ARM MCU-Based Experimental EEG Signal Generator Using Internal DAC and PWM Outputs

Electrophysiological signal generators are widely used in biomedical engineering research, biomedical education and the testing of devices in hospitals. Such signal generators are also available commercially. The EEG (Electroencephalography) signal is an electrophysiological signal which is emitted from the brain. In this study, a signal generator that produces experimental EEG signals taken from databases is proposed. The proposed signal generator reads the experimental data from an SD card with SDIO serial protocol. In addition, the PWM and DAC outputs of the microcontroller are used and examined separately to generate the signal. It has been shown that the experimental signals taken from the database can be generated by using cheap and easily accessible electronic devices. © 2022, Gazi Universitesi. All rights reserved

Spice model of current polarity-dependent piecewise linear window function for memristors

Memristor and memristive systems are nonlinear systems. It is important to model them accurately. There are different memristor models and most of the models make use of window functions. In literature, there are various window functions. Recently, a piecewise linear (PWL) window function is used to model a memristor and memristive systems. Such a memristor with a PWL window function lacks a SPICE model. Also, in literature, there is current polarity dependent window functions proposed for memristors to model polarity dependent drift speed within the thin-film memristors. In this study, an alternative current-polarity dependent PWL window function is suggested to model a memristor, a different PWL function one for each current polarity is used, its SPICE model is made in LTSpice and also its simulation results are given. Such a model can be used to model the polarity dependent drift speed within the thin-film memristors. © 2020, Gazi Universitesi. All rights reserved

Selectividad de artes de enmalle (betas y trasmallo) en el Egeo septentrional, Turquía

Fishing trials were carried out with gill nets and trammel nets in the northern Aegean Sea from March 2004 to February 2005. Four different mesh sizes for the gill nets and the inner panel of trammel nets (16, 18, 20 and 22 mm bar length) were used. Selectivity parameters for the five most economically important species, bogue (Boops boops), annular sea bream (Diplodus annularis), striped red mullet (Mullus surmuletus), axillary sea bream (Pagellus acarne) and blotched picarel (Spicara maena), caught by the two gears were estimated. The SELECT method was used to estimate the selectivity parameters of a variety of models. Catch composition and catch proportion of several species were different in gill and trammel nets. The length frequency distributions of the species caught by the two gears were significantly different. The bi-modal model selectivity curve gave the best fit for gill net and trammel net data, and there was little difference between the modal lengths of these nets. However, a clear difference was found in catching efficiency. The highest catch rates were obtained with the trammel net. Given that many discard species and small fish are caught by gill nets and trammel nets with a mesh size of 16 mm, it is clear that these nets are not appropriate for fisheries. Consequently, the best mesh size for multispecies fisheries is 18 mm. This mesh size will considerably reduce the numbers of small sized individuals and discard species in the catch.Se realizaron ensayos de pesca con betas y trasmallos en el Egeo septentrional desde marzo de 2004 a febrero de 2005. Se utilizaron cuatro luces de malla distintas (16, 18, 20 y 22 mm) tanto para las betas como para el paño interno de los trasmallos. Se estimaron los parámetros de selectividad de las cinco especies más importantes capturadas por ambos artes: boga (Boops boops), raspallón (Diplodus annularis), salmonete de roca (Mullus surmuletus), aligote (Pagellus acarne) y chucla (Spicara maena). Se utilizó el método SELECT para la estimación de los parámetros de selectividad de varios modelos. La composición en tallas de la captura así como la proporción de las distintas especies capturadas por las betas y trasmallos fueron diferentes. La distribución de frecuencias de tallas de las especies capturadas por ambos artes fueron significativamente diferentes. El modelo de curva de selectividad bimodal fue el que mejor se ajustó a los datos de betas y trasmallos, y se encontraron muy pocas diferencias entre las longitudes modales de ambos artes. No obstante, se encontró una diferencia clara en la eficiencia de captura. Las tasas de captura más altas correspondieron a los trasmallos. Teniendo en cuenta que con betas y trasmallos de luz de malla de 16 mm se obtienen muchas especies que son posteriormente descartadas así como gran cantidad de peces pequeños, parece claro que estas redes no son convenientes para la pesquería. La luz de malla de 18 mm es la mejor para estas pesquerías multiespecíficas. El uso de paños con esta luz de malla resultaría en una reducción considerable del número de individuos de pequeña talla así como de las especies descartadas

Worrying about leadership: Is it a liability or an advantage for leadership of women and men?

Worries about leadership (WAL) is a new construct tapping worries an individual may feel about possible negative consequences of accepting a leadership role. Three studies investigate how WAL is associated with men’s and women’s willingness for leadership and their perceived leadership potential rated by others. The first is a laboratory study on 328 participants, which shows that WAL is negatively associated with women’s willingness for leadership, while it is not related to that of men. The second study, which is a field study with multilevel-nested data from 429 employees and 101 supervisors, reveals that male subordinates are more likely to receive a favorable judgment of leadership potential by their supervisors when their WAL increases, while female subordinates’ WAL is irrelevant to this judgment. The final study, which is an experimental study on 122 supervisors, shows that supervisors view hypothetical male leadership candidates with high WAL as having higher warmth and lower competence (than those with low WAL), which both mediate the effect of WAL on judgments of their leadership potential made by the supervisors. Even though supervisors also view female candidates with high WAL as warmer, this does not evoke higher perceptions of leadership potential. Implications for increasing gender parity in leadership are discussed

Reconstructive sensing circuit for complementary resistive switches-based crossbar memories

Complementary resistive switches (CRSs) are suggested as an alternative to one-cell memristor memories to decrease leakage currents. However, their sensing is more difficult and complex than one-cell memristor memories. A method has been given for sensing their state using only DC voltages in the literature. However, in this strategy, sensing one of the logic states results in the destruction of the state and the destroyed state must be written again. To the best of our knowledge, a circuit with this sensing strategy does not exist in the literature yet. In this paper, such a circuit employing this method, which is able to read the CRS cells and able to reconstruct their data if the data are destroyed, is given. A new CRS model is also constructed in this paper and used for simulations to verify the operation of the circuit. The circuit is simulated using Simulink. We expect this circuit implementation to find use in the design and testing of CRS cells

Memristor-based series voltage regulators

Series linear voltage regulators are integrated circuits commonly used to make adjustable voltage sources. When used with potentiometers, these regulators are able to give adjustable voltage at the output. Memristor is a new nonlinear circuit element which came out in the last decade. It is able to provide electronically adjustable resistance. If a memristor is fed with a voltage over the threshold and it is not under saturation, its resistance also called memristance is dependent on the integration of its current, also called memristor charge. Memristor shows promise for different types and lots of digital and analog applications. In this paper, memristor-based series voltage regulator topologies are suggested and they are examined using parameters and simulations. Some design criteria have been given for the memristor-based series voltage regulators

Implementation of a Microcontroller-Based Chaotic Circuit of Lorenz Equations

Lorenz equations are commonly used in chaos education and studies. Simulation programs can be used to produce solutions of Lorenz equations and to examine its chaotic waveforms. However, sometimes a chaotic signal source can be needed. Such a circuit can be made using either analog or digital circuit components. Recently, a microcontroller-based circuit is suggested to obtain chaotic waveforms of Lorenz equations however only simulations are used to show proof of concept. Such a circuit needs experimental verification. In this paper, implementation and experimental verification of the microcontroller-based circuit which solves Lorenz equations in real-time and produces its chaotic waveforms are presented. Runge-Kutta method is used to solve the equation system. By using Proteus, the microcontroller-based chaotic circuit is simulated and designed. The presented design has been implemented using an Arduino Mega 2560 R3 microcontroller. The microcontroller sends the chaotic signals to the outputs of the circuit using digital-to-analog converters. The waveforms acquired experimentally from the implemented circuit match well with those obtained from Proteus simulations

Probing Isoform Switching Events in Various Cancer Types: Lessons From Pan-Cancer Studies

Alternative splicing is an essential regulatory mechanism for gene expression in mammalian cells contributing to protein, cellular, and species diversity. In cancer, alternative splicing is frequently disturbed, leading to changes in the expression of alternatively spliced protein isoforms. Advances in sequencing technologies and analysis methods led to new insights into the extent and functional impact of disturbed alternative splicing events. In this review, we give a brief overview of the molecular mechanisms driving alternative splicing, highlight the function of alternative splicing in healthy tissues and describe how alternative splicing is disrupted in cancer. We summarize current available computational tools for analyzing differential transcript usage, isoform switching events, and the pathogenic impact of cancer-specific splicing events. Finally, the strategies of three recent pan-cancer studies on isoform switching events are compared. Their methodological similarities and discrepancies are highlighted and lessons learned from the comparison are listed. We hope that our assessment will lead to new and more robust methods for cancer-specific transcript detection and help to produce more accurate functional impact predictions of isoform switching events

Pathogenic impact of transcript isoform switching in 1,209 cancer samples covering 27 cancer types using an isoform-specific interaction network

Under normal conditions, cells of almost all tissue types express the same predominant canonical transcript isoform at each gene locus. In cancer, however, splicing regulation is often disturbed, leading to cancer-specific switches in the most dominant transcripts (MDT). To address the pathogenic impact of these switches, we have analyzed isoform-specific protein-protein interaction disruptions in 1,209 cancer samples covering 27 different cancer types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) project of the International Cancer Genomics Consortium (ICGC). Our study revealed large variations in the number of cancer-specific MDT (cMDT) with the highest frequency in cancers of female reproductive organs. Interestingly, in contrast to the mutational load, cancers arising from the same primary tissue had a similar number of cMDT. Some cMDT were found in 100% of all samples in a cancer type, making them candidates for diagnostic biomarkers. cMDT tend to be located at densely populated network regions where they disrupted protein interactions in the proximity of pathogenic cancer genes. A gene ontology enrichment analysis showed that these disruptions occurred mostly in protein translation and RNA splicing pathways. Interestingly, samples with mutations in the spliceosomal complex tend to have higher number of cMDT, while other transcript expressions correlated with mutations in non-coding splice-site and promoter regions of their genes. This work demonstrates for the first time the large extent of cancer-specific alterations in alternative splicing for 27 different cancer types. It highlights distinct and common patterns of cMDT and suggests novel pathogenic transcripts and markers that induce large network disruptions in cancers