively correlated with individual differences in the severity of distraction. These results are consistent with the interpretation that a top-down biasing mechanism interacts with perceptual load to support filtering of task-irrelevant information.

  12. Automatic structural scene digitalization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tang, Rui; Wang, Yuhan; Cosker, Darren; Li, Wenbin

    2017-01-01

    In this paper, we present an automatic system for the analysis and labeling of structural scenes, floor plan drawings in Computer-aided Design (CAD) format. The proposed system applies a fusion strategy to detect and recognize various components of CAD floor plans, such as walls, doors, windows and other ambiguous assets. Technically, a general rule-based filter parsing method is fist adopted to extract effective information from the original floor plan. Then, an image-processing based recovery method is employed to correct information extracted in the first step. Our proposed method is fully automatic and real-time. Such analysis system provides high accuracy and is also evaluated on a public website that, on average, archives more than ten thousands effective uses per day and reaches a relatively high satisfaction rate.

  13. TU-H-CAMPUS-JeP1-02: Fully Automatic Verification of Automatically Contoured Normal Tissues in the Head and Neck

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    McCarroll, R [UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX (United States); UT Health Science Center, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston, TX (United States); Beadle, B; Yang, J; Zhang, L; Kisling, K; Balter, P; Stingo, F; Nelson, C; Followill, D; Court, L [UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX (United States); Mejia, M [University of Santo Tomas Hospital, Manila, Metro Manila (Philippines)

    2016-06-15

    Purpose: To investigate and validate the use of an independent deformable-based contouring algorithm for automatic verification of auto-contoured structures in the head and neck towards fully automated treatment planning. Methods: Two independent automatic contouring algorithms [(1) Eclipse’s Smart Segmentation followed by pixel-wise majority voting, (2) an in-house multi-atlas based method] were used to create contours of 6 normal structures of 10 head-and-neck patients. After rating by a radiation oncologist, the higher performing algorithm was selected as the primary contouring method, the other used for automatic verification of the primary. To determine the ability of the verification algorithm to detect incorrect contours, contours from the primary method were shifted from 0.5 to 2cm. Using a logit model the structure-specific minimum detectable shift was identified. The models were then applied to a set of twenty different patients and the sensitivity and specificity of the models verified. Results: Per physician rating, the multi-atlas method (4.8/5 point scale, with 3 rated as generally acceptable for planning purposes) was selected as primary and the Eclipse-based method (3.5/5) for verification. Mean distance to agreement and true positive rate were selected as covariates in an optimized logit model. These models, when applied to a group of twenty different patients, indicated that shifts could be detected at 0.5cm (brain), 0.75cm (mandible, cord), 1cm (brainstem, cochlea), or 1.25cm (parotid), with sensitivity and specificity greater than 0.95. If sensitivity and specificity constraints are reduced to 0.9, detectable shifts of mandible and brainstem were reduced by 0.25cm. These shifts represent additional safety margins which might be considered if auto-contours are used for automatic treatment planning without physician review. Conclusion: Automatically contoured structures can be automatically verified. This fully automated process could be used to

  14. 14 CFR 25.904 - Automatic takeoff thrust control system (ATTCS).

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Automatic takeoff thrust control system... Automatic takeoff thrust control system (ATTCS). Each applicant seeking approval for installation of an engine power control system that automatically resets the power or thrust on the operating engine(s) when...

  15. Automatic segmentation of the heart in radiotherapy for breast cancer

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Laugaard Lorenzen, Ebbe; Ewertz, Marianne; Brink, Carsten

    2014-01-01

    Background. The aim of this study was to evaluate two fully automatic segmentation methods in comparison with manual delineations for their use in delineating the heart on planning computed tomography (CT) used in radiotherapy for breast cancer. Material and methods. Automatic delineation of heart...... in 15 breast cancer patients was performed by two different automatic delineation systems. Analysis of accuracy and precision of the differences between manual and automatic delineations were evaluated on volume, mean dose, maximum dose and spatial distance differences. Two sets of manual delineations...

  16. The Associate Principal Astronomer for AI Management of Automatic Telescopes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henry, Gregory W.

    1998-01-01

    This research program in scheduling and management of automatic telescopes had the following objectives: 1. To field test the 1993 Automatic Telescope Instruction Set (ATIS93) programming language, which was specifically developed to allow real-time control of an automatic telescope via an artificial intelligence scheduler running on a remote computer. 2. To develop and test the procedures for two-way communication between a telescope controller and remote scheduler via the Internet. 3. To test various concepts in Al scheduling being developed at NASA Ames Research Center on an automatic telescope operated by Tennessee State University at the Fairborn Observatory site in southern Arizona. and 4. To develop a prototype software package, dubbed the Associate Principal Astronomer, for the efficient scheduling and management of automatic telescopes.

  17. On the question of the necessity of implementation of automatic control systems in timber industry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khasanov, E. R.; Zelenkov, P. V.; Petrosyan, M. O.; Murygin, A. V.; Laptenor, V. D.

    2016-04-01

    The paper considers the necessity of implementation of automatic control systems on the level of forest farms management and timber industry. Main areas of activity, which currently subjected to automation, are revealed. Objectives, which solved by implementation of APCS, are identified.

  18. Structural maturation and brain activity predict future working memory capacity during childhood development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ullman, Henrik; Almeida, Rita; Klingberg, Torkel

    2014-01-29

    Human working memory capacity develops during childhood and is a strong predictor of future academic performance, in particular, achievements in mathematics and reading. Predicting working memory development is important for the early identification of children at risk for poor cognitive and academic development. Here we show that structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging data explain variance in children's working memory capacity 2 years later, which was unique variance in addition to that predicted using cognitive tests. While current working memory capacity correlated with frontoparietal cortical activity, the future capacity could be inferred from structure and activity in basal ganglia and thalamus. This gives a novel insight into the neural mechanisms of childhood development and supports the idea that neuroimaging can have a unique role in predicting children's cognitive development.

  19. Group Dynamics in Automatic Imitation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gleibs, Ilka H; Wilson, Neil; Reddy, Geetha; Catmur, Caroline

    Imitation-matching the configural body movements of another individual-plays a crucial part in social interaction. We investigated whether automatic imitation is not only influenced by who we imitate (ingroup vs. outgroup member) but also by the nature of an expected interaction situation (competitive vs. cooperative). In line with assumptions from Social Identity Theory), we predicted that both social group membership and the expected situation impact on the level of automatic imitation. We adopted a 2 (group membership target: ingroup, outgroup) x 2 (situation: cooperative, competitive) design. The dependent variable was the degree to which participants imitated the target in a reaction time automatic imitation task. 99 female students from two British Universities participated. We found a significant two-way interaction on the imitation effect. When interacting in expectation of cooperation, imitation was stronger for an ingroup target compared to an outgroup target. However, this was not the case in the competitive condition where imitation did not differ between ingroup and outgroup target. This demonstrates that the goal structure of an expected interaction will determine the extent to which intergroup relations influence imitation, supporting a social identity approach.

  20. Automatic programming for critical applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Loganantharaj, Raj L.

    1988-01-01

    The important phases of a software life cycle include verification and maintenance. Usually, the execution performance is an expected requirement in a software development process. Unfortunately, the verification and the maintenance of programs are the time consuming and the frustrating aspects of software engineering. The verification cannot be waived for the programs used for critical applications such as, military, space, and nuclear plants. As a consequence, synthesis of programs from specifications, an alternative way of developing correct programs, is becoming popular. The definition, or what is understood by automatic programming, has been changed with our expectations. At present, the goal of automatic programming is the automation of programming process. Specifically, it means the application of artificial intelligence to software engineering in order to define techniques and create environments that help in the creation of high level programs. The automatic programming process may be divided into two phases: the problem acquisition phase and the program synthesis phase. In the problem acquisition phase, an informal specification of the problem is transformed into an unambiguous specification while in the program synthesis phase such a specification is further transformed into a concrete, executable program.

  1. Automatic fault extraction using a modified ant-colony algorithm

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhao, Junsheng; Sun, Sam Zandong

    2013-01-01

    The basis of automatic fault extraction is seismic attributes, such as the coherence cube which is always used to identify a fault by the minimum value. The biggest challenge in automatic fault extraction is noise, including that of seismic data. However, a fault has a better spatial continuity in certain direction, which makes it quite different from noise. Considering this characteristic, a modified ant-colony algorithm is introduced into automatic fault identification and tracking, where the gradient direction and direction consistency are used as constraints. Numerical model test results show that this method is feasible and effective in automatic fault extraction and noise suppression. The application of field data further illustrates its validity and superiority. (paper)

  2. Automatically repairing invalid polygons with a constrained triangulation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ledoux, H.; Arroyo Ohori, K.; Meijers, M.

    2012-01-01

    Although the validation of single polygons has received considerable attention, the automatic repair of invalid polygons has not. Automated repair methods can be considered as interpreting ambiguous or ill-defined polygons and giving a coherent and clearly defined output. At this moment, automatic

  3. A comparison of automatic and intentional instructions when using the method of vanishing cues in acquired brain injury.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riley, Gerard A; Venn, Paul

    2015-01-01

    Thirty-four participants with acquired brain injury learned word lists under two forms of vanishing cues - one in which the learning trial instructions encouraged intentional retrieval (i.e., explicit memory) and one in which they encouraged automatic retrieval (which encompasses implicit memory). The automatic instructions represented a novel approach in which the cooperation of participants was actively sought to avoid intentional retrieval. Intentional instructions resulted in fewer errors during the learning trials and better performance on immediate and delayed retrieval tests. The advantage of intentional over automatic instructions was generally less for those who had more severe memory and/or executive impairments. Most participants performed better under intentional instructions on both the immediate and the delayed tests. Although those who were more severely impaired in both memory and executive function also did better with intentional instructions on the immediate retrieval test, they were significantly more likely to show an advantage for automatic instructions on the delayed test. It is suggested that this pattern of results may reflect impairments in the consolidation of intentional memories in this group. When using vanishing cues, automatic instructions may be better for those with severe consolidation impairments, but otherwise intentional instructions may be better.

  4. The irace package: Iterated racing for automatic algorithm configuration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manuel López-Ibáñez

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Modern optimization algorithms typically require the setting of a large number of parameters to optimize their performance. The immediate goal of automatic algorithm configuration is to find, automatically, the best parameter settings of an optimizer. Ultimately, automatic algorithm configuration has the potential to lead to new design paradigms for optimization software. The irace package is a software package that implements a number of automatic configuration procedures. In particular, it offers iterated racing procedures, which have been used successfully to automatically configure various state-of-the-art algorithms. The iterated racing procedures implemented in irace include the iterated F-race algorithm and several extensions and improvements over it. In this paper, we describe the rationale underlying the iterated racing procedures and introduce a number of recent extensions. Among these, we introduce a restart mechanism to avoid premature convergence, the use of truncated sampling distributions to handle correctly parameter bounds, and an elitist racing procedure for ensuring that the best configurations returned are also those evaluated in the highest number of training instances. We experimentally evaluate the most recent version of irace and demonstrate with a number of example applications the use and potential of irace, in particular, and automatic algorithm configuration, in general.

  5. Mimicry and automatic imitation are not correlated

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Den Bossche, Sofie; Cracco, Emiel; Bardi, Lara; Rigoni, Davide; Brass, Marcel

    2017-01-01

    It is widely known that individuals have a tendency to imitate each other. However, different psychological disciplines assess imitation in different manners. While social psychologists assess mimicry by means of action observation, cognitive psychologists assess automatic imitation with reaction time based measures on a trial-by-trial basis. Although these methods differ in crucial methodological aspects, both phenomena are assumed to rely on similar underlying mechanisms. This raises the fundamental question whether mimicry and automatic imitation are actually correlated. In the present research we assessed both phenomena and did not find a meaningful correlation. Moreover, personality traits such as empathy, autism traits, and traits related to self- versus other-focus did not correlate with mimicry or automatic imitation either. Theoretical implications are discussed. PMID:28877197

  6. Support vector machine for automatic pain recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monwar, Md Maruf; Rezaei, Siamak

    2009-02-01

    Facial expressions are a key index of emotion and the interpretation of such expressions of emotion is critical to everyday social functioning. In this paper, we present an efficient video analysis technique for recognition of a specific expression, pain, from human faces. We employ an automatic face detector which detects face from the stored video frame using skin color modeling technique. For pain recognition, location and shape features of the detected faces are computed. These features are then used as inputs to a support vector machine (SVM) for classification. We compare the results with neural network based and eigenimage based automatic pain recognition systems. The experiment results indicate that using support vector machine as classifier can certainly improve the performance of automatic pain recognition system.

  7. Automatic color preference correction for color reproduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsukada, Masato; Funayama, Chisato; Tajima, Johji

    2000-12-01

    The reproduction of natural objects in color images has attracted a great deal of attention. Reproduction more pleasing colors of natural objects is one of the methods available to improve image quality. We developed an automatic color correction method to maintain preferred color reproduction for three significant categories: facial skin color, green grass and blue sky. In this method, a representative color in an object area to be corrected is automatically extracted from an input image, and a set of color correction parameters is selected depending on the representative color. The improvement in image quality for reproductions of natural image was more than 93 percent in subjective experiments. These results show the usefulness of our automatic color correction method for the reproduction of preferred colors.

  8. The effect of different EEG derivations on sleep staging in rats: the frontal midline–parietal bipolar electrode for sleep scoring

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fang, Guangzhan; Zhang, Chunpeng; Xia, Yang; Lai, Yongxiu; Liu, Tiejun; You, Zili; Yao, Dezhong

    2009-01-01

    Most sleep-staging research has focused on developing and optimizing algorithms for sleep scoring, but little attention has been paid to the effect of different electroencephalogram (EEG) derivations on sleep staging. To explore the possible effects of EEG derivations, an automatic computer method was established and confirmed by agreement analysis between the computer and two independent raters, and four fronto-parietal bipolar leads were compared for sleep scoring in rats. The results demonstrated that different bipolar electrodes have significantly different sleep-staging accuracies, and that the optimal frontal electrode for sleep scoring is located at the anterior midline

  9. Brain connectivity in pathological and pharmacological coma

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Quentin Noirhomme

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Recent studies in patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC tend to support the view that awareness is not related to activity in a single brain region but to thalamo-cortical connectivity in the frontoparietal network. Functional neuroimaging studies have shown preserved albeit disconnected low level cortical activation in response to external stimulation in patients in a vegetative state or unresponsive wakefulness syndrome. While activation of these primary sensory cortices does not necessarily reflect conscious awareness, activation in higher order associative cortices in minimally conscious state patients seems to herald some residual perceptual awareness. PET studies have identified a metabolic dysfunction in a widespread fronto-parietal global neuronal workspace in DOC patients including the midline default mode network, ‘intrinsic’ system, and the lateral frontoparietal cortices or ‘extrinsic system’. Recent studies have investigated the relation of awareness to the functional connectivity within intrinsic and extrinsic networks, and with the thalami in both pathological and pharmacological coma. In brain damaged patients, connectivity in all default network areas was found to be non-linearly correlated with the degree of clinical consciousness impairment, ranging from healthy controls and locked-in syndrome to minimally conscious, vegetative, coma and brain dead patients. Anesthesia-induced loss of consciousness was also shown to correlate with a global decrease in cortico-cortical and thalamo-cortical connectivity in both intrinsic and extrinsic networks, but not in auditory or visual networks. In anesthesia, unconsciousness was also associated with a loss of cross-modal interactions between networks. These results suggest that conscious awareness critically depends on the functional integrity of thalamo-cortical and cortico-cortical frontoparietal connectivity within and between intrinsic and extrinsic brain networks.

  10. Automatic weld torch guidance control system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smaith, H. E.; Wall, W. A.; Burns, M. R., Jr.

    1982-01-01

    A highly reliable, fully digital, closed circuit television optical, type automatic weld seam tracking control system was developed. This automatic tracking equipment is used to reduce weld tooling costs and increase overall automatic welding reliability. The system utilizes a charge injection device digital camera which as 60,512 inidividual pixels as the light sensing elements. Through conventional scanning means, each pixel in the focal plane is sequentially scanned, the light level signal digitized, and an 8-bit word transmitted to scratch pad memory. From memory, the microprocessor performs an analysis of the digital signal and computes the tracking error. Lastly, the corrective signal is transmitted to a cross seam actuator digital drive motor controller to complete the closed loop, feedback, tracking system. This weld seam tracking control system is capable of a tracking accuracy of + or - 0.2 mm, or better. As configured, the system is applicable to square butt, V-groove, and lap joint weldments.

  11. 2nd International Conference on Mechatronics and Automatic Control

    CERN Document Server

    2015-01-01

    This book examines mechatronics and automatic control systems. The book covers important emerging topics in signal processing, control theory, sensors, mechanic manufacturing systems and automation. The book presents papers from the second International Conference on Mechatronics and Automatic Control Systems held in Beijing, China on September 20-21, 2014. Examines how to improve productivity through the latest advanced technologies Covering new systems and techniques in the broad field of mechatronics and automatic control systems.

  12. FRICTION - WELDING MACHINE AUTOMATIC CONTROL CIRCUIT DESIGN AND APPLICATION

    OpenAIRE

    Hakan ATEŞ; Ramazan BAYINDIR

    2003-01-01

    In this work, automatic controllability of a laboratory-sized friction-welding machine has been investigated. The laboratory-sized friction-welding machine was composed of motor, brake, rotary and constant samples late pliers, and hydraulic unit. In automatic method, welding parameters such as friction time, friction pressure, forge time and forge pressure can be applied sensitively using time relays and contactors. At the end of the experimental study it's observed that automatic control sys...

  13. Dynamic Analysis of a Pendulum Dynamic Automatic Balancer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jin-Seung Sohn

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available The automatic dynamic balancer is a device to reduce the vibration from unbalanced mass of rotors. Instead of considering prevailing ball automatic dynamic balancer, pendulum automatic dynamic balancer is analyzed. For the analysis of dynamic stability and behavior, the nonlinear equations of motion for a system are derived with respect to polar coordinates by the Lagrange's equations. The perturbation method is applied to investigate the dynamic behavior of the system around the equilibrium position. Based on the linearized equations, the dynamic stability of the system around the equilibrium positions is investigated by the eigenvalue analysis.

  14. Automatic Detection of Wild-type Mouse Cranial Sutures

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ólafsdóttir, Hildur; Darvann, Tron Andre; Hermann, Nuno V.

    , automatic detection of the cranial sutures becomes important. We have previously built a craniofacial, wild-type mouse atlas from a set of 10 Micro CT scans using a B-spline-based nonrigid registration method by Rueckert et al. Subsequently, all volumes were registered nonrigidly to the atlas. Using......, the observer traced the sutures on each of the mouse volumes as well. The observer outperforms the automatic approach by approximately 0.1 mm. All mice have similar errors while the suture error plots reveal that suture 1 and 2 are cumbersome, both for the observer and the automatic approach. These sutures can...

  15. An approach of optimal sensitivity applied in the tertiary loop of the automatic generation control

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Belati, Edmarcio A. [CIMATEC - SENAI, Salvador, BA (Brazil); Alves, Dilson A. [Electrical Engineering Department, FEIS, UNESP - Sao Paulo State University (Brazil); da Costa, Geraldo R.M. [Electrical Engineering Department, EESC, USP - Sao Paulo University (Brazil)

    2008-09-15

    This paper proposes an approach of optimal sensitivity applied in the tertiary loop of the automatic generation control. The approach is based on the theorem of non-linear perturbation. From an optimal operation point obtained by an optimal power flow a new optimal operation point is directly determined after a perturbation, i.e., without the necessity of an iterative process. This new optimal operation point satisfies the constraints of the problem for small perturbation in the loads. The participation factors and the voltage set point of the automatic voltage regulators (AVR) of the generators are determined by the technique of optimal sensitivity, considering the effects of the active power losses minimization and the network constraints. The participation factors and voltage set point of the generators are supplied directly to a computational program of dynamic simulation of the automatic generation control, named by power sensitivity mode. Test results are presented to show the good performance of this approach. (author)

  16. Automatic Test Systems Aquisition

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    1994-01-01

    We are providing this final memorandum report for your information and use. This report discusses the efforts to achieve commonality in standards among the Military Departments as part of the DoD policy for automatic test systems (ATS...

  17. Automatic characterization of sleep need dissipation dynamics using a single EEG signal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garcia-Molina, Gary; Bellesi, Michele; Riedner, Brady; Pastoor, Sander; Pfundtner, Stefan; Tononi, Giulio

    2015-01-01

    In the two-process model of sleep regulation, slow-wave activity (SWA, i.e. the EEG power in the 0.5-4 Hz frequency band) is considered a direct indicator of sleep need. SWA builds up during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, declines before the onset of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, remains low during REM and the level of increase in successive NREM episodes gets progressively lower. Sleep need dissipates with a speed that is proportional to SWA and can be characterized in terms of the initial sleep need, and the decay rate. The goal in this paper is to automatically characterize sleep need from a single EEG signal acquired at a frontal location. To achieve this, a highly specific and reasonably sensitive NREM detection algorithm is proposed that leverages the concept of a single-class Kernel-based classifier. Using automatic NREM detection, we propose a method to estimate the decay rate and the initial sleep need. This method was tested on experimental data from 8 subjects who recorded EEG during three nights at home. We found that on average the estimates of the decay rate and the initial sleep need have higher values when automatic NREM detection was used as compared to manual NREM annotation. However, the average variability of these estimates across multiple nights of the same subject was lower when the automatic NREM detection classifier was used. While this method slightly over estimates the sleep need parameters, the reduced variability across subjects makes it more effective for within subject statistical comparisons of a given sleep intervention.

  18. Automatic dosimeter for kerma measurement based on commercial PIN photo diodes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kushpil, V.; Kushpil, S.; Huna, Z.

    2011-01-01

    A new automatic dosimeter for measurement of radiation dose from neutron and ionization radiation is presented. The dosimeter (kerma meter) uses commercial PIN diodes with long base as its active element. Later it provides a maximal dependence of the minority carriers life time versus absorbed dose. The characteristics of the dosimeter were measured for several types of commercial diodes. Device can be useful in many environmental or industrial applications. (authors)

  19. Automatic control in multidrive electrotechnical complexes with semiconductor converters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vasilev, B. U.; Mardashov, D. V.

    2017-01-01

    The frequency convertor and the automatic control system, which can be used in the multi-drive electromechanical system with a few induction motions, are considered. The paper presents the structure of existing modern multi-drive electric drives inverters, namely, electric drives with a total frequency converter and few electric motions, and an electric drive, in which the converter is used for power supply and control of the independent frequency. It was shown that such technical solutions of frequency converters possess a number of drawbacks. The drawbacks are given. It was shown that the control of technological processes using the electric drive of this structure may be provided under very limited conditions, as the energy efficiency and the level of electromagnetic compatibility of electric drives is low. The authors proposed using a multi-inverter structure with an active rectifier in multidrive electric drives with induction motors frequency converters. The application of such frequency converter may solve the problem of electromagnetic compatibility, namely, consumption of sinusoidal currents from the network and the maintenance of a sinusoidal voltage and energy compatibility, namely, consumption of practically active energy from the network. Also, the paper proposes the use of the automatic control system, which by means of a multi-inverter frequency converter provides separate control of drive machines and flexible regulation of technological processes. The authors present oscillograms, which confirm the described characteristics of the developed electrical drive. The possible subsequent ways to improve the multi-motor drives are also described.

  20. Study on the management of the Boohung X-Dol 90 developer and fixing solution for automatic X-ray film processor

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hyan, Yong Sil; Kim, Heung Tae; Kwon, Dal Gwan; Choi, Myung Joon; Cheung, Hwan

    1986-01-01

    Recently, Demands of Automatic X-ray film Processors are increasing more and more at University Hospitals and general Hospitals and Private clinics, but various troubles because of incorrect control were found out. Authors have researched to find out the function and Activity of Automatic X-ray film processor for 2 weeks Kodak RPX-OMAT Processor and Sakura GX3000 Processor and Doosan parka 2000 Processor and results obtained were as follows: 1. Automatic X-ray film processor have an advantage to conduct the rapid treatment of X-ray film processing but incorrect handling of developing and fixing agents were brought about a great change in Contrast and Optical density of X-ray film pictures. 2. About 300 X-ray film could be finished by same developing and fixing solution without exchanging any other solutions in each Automatic X-ray film processor

  1. Research on wireless communication technology based on automatic logistics system of welder

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sun Xuan

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available In order to meet the requirements of high real-time and high stability of data transmission in automatic welding system, RTU data format and real-time communication mechanism are adopted in this system. In the automatic logistics system through the Ethernet and wireless WIFI technology will palletizer, stacker, AGV car organically together to complete the palletizer automatic crawling the goods, AGV car automatic delivery, stacking machine automatically out of the Dimensional warehouse. .

  2. Research on wireless communication technology based on automatic logistics system of welder

    OpenAIRE

    Sun Xuan; Wang Zhi-yong; Ma Zhe-dong

    2018-01-01

    In order to meet the requirements of high real-time and high stability of data transmission in automatic welding system, RTU data format and real-time communication mechanism are adopted in this system. In the automatic logistics system through the Ethernet and wireless WIFI technology will palletizer, stacker, AGV car organically together to complete the palletizer automatic crawling the goods, AGV car automatic delivery, stacking machine automatically out of the Dimensional warehouse. .

  3. Enhancement of the automatic ultrasonic signal processing system using digital technology

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Koo, In Soo; Park, H. Y.; Suh, Y. S.; Kim, D. Hoon; Huh, S.; Sung, S. H.; Jang, G. S.; Ryoo, S. G.; Choi, J. H.; Kim, Y. H.; Lee, J. C.; Kim, D. Hyun; Park, H. J.; Kim, Y. C.; Lee, J. P.; Park, C. H.; Kim, M. S.

    1999-12-01

    The objective of this study is to develop the automatic ultrasonic signal processing system which can be used in the inspection equipment to assess the integrity of the reactor vessel by enhancing the performance of the ultrasonic signal processing system. Main activities of this study divided into three categories such as the development of the circuits for generating ultrasonic signal and receiving the signal from the inspection equipment, the development of signal processing algorithm and H/W of the data processing system, and the development of the specification for application programs and system S/W for the analysis and evaluation computer. The results of main activities are as follows 1) the design of the ultrasonic detector and the automatic ultrasonic signal processing system by using the investigation of the state-of-the-art technology in the inside and outside of the country. 2) the development of H/W and S/W of the data processing system based on the results. Especially, the H/W of the data processing system, which have both advantages of digital and analog controls through the real-time digital signal processing, was developed using the DSP which can process the digital signal in the real-time, and was developed not only firmware of the data processing system in order for the peripherals but also the test algorithm of specimen for the calibration. The application programs and the system S/W of the analysis/evaluation computer were developed. Developed equipment was verified by the performance test. Based on developed prototype for the automatic ultrasonic signal processing system, the localization of the overall ultrasonic inspection equipment for nuclear industries would be expected through the further studies of the H/W establishment of real applications, developing the S/W specification of the analysis computer. (author)

  4. Automatic River Network Extraction from LIDAR Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maderal, E. N.; Valcarcel, N.; Delgado, J.; Sevilla, C.; Ojeda, J. C.

    2016-06-01

    National Geographic Institute of Spain (IGN-ES) has launched a new production system for automatic river network extraction for the Geospatial Reference Information (GRI) within hydrography theme. The goal is to get an accurate and updated river network, automatically extracted as possible. For this, IGN-ES has full LiDAR coverage for the whole Spanish territory with a density of 0.5 points per square meter. To implement this work, it has been validated the technical feasibility, developed a methodology to automate each production phase: hydrological terrain models generation with 2 meter grid size and river network extraction combining hydrographic criteria (topographic network) and hydrological criteria (flow accumulation river network), and finally the production was launched. The key points of this work has been managing a big data environment, more than 160,000 Lidar data files, the infrastructure to store (up to 40 Tb between results and intermediate files), and process; using local virtualization and the Amazon Web Service (AWS), which allowed to obtain this automatic production within 6 months, it also has been important the software stability (TerraScan-TerraSolid, GlobalMapper-Blue Marble , FME-Safe, ArcGIS-Esri) and finally, the human resources managing. The results of this production has been an accurate automatic river network extraction for the whole country with a significant improvement for the altimetric component of the 3D linear vector. This article presents the technical feasibility, the production methodology, the automatic river network extraction production and its advantages over traditional vector extraction systems.

  5. AUTOMATIC RIVER NETWORK EXTRACTION FROM LIDAR DATA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    E. N. Maderal

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available National Geographic Institute of Spain (IGN-ES has launched a new production system for automatic river network extraction for the Geospatial Reference Information (GRI within hydrography theme. The goal is to get an accurate and updated river network, automatically extracted as possible. For this, IGN-ES has full LiDAR coverage for the whole Spanish territory with a density of 0.5 points per square meter. To implement this work, it has been validated the technical feasibility, developed a methodology to automate each production phase: hydrological terrain models generation with 2 meter grid size and river network extraction combining hydrographic criteria (topographic network and hydrological criteria (flow accumulation river network, and finally the production was launched. The key points of this work has been managing a big data environment, more than 160,000 Lidar data files, the infrastructure to store (up to 40 Tb between results and intermediate files, and process; using local virtualization and the Amazon Web Service (AWS, which allowed to obtain this automatic production within 6 months, it also has been important the software stability (TerraScan-TerraSolid, GlobalMapper-Blue Marble , FME-Safe, ArcGIS-Esri and finally, the human resources managing. The results of this production has been an accurate automatic river network extraction for the whole country with a significant improvement for the altimetric component of the 3D linear vector. This article presents the technical feasibility, the production methodology, the automatic river network extraction production and its advantages over traditional vector extraction systems.

  6. Automatic re-contouring in 4D radiotherapy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lu, Weiguo; Olivera, Gustavo H; Chen, Quan; Chen, Ming-Li; Ruchala, Kenneth J

    2006-01-01

    Delineating regions of interest (ROIs) on each phase of four-dimensional (4D) computed tomography (CT) images is an essential step for 4D radiotherapy. The requirement of manual phase-by-phase contouring prohibits the routine use of 4D radiotherapy. This paper develops an automatic re-contouring algorithm that combines techniques of deformable registration and surface construction. ROIs are manually contoured slice-by-slice in the reference phase image. A reference surface is constructed based on these reference contours using a triangulated surface construction technique. The deformable registration technique provides the voxel-to-voxel mapping between the reference phase and the test phase. The vertices of the reference surface are displaced in accordance with the deformation map, resulting in a deformed surface. The new contours are reconstructed by cutting the deformed surface slice-by-slice along the transversal, sagittal or coronal direction. Since both the inputs and outputs of our automatic re-contouring algorithm are contours, it is relatively easy to cope with any treatment planning system. We tested our automatic re-contouring algorithm using a deformable phantom and 4D CT images of six lung cancer patients. The proposed algorithm is validated by visual inspections and quantitative comparisons of the automatic re-contours with both the gold standard segmentations and the manual contours. Based on the automatic delineated ROIs, changes of tumour and sensitive structures during respiration are quantitatively analysed. This algorithm could also be used to re-contour daily images for treatment evaluation and adaptive radiotherapy

  7. Automatic contact in DYNA3D for vehicle crashworthiness

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Whirley, R.G.; Engelmann, B.E.

    1994-01-01

    This paper presents a new formulation for the automatic definition and treatment of mechanical contact in explicit, nonlinear, finite element analysis. Automatic contact offers the benefits of significantly reduced model construction time and fewer opportunities for user error, but faces significant challenges in reliability and computational costs. The authors have used a new four-step automatic contact algorithm. Key aspects of the proposed method include (1) automatic identification of adjacent and opposite surfaces in the global search phase, and (2) the use of a smoothly varying surface normal that allows a consistent treatment of shell intersection and corner contact conditions without ad hoc rules. Three examples are given to illustrate the performance of the newly proposed algorithm in the public DYNA3D code

  8. Automatic reel controls filler wire in welding machines

    Science.gov (United States)

    Millett, A. V.

    1966-01-01

    Automatic reel on automatic welding equipment takes up slack in the reel-fed filler wire when welding operation is terminated. The reel maintains constant, adjustable tension on the wire during the welding operation and rewinds the wire from the wire feed unit when the welding is completed.

  9. Automatic Vetting for Malice in Android Platforms

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-05-01

    Android Apps from Play Store Infected with Brain Test Malware. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/google- removes -13- android -apps-play-store-infected- brain-test...AUTOMATIC VETTING FOR MALICE IN ANDROID PLATFORMS IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY MAY 2016 FINAL TECHNICAL REPORT APPROVED...COVERED (From - To) DEC 2013 - DEC 2015 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Automatic Vetting for Malice in Android Platforms 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER FA8750-14-2

  10. Automatic penalty continuation in structural topology optimization

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rojas Labanda, Susana; Stolpe, Mathias

    2015-01-01

    this issue is addressed. We propose an automatic continuation method, where the material penalization parameter is included as a new variable in the problem and a constraint guarantees that the requested penalty is eventually reached. The numerical results suggest that this approach is an appealing...... alternative to continuation methods. Automatic continuation also generally obtains better designs than the classical formulation using a reduced number of iterations....

  11. An instrument for measurement of 125I with automatic efficiency correction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Holford, R.M.

    1979-10-01

    Counting efficiencies for 125 I are often uncertain because of self-absorption of the low-energy radiation. A special purpose instrument, AEP-5285, has been designed to simplify the measurement of 125 I activities using a known technique in which the observed counting rate is compensated for self-absorption and any other uncertainties in the counting efficiency by making use of the coicidence properties of the radiation. The instrument contains pulse amplifiers, discriminators to define the energy regions of interest, and operational amplifier circuits to perform the necessary calculations automatically, and it displays an estimate of the source activity in becquerels. (auth)

  12. "Opening an emotional dimension in me": changes in emotional reactivity and emotion regulation in a case of executive impairment after left fronto-parietal damage.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salas, Christian E; Radovic, Darinka; Yuen, Kenneth S L; Yeates, Giles N; Castro, O; Turnbull, Oliver H

    2014-01-01

    Dysexecutive impairment is a common problem after brain injury, particularly after damage to the lateral surface of the frontal lobes. There is a large literature describing the cognitive deficits associated with executive impairment after dorsolateral damage; however, little is known about its impact on emotional functioning. This case study describes changes in a 72-year-old man (Professor F) who became markedly dysexecutive after a left fron-to-parietal stroke. Professor F's case is remarkable in that, despite exhibiting typical executive impairments, abstraction and working memory capacities were spared. Such preservation of insight-related capacities allowed him to offer a detailed account of his emotional changes. Quantitative and qualitative tools were used to explore changes in several well-known emotional processes. The results suggest that Professor F's two main emotional changes were in the domain of emotional reactivity (increased experience of both positive and negative emotions) and emotion regulation (down-regulation of sadness). Professor F related both changes to difficulties in his thinking process, especially a difficulty generating and manipulating thoughts during moments of negative arousal. These results are discussed in relation to the literature on executive function and emotion regulation. The relevance of these findings for neuropsychological rehabilitation and for the debate on the neural basis of emotional processes is addressed.

  13. Automatic first-break picking using the instantaneous traveltime attribute

    KAUST Repository

    Saragiotis, Christos

    2012-01-01

    Picking the first breaks is an important step in seismic processing. The large volume of the seismic data calls for automatic and objective picking. We introduce a new automatic first-break picker, which uses specifically designed time windows and an iterative procedure based on the instantaneous traveltime attribute. The method is fast as it only uses a few FFT\\'s per trace. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this automatic method by applying it on real test data.

  14. Accessories for Enhancement of the Semi-Automatic Welding Processes

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Wheeler, Douglas M; Sawhill, James M

    2000-01-01

    The project's objective is to identify specific areas of the semi-automatic welding operation that is performed with the major semi-automatic processes, which would be more productive if a suitable...

  15. Automatic generation of anatomic characteristics from cerebral aneurysm surface models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neugebauer, M; Lawonn, K; Beuing, O; Preim, B

    2013-03-01

    Computer-aided research on cerebral aneurysms often depends on a polygonal mesh representation of the vessel lumen. To support a differentiated, anatomy-aware analysis, it is necessary to derive anatomic descriptors from the surface model. We present an approach on automatic decomposition of the adjacent vessels into near- and far-vessel regions and computation of the axial plane. We also exemplarily present two applications of the geometric descriptors: automatic computation of a unique vessel order and automatic viewpoint selection. Approximation methods are employed to analyze vessel cross-sections and the vessel area profile along the centerline. The resulting transition zones between near- and far- vessel regions are used as input for an optimization process to compute the axial plane. The unique vessel order is defined via projection into the plane space of the axial plane. The viewing direction for the automatic viewpoint selection is derived from the normal vector of the axial plane. The approach was successfully applied to representative data sets exhibiting a broad variability with respect to the configuration of their adjacent vessels. A robustness analysis showed that the automatic decomposition is stable against noise. A survey with 4 medical experts showed a broad agreement with the automatically defined transition zones. Due to the general nature of the underlying algorithms, this approach is applicable to most of the likely aneurysm configurations in the cerebral vasculature. Additional geometric information obtained during automatic decomposition can support correction in case the automatic approach fails. The resulting descriptors can be used for various applications in the field of visualization, exploration and analysis of cerebral aneurysms.

  16. Working memory contributes to the encoding of object location associations: Support for a 3-part model of object location memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gillis, M Meredith; Garcia, Sarah; Hampstead, Benjamin M

    2016-09-15

    A recent model by Postma and colleagues posits that the encoding of object location associations (OLAs) requires the coordination of several cognitive processes mediated by ventral (object perception) and dorsal (spatial perception) visual pathways as well as the hippocampus (feature binding) [1]. Within this model, frontoparietal network recruitment is believed to contribute to both the spatial processing and working memory task demands. The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test each step of this model in 15 participants who encoded OLAs and performed standard n-back tasks. As expected, object processing resulted in activation of the ventral visual stream. Object in location processing resulted in activation of both the ventral and dorsal visual streams as well as a lateral frontoparietal network. This condition was also the only one to result in medial temporal lobe activation, supporting its role in associative learning. A conjunction analysis revealed areas of shared activation between the working memory and object in location phase within the lateral frontoparietal network, anterior insula, and basal ganglia; consistent with prior working memory literature. Overall, findings support Postma and colleague's model and provide clear evidence for the role of working memory during OLA encoding. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  17. The Potential of Automatic Word Comparison for Historical Linguistics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    List, Johann-Mattis; Greenhill, Simon J; Gray, Russell D

    2017-01-01

    The amount of data from languages spoken all over the world is rapidly increasing. Traditional manual methods in historical linguistics need to face the challenges brought by this influx of data. Automatic approaches to word comparison could provide invaluable help to pre-analyze data which can be later enhanced by experts. In this way, computational approaches can take care of the repetitive and schematic tasks leaving experts to concentrate on answering interesting questions. Here we test the potential of automatic methods to detect etymologically related words (cognates) in cross-linguistic data. Using a newly compiled database of expert cognate judgments across five different language families, we compare how well different automatic approaches distinguish related from unrelated words. Our results show that automatic methods can identify cognates with a very high degree of accuracy, reaching 89% for the best-performing method Infomap. We identify the specific strengths and weaknesses of these different methods and point to major challenges for future approaches. Current automatic approaches for cognate detection-although not perfect-could become an important component of future research in historical linguistics.

  18. A consideration of the operation of automatic production machines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoshi, Toshiro; Sugimoto, Noboru

    2015-01-01

    At worksites, various automatic production machines are in use to release workers from muscular labor or labor in the detrimental environment. On the other hand, a large number of industrial accidents have been caused by automatic production machines. In view of this, this paper considers the operation of automatic production machines from the viewpoint of accident prevention, and points out two types of machine operation - operation for which quick performance is required (operation that is not permitted to be delayed) - and operation for which composed performance is required (operation that is not permitted to be performed in haste). These operations are distinguished by operation buttons of suitable colors and shapes. This paper shows that these characteristics are evaluated as "asymmetric on the time-axis". Here, in order for workers to accept the risk of automatic production machines, it is preconditioned in general that harm should be sufficiently small or avoidance of harm is easy. In this connection, this paper shows the possibility of facilitating the acceptance of the risk of automatic production machines by enhancing the asymmetric on the time-axis.

  19. Methodology for Automatic Ontology Generation Using Database Schema Information

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    JungHyen An

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available An ontology is a model language that supports the functions to integrate conceptually distributed domain knowledge and infer relationships among the concepts. Ontologies are developed based on the target domain knowledge. As a result, methodologies to automatically generate an ontology from metadata that characterize the domain knowledge are becoming important. However, existing methodologies to automatically generate an ontology using metadata are required to generate the domain metadata in a predetermined template, and it is difficult to manage data that are increased on the ontology itself when the domain OWL (Ontology Web Language individuals are continuously increased. The database schema has a feature of domain knowledge and provides structural functions to efficiently process the knowledge-based data. In this paper, we propose a methodology to automatically generate ontologies and manage the OWL individual through an interaction of the database and the ontology. We describe the automatic ontology generation process with example schema and demonstrate the effectiveness of the automatically generated ontology by comparing it with existing ontologies using the ontology quality score.

  20. Automatic Deficits can lead to executive deficits in ADHD

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gabriella Martino

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available It has been well documented an executive dysfunction in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD and with Reading Disorder (RD. The purpose of the present study was to test an alternative hypothesis that deficits in executive functioning within ADHD may be partially due to an impairment of the automatic processing. In addition, since the co-occurrence between ADHD and RD, we tested the hypothesis that the automatic processing may be  a possible common cognitive factor between ADHD and RD. We investigated the automatic processing of selective visual attention through two experiments. 12 children with ADHD, 17 with ADHD+RD and 29 typically developing children, matched for age and gender, performed two tasks: Visual Information Processing Task and Clock Test. As expected, ADHD and ADHD+RD groups differed from the control group in controlled process task, suggesting a deficit in executive functioning. All clinical subjects also exhibited a lower performance in automatic processes, compared to control group. The results of this study suggest that executive deficits within ADHD can be partially due to an impairment of automatic processing.

  1. High-Throughput Automatic Training System for Odor-Based Learned Behaviors in Head-Fixed Mice

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhe Han

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Understanding neuronal mechanisms of learned behaviors requires efficient behavioral assays. We designed a high-throughput automatic training system (HATS for olfactory behaviors in head-fixed mice. The hardware and software were constructed to enable automatic training with minimal human intervention. The integrated system was composed of customized 3D-printing supporting components, an odor-delivery unit with fast response, Arduino based hardware-controlling and data-acquisition unit. Furthermore, the customized software was designed to enable automatic training in all training phases, including lick-teaching, shaping and learning. Using HATS, we trained mice to perform delayed non-match to sample (DNMS, delayed paired association (DPA, Go/No-go (GNG, and GNG reversal tasks. These tasks probed cognitive functions including sensory discrimination, working memory, decision making and cognitive flexibility. Mice reached stable levels of performance within several days in the tasks. HATS enabled an experimenter to train eight mice simultaneously, therefore greatly enhanced the experimental efficiency. Combined with causal perturbation and activity recording techniques, HATS can greatly facilitate our understanding of the neural-circuitry mechanisms underlying learned behaviors.

  2. Fully integrated low-noise readout circuit with automatic offset cancellation loop for capacitive microsensors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Haryong; Park, Yunjong; Kim, Hyungseup; Cho, Dong-Il Dan; Ko, Hyoungho

    2015-10-14

    Capacitive sensing schemes are widely used for various microsensors; however, such microsensors suffer from severe parasitic capacitance problems. This paper presents a fully integrated low-noise readout circuit with automatic offset cancellation loop (AOCL) for capacitive microsensors. The output offsets of the capacitive sensing chain due to the parasitic capacitances and process variations are automatically removed using AOCL. The AOCL generates electrically equivalent offset capacitance and enables charge-domain fine calibration using a 10-bit R-2R digital-to-analog converter, charge-transfer switches, and a charge-storing capacitor. The AOCL cancels the unwanted offset by binary-search algorithm based on 10-bit successive approximation register (SAR) logic. The chip is implemented using 0.18 μm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process with an active area of 1.76 mm². The power consumption is 220 μW with 3.3 V supply. The input parasitic capacitances within the range of -250 fF to 250 fF can be cancelled out automatically, and the required calibration time is lower than 10 ms.

  3. Fully Integrated Low-Noise Readout Circuit with Automatic Offset Cancellation Loop for Capacitive Microsensors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Haryong Song

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Capacitive sensing schemes are widely used for various microsensors; however, such microsensors suffer from severe parasitic capacitance problems. This paper presents a fully integrated low-noise readout circuit with automatic offset cancellation loop (AOCL for capacitive microsensors. The output offsets of the capacitive sensing chain due to the parasitic capacitances and process variations are automatically removed using AOCL. The AOCL generates electrically equivalent offset capacitance and enables charge-domain fine calibration using a 10-bit R-2R digital-to-analog converter, charge-transfer switches, and a charge-storing capacitor. The AOCL cancels the unwanted offset by binary-search algorithm based on 10-bit successive approximation register (SAR logic. The chip is implemented using 0.18 μm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS process with an active area of 1.76 mm2. The power consumption is 220 μW with 3.3 V supply. The input parasitic capacitances within the range of −250 fF to 250 fF can be cancelled out automatically, and the required calibration time is lower than 10 ms.

  4. Automatic control of cryogenic wind tunnels

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balakrishna, S.

    1989-01-01

    Inadequate Reynolds number similarity in testing of scaled models affects the quality of aerodynamic data from wind tunnels. This is due to scale effects of boundary-layer shock wave interaction which is likely to be severe at transonic speeds. The idea of operation of wind tunnels using test gas cooled to cryogenic temperatures has yielded a quantrum jump in the ability to realize full scale Reynolds number flow similarity in small transonic tunnels. In such tunnels, the basic flow control problem consists of obtaining and maintaining the desired test section flow parameters. Mach number, Reynolds number, and dynamic pressure are the three flow parameters that are usually required to be kept constant during the period of model aerodynamic data acquisition. The series of activity involved in modeling, control law development, mechanization of the control laws on a microcomputer, and the performance of a globally stable automatic control system for the 0.3-m Transonic Cryogenic Tunnel (TCT) are discussed. A lumped multi-variable nonlinear dynamic model of the cryogenic tunnel, generation of a set of linear control laws for small perturbation, and nonlinear control strategy for large set point changes including tunnel trajectory control are described. The details of mechanization of the control laws on a 16 bit microcomputer system, the software features, operator interface, the display and safety are discussed. The controller is shown to provide globally stable and reliable temperature control to + or - 0.2 K, pressure to + or - 0.07 psi and Mach number to + or - 0.002 of the set point value. This performance is obtained both during large set point commands as for a tunnel cooldown, and during aerodynamic data acquisition with intrusive activity like geometrical changes in the test section such as angle of attack changes, drag rake movements, wall adaptation and sidewall boundary-layer removal. Feasibility of the use of an automatic Reynolds number control mode with

  5. Automatic detection of REM sleep in subjects without atonia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kempfner, Jacob; Jennum, Poul; Nikolic, Miki

    2012-01-01

    Idiopathic Rapid-Rye-Movement (REM) sleep Behavior Disorder (iRBD) is a strong early marker of Parkinson's Disease and is characterized by REM sleep without atonia (RSWA) and increased phasic muscle activity. Current proposed methods for detecting RSWA assume the presence of a manually scored...... hypnogram. In this study a full automatic REM sleep detector, using the EOG and EEG channels, is proposed. Based on statistical features, combined with subject specific feature scaling and post-processing of the classifier output, it was possible to obtain an mean accuracy of 0.96 with a mean sensititvity...

  6. Mechanical design and simulation of an automatized sample exchanger

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lopez, Yon; Gora, Jimmy; Bedregal, Patricia; Hernandez, Yuri; Baltuano, Oscar; Gago, Javier

    2013-01-01

    The design of a turntable type sample exchanger for irradiation and with a capacity for up to 20 capsules was performed. Its function is the automatic sending of samples contained in polyethylene capsules, for irradiation in the grid position of the reactor core, using a pneumatic system and further analysis by neutron activation. This study shows the structural design analysis and calculations in selecting motors and actuators. This development will improve efficiency in the analysis, reducing the contribution of the workers and also the radiation exposure time. (authors).

  7. Higher-order automatic differentiation of mathematical functions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charpentier, Isabelle; Dal Cappello, Claude

    2015-04-01

    Functions of mathematical physics such as the Bessel functions, the Chebyshev polynomials, the Gauss hypergeometric function and so forth, have practical applications in many scientific domains. On the one hand, differentiation formulas provided in reference books apply to real or complex variables. These do not account for the chain rule. On the other hand, based on the chain rule, the automatic differentiation has become a natural tool in numerical modeling. Nevertheless automatic differentiation tools do not deal with the numerous mathematical functions. This paper describes formulas and provides codes for the higher-order automatic differentiation of mathematical functions. The first method is based on Faà di Bruno's formula that generalizes the chain rule. The second one makes use of the second order differential equation they satisfy. Both methods are exemplified with the aforementioned functions.

  8. Oocytes Polar Body Detection for Automatic Enucleation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Di Chen

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Enucleation is a crucial step in cloning. In order to achieve automatic blind enucleation, we should detect the polar body of the oocyte automatically. The conventional polar body detection approaches have low success rate or low efficiency. We propose a polar body detection method based on machine learning in this paper. On one hand, the improved Histogram of Oriented Gradient (HOG algorithm is employed to extract features of polar body images, which will increase success rate. On the other hand, a position prediction method is put forward to narrow the search range of polar body, which will improve efficiency. Experiment results show that the success rate is 96% for various types of polar bodies. Furthermore, the method is applied to an enucleation experiment and improves the degree of automatic enucleation.

  9. Improving labeling efficiency in automatic quality control of MRSI data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pedrosa de Barros, Nuno; McKinley, Richard; Wiest, Roland; Slotboom, Johannes

    2017-12-01

    To improve the efficiency of the labeling task in automatic quality control of MR spectroscopy imaging data. 28'432 short and long echo time (TE) spectra (1.5 tesla; point resolved spectroscopy (PRESS); repetition time (TR)= 1,500 ms) from 18 different brain tumor patients were labeled by two experts as either accept or reject, depending on their quality. For each spectrum, 47 signal features were extracted. The data was then used to run several simulations and test an active learning approach using uncertainty sampling. The performance of the classifiers was evaluated as a function of the number of patients in the training set, number of spectra in the training set, and a parameter α used to control the level of classification uncertainty required for a new spectrum to be selected for labeling. The results showed that the proposed strategy allows reductions of up to 72.97% for short TE and 62.09% for long TE in the amount of data that needs to be labeled, without significant impact in classification accuracy. Further reductions are possible with significant but minimal impact in performance. Active learning using uncertainty sampling is an effective way to increase the labeling efficiency for training automatic quality control classifiers. Magn Reson Med 78:2399-2405, 2017. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

  10. A device for automatically recording information on the reasons for idling of stopes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dergachev, L G; Kuzoyatov, G I; Tereshchenko, V N

    1979-01-01

    One substantial reserve for raising production efficiency in the coal industry is reduction of nonproductive time costs. The state of the art of stoping work and design features of stoping equipment and devices for obtaining information do not presently enable complete automation of the process of obtaining data on the reasons for down times. Therefore, together with automatic data formation manual recording of information is required through remote control equipment to the controlling computer directly from the work place. The Donetsk department of the Giprougleavtomatizatsiy institute has developed the UKIP-1 device for automatic recording of information on the reasons for stope down times. The device is designed for use in an automatic process control system of coal mines. It provides coding of information and its conversion to a form suitable for transmission through remote control channels, further processing, and recording. The device enables recording of information on down times of eight objects of the stope. Up to eight down time reasons can be recorded for each object. The device has 2 contact outputs, on one of which is formed an informational sequential eight-bit code; on the other, 8 clock pulses. The device's code is generated automatically, after it is activated by a switch. The length of the code packet results from the maximum possible information transmission rate of the existing mine remote control systems, and equals 12+2 sec. The clock pulse length equals half the length of the information pulse. The device has been tested at coal mines, and recommended for industrial production. UKIP-1 devices are being used in a pilot model of an automatic production control system of the Sotsialisticheskiy Donbass Newspaper mine of the Donetskugol' production association.

  11. Wide-Field Imaging Telescope-0 (WIT0) with automatic observing system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ji, Tae-Geun; Byeon, Seoyeon; Lee, Hye-In; Park, Woojin; Lee, Sang-Yun; Hwang, Sungyong; Choi, Changsu; Gibson, Coyne Andrew; Kuehne, John W.; Prochaska, Travis; Marshall, Jennifer L.; Im, Myungshin; Pak, Soojong

    2018-01-01

    We introduce Wide-Field Imaging Telescope-0 (WIT0), with an automatic observing system. It is developed for monitoring the variabilities of many sources at a time, e.g. young stellar objects and active galactic nuclei. It can also find the locations of transient sources such as a supernova or gamma-ray bursts. In 2017 February, we installed the wide-field 10-inch telescope (Takahashi CCA-250) as a piggyback system on the 30-inch telescope at the McDonald Observatory in Texas, US. The 10-inch telescope has a 2.35 × 2.35 deg field-of-view with a 4k × 4k CCD Camera (FLI ML16803). To improve the observational efficiency of the system, we developed a new automatic observing software, KAOS30 (KHU Automatic Observing Software for McDonald 30-inch telescope), which was developed by Visual C++ on the basis of a windows operating system. The software consists of four control packages: the Telescope Control Package (TCP), the Data Acquisition Package (DAP), the Auto Focus Package (AFP), and the Script Mode Package (SMP). Since it also supports the instruments that are using the ASCOM driver, the additional hardware installations become quite simplified. We commissioned KAOS30 in 2017 August and are in the process of testing. Based on the WIT0 experiences, we will extend KAOS30 to control multiple telescopes in future projects.

  12. Automatic honesty forgoing reward acquisition and punishment avoidance: a functional MRI investigation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yoneda, Mei; Ueda, Ryuhei; Ashida, Hiroshi; Abe, Nobuhito

    2017-09-27

    Recent neuroimaging investigations into human honesty suggest that honest moral decisions in individuals who consistently behave honestly occur automatically, without the need for active self-control. However, it remains unclear whether this observation can be applied to two different types of honesty: honesty forgoing dishonest reward acquisition and honesty forgoing dishonest punishment avoidance. To address this issue, a functional MRI study, using an incentivized prediction task in which participants were confronted with real and repeated opportunities for dishonest gain leading to reward acquisition and punishment avoidance, was conducted. Behavioral data revealed that the frequency of dishonesty was equivalent between the opportunities for dishonest reward acquisition and for punishment avoidance. Reaction time data demonstrated that two types of honest decisions in the opportunity for dishonest reward acquisition and punishment avoidance required no additional cognitive control. Neuroimaging data revealed that honest decisions in the opportunity for dishonest reward acquisition and those for punishment avoidance required no additional control-related activity compared with a control condition in which no opportunity for dishonest behavior was given. These results suggest that honesty flows automatically, irrespective of the concomitant motivation for dishonesty leading to reward acquisition and punishment avoidance.

  13. Automatic schema evolution in Root

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brun, R.; Rademakers, F.

    2001-01-01

    ROOT version 3 (spring 2001) supports automatic class schema evolution. In addition this version also produces files that are self-describing. This is achieved by storing in each file a record with the description of all the persistent classes in the file. Being self-describing guarantees that a file can always be read later, its structure browsed and objects inspected, also when the library with the compiled code of these classes is missing. The schema evolution mechanism supports the frequent case when multiple data sets generated with many different class versions must be analyzed in the same session. ROOT supports the automatic generation of C++ code describing the data objects in a file

  14. Automatic computation of radioimmunoassay data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Toyota, Takayoshi; Kudo, Mikihiko; Abe, Kanji; Kawamata, Fumiaki; Uehata, Shigeru.

    1975-01-01

    Radioimmunoassay provided dose response curves which showed linearity by the use of logistic transformation (Rodbard). This transformation which was applicable to radioimmunoassay should be useful for the computer processing of insulin and C-peptide assay. In the present studies, standard curves were analysed by testing the fit of analytic functions to radioimmunoassay of insulin and C-peptides. A program for use in combination with the double antibody technique was made by Dr. Kawamata. This approach was evidenced to be useful in order to allow automatic computation of data derived from the double antibody assays of insulin and C-peptides. Automatic corrected calculations of radioimmunoassay data of insulin was found to be satisfactory. (auth.)

  15. Investigating the Relationship between Stable Personality Characteristics and Automatic Imitation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Butler, Emily E; Ward, Robert; Ramsey, Richard

    2015-01-01

    Automatic imitation is a cornerstone of nonverbal communication that fosters rapport between interaction partners. Recent research has suggested that stable dimensions of personality are antecedents to automatic imitation, but the empirical evidence linking imitation with personality traits is restricted to a few studies with modest sample sizes. Additionally, atypical imitation has been documented in autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia, but the mechanisms underpinning these behavioural profiles remain unclear. Using a larger sample than prior studies (N=243), the current study tested whether performance on a computer-based automatic imitation task could be predicted by personality traits associated with social behaviour (extraversion and agreeableness) and with disorders of social cognition (autistic-like and schizotypal traits). Further personality traits (narcissism and empathy) were assessed in a subsample of participants (N=57). Multiple regression analyses showed that personality measures did not predict automatic imitation. In addition, using a similar analytical approach to prior studies, no differences in imitation performance emerged when only the highest and lowest 20 participants on each trait variable were compared. These data weaken support for the view that stable personality traits are antecedents to automatic imitation and that neural mechanisms thought to support automatic imitation, such as the mirror neuron system, are dysfunctional in autism spectrum disorders or schizophrenia. In sum, the impact that personality variables have on automatic imitation is less universal than initial reports suggest.

  16. Investigating the Relationship between Stable Personality Characteristics and Automatic Imitation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Emily E Butler

    Full Text Available Automatic imitation is a cornerstone of nonverbal communication that fosters rapport between interaction partners. Recent research has suggested that stable dimensions of personality are antecedents to automatic imitation, but the empirical evidence linking imitation with personality traits is restricted to a few studies with modest sample sizes. Additionally, atypical imitation has been documented in autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia, but the mechanisms underpinning these behavioural profiles remain unclear. Using a larger sample than prior studies (N=243, the current study tested whether performance on a computer-based automatic imitation task could be predicted by personality traits associated with social behaviour (extraversion and agreeableness and with disorders of social cognition (autistic-like and schizotypal traits. Further personality traits (narcissism and empathy were assessed in a subsample of participants (N=57. Multiple regression analyses showed that personality measures did not predict automatic imitation. In addition, using a similar analytical approach to prior studies, no differences in imitation performance emerged when only the highest and lowest 20 participants on each trait variable were compared. These data weaken support for the view that stable personality traits are antecedents to automatic imitation and that neural mechanisms thought to support automatic imitation, such as the mirror neuron system, are dysfunctional in autism spectrum disorders or schizophrenia. In sum, the impact that personality variables have on automatic imitation is less universal than initial reports suggest.

  17. Automatic Single Event Effects Sensitivity Analysis of a 13-Bit Successive Approximation ADC

    Science.gov (United States)

    Márquez, F.; Muñoz, F.; Palomo, F. R.; Sanz, L.; López-Morillo, E.; Aguirre, M. A.; Jiménez, A.

    2015-08-01

    This paper presents Analog Fault Tolerant University of Seville Debugging System (AFTU), a tool to evaluate the Single-Event Effect (SEE) sensitivity of analog/mixed signal microelectronic circuits at transistor level. As analog cells can behave in an unpredictable way when critical areas interact with the particle hitting, there is a need for designers to have a software tool that allows an automatic and exhaustive analysis of Single-Event Effects influence. AFTU takes the test-bench SPECTRE design, emulates radiation conditions and automatically evaluates vulnerabilities using user-defined heuristics. To illustrate the utility of the tool, the SEE sensitivity of a 13-bits Successive Approximation Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) has been analysed. This circuit was selected not only because it was designed for space applications, but also due to the fact that a manual SEE sensitivity analysis would be too time-consuming. After a user-defined test campaign, it was detected that some voltage transients were propagated to a node where a parasitic diode was activated, affecting the offset cancelation, and therefore the whole resolution of the ADC. A simple modification of the scheme solved the problem, as it was verified with another automatic SEE sensitivity analysis.

  18. Semi-automatic logarithmic converter of logs

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gol'dman, Z.A.; Bondar's, V.V.

    1974-01-01

    Semi-automatic logarithmic converter of logging charts. An original semi-automatic converter was developed for use in converting BK resistance logging charts and the time interval, ΔT, of acoustic logs from a linear to a logarithmic scale with a specific ratio for subsequent combining of them with neutron-gamma logging charts in operative interpretation of logging materials by a normalization method. The converter can be used to increase productivity by giving curves different from those obtained in manual, pointwise processing. The equipment operates reliably and is simple in use. (author)

  19. Automatic segmentation of vertebrae from radiographs

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mysling, Peter; Petersen, Peter Kersten; Nielsen, Mads

    2011-01-01

    Segmentation of vertebral contours is an essential task in the design of automatic tools for vertebral fracture assessment. In this paper, we propose a novel segmentation technique which does not require operator interaction. The proposed technique solves the segmentation problem in a hierarchical...... is constrained by a conditional shape model, based on the variability of the coarse spine location estimates. The technique is evaluated on a data set of manually annotated lumbar radiographs. The results compare favorably to the previous work in automatic vertebra segmentation, in terms of both segmentation...

  20. FRICTION - WELDING MACHINE AUTOMATIC CONTROL CIRCUIT DESIGN AND APPLICATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hakan ATEŞ

    2003-02-01

    Full Text Available In this work, automatic controllability of a laboratory-sized friction-welding machine has been investigated. The laboratory-sized friction-welding machine was composed of motor, brake, rotary and constant samples late pliers, and hydraulic unit. In automatic method, welding parameters such as friction time, friction pressure, forge time and forge pressure can be applied sensitively using time relays and contactors. At the end of the experimental study it's observed that automatic control system has been worked successfully.

  1. Mitosis Counting in Breast Cancer: Object-Level Interobserver Agreement and Comparison to an Automatic Method.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Veta, Mitko; van Diest, Paul J; Jiwa, Mehdi; Al-Janabi, Shaimaa; Pluim, Josien P W

    2016-01-01

    Tumor proliferation speed, most commonly assessed by counting of mitotic figures in histological slide preparations, is an important biomarker for breast cancer. Although mitosis counting is routinely performed by pathologists, it is a tedious and subjective task with poor reproducibility, particularly among non-experts. Inter- and intraobserver reproducibility of mitosis counting can be improved when a strict protocol is defined and followed. Previous studies have examined only the agreement in terms of the mitotic count or the mitotic activity score. Studies of the observer agreement at the level of individual objects, which can provide more insight into the procedure, have not been performed thus far. The development of automatic mitosis detection methods has received large interest in recent years. Automatic image analysis is viewed as a solution for the problem of subjectivity of mitosis counting by pathologists. In this paper we describe the results from an interobserver agreement study between three human observers and an automatic method, and make two unique contributions. For the first time, we present an analysis of the object-level interobserver agreement on mitosis counting. Furthermore, we train an automatic mitosis detection method that is robust with respect to staining appearance variability and compare it with the performance of expert observers on an "external" dataset, i.e. on histopathology images that originate from pathology labs other than the pathology lab that provided the training data for the automatic method. The object-level interobserver study revealed that pathologists often do not agree on individual objects, even if this is not reflected in the mitotic count. The disagreement is larger for objects from smaller size, which suggests that adding a size constraint in the mitosis counting protocol can improve reproducibility. The automatic mitosis detection method can perform mitosis counting in an unbiased way, with substantial

  2. Design of automatic mobile trolley using ultrasonic sensors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dodi Suryanto, Eka; Siagian, Hendrik; Perangin-Angin, Despaleri; Sashanti, Rahayu; Yogen, Suthes

    2018-04-01

    An automatic mobile trolley was a prototype of wheel robot that serves as a trolley or shopping cart. This paper proposed an automatic mobile trolley using ultrasonic sensors. It can follow human movement automatically. It did not need to be encouraged or withdrawn. It would make an easier shopping for people as customers. The trolley controlled by a microcontroller module unit. It can stop, turn right, turn left, forward and backward. It can follow wherever they go, during they were in range. Based on the test results, the trolley succeeded to move forward by 80%, move backward 80%, turn left, 70%, turn right 70%, and stop 80%.

  3. Automatic Sample Changer for X-Ray Spectrometry

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Morales Tarre, Orlando; Diaz Castro, Maikel; Rivero Ramirez, Doris; Lopez Pino, Neivy

    2011-01-01

    The design and construction of an automatic sample changer for Nuclear Analysis Laboratory's X-ray spectrometer at InSTEC is presented by giving basic details about its mechanical structure, control circuits and the software application developed to interact with the data acquisition software of the multichannel analyzer. Results of some test experiments performed with the automatic sample changer are also discussed. The system is currently in use at InSTEC. (Author)

  4. Automatic Control of Freeboard and Turbine Operation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kofoed, Jens Peter; Frigaard, Peter Bak; Friis-Madsen, Erik

    The report deals with the modules for automatic control of freeboard and turbine operation on board the Wave dragon, Nissum Bredning (WD-NB) prototype, and covers what has been going on up to ultimo 2003.......The report deals with the modules for automatic control of freeboard and turbine operation on board the Wave dragon, Nissum Bredning (WD-NB) prototype, and covers what has been going on up to ultimo 2003....

  5. Automatic terrain modeling using transfinite element analysis

    KAUST Repository

    Collier, Nathan

    2010-05-31

    An automatic procedure for modeling terrain is developed based on L2 projection-based interpolation of discrete terrain data onto transfinite function spaces. The function space is refined automatically by the use of image processing techniques to detect regions of high error and the flexibility of the transfinite interpolation to add degrees of freedom to these areas. Examples are shown of a section of the Palo Duro Canyon in northern Texas.

  6. Automatic age and gaze estimation under uncontrolled conditions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Alnajar, F.

    2016-01-01

    Can the computer learn a person’s age just from analyzing facial images obtained by a simple webcam? If so, you can automatically determine if a person has the right age to buy beer (shops), to use a credit card (retail), and can enter bars (entertainment). Can the computer automatically recognize

  7. Applying Hierarchical Model Calibration to Automatically Generated Items.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williamson, David M.; Johnson, Matthew S.; Sinharay, Sandip; Bejar, Isaac I.

    This study explored the application of hierarchical model calibration as a means of reducing, if not eliminating, the need for pretesting of automatically generated items from a common item model prior to operational use. Ultimately the successful development of automatic item generation (AIG) systems capable of producing items with highly similar…

  8. Application of automatic image analysis in wood science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charles W. McMillin

    1982-01-01

    In this paper I describe an image analysis system and illustrate with examples the application of automatic quantitative measurement to wood science. Automatic image analysis, a powerful and relatively new technology, uses optical, video, electronic, and computer components to rapidly derive information from images with minimal operator interaction. Such instruments...

  9. Usage of aids monitoring in automatic braking systems of modern cars

    OpenAIRE

    Dembitskyi V.; Mazylyuk P.; Sitovskyi O.

    2016-01-01

    Increased safety can be carried out at the expense the installation on vehicles of automatic braking systems, that monitor the traffic situation and the actions of the driver. In this paper considered the advantages and disadvantages of automatic braking systems, were analyzed modern tracking tools that are used in automatic braking systems. Based on the statistical data on accidents, are set the main dangers, that the automatic braking system will be reduced. In order to ensure the acc...

  10. Sleep Spindles as an Electrographic Element: Description and Automatic Detection Methods

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dorothée Coppieters ’t Wallant

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Sleep spindle is a peculiar oscillatory brain pattern which has been associated with a number of sleep (isolation from exteroceptive stimuli, memory consolidation and individual characteristics (intellectual quotient. Oddly enough, the definition of a spindle is both incomplete and restrictive. In consequence, there is no consensus about how to detect spindles. Visual scoring is cumbersome and user dependent. To analyze spindle activity in a more robust way, automatic sleep spindle detection methods are essential. Various algorithms were developed, depending on individual research interest, which hampers direct comparisons and meta-analyses. In this review, sleep spindle is first defined physically and topographically. From this general description, we tentatively extract the main characteristics to be detected and analyzed. A nonexhaustive list of automatic spindle detection methods is provided along with a description of their main processing principles. Finally, we propose a technique to assess the detection methods in a robust and comparable way.

  11. Automatic Oscillating Turret.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1981-03-01

    Final Report: February 1978 ZAUTOMATIC OSCILLATING TURRET SYSTEM September 1980 * 6. PERFORMING 01G. REPORT NUMBER .J7. AUTHOR(S) S. CONTRACT OR GRANT...o....e.... *24 APPENDIX P-4 OSCILLATING BUMPER TURRET ...................... 25 A. DESCRIPTION 1. Turret Controls ...Other criteria requirements were: 1. Turret controls inside cab. 2. Automatic oscillation with fixed elevation to range from 20* below the horizontal to

  12. SU-E-J-16: Automatic Image Contrast Enhancement Based On Automatic Parameter Optimization for Radiation Therapy Setup Verification

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Qiu, J; Li, H. Harlod; Zhang, T; Yang, D; Ma, F

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: In RT patient setup 2D images, tissues often cannot be seen well due to the lack of image contrast. Contrast enhancement features provided by image reviewing software, e.g. Mosaiq and ARIA, require manual selection of the image processing filters and parameters thus inefficient and cannot be automated. In this work, we developed a novel method to automatically enhance the 2D RT image contrast to allow automatic verification of patient daily setups as a prerequisite step of automatic patient safety assurance. Methods: The new method is based on contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) and high-pass filtering algorithms. The most important innovation is to automatically select the optimal parameters by optimizing the image contrast. The image processing procedure includes the following steps: 1) background and noise removal, 2) hi-pass filtering by subtracting the Gaussian smoothed Result, and 3) histogram equalization using CLAHE algorithm. Three parameters were determined through an iterative optimization which was based on the interior-point constrained optimization algorithm: the Gaussian smoothing weighting factor, the CLAHE algorithm block size and clip limiting parameters. The goal of the optimization is to maximize the entropy of the processed Result. Results: A total 42 RT images were processed. The results were visually evaluated by RT physicians and physicists. About 48% of the images processed by the new method were ranked as excellent. In comparison, only 29% and 18% of the images processed by the basic CLAHE algorithm and by the basic window level adjustment process, were ranked as excellent. Conclusion: This new image contrast enhancement method is robust and automatic, and is able to significantly outperform the basic CLAHE algorithm and the manual window-level adjustment process that are currently used in clinical 2D image review software tools

  13. SU-E-J-16: Automatic Image Contrast Enhancement Based On Automatic Parameter Optimization for Radiation Therapy Setup Verification

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Qiu, J [Taishan Medical University, Taian, Shandong (China); Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO (United States); Li, H. Harlod; Zhang, T; Yang, D [Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO (United States); Ma, F [Taishan Medical University, Taian, Shandong (China)

    2015-06-15

    Purpose: In RT patient setup 2D images, tissues often cannot be seen well due to the lack of image contrast. Contrast enhancement features provided by image reviewing software, e.g. Mosaiq and ARIA, require manual selection of the image processing filters and parameters thus inefficient and cannot be automated. In this work, we developed a novel method to automatically enhance the 2D RT image contrast to allow automatic verification of patient daily setups as a prerequisite step of automatic patient safety assurance. Methods: The new method is based on contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) and high-pass filtering algorithms. The most important innovation is to automatically select the optimal parameters by optimizing the image contrast. The image processing procedure includes the following steps: 1) background and noise removal, 2) hi-pass filtering by subtracting the Gaussian smoothed Result, and 3) histogram equalization using CLAHE algorithm. Three parameters were determined through an iterative optimization which was based on the interior-point constrained optimization algorithm: the Gaussian smoothing weighting factor, the CLAHE algorithm block size and clip limiting parameters. The goal of the optimization is to maximize the entropy of the processed Result. Results: A total 42 RT images were processed. The results were visually evaluated by RT physicians and physicists. About 48% of the images processed by the new method were ranked as excellent. In comparison, only 29% and 18% of the images processed by the basic CLAHE algorithm and by the basic window level adjustment process, were ranked as excellent. Conclusion: This new image contrast enhancement method is robust and automatic, and is able to significantly outperform the basic CLAHE algorithm and the manual window-level adjustment process that are currently used in clinical 2D image review software tools.

  14. An Automatic Segmentation Method Combining an Active Contour Model and a Classification Technique for Detecting Polycomb-group Proteinsin High-Throughput Microscopy Images.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gregoretti, Francesco; Cesarini, Elisa; Lanzuolo, Chiara; Oliva, Gennaro; Antonelli, Laura

    2016-01-01

    The large amount of data generated in biological experiments that rely on advanced microscopy can be handled only with automated image analysis. Most analyses require a reliable cell image segmentation eventually capable of detecting subcellular structures.We present an automatic segmentation method to detect Polycomb group (PcG) proteins areas isolated from nuclei regions in high-resolution fluorescent cell image stacks. It combines two segmentation algorithms that use an active contour model and a classification technique serving as a tool to better understand the subcellular three-dimensional distribution of PcG proteins in live cell image sequences. We obtained accurate results throughout several cell image datasets, coming from different cell types and corresponding to different fluorescent labels, without requiring elaborate adjustments to each dataset.

  15. Bidirectional Frontoparietal Oscillatory Systems Support Working Memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, Elizabeth L; Dewar, Callum D; Solbakk, Anne-Kristin; Endestad, Tor; Meling, Torstein R; Knight, Robert T

    2017-06-19

    The ability to represent and select information in working memory provides the neurobiological infrastructure for human cognition. For 80 years, dominant views of working memory have focused on the key role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) [1-8]. However, more recent work has implicated posterior cortical regions [9-12], suggesting that PFC engagement during working memory is dependent on the degree of executive demand. We provide evidence from neurological patients with discrete PFC damage that challenges the dominant models attributing working memory to PFC-dependent systems. We show that neural oscillations, which provide a mechanism for PFC to communicate with posterior cortical regions [13], independently subserve communications both to and from PFC-uncovering parallel oscillatory mechanisms for working memory. Fourteen PFC patients and 20 healthy, age-matched controls performed a working memory task where they encoded, maintained, and actively processed information about pairs of common shapes. In controls, the electroencephalogram (EEG) exhibited oscillatory activity in the low-theta range over PFC and directional connectivity from PFC to parieto-occipital regions commensurate with executive processing demands. Concurrent alpha-beta oscillations were observed over parieto-occipital regions, with directional connectivity from parieto-occipital regions to PFC, regardless of processing demands. Accuracy, PFC low-theta activity, and PFC → parieto-occipital connectivity were attenuated in patients, revealing a PFC-independent, alpha-beta system. The PFC patients still demonstrated task proficiency, which indicates that the posterior alpha-beta system provides sufficient resources for working memory. Taken together, our findings reveal neurologically dissociable PFC and parieto-occipital systems and suggest that parallel, bidirectional oscillatory systems form the basis of working memory. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  16. Automatic program generation: future of software engineering

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Robinson, J.H.

    1979-01-01

    At this moment software development is still more of an art than an engineering discipline. Each piece of software is lovingly engineered, nurtured, and presented to the world as a tribute to the writer's skill. When will this change. When will the craftsmanship be removed and the programs be turned out like so many automobiles from an assembly line. Sooner or later it will happen: economic necessities will demand it. With the advent of cheap microcomputers and ever more powerful supercomputers doubling capacity, much more software must be produced. The choices are to double the number of programers, double the efficiency of each programer, or find a way to produce the needed software automatically. Producing software automatically is the only logical choice. How will automatic programing come about. Some of the preliminary actions which need to be done and are being done are to encourage programer plagiarism of existing software through public library mechanisms, produce well understood packages such as compiler automatically, develop languages capable of producing software as output, and learn enough about the whole process of programing to be able to automate it. Clearly, the emphasis must not be on efficiency or size, since ever larger and faster hardware is coming.

  17. Comparison of liver volumetry on contrast‐enhanced CT images: one semiautomatic and two automatic approaches

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cai, Wei; He, Baochun; Fang, Chihua

    2016-01-01

    This study was to evaluate the accuracy, consistency, and efficiency of three liver volumetry methods— one interactive method, an in‐house‐developed 3D medical Image Analysis (3DMIA) system, one automatic active shape model (ASM)‐based segmentation, and one automatic probabilistic atlas (PA)‐guided segmentation method on clinical contrast‐enhanced CT images. Forty‐two datasets, including 27 normal liver and 15 space‐occupying liver lesion patients, were retrospectively included in this study. The three methods — one semiautomatic 3DMIA, one automatic ASM‐based, and one automatic PA‐based liver volumetry — achieved an accuracy with VD (volume difference) of −1.69%,−2.75%, and 3.06% in the normal group, respectively, and with VD of −3.20%,−3.35%, and 4.14% in the space‐occupying lesion group, respectively. However, the three methods achieved an efficiency of 27.63 mins, 1.26 mins, 1.18 mins on average, respectively, compared with the manual volumetry, which took 43.98 mins. The high intraclass correlation coefficient between the three methods and the manual method indicated an excellent agreement on liver volumetry. Significant differences in segmentation time were observed between the three methods (3DMIA, ASM, and PA) and the manual volumetry (pvolumetries (ASM and PA) and the semiautomatic volumetry (3DMIA) (pvolumetry agreed well with manual gold standard in both the normal liver group and the space‐occupying lesion group. The ASM‐ and PA‐based automatic segmentation have better efficiency in clinical use. PACS number(s): 87.55.‐x PMID:27929487

  18. Automatic operation device for control rods

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sekimizu, Koichi

    1984-01-01

    Purpose: To enable automatic operation of control rods based on the reactor operation planning, and particularly, to decrease the operator's load upon start up and shutdown of the reactor. Constitution: Operation plannings, demand for the automatic operation, break point setting value, power and reactor core flow rate change, demand for operation interrupt, demand for restart, demand for forecasting and the like are inputted to an input device, and an overall judging device performs a long-term forecast as far as the break point by a long-term forecasting device based on the operation plannings. The automatic reactor operation or the like is carried out based on the long-term forecasting and the short time forecasting is performed by the change in the reactor core status due to the control rod operation sequence based on the control rod pattern and the operation planning. Then, it is judged if the operation for the intended control rod is possible or not based on the result of the short time forecasting. (Aizawa, K.)

  19. 47 CFR 25.281 - Automatic Transmitter Identification System (ATIS).

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 47 Telecommunication 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Automatic Transmitter Identification System (ATIS). 25.281 Section 25.281 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS Technical Operations § 25.281 Automatic Transmitter...

  20. Automatic Commercial Permit Sets

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Grana, Paul [Folsom Labs, Inc., San Francisco, CA (United States)

    2017-12-21

    Final report for Folsom Labs’ Solar Permit Generator project, which has successfully completed, resulting in the development and commercialization of a software toolkit within the cloud-based HelioScope software environment that enables solar engineers to automatically generate and manage draft documents for permit submission.

  1. [Automatic adjustment control system for DC glow discharge plasma source].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wan, Zhen-zhen; Wang, Yong-qing; Li, Xiao-jia; Wang, Hai-zhou; Shi, Ning

    2011-03-01

    There are three important parameters in the DC glow discharge process, the discharge current, discharge voltage and argon pressure in discharge source. These parameters influence each other during glow discharge process. This paper presents an automatic control system for DC glow discharge plasma source. This system collects and controls discharge voltage automatically by adjusting discharge source pressure while the discharge current is constant in the glow discharge process. The design concept, circuit principle and control program of this automatic control system are described. The accuracy is improved by this automatic control system with the method of reducing the complex operations and manual control errors. This system enhances the control accuracy of glow discharge voltage, and reduces the time to reach discharge voltage stability. The glow discharge voltage stability test results with automatic control system are provided as well, the accuracy with automatic control system is better than 1% FS which is improved from 4% FS by manual control. Time to reach discharge voltage stability has been shortened to within 30 s by automatic control from more than 90 s by manual control. Standard samples like middle-low alloy steel and tin bronze have been tested by this automatic control system. The concentration analysis precision has been significantly improved. The RSDs of all the test result are better than 3.5%. In middle-low alloy steel standard sample, the RSD range of concentration test result of Ti, Co and Mn elements is reduced from 3.0%-4.3% by manual control to 1.7%-2.4% by automatic control, and that for S and Mo is also reduced from 5.2%-5.9% to 3.3%-3.5%. In tin bronze standard sample, the RSD range of Sn, Zn and Al elements is reduced from 2.6%-4.4% to 1.0%-2.4%, and that for Si, Ni and Fe is reduced from 6.6%-13.9% to 2.6%-3.5%. The test data is also shown in this paper.

  2. The problem of automatic identification of concepts

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Andreewsky, Alexandre

    1975-11-01

    This paper deals with the problem of the automatic recognition of concepts and describes an important language tool, the ''linguistic filter'', which facilitates the construction of statistical algorithms. Certain special filters, of prepositions, conjunctions, negatives, logical implication, compound words, are presented. This is followed by a detailed description of a statistical algorithm allowing recognition of pronoun referents, and finally the problem of the automatic treatment of negatives in French is discussed [fr

  3. Towards automatic verification of ladder logic programs

    OpenAIRE

    Zoubek , Bohumir; Roussel , Jean-Marc; Kwiatkowska , Martha

    2003-01-01

    International audience; Control system programs are usually validated by testing prior to their deployment. Unfortunately, testing is not exhaustive and therefore it is possible that a program which passed all the required tests still contains errors. In this paper we apply techniques of automatic verification to a control program written in ladder logic. A model is constructed mechanically from the ladder logic program and subjected to automatic verification against requirements that include...

  4. Application of an automatic cloud tracking technique to Meteosat water vapor and infrared observations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Endlich, R. M.; Wolf, D. E.

    1980-01-01

    The automatic cloud tracking system was applied to METEOSAT 6.7 micrometers water vapor measurements to learn whether the system can track the motions of water vapor patterns. Data for the midlatitudes, subtropics, and tropics were selected from a sequence of METEOSAT pictures for 25 April 1978. Trackable features in the water vapor patterns were identified using a clustering technique and the features were tracked by two different methods. In flat (low contrast) water vapor fields, the automatic motion computations were not reliable, but in areas where the water vapor fields contained small scale structure (such as in the vicinity of active weather phenomena) the computations were successful. Cloud motions were computed using METEOSAT infrared observations (including tropical convective systems and midlatitude jet stream cirrus).

  5. Automatic crown cover mapping to improve forest inventory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Claude Vidal; Jean-Guy Boureau; Nicolas Robert; Nicolas Py; Josiane Zerubia; Xavier Descombes; Guillaume Perrin

    2009-01-01

    To automatically analyze near infrared aerial photographs, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control developed together with the French National Forest Inventory (NFI) a method for automatic crown cover mapping. This method uses a Reverse Jump Monte Carlo Markov Chain algorithm to locate the crowns and describe those using ellipses or...

  6. Automatic first-break picking using the instantaneous traveltime attribute

    KAUST Repository

    Saragiotis, Christos; Alkhalifah, Tariq Ali

    2012-01-01

    Picking the first breaks is an important step in seismic processing. The large volume of the seismic data calls for automatic and objective picking. We introduce a new automatic first-break picker, which uses specifically designed time windows

  7. Evolutionary game dynamics of controlled and automatic decision-making.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toupo, Danielle F P; Strogatz, Steven H; Cohen, Jonathan D; Rand, David G

    2015-07-01

    We integrate dual-process theories of human cognition with evolutionary game theory to study the evolution of automatic and controlled decision-making processes. We introduce a model in which agents who make decisions using either automatic or controlled processing compete with each other for survival. Agents using automatic processing act quickly and so are more likely to acquire resources, but agents using controlled processing are better planners and so make more effective use of the resources they have. Using the replicator equation, we characterize the conditions under which automatic or controlled agents dominate, when coexistence is possible and when bistability occurs. We then extend the replicator equation to consider feedback between the state of the population and the environment. Under conditions in which having a greater proportion of controlled agents either enriches the environment or enhances the competitive advantage of automatic agents, we find that limit cycles can occur, leading to persistent oscillations in the population dynamics. Critically, however, these limit cycles only emerge when feedback occurs on a sufficiently long time scale. Our results shed light on the connection between evolution and human cognition and suggest necessary conditions for the rise and fall of rationality.

  8. Evolutionary game dynamics of controlled and automatic decision-making

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toupo, Danielle F. P.; Strogatz, Steven H.; Cohen, Jonathan D.; Rand, David G.

    2015-07-01

    We integrate dual-process theories of human cognition with evolutionary game theory to study the evolution of automatic and controlled decision-making processes. We introduce a model in which agents who make decisions using either automatic or controlled processing compete with each other for survival. Agents using automatic processing act quickly and so are more likely to acquire resources, but agents using controlled processing are better planners and so make more effective use of the resources they have. Using the replicator equation, we characterize the conditions under which automatic or controlled agents dominate, when coexistence is possible and when bistability occurs. We then extend the replicator equation to consider feedback between the state of the population and the environment. Under conditions in which having a greater proportion of controlled agents either enriches the environment or enhances the competitive advantage of automatic agents, we find that limit cycles can occur, leading to persistent oscillations in the population dynamics. Critically, however, these limit cycles only emerge when feedback occurs on a sufficiently long time scale. Our results shed light on the connection between evolution and human cognition and suggest necessary conditions for the rise and fall of rationality.

  9. Advanced computer-controlled automatic alpha-beta air sample counter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Howell, W.P.; Bruinekool, D.J.; Stapleton, E.E.

    1983-01-01

    An improved computer controlled automatic alpha-beta air sample counter was developed, based upon an earlier automatic air sample counter design. The system consists of an automatic sample changer, an electronic counting system utilizing a large silicon diode detector, a small desk-type microcomputer, a high speed matrix printer, and the necessary data interfaces. The system is operated by commands from the keyboard and programs stored on magnetic tape cassettes. The programs provide for background counting, Chi 2 test, radon subtraction, and sample counting for sample periods of one day to one week. Output data are printed by the matrix printer on standard multifold paper. The data output includes gross beta, gross alpha, and plutonium results. Data are automatically corrected for background, counter efficiency, and in the gross alpha and plutonium channels, for the presence of radon

  10. Cost-benefit analysis of the ATM automatic deposit service

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ivica Županović

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Bankers and other financial experts have analyzed the value of automated teller machines (ATM in terms of growing consumer demand, rising costs of technology development, decreasing profitability and market share. This paper presents a step-by-step cost-benefit analysis of the ATM automatic deposit service. The first step is to determine user attitudes towards using ATM automatic deposit service by using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM. The second step is to determine location priorities for ATMs that provide automatic deposit services using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP model. The results of the previous steps enable a highly efficient application of cost-benefit analysis for evaluating costs and benefits of automatic deposit services. To understand fully the proposed procedure outside of theoretical terms, a real-world application of a case study is conducted.

  11. Adolescent Gender Differences in Cognitive Control Performance and Functional Connectivity Between Default Mode and Fronto-Parietal Networks Within a Self-Referential Context

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gabriela Alarcón

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Ineffective reduction of functional connectivity between the default mode network (DMN and frontoparietal network (FPN during cognitive control can interfere with performance in healthy individuals—a phenomenon present in psychiatric disorders, such as depression. Here, this mechanism is studied in healthy adolescents by examining gender differences in task-regressed functional connectivity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI and a novel task designed to place the DMN—supporting self-referential processing (SRP—and FPN—supporting cognitive control—into conflict. Compared to boys, girls showed stronger functional connectivity between DMN and FPN during cognitive control in an SRP context (n = 40; boys = 20, a context that also elicited more errors of omission in girls. The gender difference in errors of omission was mediated by higher self-reported co-rumination—the extensive and repetitive discussion of problems and focus on negative feelings with a same-gender peer—by girls, compared to boys. These findings indicate that placing internal and external attentional demands in conflict lead to persistent functional connectivity between FPN and DMN in girls, but not boys; however, deficits in performance during this context were explained by co-rumination, such that youth with higher co-rumination displayed the largest performance deficits. Previous research shows that co-rumination predicts depressive symptoms during adolescence; thus, gender differences in the mechanisms involved with transitioning from internal to external processing may be relevant for understanding heightened vulnerability for depression in adolescent girls.

  12. Development of automatic techniques for GPS data management

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Park, Pil Ho

    2001-06-01

    It is necessary for GPS center to establish automatization as effective management of GPS network including data gathering, data transformation, data backup, data sending to IGS (International GPS Service for geodynamics), and precise ephemerides gathering. The operating program of GPS center has been adopted at KCSC (Korea Cadastral Survey Corporation), NGI (National Geography Institute), MOMAF (Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries) without self-development of core technique. The automatic management of GPS network is consists of GPS data management and data processing. It is also fundamental technique, which should be accomplished by every GPS centers. Therefore, this study carried out analyzing of Japanese GPS center, which has accomplished automatization by module considering applicability for domestic GPS centers

  13. Low-cost automatic activity data recording system

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Moraes M.F.D.

    1997-01-01

    Full Text Available We describe a low-cost, high quality device capable of monitoring indirect activity by detecting touch-release events on a conducting surface, i.e., the animal's cage cover. In addition to the detecting sensor itself, the system includes an IBM PC interface for prompt data storage. The hardware/software design, while serving for other purposes, is used to record the circadian activity rhythm pattern of rats with time in an automated computerized fashion using minimal cost computer equipment (IBM PC XT. Once the sensor detects a touch-release action of the rat in the upper portion of the cage, the interface sends a command to the PC which records the time (hours-minutes-seconds when the activity occurred. As a result, the computer builds up several files (one per detector/sensor containing a time list of all recorded events. Data can be visualized in terms of actograms, indicating the number of detections per hour, and analyzed by mathematical tools such as Fast Fourier Transform (FFT or cosinor. In order to demonstrate method validation, an experiment was conducted on 8 Wistar rats under 12/12-h light/dark cycle conditions (lights on at 7:00 a.m.. Results show a biological validation of the method since it detected the presence of circadian activity rhythm patterns in the behavior of the rats

  14. Automatic Grasp Generation and Improvement for Industrial Bin-Picking

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kraft, Dirk; Ellekilde, Lars-Peter; Rytz, Jimmy Alison

    2014-01-01

    and achieve comparable results and that our learning approach can improve system performance significantly. Automatic bin-picking is an important industrial process that can lead to significant savings and potentially keep production in countries with high labour cost rather than outsourcing it. The presented......This paper presents work on automatic grasp generation and grasp learning for reducing the manual setup time and increase grasp success rates within bin-picking applications. We propose an approach that is able to generate good grasps automatically using a dynamic grasp simulator, a newly developed...

  15. Training shortest-path tractography: Automatic learning of spatial priors

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kasenburg, Niklas; Liptrot, Matthew George; Reislev, Nina Linde

    2016-01-01

    Tractography is the standard tool for automatic delineation of white matter tracts from diffusion weighted images. However, the output of tractography often requires post-processing to remove false positives and ensure a robust delineation of the studied tract, and this demands expert prior...... knowledge. Here we demonstrate how such prior knowledge, or indeed any prior spatial information, can be automatically incorporated into a shortest-path tractography approach to produce more robust results. We describe how such a prior can be automatically generated (learned) from a population, and we...

  16. Analyzing Program Termination and Complexity Automatically with AProVE

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Giesl, Jürgen; Aschermann, Cornelius; Brockschmidt, Marc

    2017-01-01

    In this system description, we present the tool AProVE for automatic termination and complexity proofs of Java, C, Haskell, Prolog, and rewrite systems. In addition to classical term rewrite systems (TRSs), AProVE also supports rewrite systems containing built-in integers (int-TRSs). To analyze...... programs in high-level languages, AProVE automatically converts them to (int-)TRSs. Then, a wide range of techniques is employed to prove termination and to infer complexity bounds for the resulting rewrite systems. The generated proofs can be exported to check their correctness using automatic certifiers...

  17. Freezing of gait in Parkinson’s disease: disturbances in automaticity and control

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jochen eVandenbossche

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Recent studies emphasize a key role of controlled operations, such as set-shifting and inhibition, in the occurrence of freezing of gait (FOG in Parkinson’s disease (PD. However, FOG can also be characterized as a de-automatization disorder, showing impairments in both the execution and acquisition of automaticity. The observed deficits in automaticity and executive functioning indicate that both processes are malfunctioning in freezers. Therefore, to explain FOG from a cognitive-based perspective, we present a model describing the pathways involved in automatic and controlled processes prior to a FOG episode. Crucially, we focus on disturbances in automaticity and control, regulated by the frontostriatal circuitry. In complex situations, non-freezing PD patients may compensate for deficits in automaticity by switching to increased cognitive control. However, as both automatic and controlled processes are more severely impaired in freezers, this hampers cognitive compensation in FOG, resulting in a potential breakdown. Future directions for cognitive rehabilitation are proposed, based on the cognitive model we put forward.

  18. Men's sex-dominance inhibition: do men automatically refrain from sexually dominant behavior?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiefer, Amy K; Sanchez, Diana T

    2007-12-01

    Men receive conflicting messages about their sexual roles in heterosexual relationships. Men are socialized to initiate and direct sexual activities with women; yet societal norms also proscribe the sexual domination and coercion of women. The authors test these competing hypotheses by assessing whether men inhibit the link between sex and dominance. In Studies 1a and b, using a subliminal priming procedure embedded in a lexical decision task, the authors demonstrate that men automatically suppress the concept of dominance following exposure to subliminal sex primes relative to neutral primes. In Studies 2 and 3, the authors show that men who are less likely to perceive sexual assertiveness as necessary, to refrain from dominant sexual behavior, and who do not invest in masculine gender ideals are more likely to inhibit dominant thoughts following sex primes. Implications for theories of automatic cognitive networks and gender-based sexual roles are discussed.

  19. Automatization of the radiation control measurements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Seki, Akio; Ogata, Harumi; Horikoshi, Yoshinori; Shirai, Kenji

    1988-01-01

    Plutonium Fuel Production Facility (PFPF) was constructed to fabricate the MOX fuels for 'MONJU' and 'JOYO' reactors and to develop the practical fuel fabricating technology. For the fuel fabrication process in this facility, centralized controlling system is being adopted for the mass production of the fuel and reduction of the radiation exposure dose. Also, the radiation control systems are suitable for the large-scale facility and the automatic-remote process of the fuel fabrication. One of the typical radiation control systems is the self moving survey system which has been developed by PNC and adopted for the automatic routine monitoring. (author)

  20. Development of automatic laser welding system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ohwaki, Katsura

    2002-01-01

    Laser are a new production tool for high speed and low distortion welding and applications to automatic welding lines are increasing. IHI has long experience of laser processing for the preservation of nuclear power plants, welding of airplane engines and so on. Moreover, YAG laser oscillators and various kinds of hardware have been developed for laser welding and automation. Combining these welding technologies and laser hardware technologies produce the automatic laser welding system. In this paper, the component technologies are described, including combined optics intended to improve welding stability, laser oscillators, monitoring system, seam tracking system and so on. (author)