Source Free Domain Adaptation of a DNN for SSVEP-based Brain-Computer Interfaces

This paper presents a source free domain adaptation method for steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) based brain-computer interface (BCI) spellers. SSVEP-based BCI spellers help individuals experiencing speech difficulties, enabling them to communicate at a fast rate. However, achieving a high information transfer rate (ITR) in the current methods requires an extensive calibration period before using the system, leading to discomfort for new users. We address this issue by proposing a method that adapts the deep neural network (DNN) pre-trained on data from source domains (participants of previous experiments conducted for labeled data collection), using only the unlabeled data of the new user (target domain). This adaptation is achieved by minimizing our proposed custom loss function composed of self-adaptation and local-regularity loss terms. The self-adaptation term uses the pseudo-label strategy, while the novel local-regularity term exploits the data structure and forces the DNN to assign the same labels to adjacent instances. Our method achieves striking 201.15 bits/min and 145.02 bits/min ITRs on the benchmark and BETA datasets, respectively, and outperforms the state-of-the-art alternative techniques. Our approach alleviates user discomfort and shows excellent identification performance, so it would potentially contribute to the broader application of SSVEP-based BCI systems in everyday life.Comment: 11 pages (including one page appendix), 5 figure

BIOLOGICAL INSPIRED INTRUSION PREVENTION AND SELF-HEALING SYSTEM FOR CRITICAL SERVICES NETWORK

With the explosive development of the critical services network systems and Internet, the need for networks security systems have become even critical with the enlargement of information technology in everyday life. Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) provides an in-line mechanism focus on identifying and blocking malicious network activity in real time. This thesis presents new intrusion prevention and self-healing system (SH) for critical services network security. The design features of the proposed system are inspired by the human immune system, integrated with pattern recognition nonlinear classification algorithm and machine learning. Firstly, the current intrusions preventions systems, biological innate and adaptive immune systems, autonomic computing and self-healing mechanisms are studied and analyzed. The importance of intrusion prevention system recommends that artificial immune systems (AIS) should incorporate abstraction models from innate, adaptive immune system, pattern recognition, machine learning and self-healing mechanisms to present autonomous IPS system with fast and high accurate detection and prevention performance and survivability for critical services network system. Secondly, specification language, system design, mathematical and computational models for IPS and SH system are established, which are based upon nonlinear classification, prevention predictability trust, analysis, self-adaptation and self-healing algorithms. Finally, the validation of the system carried out by simulation tests, measuring, benchmarking and comparative studies. New benchmarking metrics for detection capabilities, prevention predictability trust and self-healing reliability are introduced as contributions for the IPS and SH system measuring and validation. Using the software system, design theories, AIS features, new nonlinear classification algorithm, and self-healing system show how the use of presented systems can ensure safety for critical services networks and heal the damage caused by intrusion. This autonomous system improves the performance of the current intrusion prevention system and carries on system continuity by using self-healing mechanism

Learning in Dynamic Systems and Its Application to Adaptive PID Control

Deep learning using neural networks has revolutionized machine learning and put artificial intelligence into everyday life. In order to introduce self-learning to dynamic systems other than neural networks, we extend the Brandt-Lin learning algorithm of neural networks to a large class of dynamic systems. This extension is possible because the Brandt-Lin algorithm does not require a dedicated step to back-propagate the errors in neural networks. To this end, we first generalize signal-flow graphs so that they can be used to model nonlinear systems as well as linear systems. We then derive the extended Brandt-Lin algorithm that can be used to adapt the weights of branches in generalized signal-flow graphs. We show the applications of the new algorithm by applying it to adaptive PID control. In particular, we derive a new adaptation law for PID controllers. We verify the effectiveness of the method using simulations for linear and nonlinear plants, stable as well as unstable plants

Safety management theory and the military expeditionary organization: A critical theoretical reflection

Management of safety within organizations has become a key topic within safety science. Theorizing on this subject covers a diverse pallet of concepts such as “resilience” and “safety management systems”. Recent studies indicate that safety management theory has deficiencies. Our interpretation of these deficiencies is that much confusion originates from the issue that crucial meta-theoretical assumptions are mostly implicit or applied inconsistently. In particular, we argue that these meta-theoretical assumptions are of a systems theoretical nature. Therefore, we provide a framework that will be able to explicate and reflect on systems theoretical assumptions. With this framework, we analyze the ability of two frequently used safety management theories to tackle the problem of managing safety of Dutch military expeditionary organizations. This paper will show that inconsistent and implicit application of systems theoretical assumptions in these safety management theories results in problems to tackle such a practical problem adequately. We conclude with a reflection on the pros and cons of our framework. Also, we suggest particular meta-theoretical aspects that seem to be essential for applying safety management theory to organizations

Information and communication technology solutions for outdoor navigation in dementia

INTRODUCTION: Information and communication technology (ICT) is potentially mature enough to empower outdoor and social activities in dementia. However, actual ICT-based devices have limited functionality and impact, mainly limited to safety. What is an ideal operational framework to enhance this field to support outdoor and social activities? METHODS: Review of literature and cross-disciplinary expert discussion. RESULTS: A situation-aware ICT requires a flexible fine-tuning by stakeholders of system usability and complexity of function, and of user safety and autonomy. It should operate by artificial intelligence/machine learning and should reflect harmonized stakeholder values, social context, and user residual cognitive functions. ICT services should be proposed at the prodromal stage of dementia and should be carefully validated within the life space of users in terms of quality of life, social activities, and costs. DISCUSSION: The operational framework has the potential to produce ICT and services with high clinical impact but requires substantial investment

Bakhtin’s theory of the literary chronotope: reflections, applications, perspectives

This edited volume is the first scholarly tome exclusively dedicated to Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the literary chronotope. This concept, initially developed in the 1930s and used as a frame of reference throughout Bakhtin’s own writings, has been highly influential in literary studies. After an extensive introduction that serves as a ‘state of the art’, the volume is divided into four main parts: Philosophical Reflections, Relevance of the Chronotope for Literary History, Chronotopical Readings and Some Perspectives for Literary Theory. These thematic categories contain contributions by well-established Bakhtin specialists such as Gary Saul Morson and Michael Holquist, as well as a number of essays by scholars who have published on this subject before. Together the papers in this volume explore the implications of Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope for a variety of theoretical topics such as literary imagination, polysystem theory and literary adaptation; for modern views on literary history ranging from the hellenistic romance to nineteenth-century realism; and for analyses of well-known novelists and poets as diverse as Milton, Fielding, Dickinson, Dostoevsky, Papadiamandis and DeLill

Television and serial fictions

Written in 1974, Raymond Williams's Television: Technology and Cultural Form was to become for many academics, and particularly for academics who approached popular culture from the perspective of the humanities, one of the foundational texts of the study of television, the first and even the only book on reading lists, the book which introduced the concept of ‘flow’ as a way of identifying ‘the defining characteristic of broadcasting’. While, almost forty years later, many of its formulations have worn thin with over-use, Williams's observation on the centrality of televisual dramatic fiction to modern experience still has the force of defamiliarisation: it is still surprising to consider, as if for the first time, how much of our time is spent with, how many of our references are drawn from, or how much the structure of contemporary feeling is shaped by television dramatic fiction in its various forms. ‘It seems probable’, says Williams, that in societies like Britain and the United States more drama is watched in a week or a weekend, by the majority of viewers, than would have been watched in a year or in some cases a lifetime in any previous historical period. It is not uncommon for the majority of viewers to see, regularly, as much as two or three hours of drama, of various kinds, every day. The implications of this have scarcely begun to be considered. It is clearly one of the unique characteristics of advanced industrial societies that drama as an experience is now an intrinsic part of everyday life, at a quantitative level which is so very much greater than any precedent as to see a fundamental qualitative change. Whatever the social and cultural reasons may finally be, it is clear that watching dramatic simulation of a wide range of experiences is now an essential part of our modern cultural pattern. Or, to put it categorically, most people spend more time watching various kinds of drama than in preparing and eating food

Getting through : children and youth post-disaster effective coping and adaptation in the context of the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010-1012 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand

The study aims to understand how children cope effectively with a disaster, and to identify resources and processes that promote effective coping and adaptation. The context is the 2010–2012 Canterbury earthquake disaster in New Zealand. This qualitative study explores coping strategies in forty-two children from three age groups: five, nine and fifteen year-olds (Time 1). It draws on data from semi-structured interviews with the children, their parents, teachers and principals of five schools in Canterbury. Two schools in Wellington, a region with similar seismic risk, served as a useful comparison group. All children were interviewed twenty months after the first earthquake (T1) during an ongoing aftershock sequence, and six selected children from Christchurch were interviewed again (Time Two), three years after the initial earthquake. Findings have identified multiple inter-connected coping strategies and multi-level resources in the children and in their immediate contexts; these were fundamental to their post-disaster adaptation. Children who coped effectively used a repertoire of diverse coping strategies adapted to challenges, and in a culturally appropriate and flexible manner. Coping strategies included: emotional regulation, problem-solving, positive reframing, helping others, seeking support, and ―getting on‖. Although emotional regulation was important in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake, children adapting positively used heterogeneous combinations of coping strategies and resources. Proximal others provided coping assistance through modelling and coaching. Intra and interpersonal resources, such as self-efficacy and supportive parental and teacher relationships that promoted children‘s effective coping are identified and discussed. Children who coped effectively with the disaster appeared to have a larger coping repertoire and more practise in use than children in the Wellington comparison group, who were coping essentially with age appropriate challenges. By Time Two, all children in the cohort reported coping effectively, that they were stronger from their experience and had shifted their focus so that their coping skills were now employed for everyday challenges and for moving on with their lives, rather than focused on managing disaster events. Findings suggest that children can be coached to learn effective coping. Key recommendations are made for effective interventions for children and caregivers around children‘s effective coping and adaptation, and avenues for future research are detailed