8,113 research outputs found

    UMSL Bulletin 2023-2024

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    The 2023-2024 Bulletin and Course Catalog for the University of Missouri St. Louis.https://irl.umsl.edu/bulletin/1088/thumbnail.jp

    An innovative EEG-based emotion recognition using a single channel-specific feature from the brain rhythm code method

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    IntroductionEfficiently recognizing emotions is a critical pursuit in brainā€“computer interface (BCI), as it has many applications for intelligent healthcare services. In this work, an innovative approach inspired by the genetic code in bioinformatics, which utilizes brain rhythm code features consisting of Ī“, Īø, Ī±, Ī², or Ī³, is proposed for electroencephalography (EEG)-based emotion recognition.MethodsThese features are first extracted from the sequencing technique. After evaluating them using four conventional machine learning classifiers, an optimal channel-specific feature that produces the highest accuracy in each emotional case is identified, so emotion recognition through minimal data is realized. By doing so, the complexity of emotion recognition can be significantly reduced, making it more achievable for practical hardware setups.ResultsThe best classification accuracies achieved for the DEAP and MAHNOB datasets range from 83ā€“92%, and for the SEED dataset, it is 78%. The experimental results are impressive, considering the minimal data employed. Further investigation of the optimal features shows that their representative channels are primarily on the frontal region, and associated rhythmic characteristics are typical of multiple kinds. Additionally, individual differences are found, as the optimal feature varies with subjects.DiscussionCompared to previous studies, this work provides insights into designing portable devices, as only one electrode is appropriate to generate satisfactory performances. Consequently, it would advance the understanding of brain rhythms, which offers an innovative solution for classifying EEG signals in diverse BCI applications, including emotion recognition

    The Globalization of Artificial Intelligence: African Imaginaries of Technoscientific Futures

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    Imaginaries of artificial intelligence (AI) have transcended geographies of the Global North and become increasingly entangled with narratives of economic growth, progress, and modernity in Africa. This raises several issues such as the entanglement of AI with global technoscientific capitalism and its impact on the dissemination of AI in Africa. The lack of African perspectives on the development of AI exacerbates concerns of raciality and inclusion in the scientific research, circulation, and adoption of AI. My argument in this dissertation is that innovation in AI, in both its sociotechnical imaginaries and political economies, excludes marginalized countries, nations and communities in ways that not only bar their participation in the reception of AI, but also as being part and parcel of its creation. Underpinned by decolonial thinking, and perspectives from science and technology studies and African studies, this dissertation looks at how AI is reconfiguring the debate about development and modernization in Africa and the implications for local sociotechnical practices of AI innovation and governance. I examined AI in international development and industry across Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria, by tracing Canadaā€™s AI4D Africa program and following AI start-ups at AfriLabs. I used multi-sited case studies and discourse analysis to examine the data collected from interviews, participant observations, and documents. In the empirical chapters, I first examine how local actors understand the notion of decolonizing AI and show that it has become a sociotechnical imaginary. I then investigate the political economy of AI in Africa and argue that despite Western efforts to integrate the African AI ecosystem globally, the AI epistemic communities in the continent continue to be excluded from dominant AI innovation spaces. Finally, I examine the emergence of a Pan-African AI imaginary and argue that AI governance can be understood as a state-building experiment in post-colonial Africa. The main issue at stake is that the lack of African perspectives in AI leads to negative impacts on innovation and limits the fair distribution of the benefits of AI across nations, countries, and communities, while at the same time excludes globally marginalized epistemic communities from the imagination and creation of AI

    Improving diagnostic procedures for epilepsy through automated recording and analysis of patientsā€™ history

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    Transient loss of consciousness (TLOC) is a time-limited state of profound cognitive impairment characterised by amnesia, abnormal motor control, loss of responsiveness, a short duration and complete recovery. Most instances of TLOC are caused by one of three health conditions: epilepsy, functional (dissociative) seizures (FDS), or syncope. There is often a delay before the correct diagnosis is made and 10-20% of individuals initially receive an incorrect diagnosis. Clinical decision tools based on the endorsement of TLOC symptom lists have been limited to distinguishing between two causes of TLOC. The Initial Paroxysmal Event Profile (iPEP) has shown promise but was demonstrated to have greater accuracy in distinguishing between syncope and epilepsy or FDS than between epilepsy and FDS. The objective of this thesis was to investigate whether interactional, linguistic, and communicative differences in how people with epilepsy and people with FDS describe their experiences of TLOC can improve the predictive performance of the iPEP. An online web application was designed that collected information about TLOC symptoms and medical history from patients and witnesses using a binary questionnaire and verbal interaction with a virtual agent. We explored potential methods of automatically detecting these communicative differences, whether the differences were present during an interaction with a VA, to what extent these automatically detectable communicative differences improve the performance of the iPEP, and the acceptability of the application from the perspective of patients and witnesses. The two feature sets that were applied to previous doctor-patient interactions, features designed to measure formulation effort or detect semantic differences between the two groups, were able to predict the diagnosis with an accuracy of 71% and 81%, respectively. Individuals with epilepsy or FDS provided descriptions of TLOC to the VA that were qualitatively like those observed in previous research. Both feature sets were effective predictors of the diagnosis when applied to the web application recordings (85.7% and 85.7%). Overall, the accuracy of machine learning models trained for the threeway classification between epilepsy, FDS, and syncope using the iPEP responses from patients that were collected through the web application was worse than the performance observed in previous research (65.8% vs 78.3%), but the performance was increased by the inclusion of features extracted from the spoken descriptions on TLOC (85.5%). Finally, most participants who provided feedback reported that the online application was acceptable. These findings suggest that it is feasible to differentiate between people with epilepsy and people with FDS using an automated analysis of spoken seizure descriptions. Furthermore, incorporating these features into a clinical decision tool for TLOC can improve the predictive performance by improving the differential diagnosis between these two health conditions. Future research should use the feedback to improve the design of the application and increase perceived acceptability of the approach

    ACOUSTIC SPEECH MARKERS FOR TRACKING CHANGES IN HYPOKINETIC DYSARTHRIA ASSOCIATED WITH PARKINSONā€™S DISEASE

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    Previous research has identified certain overarching features of hypokinetic dysarthria associated with Parkinsonā€™s Disease and found it manifests differently between individuals. Acoustic analysis has often been used to find correlates of perceptual features for differential diagnosis. However, acoustic parameters that are robust for differential diagnosis may not be sensitive to tracking speech changes. Previous longitudinal studies have had limited sample sizes or variable lengths between data collection. This study focused on using acoustic correlates of perceptual features to identify acoustic markers able to track speech changes in people with Parkinsonā€™s Disease (PwPD) over six months. The thesis presents how this study has addressed limitations of previous studies to make a novel contribution to current knowledge. Speech data was collected from 63 PwPD and 47 control speakers using an online podcast software at two time points, six months apart (T1 and T2). Recordings of a standard reading passage, minimal pairs, sustained phonation, and spontaneous speech were collected. Perceptual severity ratings were given by two speech and language therapists for T1 and T2, and acoustic parameters of voice, articulation and prosody were investigated. Two analyses were conducted: a) to identify which acoustic parameters can track perceptual speech changes over time and b) to identify which acoustic parameters can track changes in speech intelligibility over time. An additional attempt was made to identify if these parameters showed group differences for differential diagnosis between PwPD and control speakers at T1 and T2. Results showed that specific acoustic parameters in voice quality, articulation and prosody could differentiate between PwPD and controls, or detect speech changes between T1 and T2, but not both factors. However, specific acoustic parameters within articulation could detect significant group and speech change differences across T1 and T2. The thesis discusses these results, their implications, and the potential for future studies

    Endogenous measures for contextualising large-scale social phenomena: a corpus-based method for mediated public discourse

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    This work presents an interdisciplinary methodology for developing endogenous measures of group membership through analysis of pervasive linguistic patterns in public discourse. Focusing on political discourse, this work critiques the conventional approach to the study of political participation, which is premised on decontextualised, exogenous measures to characterise groups. Considering the theoretical and empirical weaknesses of decontextualised approaches to large-scale social phenomena, this work suggests that contextualisation using endogenous measures might provide a complementary perspective to mitigate such weaknesses. This work develops a sociomaterial perspective on political participation in mediated discourse as affiliatory action performed through language. While the affiliatory function of language is often performed consciously (such as statements of identity), this work is concerned with unconscious features (such as patterns in lexis and grammar). This work argues that pervasive patterns in such features that emerge through socialisation are resistant to change and manipulation, and thus might serve as endogenous measures of sociopolitical contexts, and thus of groups. In terms of method, the work takes a corpus-based approach to the analysis of data from the Twitter messaging service whereby patterns in usersā€™ speech are examined statistically in order to trace potential community membership. The method is applied in the US state of Michigan during the second half of 2018ā€”6 November having been the date of midterm (i.e. non-Presidential) elections in the United States. The corpus is assembled from the original posts of 5,889 users, who are nominally geolocalised to 417 municipalities. These users are clustered according to pervasive language features. Comparing the linguistic clusters according to the municipalities they represent finds that there are regular sociodemographic differentials across clusters. This is understood as an indication of social structure, suggesting that endogenous measures derived from pervasive patterns in language may indeed offer a complementary, contextualised perspective on large-scale social phenomena

    Instance-based Learning with Prototype Reduction for Real-Time Proportional Myocontrol: A Randomized User Study Demonstrating Accuracy-preserving Data Reduction for Prosthetic Embedded Systems

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    This work presents the design, implementation and validation of learning techniques based on the kNN scheme for gesture detection in prosthetic control. To cope with high computational demands in instance-based prediction, methods of dataset reduction are evaluated considering real-time determinism to allow for the reliable integration into battery-powered portable devices. The influence of parameterization and varying proportionality schemes is analyzed, utilizing an eight-channel-sEMG armband. Besides offline cross-validation accuracy, success rates in real-time pilot experiments (online target achievement tests) are determined. Based on the assessment of specific dataset reduction techniques' adequacy for embedded control applications regarding accuracy and timing behaviour, Decision Surface Mapping (DSM) proves itself promising when applying kNN on the reduced set. A randomized, double-blind user study was conducted to evaluate the respective methods (kNN and kNN with DSM-reduction) against Ridge Regression (RR) and RR with Random Fourier Features (RR-RFF). The kNN-based methods performed significantly better (p<0.0005) than the regression techniques. Between DSM-kNN and kNN, there was no statistically significant difference (significance level 0.05). This is remarkable in consideration of only one sample per class in the reduced set, thus yielding a reduction rate of over 99% while preserving success rate. The same behaviour could be confirmed in an extended user study. With k=1, which turned out to be an excellent choice, the runtime complexity of both kNN (in every prediction step) as well as DSM-kNN (in the training phase) becomes linear concerning the number of original samples, favouring dependable wearable prosthesis applications

    2023-2024 Boise State University Undergraduate Catalog

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    This catalog is primarily for and directed at students. However, it serves many audiences, such as high school counselors, academic advisors, and the public. In this catalog you will find an overview of Boise State University and information on admission, registration, grades, tuition and fees, financial aid, housing, student services, and other important policies and procedures. However, most of this catalog is devoted to describing the various programs and courses offered at Boise State
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