A case for hybrid BCIs: combining optical and electrical modalities improves accuracy

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a promising research tool that found its way into the field of brain-computer interfacing (BCI). BCI is crucially dependent on maximized usability thus demanding lightweight, compact, and low-cost hardware. We designed, built, and validated a hybrid BCI system incorporating one optical and two electrical modalities ameliorating usability issues. The novel hardware consisted of a NIRS device integrated with an electroencephalography (EEG) system that used two different types of electrodes: Regular gelled gold disk electrodes and tri-polar concentric ring electrodes (TCRE). BCI experiments with 16 volunteers implemented a two-dimensional motor imagery paradigm in off- and online sessions. Various non-canonical signal processing methods were used to extract and classify useful features from EEG, tEEG (EEG through TCRE electrodes), and NIRS. Our analysis demonstrated evidence of improvement in classification accuracy when using the TCRE electrodes compared to disk electrodes and the NIRS system. Based on our synchronous hybrid recording system, we could show that the combination of NIRS-EEG-tEEG performed significantly better than either single modality only

Abstract of Keynote Speaker : Science and Technology of Light: Recent Developments and Future Directions

These last decades, optical telecommunications have made a spectacular success thanks to the explosion of Internet. This development is the fruit of a main effort of research and development in the field of guided optics which led to the improvement of the performances of optical fibers and optoelectronic components able to generate, detect, modulate or commutate light. Consequently, optoelectronic components of any kind at low cost become available in the market pushing the emergence of other applications in various fields. As a matter of fact, today the use of optics includes strategic fields like space and military ones and also fields of everyday life like data storage (CD and DVD), medicine and unsuspected sectors such as car industry. In a competing way, the advent of Nano-Photonics is pushing the limits of photonic devices miniaturization on scales lower than the wavelength. The interest of using the photon rather than the electron comes from the very high optical frequencies of the optical signal which allow a very broad band-width and offer an unequalled data transmission capacity. Ultimately, the 20th century was the century of electronics and the 21st century is expected to be that of photonics. This presentation will give a highlight of the main concepts and the recent development of photonics technology as well as future challange

Study of bioactive volatile compounds from different parts of Pistacia lentiscus L. extracts and their antioxidant and antibacterial activities for new active packaging application

Macerates of fruits and leaves of Pistacia lentiscus L. were prepared and analysed with the aim of applying them for active packaging. The profile of forty-four different bioactive volatile compounds was obtained by means of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Antioxidant capacity was evaluated by three different methods (2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl, 2, 2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid and reducing power) which confirmed stronger antioxidant properties in case of leaves macerate. Total phenolic and flavonoids content was determined and showed that macerate leaves presented 15 times more phenolic compounds and 20 times more flavonoids than macerate fruit. Moreover, the analysis of antimicrobial properties of macerate leaves in comparison with macerate fruits revealed very strong antimicrobial properties. Finally, macerate leaves extract was incorporated in an adhesive and a new active multilayer packaging was designed, and its antioxidant capacity as free radical scavenger was confirmed by a method based on in situ hydroxyl radicals generator

Enhanced electron injection and stability in organic light-emitting devices using an ion beam assisted cathode

International audienceIn this article, we report a highly efficient bilayer OLED with a maximum luminance up to 62 000 cd/m2 and a threshold voltage of 3.8 V. The device structure is indium-tin-oxide (ITO)/N,N0-diphenyl-N,N0-bis(3- methylphenyl)-1,10-diphenyl-4,40-diamine (TPD)/tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq3)/LiF/Al. Ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) process is used to deposit the aluminum cathode on the LiF layer. The IBAD process improves the OLED performance both by increasing the maximum luminance by a factor of 3 and by reducing the threshold voltage for light-emission. The IBAD process also enhances the microstructure and morphology of the Al layer and leads to denser and more homogeneous layers. The resulting highly-packed microstructure acts as a barrier to moisture and oxygen and inhibits their penetration into the Alq3 layer, leading to the OLED lifetime and stability increasing. In order to optimize the IBAD process parameters, prior to the OLED deposition, we have characterized aluminum films deposited on glass substrates by using atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffraction

Study of microwave and convective drying kinetics of pea pods (Pisum sativum L.): A new modeling approach using support vector regression methods optimized by dragonfly algorithm techniques

Machine learning and mathematical modeling techniques have been conducted to model the thin layer drying kinetics of pea pods, under either microwave or conventional air drying,. The effect of nine different microwave output powers (200-1000 W) and five different ventilated oven temperatures (40, 60, 80, 100, and 120 & DEG;C) on drying kinetics was studied. The experimental drying rates were fitted to 11 literature semi-empirical models to determine the kinetic parameters, finding the higher goodness-of-fit for the Midilli et al. model (average R-2 = 0.999 for both drying methods). Moreover, the data were modeled using support vector machine (SVM) for regression which was optimized with dragonfly algorithm (DA) technique. The best result was obtained by Gaussian kernel with the optimal parameters sigma, C, and epsilon values estimated as 0.2871, 78.45, and 0, respectively. The small root mean square error (RMSE = 0.0132) and the high determination coefficient (R-2 = 0.9983) values proved how robust the SVM model is. DA-SVM techniques can reliably be utilized to describe the thin layer drying kinetics of pea pods. It is useful to provide models that can assist in the development of food process control algorithms, and provided insights into complex processes, for the technological design of microwave or convective drying for pea pods preservation. Practical applications Drying of by-products from pea processing industry was investigated as a critical step prior to their valorization. The drying of pea pods has never been investigated before which is the case of the present study whose objective was to study and model the microwave and convective drying kinetics of pea pods. Our research work reported that the Midilli et al. model was the most appropriate to describe the thin layer drying kinetics of pea pods for both drying methods, but mathematical drying models, although a useful tool, remains empirical in nature and product specific. Because of these limitations the new model DA-SVM, developed using artificial intelligence techniques, can reliably be used to describe the nonlinear behavior of pea pods drying. These results could be further used for scale up calculation, which would further allow industrial scale preservation by microwave or convective drying of pea pods