Using fMRI to investigate the potential cause of inverse oxygenation reported in fNIRS studies of motor imagery

© 2019 Elsevier B.V. Motor imagery (MI) is a commonly used cognitive task in brain–computer interface (BCI) applications because it produces reliable activity in motor-planning regions. However, a number of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) studies have reported the unexpected finding of inverse oxygenation: increased deoxyhemoglobin and decreased oxyhemoglobin during task periods. This finding questions the reliability of fNIRS for BCI applications given that MI activation should result in a focal increase in blood oxygenation. In an attempt to elucidate this phenomenon, fMRI and fNIRS data were acquired on 15 healthy participants performing a MI task. The fMRI data provided global coverage of brain activity, thus allowing visualization of all potential brain regions activated and deactivated during task periods. Indeed, fMRI results from seven subjects included activation in the primary motor cortex and/or the pre-supplementary motor area during the rest periods in addition to the expected activation in the supplementary motor and premotor areas. Of these seven subjects, two showed inverse oxygenation with fNIRS. The proximity of the regions showing inverse oxygenation to the motor planning regions suggests that inverse activation detected by fNIRS may likely be a consequence of partial volume errors due to the sensitivity of the optodes to both primary motor and motor planning regions

Frame-semantic parsing

Frame semantics is a linguistic theory that has been instantiated for English in the FrameNet lexicon. We solve the problem of frame-semantic parsing using a two-stage statistical model that takes lexical targets (i.e., content words and phrases) in their sentential contexts and predicts frame-semantic structures. Given a target in context, the first stage disambiguates it to a semantic frame. This model uses latent variables and semi-supervised learning to improve frame disambiguation for targets unseen at training time. The second stage finds the target's locally expressed semantic arguments. At inference time, a fast exact dual decomposition algorithm collectively predicts all the arguments of a frame at once in order to respect declaratively stated linguistic constraints, resulting in qualitatively better structures than naïve local predictors. Both components are feature-based and discriminatively trained on a small set of annotated frame-semantic parses. On the SemEval 2007 benchmark data set, the approach, along with a heuristic identifier of frame-evoking targets, outperforms the prior state of the art by significant margins. Additionally, we present experiments on the much larger FrameNet 1.5 data set. We have released our frame-semantic parser as open-source software.United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA grant NBCH-1080004)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF grant IIS-0836431)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF grant IIS-0915187)Qatar National Research Fund (NPRP 08-485-1-083

The financial support of men of science in France c.1660-c.1800: A survey

The article presents a survey that examined the financial status of men who studied science in France from 1660-1800. During a period of 150 years, the status of scientists soared. The author noted that scientists were considered talented individuals and were given privileges at the Academie Royale des Sciences of Paris. In addition, they were granted state appointments, which included regular duties outside the academy; thereby, boosting their income. The survey also indicated that scientists perceived science as a cultural value and a potential vehicle for the country's development

The Ecology of Crusading: Investigating the Environmental Impact of Holy War and Colonisation at the Frontiers of Medieval Europe

The Crusades in the Near East, eastern Baltic and Iberian Peninsula (in the context of the Reconquest/reconquista) were accompanied by processes of colonisation, characterising the expansion of medieval Europe and resulting in the creation of frontier societies at the fringes of Christendom. Colonisation was closely associated with ? indeed, depended on ? the exploitation of local environments, but this dimension is largely missing from studies of the crusading frontiers. This paper, the product of a European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop on 'The Ecology of Crusading' in 2009, surveys the potential for investigating the environmental impact of the crusading movement in all three frontier regions. It considers a diverse range of archaeological, palaeoenvironmental and written sources, with the aim of situating the societies created by the Crusades within the context of medieval colonisation and human ecological niche construction. It demonstrates that an abundant range of data exists for developing this largely neglected and disparately studied aspect of medieval frontier societies into a significant research programme. AB - AbstractThe Crusades in the Near East, eastern Baltic and Iberian Peninsula (in the context of the Reconquest/reconquista) were accompanied by processes of colonisation, characterising the expansion of medieval Europe and resulting in the creation of frontier societies at the fringes of Christendom. Colonisation was closely associated with ? indeed, depended on ? the exploitation of local environments, but this dimension is largely missing from studies of the crusading frontiers. This paper, the product of a European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop on 'The Ecology of Crusading' in 2009, surveys the potential for investigating the environmental impact of the crusading movement in all three frontier regions. It considers a diverse range of archaeological, palaeoenvironmental and written sources, with the aim of situating the societies created by the Crusades within the context of medieval colonisation and human ecological niche construction. It demonstrates that an abundant range of data exists for developing this largely neglected and disparately studied aspect of medieval frontier societies into a significant research programme

A closer look at photochemical reactions of transition-metal compounds by time-resolved EPR

A review is given of applications of time-resolved Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (TREPR) in the field of photochemistry of transition metal compounds. The two main TREPR techniques used in these studies are described. A brief overview is given of Chemically Induced Dynamic Electron Polarization (CIDEP) mechanisms that can affect TREPR spectra and that can give insights into the mechanism of photochemical reactions. Following these background sections experimental results are presented. The discussion focuses in particular on the Fourier Transform EPR (FT-EPR) studies of photoinduced metal–alkyl bond homolysis reactions of a series of transition metal (Co, Ru, Re, Pt) complexes carried out by the authors.Fil: Martino, Debora Marcela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; Argentina. University of Massachussets; Estados UnidosFil: Kleverlaan, C. J.. Academic Center for Dentistry Amsterdam; Países BajosFil: Slageren, J. van. Universitat Stuttgart; AlemaniaFil: Bussandri, A.. University of Massachussets; Estados UnidosFil: Willigen, H. van. University of Massachussets; Estados UnidosFil: Kiarie, C.. University of Massachussets; Estados Unido